Caitlin Bell, MD, general cardiology fellow at Stanford University and Leeper Lab member, has been selected as a biomedical research fellow through the CZ Biohub Physician-Scientist Fellowship Program.  Dr. Bell, will join 6 other physician-scientests from Stanford and UCSF in July of 2021, to pursue their biomeidal research through the fellowship program.  Congratulations to Dr. Bell on this amazing achievement!

Watch Dr. Dalman's grand rounds talk. 

Suleman Khan, a third year Stanford Medical Student, has been awarded the 2020 Dorothy Dee and Marjorie Helene Boring Trust Award under the guidance of Vascular Surgery faculty: Dr. Oliver Aalami, Dr. Carla Pugh, and Dr. Ronald Dalman. The Boring Trust Research Award supports Stanford Medical Students to spearhead independent research projects aiming to transform Cardiovascular care. It provides students with $15,000 over the course of a year to be applied towards research and educational expenses.

Suleman's project, entitled Vascular1, aims to combine Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality to teach medical students and surgical residents ultrasound guided vascular access (USGVA) strategies. USGVA is often learned on patients who suffer unnecessary complications or through expensive mannequins. Through Vascular1 and affordable Oculus Quest VR headsets, medical trainees will dynamically learn the hand-eye coordination skills required for safe USGVA. Suleman's project will also include an educational study of trainees to compare pre- and post- training performance with Vascular1 with the hope of distributing the platform to other institutions. 
Boring Trust Website

Dr. Nicholas Leeper is the recipient of the 2020 Falk Medical Research Trust Transformational Award. The $1M in funding from Health Resources in Action will fund Leeper's project "Precision Nanotherapies for Cardiovascular Disease" through November 2022.

Surgery News Link

We are excited to annonce that Dr. Manuel Garcia-Toca has been promoted to Clinical Professor of Surgery, effective November 1, 2020.  We congratulate Dr. Garcia-Toca on this accomplishment and thank him for his didication to our division.  We will continue to look forward to future achievements.  

• Surgery News Link 

Kenneth Tran, MD, PGY 3, Vascular Surgery Integrated resident on professional development, recieved the 2021 VESS/Medtronic Resident Research Award.  Dr. Tran's research proposal “Patient-specific computational fluid dynamics modeling for assessing the hemodynamic performance of complex endovascular aneurysm repair”, was selected in a competative application process. Dr. Tran will receive $12,500 in research support this coming year. Congratulations to Dr. Tran on this outstanding achievement. 

Dr. Dalman's publication in the Vascular & Endovascular Review outlines the background and proposed design for his study on metformin for growth suppression in patients with small AAA.

Dr. Dalman recently received an NIH R61-33 grant to fund his Limiting AAA with Metformin (LIMIT Trial). The trial will study Metformin Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Suppression.  Patients will be enrolled starting Summer 2021. 

Link to publication in VER

Representation Matters: Recruitment and Retention of URM to Vascular Surgery

Dr. Ron Dalman, Chief of Vascular Medicine joins faculty member Dr. Elsie Ross and program alumna Dr. Chelsea Dorsey along with UCSF's Dr. Joel Ramirez in a discussion on recruitment and retention of URM to vascular surgery in this episode of the Audible Bleeding podcast.
Link to Podcast 

Dr. Shipra Arya has been chosen to chair the Association of VA Surgeons' (AVAS) new Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

Link to AVAS Announcement

Dr. Eri Fukaya has been promoted to Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery, effecitve July 16, 2020.  We congratulate Dr. Fukaya on her spectacular clinical and scholarly performance and thank her for her didication to vascular health. 

We are excited to announce that Dr. Garcia-Toca has been selected as the Chief of the Division of  Vascular Surgery at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (SCVMC). We believe that under Dr. Garcia-Toca's leadership the division will continue on a trajectory excellence and continued growth.  

Since the hire of Drs. Sorial and Garcia-Toca at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (SCVMC) in 2015, we have witnessed incredible growth in the Vascular Surgery service.  Due to their excellent in patient care and increased patient volume, SCVMC requested that we hire a third surgeon in 2018.  We were fortunate enough to recruit Dr. Sgroi.  Together, our three physicians have continued to expand the breadth of the Vascular Surgery service at SCVMC. 

We look forward to continued Vascular Surgery programmatic growth and expansion at SCVMC.

The Division of Vascular Surgery's Training Program has a new director. Dr. Venita Chandra has assumed leadership of both the Vascular Surgery Residency and Fellowship Programs. This announcment was the top @StanfordSurgery tweet of the month of May 2020. The enthusiasm this annoucment has received reflects both Dr. Chandra’s leadership potential as well as Dr. Lee’s decade-long effort to make our training program worthy of this much attention. Unlimited opportunity, building off of peer-leading market position - unbeatable combination.

Article on Stanford Surgery

Dr. Elsie Ross Assistant Professor of Surgery, Division of Vascular Surgery, in collaboration with Dr. Philip Tsao and lead invistigator, Dr. Joseph Wu from the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, recieved the Chang Zuckerberg Initative Grant to study vascular disease in diverse patients.

Dr. Ross CZI Project Summary

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Awards $14 Million to Support Inflammation Research 

The Division of Vascular Surgery had the pleasure of interviewing an excelent group of vascular surgery fellowship applicants on March 18, 2020. The Division of Vascular Surgery faculty and staff were dedicated to keeping the interviews running as planned dispite a rapidly changing environment due to the COVID-19 shelter-in-place restrictions.

Article: Fellowship Interviews Move Online

Congratulations to Dr. Fukaya on being selected as the winner of the AVF-JOBST grant by the American Venous Forum Foundation. Dr. Fukaya will use this grant to study the role of leg bioimpedance as a biomarker for determining venous disease progression. 

Dr. E. John Harris received the Distinguished Fellow Award at the AVF 2020 Annual Meeting. The Distinguished Fellow awards are provided to recognized AVF members who have enhanced the AVF by volunteering for committees, as meeting Faculty, provided educational enhancment for trainees, and advanced venous disese by research and education. Congratulations to Dr. Harris on this achievment. 

We are proud to announce that Vascular Surgery's Lead Advanced Practice Provider Ani Bagdasarian, received a Stanford Health Care Virtual WOW Card as a result of her outstanding team work and dedication to high quality patient care at SHC. Ani's actions are another example of C-I-CARE in action.

Stanford Health Care's C-I-CARE program is a framework for structuring best practice communications and developing relationship based care approaches with patients.
Learn more about SHC's C-I-CARE

The Division of Vascular Surgery had the pleasure of interviewing an excelent crop of medical students applying for the Vascular Surgery Integrated program.  While we can only match two of them, we look forward to working with all of them in future collaborations.

Dr. Shipra Arya, Associate Professor in the Division of Vascular Surgery, was elected secretary of the Surgical Outcomes Club. Dr. Arya will ascend to the presidency in two years.

The Surgical Outcomes Club is a consortium of surgeons and scientists interested in advancing health services and outcomes research in surgery. Dr. Arya was one of the club's Zinner Fellows as a junior faculty member.

Vascular Surgery Resident Dr. Elizabeth George won the 2019 Subspecialty Young Investigators Award from the Association for Academic Surgery (AAS). The award is open to residents or fellows in Cardiothoracic, Vascular, Orthopedics, Urology, Plastics and Otolaryngology. 

"The award sponsors my attendance to the AAS Fall Courses which are designed to inspire young academic surgeons and facilitate a lifelong career in academic surgery," said George. "Last year I attended the Annual Fundamentals of Surgical Research Course, and this year I will attend the Annual Early Career Development Course."

The Division of Vascular Surgery welcomes the new vascular surgery and vascular medicine trainees for the 2019-2020 year and celebrated the graduation of the  Vascular Medicine fellow, Dr. Mohammad Atif Rana.

Dr. Eri Fukaya's Graduation Remarkes

Vascular Medicine Fellow: Amy Kaufman, MD (left)
Vascular Surgery Interns: Shernaz Dossabohy, MD and Shaunak Adkar, MD (right)
Vascular Surgery Fellow: Teddy Hart, MD (not pictured)

Dr. Ross’ research builds on the promise of artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify patients at risk for, or already affected by, peripheral arterial disease (PAD) through analysis of unstructured electronic health records. This focus is directly aligned with Stanford Medicine’s Integrated Strategic Plan - “Value focused, digitally driven, uniquely Stanford” (http://med.stanford.edu/isp/strategic-priorities.html), as well as our emphasis on Precision Health - "predicting, preventing and curing, precisely".  (http://med.stanford.edu/precisionhealth.html). Her research promises to revolutionize how tens of millions patients with PAD, at 3-fold risk for premature death by virtue of this diagnosis, are identified, offered early intervention and ultimately managed, all in the most efficient and cost-effective method possible. Potentially paradigm changing research in cardiovascular care - a powerful partnership between the Divisions of Vascular Surgery and Bioinformatics at Stanford Medicine.

Assistant Professor of Surgery, Dr. Elsie Ross was featured on the front cover of the August 2019 edition of the Society for Vascular Surgery publication Vascular Specialist.

Congratulations to Dr. Leeper on his promotion to Professor! The University Provost approved the promotion of Dr. Nicholas Leeper to Professor in the Department of Surgery and the Department of Medicine, effective August 1, 2019. Join us in congratulating Dr. Leeper on this well-deserved promotion!

Health technology solutions—such as mobile apps and wearables—can play a huge role in activity tracking and assessing the outcomes of peripheral vascular interventions, says Ronald L Dalman (Stanford, USA), president-elect of the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS). Down the road, the SVS plans a branded mobile activity tracker and Dalman notes that such tools may also be used to measure aneurysm diameter, or look for evidence of stroke when patients are sleeping. Still, accuracy, expense, appropriateness, privacy, reliability, reproducibility and “those types of issues” will be a concern, he states.

Dalman spoke to Vascular News at the SVS Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM; 12–15 June 2019, National Harbor, USA).

KGO TV- The Heart of a Warrior: Saving Tom Tolbert

Bay Area sports personality and former Golden State Warrior Tom Tolbert suffered an aortic dissection in 2017. The documentary shows how Stanford Hospital treated the life-threatening tear near his heart. Dr. Joseph Woo, Chair of the Dept. of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Dr. Jason Lee, Director of Endovascular Surgery, and Dr. David Liang, professor of cardiovascular medicine, are interviewed for the story.

Watch the Documentary

Congratulations to Dr. Nicholas Leeper, Assistant Professor of Surgery and Medicine for receiving the Established Investigator Award (EIA) from the American Heart Association (AHA).  Per the AHA, this award is designed “to support mid-career investigators with unusual promise and established records of accomplishments.”   The Leeper Lab plans to use this support to investigate emerging immunological aspects of atherosclerosis, with a focus on developing new translational therapies designed to suppress vascular inflammation.

In the largest genetics study ever performed on varicose veins, Dr. Fukaya and colleagues pursue the inherited and environmental drivers of disease and identify a novel link between varicose veins and human height.

We are excited to welcome Stanford Vascular Surgery graduates Dr. Elsie Gyang Ross and Dr. Michael Sgroi to the Stanford Division of Vascular Surgery Faculty.  Dr. Ross is an Assistant Professor of Surgery and will be at Stanford Hospital and Palo Alto VA.  Dr. Sgroi is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery and will be at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. 

We are excited to announce that per the June 2018 business meeting of the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS), Dr. Ron Dalman has been appointed to Society Vice President for the 2018-2019 academic year. SVS bylaws state that, in sequential years the Vice President accedes to the positions of President-Elect, and then President. Thus, Dr. Dalman will serve as SVS President during the 2020-2021 academic year.  In his future role as SVS President, Dr. Dalman will be preceded by emeritus Stanford Vascular Surgery faculty Drs. Thomas J. Fogarty (1995) and Christopher K. Zarins (1999). 

The SVS is the world’s oldest (founded in 1947) and most influential society dedicated to the advancement of vascular health and well-being, with 6,000 members in the USA and in 13 international chapters worldwide. 

Congratulations to Dr. Jason Lee for his featured news story about a grateful patient who was connected to Dr. Lee through twitter.  

We are honored to host Dr. Peter Gloviczki as our Visiting Professor on Monday, April 2nd at the Vascular Surgery Conference and again on Tuesday, April 3, 2018 at the Department of Surgery Grand Rounds.

Featuring: Featuring Jose E. Almeida, chairman, president, and CEO, Baxter International INC. 

Ticket Registration: tickets.stanford.edu

Dr. Nicholas Leeper, associate professor in the Division of Vascular Surgery, joined Stanford Cardiologists Drs. Abha Khandelwal and Marco Perez to discuss the latest trends in preventing heart disease, options for treatment and more in a Facebook Live Event on February 22, 2018.  Watch the video here

Stanford Bio-X Accepting Letters of Intent for the Stanford Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Seed Grants Program, Round 9

Letters must be received by: Monday, March 19, 2018 by 5:00 PM (PST)
Learn more here.

Featuring: Josh Makower, founder & Chairman ExploraMed Development LLC

Ticket Registration: tickets.stanford.edu

The Division of Cardiovascular Sciences of the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute is seeking physician-scientists with cardiovascular disease expertise across the lifespan.

Ideal candidates will have an outstanding record of research accomplishments, excellent interpersonal and communication skills, and the ability to oversee complex research programs. Desired expertise include, but not limited to, interventional cardiology, cardiovascular device, electrophysiology, coronary artery and/or vascular disease, hypertension, and heart failure.

Interested candidates please contact 

Dr. Yves Rosenberg at rosenbey@nih.gov or 301-435-1292 (tel) 301-480-3667 (fax)

Special Guest Lecture
Friday, November 10, 2017

“Hybrid Aortic Arch Surgery. Lessons Learnt from a Ten-Year Experience”

Presented by:

Ramesh K. Tripathi, MD, FRCS, FRACS
Adjunct Professor
Vascular and Endovascular Surgery
Faculty of Science, Health, Education and Engineering
University of the Sunshine Coast
Queensland, Australia

Posters:

Effects of Regional and General Anesthesia on Infrainguinal Bypass Surgery Outcomes
Michael D. Sgroi, MD, Graeme McFarland, MD, Matthew Mell, MD
Stanford University, CA

Presentations:

Complex EVAR is Associated with Higher Peri-Operative Mortality but Not Late-Mortality Compared to Infrarenal EVAR Amongst Octogenarians
Kenneth Tran, MD, Andy Lee, MD, Graeme McFarland, MD, Mike Sgroi, MD, Nathan Itoga, MD, Jason Lee, MD
Stanford School of Medicine, CA

Long-Term Outcomes after Repair of Symptomatic Non-Ruptured Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms
Karen Trang, BS, Venita Chandra, MD, Whitt Virgin-Downey, BA, Jason T. Lee, MD, E. John Harris, MD, Ronald L. Dalman, MD, Matthew W. Mell, MD, MS
Stanford School of Medicine, CA

Episode-Based Cost Reduction for Endovascular Aneurysm Repair
Ronald L. Dalman, MD1 , Ning Tang, MD2 , Diana Patterson2 ,Harnoor Jolly2 , Rika Ohkuma2 , Matthew W. Mell, MD1
1Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 2Stanford Health Care,
Stanford, CA

September 21 - 22, 2017

Li Ka Shing Center | Stanford, CA

Event Registration

Agenda and Event Information

 Stanford Medicine's Office of Faculty Development and Diversity is offering a workshop with Stanford Graudate School of Business lecturer Matt Abrahams.  

 "Think Fast, Talk Smart: Confident, Connected, and Compelling Presentations"

Monday, October 2, 2017 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, LK120

Register Here

Congratulations to Vascular Surgery fellowship graduates 
Drs. Andy Lee and Tiffany Wu

We honor your commitment to Vascular Surgery and look forward to your future accomplishments.  

Vascular Surgery Chief Dr. Ron Dalman and Vascular Surgery Program Director Dr. Jason Lee reflect on the training of graduating fellows Drs. Andy Lee and Tiffany Wu at the 2017 Vascular Surgery Graduation Dinner.  

Please see link for Dr. Dalman's Graduation Address