News Story

The K. Alvin and Shirley E. Merendino Endowed Professorship was recently appointed to Dr. Kathleen Berfield, Associate Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Chief of Thoracic Surgery at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System. This Endowed Professorship was established in 2006 to provide support for the Department of Surgery in attaining its mission of resident…

Funds awarded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute   A University of Washington team, co-led by Project Leads Dr. Giana Davidson and Dr. David Flum, has been approved for a $2 million funding award by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to disseminate and implement research findings from the Comparison of Outcomes of Antibiotic Drugs…

Dr. Venu Pillarisetty, Professor, HPB Surgical Oncology, and his research team in the UW Tumor Immune Microenvironment (TIME) Lab published “Blockade of interleukin 10 potentiates antitumor immune function in human colorectal cancer liver metastases” in Gut. Co-first authors Drs. Kevin Sullivan and Xiuyun Jiang tested the therapeutic effect of blocking the immunosuppressive cytokine interleukin-10 (IL-10)…

Dr. Scott Brakenridge, Associate Professor, Trauma Burn & Critical Care, published “Evaluation of a Multivalent Transcriptomic Metric for Diagnosing Surgical Sepsis and Estimating Mortality Among Critically Ill Patients” in JAMA Network Open. This research shows a single genomic blood test can accurately diagnose sepsis and predict 30-day mortality in critically ill surgical patients. Dr. Brakenridge…

Thursday, June 23, 2022 Welcome to the next edition of Surgery Synopsis. We are highlighting the area of Transplant Surgery in this issue. The early part of my career was focused on transplantation; I was recruited to UW to develop general thoracic surgery, but importantly, also to start and lead a new program in lung…

Saturday, April 9, 2022— Dr. Lorrie Langdale, Professor & Chief, Section of General Surgery, VA Puget Sound Health Care System (VA), received the Seattle Surgical Society Lifetime Service Award to recognize and honor her substantial life-long contributions, in service to the health and well-being of citizens of the Pacific Northwest. “It was a tremendous honor…

Tuesday, April 12, 2022— Dr. Nicholas Vedder, Professor & Chief, Jamie Hunter Endowed Chair in Reconstructive Plastic Surgery, Division of Plastic Surgery, was awarded the American Association of Plastic Surgeons (AAPS) Distinguished Fellow Award. The AAPS, the oldest and most prestigious plastic surgery organization in the world, acknowledged Dr. Vedder for his personal achievements and lifetime…

Friday, April 1, 2022— Dr. Teresa Kim, Assistant Professor, Division of General Surgery, received the NCI Early-Stage Surgeon Scientist Program (ESSP) award in February 2022. ESSP is designed to train surgeon scientists and retain them in cancer research by supporting a program focused on cancer-related disease and basic/translational research. This program aims to bring together…