Association for Academic Surgery (AAS)
Inspiring and Developing Young Academic Surgeons
The Academic Surgeon is the official blog of the AAS. We post anywhere from one to three times a week and our contributors will focus on issues relevant to young academic surgeons, residents, fellows, and even medical students.
If you would like to contribute, please submit your post here: https://www.aasurg.org/the-academic-surgeon-blog-submission/
Surgery plays an essential role in the care of cancer patients. Surgery can be diagnostic, curative, palliative, and even preventative and in fact for many cancers, surgery offers the only chance of cure or long-term survival. But surgery is not available to many who need it. This article aims to briefly describe the burden of …
Colin Martin, MD, Associate Professor of Surgery, Division of Pediatric Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of Alabama at Birmingham Selwyn Vickers, MD, James C. Lee Jr. Endowed Chair, Senior Vice President of Medicine and Dean, University of Alabama School of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham Colin Martin: What is the best way to …
My son started to play chess nine months ago; he will turn six next month. He has developed a passion for this game and has competed at the national, state, and regional levels. How can his young mind process such a complex game and become the reigning Florida North Regional chess champion? His basic methodology …
Recently, a disturbing tweet was circulated on Twitter. A Harvard Professor of Physiology and Medicine and former Dean tweeted the following statement: “When I last lectured in @BrighamWomens Bornstein auditorium, walls were adorned with portraits of prior luminaries of medicine & surgery. Connecting to a glorious past. Now all gone. Hope everyone is happy. I’m …
When I was a second-year general surgery resident, I spent the month of December on the emergency general surgery service. It was dark when I drove to work in the morning and dark when I left the hospital, and like most junior residents at that time of year, I felt overworked, over-stressed, and discouraged. Much …
Necrotizing enterocolitis affects roughly 10% of the 450,000 premature infants born in the US annually. Treatment advances for NEC have not progressed significantly in the last 30 years, and many clinicians and scientists continue to work diligently to find ways to decrease the morbidity and mortality of NEC. Over the years, many other prominent disease …
Ever feel as though you are putting in maximal effort, but seeing very slow or little if any gains in your career? Yet, you are seeing some of your colleagues or acquaintances around you take major leaps forward. You start wondering what you are doing wrong and why ‘it’ is happening for everyone else, but …
We spend a significant amount of time focusing on the mentee-mentor relationship within academic surgery. This focus is justified considering the relationship is often forged during the fires of our surgical training and provides us with guidance and unrivaled altruism that defines our early career paths. While many of us have surgeons we look to …
Not too long ago I was an eager general surgery resident seeking out research opportunities anywhere I could get them. A minority of residents around me sought basic science opportunities, but most of us picked the “easier” route, a.k.a. clinical research. This referred, at that time, to a sprinkling of case series, small to medium …
As a new member of the Membership Committee, I had the pleasure of approaching members at the Academic Surgical Congress (ASC) to ask them why they joined the Association for Academic Surgery (AAS). While the answers were diverse, three themes were common during my conversations with AAS members: 1. Research Mentorship- The Village Neighbor The …
