In addition to the monthly highlights listed below, see our Emory Surgery Newsletter.



2009 MONTHLY HIGHLIGHTS

October | September | August | July | June | May | Apr | Mar | Feb | Jan



October 2009

HEADLINES

1000th Transplant Performed at CHOA On October 7th, Dr. Stuart Knechtle's surgical team performed a liver transplant at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) that was the hospital's 1,000th solid organ transplant, making CHOA one of only two hospitals in... FULL STORY

Surgical Critical Care Residency Receives Continued Accreditation Effective 10/22/2009, The ACGME's Residency Review Committee granted continued accreditation of five years to the surgical critical care residency at Grady Memorial Hospital. The program encompasses nine months of ICU rotations and such electives as Burn ICU, MICU, Echocardiography, Interventional Radiology, and traveling rotations.

FACULTY NEWS
	Dr. Theresa Gillespie has been funded by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the PI of a multi-site, national study entitled Active Surveillance Attitudes and Perceptions in Prostate Cancer. With a grant of $930,000 over two years, the study will investigate informed decision-making regarding treatment options and health disparities in early-stage prostate cancer, primarily in terms of access to care and racial differences.
	Dr. Linda Cendales is the principal investigator of a $2 million grant awarded to The Emory Transplant Center by the U.S. Department of Defense. The focus of the grant will be the development of a vascularized composite allotransplantation (VCA) program.

September 2009

HEADLINES

Breast Center Receives Avon Grant The Avon Foundation has awarded $750,000 to the Emory Winship Cancer Institute and the Avon Comprehensive Breast Center at Grady Memorial Hospital. The grant will be used to continue funding community... FULL STORY

Emory Ventricular Assist Device Program Awarded Accreditation Emory University Hospital's Cardiac Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) destination therapy program has earned the "Gold Seal of Approval" from The Joint Commission, which accredits nearly 16,000 health care organizations and... FULL STORY

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August 2009

HEADLINE

Emory Transplant Surgeons Perform Georgia's First Domino Liver Transplant Leading two surgical teams working in adjoining operating rooms, Dr. Stuart Knechtle and Dr. Christopher Hughes performed Georgia's first domino liver transplant procedure at Emory University Hospital on... FULL STORY

NEW FACULTY
	Dr. Shishir Maithel joined our faculty after completing his surgical oncology fellowship and hepatopancreatobiliary surgery fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. His clinical focus is gastrointestinal oncology, hepatobiliary tumors, and pancreatic tumors, while his research interests include clinical investigation and outcomes analysis of hepatopancreatobiliary tumors as well as studying the molecular predictors of outcome and chemotherapeutic response.
	Dr. Felix Fernandez earned his MD from Wayne State University School of Medicine and completed both his general surgery residency and cardiothoracic surgery fellowship at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Washington University School of Medicine. His primary clinical site is the Atlanta VA Medical Center, where he focuses on thoracic oncology and lung transplantation.

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July 2009

HEADLINES

Nanoparticles Could Improve Breast Cancer Diagnosis Via MRI Current methods of detecting breast cancer suffer from low sensitivity, limited spatial resolution, or the need to use complicated and expensive radioisotope-based technologies. A new report from investigators at... FULL STORY

Post-Transplant Combo Could Replace Toxic Immune-Suppressing Drugs Allan Kirk, MD, PhD, scientific director of the Emory Transplant Center and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, was the PI of a study published in the July 2009 issue of Nature Medicine, "Alefacept promotes co-stimulation... FULL STORY

Thirteen Surgery Faculty Named Atlanta Magazine's "Top Doctors" Atlanta magazine's July 2009 "Top Doctors" survey, an annual listing compiled by the New York-based research firm Castle Connally Medical Ltd., includes thirteen faculty of the Department of Surgery. A rigorous screening process is used to select doctors named to the list. Congratulations to Drs. Elliot Chaikof, David Feliciano, Seth Force, Sheryl Gabram, T. Roderick Hester, Kirk Kanter, Christian Larsen, Daniel Miller, Kenneth Newell, Richard Ricketts, John Sweeney, William Wood, and Mark Wulkan.

NEW FACULTY
	Dr. Timothy Buchman is the founding director of the Emory Center for Critical Care (ECCC), which will integrate ICUs throughout Emory Healthcare, create a new section of critical care in The Emory Clinic, engage clinicians and investigators from diverse disciplines to conduct research that will define best clinical practices and inform public health policy, and oversee the educational and training experience for clinicians and scientists in critical care.
	Dr. Matthew Corriere earned his MD from Mercer University and an MS in Health Sciences Research from Wake Forest. His residency training at Vanderbilt included two years of basic and clinical research. He completed a fellowship in vascular surgery at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. His primary interests are atherosclerosis, renovascular disease, carotid disease, and venous thromboembolism.
	Dr. Michael Halkos received his MD and did his general and cardiothoracic surgical training and two year research fellowship at Emory. His clinical specialties include off-pump coronary artery bypass surgery, valve repair/replacement surgery, and minimally-invasive valve and coronary surgery, and his research interests are stroke after cardiac surgery and surgical outcomes.
	Dr. Steven Hanish was a Clinical Instructor in Surgery at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health before coming to Emory. He earned his MD from Indiana University, completed his general surgery residency and a research fellowship at Duke, and did his transplantation fellowship at the University of Wisconsin. His clinical focuses are treating end stage liver disease and surgical management of primary liver tumors, and his research interests include genetic markers of cholangioarcinoma and outcomes of liver transplant patients.
	Dr. Richard Myung completed his cardiothoracic surgery residency at Emory in June 2009. He received his MD from New York Medical College and began his general surgery residency at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, DC. After completing a three year cardiothoracic research fellowship at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, he finished his general surgery residency at the University of Pennsylvania. His special interests are minimally invasive valve surgery, off pump and minimally invasive coronary bypass, and aortic surgery.

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June 2009

HEADLINES

Fox5 News Does Story on Living Donor Kidney Transplant at Emory On June 10, Fox 5 News broadcast the story of seven-year-old Nicholas Story receiving a donor kidney from Army Ranger First Sergeant Corey Meyers, Nicholas' baseball coach, father of his best friend, and a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. When Meyers learned of Nicholas' need for a kidney and that his O-positive blood type was an acceptable match, he offered himself as a donor. Dr. Nicole Turgeon's transplant team removed Myers' kidney, and Dr. Chris Larsen and Dr. Tom Pearson transplanted it into Nicholas. Watch the story here (Dr. Turgeon is interviewed).

BENEFIT Findings Presented at ATC Dr. Chris Larsen and his colleagues presented the one-year findings from BENEFIT (Belatacept Evaluation of Nephoprotection and Efficacy as First-Line Immunosuppression Trial) at the 2009 American Transplant Congress in... FULL STORY

Dr. Wulkan Performing Single Incision Surgery at CHOA Dr. Mark Wulkan is among the first surgeons in Georgia to perform single-site incision surgery on pediatric patients for routine surgeries at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston. Dr. Wulkan is using this method for multiple procedures... FULL STORY

Dr. Kasirajan Evaluating New Stent Graft for Aortic Aneurysms A new, minimally invasive stent graft, recently approved by the FDA and now being used in patients through a study at Emory University Hospital, may make endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) accessible to more patients with thoracic aortic... FULL STORY

FACULTY NOTES
	Dr. Linda Cendales and the Emory Transplant Center mailed a letter to 8000+ Georgia physicians stating her credentials and announcing that the first clinical trial in hand transplantation she is directing at the Composite Tissue Allotransplantation and the Laboratory of Microsurgery is actively recruiting patients. Trial details are here.

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May 2009

HEADLINES

Living Kidney Donor Procedure at Emory Featured on 11Alive News On May 4, the evening edition of WXIA-TV 11Alive News featured a report on a living kidney donor transplant performed at Emory involving a five-year old patient and his grandmother by Dr. Kenneth Newell and Dr. Pearson's teams. Since transplanted kidneys typically last approximately 10-12 years, Marlene Valentine volunteered to donate one of hers first so that Andrew's mother Jenni could save her kidney for Andrew in the future. Watch the story here.

Emory Researchers Publish Results of Nanoparticle Study In the May issue of Gastroenterology, Emory researchers described the properties of nanoparticles they created that could be used as tools in the early detection of pancreatic cancer in an article entitled... FULL STORY

FACULTY NOTES
	The investigations of Dr. David Lefer's lab into the use of hydrogen sulfide therapies to reduce cell damage were described in "Emissions Control," published in the May 28, 2009, issue of Nature. Author Katherine Sanderson examined the evolution of researchers' interest in the role of hydrogen sulfide in human physiology and its potential as a treatment agent. Sanderson reported on Dr. Lefer's use of single shots of hydrogen sulfide to try to shield mice from the effects of a simulated heart attack, his observation that the gas seems to promote the production of powerful antioxidants and enzymes that protect against cell damage, and his goal of producing a therapy from the process that could be taken by patients before major heart surgery.
	Published May 22 in the online edition of Cancer and scheduled for print in July 2009, a study led by Dr. Monica Rizzo has received much media attention. "Characteristics and treatment modalities for African American Women diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer" found that nearly one in four African American women with late stage breast cancer refused chemotherapy and radiation therapy. The authors concluded that additional studies are needed to better define the roles and degrees that demographic factors, cultural beliefs, healthcare access, additional illnesses, and patient choice have in this decision.
	Dr. Kirk Kanter and Dr. Gary Vercruysse were both finalists for the Atlanta Business Chronicle's 2009 Health-Care Heroes Awards, Dr. Kanter in the physican category, Dr. Vercruysse in the military service category.
	At the Association for Surgical Education/Association of Program Directors combined annual Surgical Education Week, Dr. Barbara Pettitt was awarded the ASE's Philip J. Wolfson Outstanding Teaching Award "for national recognition of outstanding abilities as a teacher of surgery."
	Dr. Christian Larsen will present the 2009 Dean's Distinguished Faculty Lecture on May 28 at 5:30 pm in the School of Medicine's lecture hall. The award's committee chair, Kenneth Brigham, Associate Vice President and Director of the Emory/Georgia Tech Predictive Health Institute, cited Dr. Larsen's accomplishments in developing improved immunosuppression drugs that protect transplanted organs with less toxicity, his performance of more than 500 adult and pediatric kidney and kidney/pancreas transplants, and his establishment of Emory as one of only a handful of centers worldwide to offer islet cell transplantation.

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April 2009

FACULTY NOTES
	Dr. David Feliciano was appointed the first-ever community editor for the General Surgery Section of the American College of Surgeons Web Portal. He was also re-elected for another two years to chair the ACS Advisory Council for General Surgery.

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March 2009

FACULTY NOTES
	Dr. Stuart Knechtle has been appointed chief of the division of transplantation, a position formerly held by Dr. Larsen. Dr. Knechtle is also clinical director of the Emory Transplant Center. He came to Emory in 2008 from the University of Wisconsin, where he was the director of liver transplantation and transplant clinical trials and led a team that performed Wisconsin's first liver transplant from a living donor and the state's first combined liver/pancreas transplant.
	Dr. Allan Kirk, Scientific Director of the Emory Transplant Center (ETC) and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Transplantation Immunology, has been appointed vice chair of research for the Department of Surgery. Since joining our faculty in April 2007, he has successfully competed for significant extramural funding from the NIH, the FDA, the JDRF, and others. His primary investigational focus is translational and clinical research in immune tolerance, with the final goal of transitioning therapies from the laboratory into proof of concept clinical trials.

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February 2009

HEADLINE

A Safer Stent for Stroke Prevention Vascular dementia, as it is known in stroke patients, mirrors such symptoms of Alzheimer's disease as mood swings, loss of recognition of familiar places and faces, and intermittently inappropriate behavior. The condition is... FULL STORY

FACULTY NOTES
	Dr. Robert Guyton was one of several experts consulted for "Heart Health: Coronary Bypass Surgery or Angioplasty?" in U.S. News and World Report, a feature that proposed that treatment options presented to a patient may be determined by the bias of the particular physician. "Often, (patients) are speaking to a person who is an advocate for a certain procedure," Dr. Guyton said. The article also stated that Dr. Guyton believed surgery to be the clear option in very complex disease where the heart muscle is compromised by getting considerably decreased blood flow.
	Dr. Jeffrey Salomone received the Emerald of the Year Award at the Metro-Atlanta Police Emerald Society's 2009 Annual Awards Banquet for "outstanding service to law enforcement and to the metro Atlanta community." The award also noted that his "selfless dedication and commitment is an inspiration and a source of pride to our membership."

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January 2009

HEADLINES

Dr. Larsen Succeeds Dr. Wood as Chair of the Department of Surgery Appointed chair of the Department of Surgery at Emory in 1991, Dr. William Wood will officially step down from the position effective February 1, 2009. Dr. Wood will continue seeing patients, performing surgery, and... FULL STORY

Nanoparticle Study Codirected by Dr. Yang Reported in Small Nanowerk is one of the top nanotechnology portals on the internet. On January 16, 2009, it posted the following announcement from the National Cancer Institute: Antibodies that target epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) have proven... FULL STORY

FACULTY NOTES
	Dr. John Puskas received the J. Maxwell Chamberlain Award for best paper in adult cardiac surgery at The Society of Thoracic Surgeons 45th Annual Meeting.

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