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Keneeshia Williams' drive to educate: TEDx presenter, ACS CASEL program
August 2021
Keneeshia N. Williams, MD, trauma and acute care general surgeon and chief quality officer for the Emory Department of Surgery at Grady Memorial Hospital, was a featured speaker at the virtual event "Humanity: The Repatriation," sponsored by TEDxWrigleyville, the Chicago-based production-affiliate of TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design). Dr. Williams' talk was delivered from Chicago's Wrigley Field, and applied her life experience and medical expertise to offering nonideological, proven solutions to gun violence in America. Dr. Williams has also been accepted into the Certificate in Applied Surgical Education Leadership (CASEL) program of the American College of Surgeons.
Robotic surgery debuts at the Atlanta VA Healthcare System
July 2021
The years-long process of obtaining approval for instituting robotic surgery at the Atlanta VA Healthcare System culminated in mid-April 2021 with the installation of the hospital's first da Vinci robotic surgical platform. Shortly thereafter, Jackson Slappy, MD, Associate Chief of Surgery at the VA, performed the first robotic procedure to be done at the facility, a cholecystectomy. Established robotics practitioner and advocate Ankit Patel, MD, advised the effort and assisted with training, and Jonathan Pollock, MD, Chief of General Surgery at the VA, served on the working group that planned and prepared for accommodating the new technology. "I was particularly inspired by Dr. Slappy's tireless leadership as he worked the robot initiative through the VA approval process," Dr. Pollock says.
Nader Massarweh named new Chief of Surgery at the Atlanta VA
June 2021
Nader Massarweh, MD, MPH, has been named the new Chief of Surgery at the Atlanta VA Healthcare System, Vice Chair of Veterans Affairs for the Emory Department of Surgery, and Associate Professor of Surgery for the Emory Division of Surgical Oncology. Dr. Massarweh comes from the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery and the Section of Health Services Research at Baylor College of Medicine. He has received research funding from the NIH/NCI, the VA's Health Services Research and Development Service, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and has won such awards as the Cancer Foundation Merit Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Craig Coopersmith named a finalist for 2021 Health Care Heroes award
June 2021
Craig Coopersmith, MD, was a finalist in the Physician/Physician Practice Group Category of the Atlanta Business Chronicle's 2021 Health Care Heroes awards for his work in caring for critically ill patients with COVID-19 and sharing critical care guidance to educate health care providers across the U.S. and globally. In his position as director of the Emory Critical Care Center, Dr. Coopersmith and his team cared for several thousand COVID-19 patients during the pandemic with the highest degree of expertise, compassion, and humanity.
Emory Surgery faculty honored as top educators
May 2021
Faculty nominated by students and peers for special recognition on Educator Appreciation Day included Department of Surgery members Olamide Alabi, Angela Cheng, Christopher Dente, Robert Fang, and Mark Walsh.
This honor is particularly meaningful this year due to the pandemic, as the conditions COVID-19 created made faculty have to work more intensively than usual to maintain their responsibilities as educators and mentors.
Constance Shreckengost awarded VECD Fellowship
April 2021
Emory surgical resident and global surgery fellow Constance Shreckengost, MD, PhD, is a 2021-2022 recipient of the prestigious VECD (Vanderbilt-Emory-Cornell-Duke) Fogarty Global Health Fellowship, which will support her study of breast cancer pathology in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and her implementation of immunohistochemistry and low-cost, smartphone-based digital whole slide imaging to enhance capacity at the Oncology Institute of Eastern Bolivia.
New robot at ESJH to help diagnose and treat lung cancers earlier
March 2021
Intuitive's Ion robot can reach deep into the peripheral areas of the lung, enabling doctors to biopsy suspicious tissue. Now, doctors at Emory Saint Joseph's Hospital will be the first in Georgia to use it to diagnose lung cancers earlier and less invasively. "When used in Emory Saint Joseph's Hospital's state-of-the-art hybrid operating room alongside Intuitive's da Vinci surgical robots, the Ion will allow us to diagnose early-stage lung cancers and treat them all in the same surgical session," says Manu Sancheti, MD, chief of thoracic surgery at ESJH, pictured with interventional pulmonologist Alejandro Sardi, MD.
