Dr. Kamal Mansour receives STSA Inspiration Award

Dr. Kamal Mansour receives STSA Inspiration Award
Christian P. Larsen, MD, DPhil,
Chairman
Contents
• Dr. Kamal Mansour
receives STSA
Inspiration Award
• Dr. Linda Cendales:
Microsurgical
Techniques and Skills
Training Course plus
School of Medicine –
“Women First”
Honoree
• Article in World
Journal of Surgery
precursor to Emory
Global Surgery
Program
• Dr. Sweeney Co-PI on
NIH grant to study
hospital discharge
decision-making
• New Arrivals: Todd
Randolph and Sanket
Shah
• Events calendar
For exceptional efforts in
motivating, inspiring and
cultivating the clinical and
research efforts of upcoming
generations of cardiothoracic
surgeons, Dr. Kamal Mansour
received the 2010 Southern
Thoracic Surgical Association
Inspiration Award.
The STSA established the award
in 2007 to acknowledge the crucial
importance of mentorship in developing CT surgeons and to recognize and positively
reinforce STSA members who have excelled in their mentorship roles. Dr. Mansour
was only the second person to receive the award.
Emory Surgery faculty member Dr. Vinod Thourani, who first met Dr. Mansour 18
years ago as a medical student at Emory, said: "With Dr. Mansour planning to retire
from surgical practice by the end of the year, my only regret is that future Emory
residents will be robbed of learning from one of the giants of thoracic surgery. Not
only will they miss working with a consummate surgeon and masterful anatomist,
they won't experience the contagious fervor of one of the most humanistic individuals
that I have had the privilege of working with."
Dr. Mansour has been at Emory since 1971 and currently practices at the Atlanta
Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He is widely known for perfecting a technique
replacing the esophagus with a section of bowel. He was awarded the 2001 Shield of
Medicine by the Medical Scientific Society of Egypt for being one of the ten most
outstanding Egyptian doctors in the world and received the prestigious Emory Medal
for distinguished service and notable professional and academic achievement
in 2008.

Dr. Linda Cendales: Microsurgical Techniques and
Skills Training Course plus “Women First” Honoree
Dr. Alessandrina Freitas, the first Emory general
surgery resident to successfully conclude the
course.
Dr. Cendales
One of the foundational skills essential to Dr. Linda Cendales’ status as the only
surgeon in the United States trained in both hand and transplant surgery is her
mastery of the complex craft of microsurgery, a method that uses high-powered
microscopes to assist in performing microvascular surgical repairs involving small
vessels, nerves and/or other tissues. “Microsurgery has developed particularly
rapidly and its application is appropriate to a variety of specialties,” Dr. Cendales
says. “While it is a precise procedure, it can be used in a wide range of surgical
settings.”
To disseminate advancements in the field and its versatility, Dr. Cendales has
initiated a microsurgery course for Emory and non-Emory physicians, fellows,
residents, technicians and students. Recently, Dr. Alessandrina Freitas was the
first Emory general surgery resident to successfully conclude the course. Participants
receive training in the use of the operating microscope and associated microsurgical
instruments, basic microsurgical dissection and suturing techniques, artery and vein
anastomoses, end-to-end and end-to-side repair, interpositional vein graft and
neurorrhaphy. Research-technicians can also receive training in the microsurgical
skills required for animal models in the lab. Feedback and evaluation are provided
throughout, as well as individual, one-on-one laboratory instruction, guidance and
monitoring.
Following three weeks advance registration, the course is available year-round on a
weekly basis. Upon completion, trainees receive a Microsurgical Techniques Training
certificate. To register or for additional information, please contact Dr. Cendales at
either lcendal@emory.edu or 404-727-1731.
In recognition of Dr. Cendales’ success and national standing as a microsurgery
specialist and pioneer in Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation, she will be one
of the featured honorees of Women First, an inaugural program celebrating the
accomplishments of School of Medicine-associated women who have been the first
in their particular field, program, or focus of study to make substantial impact in a
particular area. This year’s other featured nominee is Dr. Nanette Wenger, Chief of
Cardiology at Grady Memorial Hospital, who has made vast contributions to the
study of coronary heart disease in women. Dr. Cendales and Dr. Wenger will share
their stories and answer questions at the official Women First program on March 23,
2011, 1:15pm-2:45pm in SOM 110. The event is sponsored by the SOM Office of
Staff Development and the Medical Alumni Association.

Article in World Journal of Surgery precursor to
Emory Global Surgery Program
“Is it possible to train surgeons for rural Africa? A
report of a successful international program" was
electronically-published prior to print by the World
Journal of Surgery on December 30, 2010, and
describes the 13-year campaign by the Pan-African
Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS) to address
the critical shortage of surgeons and access to
surgical care in Africa. Beyond the quality of its
reportage, the article serves as a suitable preface to
the development of our own Global Surgery Program
and the opportunities it will offer as a unique and
rewarding training outpost for our residents.
Dr. Pollock
Lead author Dr. Jonathan Pollock, who joined Emory Surgery last July, will be
relocating to Africa in mid-to-late 2011 to train Ethiopian surgical residents under the
auspices of PAACS while maintaining his Emory appointment. When his site is
established and stateside approval and support have been finalized, Dr. Pollock will
begin directing the Emory Global Surgery Program, one of only a handful of such
initiatives in the world, and residents will be able to do rotations in Ethiopia.
In detailing PAACS’s efforts to reverse what is increasingly recognized as a global
health crisis, the article moves from the origins of the crisis to the potentially
catastrophic qualities of the continent’s current predicament. “In many parts of sub-
Saharan Africa, there is one surgeon for every 250,000 people,” the authors write. “In
some rural areas there is only one surgeon for every 2.5 million people.” It is also
noted that the problem is compounded by the defection of surgeons from rural areas
and countries of sub-Saharan Africa to more hospitable locations that include the US
and the UK, which are “actively recruiting physicians from low and middle-income
countries to fill the gap in their own workforces.”
PAACS began training African surgical residents in 1997 using a five-year American
competency-based model, the primary requirement being that trainees be graduates
of recognized medical schools. The article states that by 2010 PAACS was training
35 residents in six programs located in four countries. Eighteen general surgeons
and one pediatric surgeon have graduated thus far and two more surgeons are
scheduled to finish training in 2011, an achievement the authors believe to be "a
small but important step toward reversing the surgical workforce deficiencies in sub-
Saharan Africa." Four graduates have gone on to subspecialty training while the
remainder are practicing in rural and underserved urban centers in Angola, Guinea-
Conakry, Ghana, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia and Madagascar.
Dr. Sweeney Co-PI on NIH grant to study hospital
discharge decision-making
A research team co-directed by Dr. John Sweeney, chief of the Division of General
and Gastrointestinal Surgery and director of Emory Surgery's Clinical Quality and
Patient Safety program, and James C. Cox, director of the Experimental Economics
Center of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University,
received a three year collaborative award from the NIH's National Institute on Aging
to fund "Uptake of Comparative Effectiveness Research: Implications for Discharge
Decision." The project will focus on hospital length of stay as a central factor in the
increasingly important and complex interplay between quality of health care delivery

and medical costs and will experiment with alternative choices and new applications
of information technology designed to increase physicians' effectiveness in
identifying the optimal time to discharge a patient.
"The inpatient environment bolsters the intensity of
care, and indeed longer hospital stays have been
associated with a lower incidence of adverse
outcomes leading to readmissions," says Dr.
Sweeney. "However, the hospital is also an
exceptionally expensive care delivery environment,
both financially and in terms of nosocomial illness
and iatrogenic risk, and unnecessarily prolonged
stays can precipitate higher costs and lower quality
of care."
The team will examine the uptake of comparative
effectiveness research (CER) for the discharge
decision in patients who have undergone complex surgical resections for GI
malignancy, focusing on how well hospital discharge decisions in recent practice
conform to the CER while also observing the results of an alternative choice
architecture designed to promote better CER uptake for the discharge.
New Arrivals: Todd Randolph and Sanket Shah
(Director of Development, Department of Surgery)
Todd Randolph will be responsible for overseeing
fundraising activities and the implementation of a
strategic plan to increase the Department of
Surgery's support base among individuals,
corporations, charitable foundations and additional
sources in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner.
He plans to communicate and work collaboratively
with each division so that he will become familiar with
their unique academic, clinical and research
components and needs, thereby maximizing the
number of vital annual and capital gifts for that
division as well as the department. Todd holds a B.S. in Biomedical Science from
Texas A&M University and has over 15 years of sales experience and time spent
doing volunteer work for philanthropic organizations.
(Administrator, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery)
Sanket Shah will be dividing his time between OMS
and Gastroenterology. He comes to us from
Pricewaterhouse Coopers, where he was a senior
consultant for the Health Industries Division. Sanket
has an MBA from the Emory Goizueta Business
School and an MPH from the Emory Rollins School
of Public Health. He also received undergraduate
degrees from the University of Florida in Finance as
well as Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Sanket
is an exciting addition to an already fantastic
management team.

Events calendar
EVENT DATE/TIME LOCATION
SURGICAL GRAND ROUNDS
Grady Memorial Hospital: The Birthplace of
Emory Plastic Surgery
Presented by Kim Singh, MD
– Plastic Surgery Fellow, Division of Plastic and
Reconstructive Surgery, Department of Surgery,
Emory University School of Medicine
SURGICAL GRAND ROUNDS
Annual J. C. Thoroughman Lectureship:
Controversies in the Management of Thyroid
Cancer
Presented by Douglas B. Evans, MD
– Donald C. Ausman Family Foundation
Professor in Surgery and Chairman, Department
of Surgery, The Medical College of Wisconsin
SURGICAL GRAND ROUNDS
Arrows Through the Heart: The History of
Cardiac and Great Vessel Trauma Surgeries
and Emory's Role in their Evolution
Presented by Shady Eldaieef, MD
– Chief Resident, Department of Surgery, Emory
University School of Medicine
Surgery Division Chiefs Meeting
SURGICAL GRAND ROUNDS
Pediatric Surgery: The Past, Present and
Future
Presented by Samir Pandya, MD
– Pediatric Surgery Fellow, Division of Pediatric
Surgery, Department of Surgery, Emory
University School of Medicine
7:00-8:00 am,
Feb 3, 2011
7:00-8:00 am,
Feb 10, 2011
7:00-8:00 am,
Feb 17, 2011
5:30-7:00 pm,
Feb 22, 2011
7:00-8:00 am,
Feb 24, 2011
Auditorium,
EUH
Auditorium,
EUH
Auditorium,
EUH
Whitehead
Room, EUH
Auditorium,
EUH