Presented by: Cara A. Liebert, MD, FACS
Talk Title: “Implementation of the ENTRUST Learning and Assessment Platform in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs)”

Bio: Dr. Liebert is a board-certified General Surgeon with fellowship training in Minimally Invasive Surgery. Her clinical practice focuses on robotic ventral hernia repair, abdominal wall reconstruction, and metabolic/bariatric surgery. Dr. Liebert works as faculty at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System and is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at Stanford School of Medicine.

Dr. Liebert graduated with Highest Distinction with a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill. She obtained her MD degree and completed General Surgery Residency at Stanford University School of Medicine. She completed an American College of Surgeons- Educations Institute Surgical Education Fellowship at Stanford and an Advanced GI/Minimally Invasive Surgery Fellowship at VA Palo Alto.

Her research focuses on competency-based medical education, assessment, entrustable professional activities (EPAs), and global surgical education. Dr. Liebert holds several leadership roles in surgical education and is the Associate Chair of Education in the Department of Surgery. She is an Associate Program Director for the General Surgery Residency Program, Associate Site Director for the General Surgery Residency Program at VA Palo Alto, Director of the Balance in Life Program, and Associate Program Director for the Advanced GI/MIS Fellowship at VA Palo Alto.

Each week, S-SPIRE hosts a 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

Presented by: Laura Graham, PhD, Epedimiologist, S-SPIRE Center, Stanford University.
Talk Title: “TBD”

Bio: Laura is a health services researcher with a wide variety of experience in data management and analysis, including large multi-center health services and outcomes research studies, provider survey studies, and laboratory-oriented research. Her research interest include surgical outcomes research, informatics, and implementation science to translate evidence into practice. The bulk of her research experience is centered around the use and analysis of large administrative datasets collected by the Veterans Health Administration. She has been involved in a multitude of Health Services Research & Development funded and unfunded studies using these administrative data to assess surgical outcomes.

Each week, S-SPIRE hosts a 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

Presented by: Kenneth Nieser, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar, General Surgery, Department of Surgery, Stanford University.
Talk Title: “TBD”

Bio: Ken Nieser is a postdoctoral research fellow through the Big Data-Scientist Training Enhancement Program (BD-STEP) at the Palo Alto VA and in the Department of Surgery, Stanford School of Medicine. Ken received a BA in Physics and Mathematics from Swarthmore College and a PhD in Epidemiology with a minor in Statistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. During his PhD, Ken developed and applied statistical methods for improving algorithmic fairness of data analyses used to inform screening and treatment of mental illnesses. These projects included development of an approach for detecting sample subsets with differential psychological symptom patterns and a sample representation reweighting method for improving the precision of subgroup-specific treatment effect estimation.

Presented by: Nathaniel Breg, BD-STEP postdoctoral fellow at the VA Palo Alto
Talk Title: “The Effects of Changing Capitated Payments on Health Care Staffing, Contracting, Utilization, and Quality: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in the Veterans Health Administration.”

Bio: Nathaniel Breg is a BD-STEP postdoctoral fellow at the VA Palo Alto, with a joint appointment with the Department of Health Policy at Stanford. His research focuses on health care provider decision-making. He completed his Ph.D. is in public policy and management with a concentration in applied economics at Carnegie Mellon University in 2022. He previously worked on projects for CMS as an analyst at RTI International.

Canceled due to mandatory winter closure.

Each week, S-SPIRE hosts a 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

Presented by: Todd Wagner, PhD, Professor of Surgery
Talk title: “The Changing Face of Veterans and Implications for Policy: Insurance Coverage for US Veterans from 2010-2021”

Bio: Todd Wagner is a Professor in the Department of Surgery at Stanford University. He studies health information, efficiency and value, and health care access. He is particularly interested in developing learning health care systems that provide high value care. In addition to his role at Stanford, he Directs the Health Economics Resource Center at the Palo Alto VA, where he is a VA Research Career Scientist and he co-directs the VA/NCI Big Data Fellowship.

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

Each week, S-SPIRE hosts a 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

Due to President’s Holiday, the Work In Progress session has been cancelled.

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.

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

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

Speaker and talk: TBD

Each week, S-SPIRE hosts a 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