Presented by: Alexa Pohl, MD, PhD, General Surgery Resident, Department of Surgery, Stanford University
Talk Title: TBD

Bio: Social context creates disparities in cancer care across broad domains: in screening, time to start of treatment, timely receipt of appropriate neoadjuvant, surgical, and adjuvant therapies, and in receipt of surveillance for survivors. Pragmatic, patient-centered research on the root causes of disparities – and rigorous evaluation of policies and programs to address these causes – is needed to reduce preventable cancer mortality. My longstanding interest in health-related disparities and patient-centered research arose while completing my PhD on sex-differential autism risk at the University of Cambridge. I grew uncomfortable with the fact that my research relied on the time and commitment of participants but would never improve their lives directly. As a result, I developed a community-based participatory research study on the experiences of autistic mothers, which received pilot funding from the UK’s National Institute of Healthcare Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Applied Health Research and Care East of England. For me, the natural next step was medical school, where I was surprised to find an intellectual home in surgery. The introspective and self-critiquing nature of the specialty resonated with my desire to ask pragmatic, outcome-focused questions as a researcher and my clinical desire to make a tangible improvement in patients’ lives. Ultimately, I aim to be a practicing surgeon with a productive research program on patient-centered outcomes and the effective and equitable delivery of high-quality oncologic surgical care.

For inquiries, please contact Ana Mezynski <mezynski@stanford.edu>

This is the monthly, Department of Surgery JEDI Council. This council is open to faculty, residents, and staff. Please email Jerri Anna (jerri12@stanford.edu) if you are interested in joining.

Chair: Dr. Jill Helms
Administrator: Jerri Anna Roper

Each week, S-SPIRE hosts a hybrid-model Work-In-Progress session (WIP) for faculty members and trainees to present their research and receive feedback. These run from September through May each year.

Our monthly WIP sessions (first Monday of every month) features Stanford and guest faculty presentations of well-developed projects. This WIP provides an opportunity to discuss high impact research and create synergy within the Stanford HSR/Surgery communities.

Our weekly WIP sessions feature trainees and faculty projects in every phase of development—from drafting specific aims pages, to parsing grant review committee comments, to abstracts/papers/methods in preparation.

Anyone can attend and happy hour conditions apply here too.

For inquiries, please contact Ana Mezynski <mezynski@stanford.edu>

This is the bi-weekly, JEDI Staff Council Meeting, a sub-committee of the Department of Surgery’s JEDI Council. This council is focused mostly on event planning and staff-related JEDI issues. Please email Ani Gevorkian if you are interested in joining!