Department of Surgery Research Forum and Winners

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The 2020 research forum was held in June using a virtual platform.

Every year, the Department of Surgery hosts the Surgery Research Forum and Dr. Robert S. Sparkman Lectureship in Surgery as a platform to highlight the recent research accomplishments and ongoing work of department residents and medical students. The event is consistently one of the largest research days at UT Southwestern. This year, unwilling to be thwarted by COVID-19, forum planners swiftly made changes to comply with masking and social distancing policies, and the forum became an all-virtual event with speakers ushered into a conference room one at a time to broadcast their presentations to faculty and staff via Zoom.

This year’s keynote presentation, Improving Surgery and Trauma Care From Skin to Bone, was given by the new chief of the Division of General and Acute Care Surgery, Benjamin Levi, M.D. Dr. Levi is the founder and former director of the Burn/Wound and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory at the University of Michigan.

After Dr. Levi’s fascinating and well-received talk, residents and medical students presented their research. The full list of presentations is below.

Presentations at the Department of Surgery’s annual research forum (*indicates presentations named as “distinguished” by forum judges)

Mir Ali, Investigating the Social Media Use and Health Literacy of Gen Z and Millennial Plastic Surgery Patients

Rachael Clark, M.D., Silencing of SHMT2 Downregulates AKT2 in MYCN Amplified Neuroblastoma Cells

Kathleen Clement, M.D., Predictors of New Persistent Opioid Use After Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting 

Paul Comish, M.D., The cGAS-STING Pathway Connects Mitochondrial Damage to Inflammation in Burn-Induced Acute Lung Injury in Rat

Ryan Fairchild, M.D., Predicting Mortality After Trauma Using Electronic Medical Record Data: A Retrospective Analysis at a Level I Trauma Center

Eliza Ferrari, Three-Dimensional and Volumetric Analysis of Patients With Unilateral Lambdoid Synostosis

Ray Fowler, M.D., Automated Matching of Prehospital and Hospital Medical Records: A Rapid Method of Determination of Outcomes for Cardiac Arrest Patients

Michelle Ju, M.D., HCC Treatment and Survival Differences by Safety-Net Hospital Status

Omar Kholaki, M.D., A New Definition for Success in Free Tissue Transfer for Facial Reconstruction: 3DJAW

*Andrea Klein, Novel Modification to Leaded Eyewear Results in Significant Operator Eye Radiation Dose Reduction Compared to Standard Lead Glasses During Fluoroscopically-Guided Interventions

Daniela Kopado, Characterization of Short-Term Surgical Missions (STSM) Surgical Patients and Surgeries in a Guatemalan Hospital 

Kali Kuhlenschmidt, M.D., Provider Perception of Elapsed Time During Trauma Resuscitation: A Prospective Quantitative Trauma Video Review Analysis 

*Grey Leonard, The Effect of Stress and Conscientiousness on Simulated Surgical Performance in Unbalanced Groups: A Bayesian Hierarchical Model

Charles Liu, Cardiopulmonary Bypass and Acute Kidney Injury in Lung Transplant Patients

Anna McCarter, Excessive Kras Signaling in LECs Impairs the Development of Lymphatic Valves

Jennie Meier, M.D., Using Local Rather Than General Anesthesia for Inguinal Hernia Repair Is Associated With Fewer Complications and Shorter Operative Time

Chase Pagani, Site-Specific Lineage Tracing of Aberrant Mesenchymal Progenitor Cell Fate

Jonathan Vachon, Employing Alternating Magnetic Fields for Biofilm Destruction

Ryan Vela, M.D., Hypothermic Machine Perfusion of Rat Hearts Augments Cardiac Metabolism and Increases TCA Cycle Flux 

Joshua Weis, M.D., Diffusion of Innovation: Forecasting the Future of Robotic-Assisted General Surgery Based on 10 Years of Fellowship Council Case Log Data

Lynn Yoon, Arid1a Loss Increases Gastric Cancer Invasiveness and Metastases

*(Winner of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award) Justin Yan, Treatment and Survival Disparities in the Texas-Mexico Border Population With Colon Cancer

*Yuqing Zhang, Selective Inhibition of VEGF Binding to VEGFR2 Promotes an Immune Stimulatory Microenvironment in Murine Models of Breast Cancer