Presented by: Alexa Pohl, Professional Development Resident, General Surgery, Stanford University.
Talk Title: “Colonoscopy-based cancer screening: transportation security and social support as social determinants of health”

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.

Please refer inquiries to Ana Mezynski at mezynski@stanford.edu

The Weekly WIP has been canceled due to the ACS Clinical Congress.

Each week, S-SPIRE hosts an in-person Work-In-Progress session (WIP) for faculty members and trainees to present their research and receive feedback on projects in every phase of development—from drafting specific aims pages, to parsing grant review committee comments, to abstracts/papers/methods in preparation.

Please refer inquiries to Ana Mezynski at mezynski@stanford.edu

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Presented by: Carolyn Seib, Assistant Professor of Surgery, General Surgery, Stanford University
Talk Title: “Improving surgical decision-making for older adults with primary hyperparathyroidism”

Bio: Dr. Carolyn Dacey Seib is a fellowship-trained endocrine surgeon and board certified general surgeon. Her practice is focused on surgery of the thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal glands.

Dr. Seib has clinical and research expertise in the surgical management of endocrine disorders in older adults, including primary hyperparathyroidism, thyroid cancer, and hyperthyroidism. Dr. Seib completed her undergraduate education at Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude in 2004. She received her M.D. at the New York University School of Medicine and then attended residency in General Surgery at UCSF. Dr. Seib also completed a fellowship in Endocrine Surgery at UCSF, during which she cared for patients with complex disorders of the thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal glands.

Dr. Seib focuses on providing individualized care for patients with thyroid malignancy, hyperthyroidism, primary hyperparathyroidism, and adrenal disorders. She has received funding from the National Institute on Aging and the American Thyroid Association to study the surgical management of endocrine disorders in older adults and has a number of peer-reviewed journal publications on this topic that have received national attention, including being featured in the New York Times.

Please refer inquiries to Ana Mezynski at mezynski@stanford.edu