AAS Highlights at the Academic Surgical Congress – February 3-5 2015 in Las Vegas

The Academic Surgical Congress is right around the corner. Hopefully many of you are planning to join us February 3-5, 2015 at the Encore Las Vegas for what we hope will be the best ASC yet. The program has been condensed to allow for travel on Thursday evening with the program wrapping up by 3:30pm, leading to a jam-packed line up.

This marks the 10th Anniversary of the Academic Surgical Congress and this year’s social event will be a celebration of this landmark. Please plan to attend the ASC 10th Anniversary Celebration, planned for Wednesday evening immediately following the AAS Business Meeting. Attendance at previous ASC social events has been modest at best, while serving as a program highlight for many other surgical meetings. To address this, we have made a number of changes this year. Unlike previous events, there will be a full dinner provided, including tenderloin, lobster risotto, and other tasty options. Perhaps more important is the entertainment…the legendary Dr. Dorry Segev (who claims to use unorthodox but highly effective methods to engage attendees) will serve as DJ and promises to make it an evening to remember. Additional activities include a photo booth and a speed painter. Both the Anniversary Celebration and the President’s reception (open to all attendees) which follows are on-site at the Wynn and Encore, respectively. There will be plenty of time to enjoy the Vegas nightlife so reserve Wednesday night to celebrate with the AAS. Make sure you support the society and check it out!

Each year we try to do something new and innovative with the program. Last year’s focus on innovative presentation styles and social media was very well-received. This year, one of our major initiatives aims to foster what makes the ASC unique relative to other surgical meetings – the ability to interact with surgeons from other clinical sub-specialties around shared scientific areas of interest. As you may have noticed during the abstract submission process, we are revamping the parallel sessions to prioritize scientific areas with clinical interest serving as a secondary, rather than primary, level of organization. There will no doubt be some hitches in the new structure as this is our first year. The program committee is extremely interested in your feedback on the abstract submission process and oral and quickshot sessions this year. Please do not hesitate to reach out to any of committee member (listed below) with your comments and suggestions for improvement.

There are a number of other programmatic highlights that you might want to check out.

• An expanded number of committee-sponsored joint AAS/SUS sessions will be addressing issues of broad importance to the field.
  • New this year, the Ethics Committee will hold a discussion on “Surgical Ethics and Social Media in the Global Information Age”.
  • The Issues Committee will tackle “Public Reporting of Outcomes”.
  • The Education Committee will discuss “Educating the Surgeon in Practice: Coaching, Collaboratives, and Social Media”.
  • The Outcomes Committee will attempt to top its Ninja session from last year with another competition featuring 5-minute descriptions of “Spectacular Failures and How to Rise from the Ashes”
• This is the first year that the Global Affairs Committee will be sponsoring a session. The ASC is honored to host the launch of the next edition of the premier global health text, Disease Control Priorities Volume 3. The session will feature some of the biggest names in global surgery, so be sure that your travel plans will allow you to attend this landmark session on Thursday, Feb. 5.
• There were 67 submissions for Hot Topic ideas. The top 3 proposals will be presented at lunch each day, including (1) a discussion of the distinctions between quality improvement and human subjects research; (2) academic career paths outside of the traditional research focus – ‘The ROI beyond the R01’; and finally (3) alternative approaches to financing GME. These sessions promise to feature lively discussions of timely topics of broad interest.
• The AWS lunch will discuss tips for negotiation from leaders in academic surgery that promises to be informative for all attendees regardless of gender.
• As one might expect, President Tim Pawlik has chosen a leadership theme for his sessions including Dr. Carlos Pellegrini’s discussion of “Leadership, Personal Development and Growth” as the Founders Lecture and “Profiles in Leadership”, featuring prominent modern-day surgeons discussing the life lessons of surgical icons, during his Presidential Session.
• There will be an AAS sponsored breakfast each morning – for New Members on Tuesday, Student/Mentors on Wednesday, and Institutional Representatives on Thursday morning.
• Finally, Tuesday evening we will expand the popular medical student quickshot competition to include a parallel session for residents and fellows. Come and see the best and brightest of our students and trainees present the highest scoring abstracts across all sessions in one setting. Past presidents and the program committee will serve as judges of the best presentation in each session. Join us for this celebration of the excellent work submitted by our youngest members.

There are many other exciting activities planned. Be sure to visit the ASC website for additional details and the following resources to help you make the most of the meeting:

• A downloadable searchable database of all meeting abstracts:
• Information to download the ASC app
• Details about how to follow us and contribute on Twitter (#ASC2015)

The Program Committee for 2015 consists of these devoted members:

We hope to see you in Las Vegas!