Association for Academic Surgery (AAS)

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Publications Committee – Reviewers of the Year!

Each year the AAS Publications Committee reviews hundreds of manuscripts submitted to be considered for presentation at the Academic Surgical Congress. The review work is detailed and very time consuming – we are grateful for the tremendous amount of work our committee members accomplish, and it is with great pleasure that we present and congratulate our 2019 AAS Publications Committee Reviewers of the Year:

Dr. Abbey Fingeret, MD is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. She specializes in Endocrine Surgery and has an academic focus in surgical education.

Dr. Alexander Hawkins, MD is an assistant professor of surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. In addition to a busy colorectal clinical practice, he is a NIH funded scientist using mixed-methods and patient reported outcomes to study the comparative effectiveness of sigmoid colon resection for recurrent diverticulitis.

Dr. Fingeret and Dr. Hawkins did a tremendous job reviewing ASC manuscripts and were extremely engaged members of the committee.

Additionally, we also acknowledge five other members of the committee as recipients of the 2019 AAS Publications Committee Reviewer Excellence Awards:

Dr. Cherif Boutros MD, MSc, FACS, FACG is medical director the Tate Cancer Center; chair of surgical oncology at University of Maryland BWMC and associate professor of surgery at the University of Maryland School Of Medicine. His clinical practice is focused on advanced minimally invasive surgical oncology and hepatopancreatic and biliary surgery. Dr. Boutros’ research interest includes results of advanced, minimally invasive surgical oncology, immunotherapy for peritoneal surface malignancy; non -Invasive marker of immunologic response in pancreatic cancer, and liver regeneration.

Dr. Jordan Cloyd, MD is an assistant professor of surgical oncology at The Ohio State University and James Cancer Center. His clinical and research interests are the multidisciplinary management of gastrointestinal and hepatopancreatobiliary cancers.

Dr. Paul DiMusto, MD is an Assistant Professor of Vascular Surgery at the University of Wisconsin.  He been a member of the AAS for the last 10 years including his time as a candidate member.  He has a clinical interest in aortic surgery and an educational interest in simulation.

Dr. Erin Gillaspie MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Thoracic Surgery and Head of Thoracic Surgery Robotics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN.  She joined the surgical faculty in 2016 after completing a fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.  During her first two years on faculty she completed her Masters of Public Health.  Dr. Gillaspie’s current research focus includes the development of technologies for minimally invasive approaches to surgery and novel lung cancer therapies.

Dr. Eric Sheu, MD PhD is an assistant professor of surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. His clinical interests are bariatric, foregut, and hernia surgery. His research laboratory studies the metabolic and immunologic mechanisms of type 2 diabetes remission following bariatric surgery.

Each of these members contributed substantially to the Publications Committee by performing timely, high quality reviews of many of the 200+ manuscripts that are submitted. We greatly appreciate their hard work and responsiveness in executing important but too often thankless work. Congrats!

Luke Funk

Luke Funk

Luke Funk MD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Chief of the Section of General Surgery at the William S. Middleton Veterans Memorial Hospital. He is also the Director of MIS Research in the Department of Surgery at UW-Madison and Associate Program Director of the MIS fellowship. His research program is focused on optimizing access and outcomes to obesity treatment. Twitter: @lmfunk2