Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery Research Day
On June 10 and 11, the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery presented its 13th annual Research Day. The event highlighted the academic achievements of the department’s residents, fellows, staff and students through a session of scientific posters and a morning of back-to-back oral presentations.
The event embraced the mission of the department’s research program ̶ to conduct important research in surgical disease that will improve treatment and quality of life for affected patients and to train future leaders in academic surgery. Trainees and staff presented work that spanned the department’s divisions and affiliated hospitals. Their accomplishments also reflected the outstanding mentorship provided by faculty members.
The keynote speaker this year was Dr. Erik van Zwet, an associate professor of medical statistics at the Department of Biomedical Data Sciences of the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. Dr. van Zwet completed his B.A. and M.A. in mathematics at the University of Leiden, and a Ph.D. in mathematical statistics at the University of Utrecht. After a postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley, he joined the mathematics department of the University of Leiden as an assistant professor and later the University Hospital. Dr. van Zwet served on the regional Ethical Review Board for 13 years.
After seeing hundreds of trial protocols, he became very interested in how medical research is conducted. He has established the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDRS) to be the ideal resource to study this. The CSDR is arguably the most comprehensive collection of evidence on medical interventions. It holds thousands of meta-analyses covering tens of thousands of clinical trials. Dr. van Zwet has developed new methods to study these data, which has resulted in an entirely different look at clinical trials. His talk, “A Different Look at Clinical Trials,” discussed his perspective on this topic.
By the numbers
- More than 200 people attended the event each day, 225 on June 10 and 248 on June 11 (despite the rain that day).
- Attendees included resident fellows, students, staff, faculty and volunteers.
- Abstracts submitted – 156
- Posters presented ̶ 57
- Abstract of Distinction oral presentations ̶ 15
- Quick Shot oral presentations ̶ 6
Awards
The awardees for each of the presentation categories were:
| Poster Competition | Presenter | Faculty mentor |
| Innovation | Dr. Tyler Guinn | Dr. Ravi Ghanta |
| Outcome Health Services & Quality Safety | Dr. Alexandra Buda | Dr. N. Thao N. Galvan |
| Education | Dr. Emma Burke | Dr. Peter Boedecker |
| Staff – Basic Science | Miguel Mendez Sosa | Dr. Ravi Ghanta |
| Staff – Clinical | Winston Owens | Dr. William Pederson |
| Student – Basic Science | Jacob Mardick | Dr. Livia Eberlin |
| Student -Clinical | Dr. Keziah Liebenberg | Dr. Livia Eberlin |
| Resident – Basic Science | Dr. Mary Elizabeth Guerra | Dr. Swathi Balaji |
| Resident – Clinical | Dr. Travis Miles | Dr. Ravi Ghanta |
| Postdoctoral Fellow – Basic Science | Dr. Sanjib Sarkar | Dr. Hu Ying Shen |
| Postdoctoral Fellow – Clinical | Dr. Junsang Cho | Dr. Iki Adachi |
| Quick Shot Awardees | Presenter | Faculty mentor |
| Innovation | Dr. Michael Tuck | Dr. Livia Eberlin |
| Education | Dr. Henry Olana Soler | Dr. Nilson Salas |
| Basic Science Staff | Saliha Pathan | Dr. Ravi Ghanta |
| Clinical Staff | Dr. Melissa Munoz Beilis | Dr. Gabriel Loor |
| Basic Science Resident | Dr. Ava Mokhtari | Dr. Jessica Cardenas |
| Clinical Postdoctoral Fellow | Dr. Dora Babocs | Dr. Gustavo Oderich |
| Abstract of Distinction Competition | Presenter | Faculty mentor |
| Outcomes in Health Services and Quality Safety | Dr. Sarah Peiffer | Dr. Alice King |
| Student -Basic Science | Trevor Godfrey | Dr. Livia Eberlin |
| Student – Clinical | Josephine Schmidt | Dr. Lucas Dvoracek |
| Resident -Clinical | Dr. Trenton Gluck | Dr. William Cohn |
| Postdoctoral Fellow – Basic Science | Dr. Abou Bakr Salama | Dr. Tamer Mohamed |
The event was successful thanks to all who were involved in its planning and execution.
Program Chairs:
Dr. Todd Rosengart, professor and DeBakey-Bard Chair at the Department of Surgery.
Dr. Livia Eberlin, professor and Vice Chair for Research at the Department of Surgery.
Scientific Committee:
Dr. Kimberly Holloway, senior communications associate at the Department of Surgery, was the chair of the Scientific Program, which included 33 faculty members.
Planning Committee: included eight members of the department.
Learn more about Research Day, including details on all the presentations, here.
All photos courtesy of Dr. N.K. Mondal.
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