Presented by: Salva Balbale, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Surgery, and Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
Talk Title: “Chronic Opioid Use in Young Adults with IBD + Digestive Disorders: Research in Progress.”
Bio: Dr. Balbale is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Medicine, Surgery, and Medical Social Sciences at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. She is a member of the Center for Health Services and Outcomes Research (CHSOR) and Northwestern’s Quality Improvement, Research, & Education in Surgery (NQUIRES) Center within Feinberg’s Institute for Public Health and Medicine.
Dr. Balbale is also a Research Health Scientist in the Center of Innovation for Complex Chronic Healthcare at the Hines Veterans Affairs (VA) Hospital. As a health services researcher focused on making care safer, better coordinated, and more patient-centered for individuals with complex, chronic disorders such as inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD).
For inquiries, please contact Ana Mezynski <mezynski@stanford.edu>
Presented by: Christopher Stave, MLS, Librarian, Lane Medical Library, Stanford University
Talk Title: Literature Review
Bio: Christopher Stave, MLS, is a Research & Instruction Librarian at Lane Medical Library. Christopher has extensive experience in medical and academic libraries and plays a key role in guiding users in evidence-based medicine, systematic reviews, and advanced research methodologies. Christopher is also the library liaison for the Departments of Graduate Medical Education, Surgery, Emergency Medicine, and Pediatrics.
For inquiries, please contact Ana Mezynski.
Presented by; Jeff Choi, MD, General Surgery Chief Resident, Department of Surgery, Stanford University
Talk Title: “Data Science to Improve Trauma Care Delivery.”
Bio: General surgery resident (2017-2025; administrative chief resident 2024-2025), incoming surgical critical care fellow (2025-2026). MS in Epidemiology & Clinical Research (2019-2020), and Biomedical Informatics (2020-2022). Ex-president of Surgeons Writing About Trauma. Founding course instructor of SURG238: Practical Introduction to Surgical Research.
My research vision is to save or better the most possible number of lives using data. Our group focuses on:
1) building and implementing useful clinical prediction tools
2) bringing various AI applications (e.g. NLP, vision) to the bedside
3) challenging dogma in surgical practice with contemporary data
My passions are advocating for higher statistical and machine learning methodology quality in surgical literature , and fostering the growth of the next generation of surgeon data scientists.
For inquiries, please contact Ana Mezynski <mezynski@stanford.edu>
Presented by: Alexa Pohl, MD, PhD, General Surgery Resident, Department of Surgery, Stanford University
Talk Title: “Increasing the FIT + colonoscopy rate at VAPAHCS: A quality improvement project.”
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>