Charles J. Yeo, MD Samuel D. Gross Professor and Chair, Department of Surgery

The Spring of 2009 represents an exciting time here in the Department of Surgery. Despite the turbulent economic times, our clinical footprint has grown nicely, averaging a 5 to 12% increase per year for the last three years. Newer programs such as our minimally invasive esophagectomy and pancreatectomy programs, our bariatric surgery program, our mechanical heart support program, and our thriving acute care surgery (and intensivist) program are examples of success stories.

We have received good news on the research front. Our residents and faculty just completed a very busy Fall and Winter, when well over a dozen presentations were made at national fora, such as the Southern Surgical, the 4th Academic Surgical Congress, the Southeastern Surgical, and the American Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association, amongst others. Additionally, we are delighted to have recently been notified of major grant awards to Drs. Lanza-Jacoby and Tulenko, representing NIH dollars into the Department. Our clinical research has grown nicely, and the addition of Sharon Molotsky, RN, BSN, CCRC as our Clinical Research Nurse Project Manager will do much to ensure the attention to detail needed for our clinical trials.

My thanks go out to all members of the Department for their enthusiasm, hard work, clinical expertise and academic performance over the last several years. It has been wonderful to see Jefferson’s stature rise amongst other academic medical centers, as we have added faculty, increased our clinical volumes, added new clinical programs, and raised the research profile (both for our basic science researchers and for our clinicians).