Scrubcast

This is a special two-part episode with the poster and podium winners from our annual Holman Day celebration. In part 1 we speak with the winners in the basic and translational science category.

Dr. Shaunak Adkar is a professional development resident in our Vascular Surgery Residency Program. He shares how he got involved in the Leeper Lab, finding a mentor in new faculty member Dr. Derek Klarin, and how he used a genome-wide association study to reveal shared heritability between intracranial aneurysms with aortic aneurysms and atherosclerosis.

Dr. Deshka Foster joins Scrubcast once again, but this time to talk about a different part of the fibroblast continuum: abdominal adhesions. Her winning presentation “Avoiding a ‘sticky’ situation: Translation of a sustained-release therapeutic to prevent abdominal adhesions” was six years in the making. She talks about her groundbreaking research and the importance of constantly digging deeper into a project.

Holman Day is Stanford Surgery’s celebration of all things science. It is named after Dr. Emile Holman, the founder of academic surgery at Stanford University. Learn more: https://surgery.stanford.edu/holman/2023.html

Dr. Carolyn Dacey Seib’s research focuses on primary hyperparathyroidism. We take a deep dive into some of her recently published papers including “Estimated Effect of Parathyroidectomy on Long-Term Kidney Function in Adults With Primary Hyperparathyroidism” in Annals of Internal Medicine https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M22-2222 and “Risk of Fracture Among Older Adults With Primary Hyperparathyroidism Receiving Parathyroidectomy vs Nonoperative Management” in JAMA Internal Medicine. (Why internal medicine instead of surgery journals? We cover that too!)

Dr. Seib also shares her advice on how to position yourself to receive research grants (like the k76 she received from the NIH Institute on Aging) and what it’s like being an academic surgeon and starting a family.

Dr. Seib is an Assistant Professor in our Division of General Surgery’s Endocrine Section.

Are vascular surgeons overusing atherectomy? Dr. Elizabeth “Lizzy” George joins the show to talk about modalities for treatment of Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) and how possible policy changes could disincentivize atherectomy as a first-line treatment for intermittent claudication.

Dr. George is also the recipient of one of this year’s seed grants from the Department of Surgery. She shares a bit about her upcoming research endeavors as well as what it’s like to go from resident to faculty at the same institution.

How can we make video-based review of surgical procedures more efficient?

Members of the Technology Enabled Clinical Improvement Center join the show to talk about their recent article published in the Journal of Surgical Research: “AI-Based Video Segmentation: Procedural Steps or Basic Maneuvers?” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022480422006916?via%3Dihub

To collect the data for this paper, the TECI team set up a booth at the 2019 American College of Surgeon Clinical Congress and asked surgeons of all expert levels to suture bowel while wearing a number of digital sensors. Despite some (hilarious) hiccoughs, they lived to tell their tale AND process mountains of data into an algorithm.

In this episode:

• Audrey Bowler, Executive Administrative Coordinator

• Sindhu Hosakote, Research Operations and Program Manager

• Calvin Perumalla, PhD Senior Research Engineer

• Brett Wise, Researcher and Fabrication Expert

• Su Yang, Research Data Analyst

Dr. Clifford Sheckter joins the show to talk about a paper recently published in JAMA Surgery: “Commercial Price Variation for Breast Reconstruction in the Era of Price Transparency.” https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/article-abstract/2799698 The Price Transparency Act in 2021 allowed Sheckter to gather data from hospitals across the country and compare the pricing of an important but nonemergent procedure. He explains the price differentials and correlations.

Dr. Sheckter also talks about his work as a burn surgeon at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center – a Level I burn unit. As the winner of a Travel Fellowship from the American Burn Association he hopes to learn more about treating children who suffer from burn injuries.

Dr. Sheckter is an assistant professor in our Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

Dr. Deshka Foster joins the show to discuss her recent paper published in Cancer Cell titled “Multinomic analysis reveals conservation of cancer-associated fibroblast phenotypes across species and tissue of origin.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1535610822004445?dgcid=coauthor

We also talk about Dr. Foster’s career as a Stanford General Surgery resident. Dr. Foster says she was able to earn her PhD by adding an extra year onto her professional development time thanks to amazing mentorship and the Advanced Residency Training at Stanford (ARTS) Program: https://med.stanford.edu/arts.html

Learn how she got interested in bench work, managed her time, got funding, and totally crushed it.

p.s. “Desmoplasia” is actually spelled exactly how it sounds!

Dr. Tom Handley has amassed a variety of research during his time at Stanford from the impact of COVID on emergency Medicaid programs to Hep-C on liver donation. But what may seem like a directionless mess to a casual outside observer boils down to one important mission: improving patient access to care. We sit down with the Brit to discuss life as a Knight-Hennessey Scholar, S-SPIRE Center post-doc, and Health Policy Master’s degree candidate.

What happens when two surgeons decide to create a video game? You get ENTRUST, a serious game-based virtual patient platform to assess entrustable professional activities (EPAs) in surgical education.

But when the COVID-19 pandemic derailed their plans for testing, the team found an unlikely ally in the College of Surgeons of East, Central, and South Africa (COSECSA). Now the platform is expanding beyond testing and into the world of teaching with the help of Stanford Surgery Global Engagement and the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) in Rwanda.

On the episode:

• ENTRUST Co-Founders Drs. Cara Liebert and Dana Lin

• Dr. Barnabas Alayande, a Global Surgery Fellow and Assistant Professor at UGHE

• Stanford Surgery Clinical Associate Professor Dr. Martin Bronk

• Medical Student Tyler Wilson

• Stanford Surgery Global Engagement Programs Manager Mohammed Al Kadhim

Today on the show we have several members from the Consortium on Advancement in Research and Education or CARE. Started in 2020, CARE is comprised of faculty, residents, and medical students across the US. We are joined by:

• Founder and Stanford PRS Clinical Assistant Professor Dr. Rahim Nazareli;

• CARE Member and Dartmouth Medical Student Priscila Cevallos; and

• CARE Member and Medical Student at the Medical College of Georgia Kometh “Tony” Thawanyarat

We discuss forming and operating completely virtual teams and mentorship in addition to the research the group is currently engrossed in.

If you are interested in joining CARE, visit their website: https://www.careprs.org/

Ask a Pediatric Surgeon about Pilonidal Disease, and they likely won’t be too enthused; like most abscesses, they can be filled with stinky pus and—despite medical treatment—they also have a high recurrence rate …until now. Dr. Talha Rafeeqi is the first author on new research published in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery. Rafeeqi details a new treatment protocol for Pilonidal, which led to significantly lower recurrence rates when implemented across surgeons and hospitals within the Stanford system.

Dr. Rafeeqi also talks about his abstract "Use Of Niclosamide Ethanolamide (NEN) As A Mitochondrial Decoupler In Neuroblastoma,” which won an Academic College of Surgeons Excellence in Research Award. We look forward to seeing him receive it at the Clinical Congress in San Diego next month.

Dr. Rafeeqi is a fourth-year surgical resident at the Valley Health System in Las Vegas. He spent his research time working in Stanford’s Division of Pediatric Surgery labs.