Welcome to ScrubCast: where we explore basic, clinical, translational, and health services research from Stanford University's Department of Surgery through conversations with the authors.

ScrubCast

This episode focused on an original investigation published in JAMA Network Open titled "Trends in US Surgical Procedures and Health Care System Response to Policies Curtailing Elective Surgical Operations During the COVID-19 Pandemic.”  Dr. Wren tells the story of how she arrived at this topic from the POV of a global surgeon and assembled a varied team of specialists. She also talks about what she’s learned in the process and plans for further research looking at disparities and the impacts of the delta and omicron variants.

Episode 1: How COVID-19 affected Surgery Rates with Dr. Sherry Wren

The topic of Episode 2 spans surgical oncology, reconstructive surgery, and innovation as we look at a recent paper published in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery titled "Creating a Biological Breast Implant with an Omental Fat-Augmented Free Flap." 

Dr. Dung Nguyen describes how she and her team faced a unique breast cancer and reconstruction challenge that led to an innovative new technique.

Dr. Nguyen is a Clinical Professor in Stanford’s Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and the Director of Breast Reconstruction at the Stanford Women’s Cancer Center. She is also the Director of the Adult Plastics Clinic at Stanford Healthcare.

Episode 2: Biological Breast Implants with Dr. Dung Nguyen

In this episode, we focus on a paper published in the journal Anesthesiology titled "Labeled Surgical Caps: A Tool to Improve Perioperative Communication.” I'm joined by one of the authors, Dr. Ausama Nassar. 

Originally known as the #theatrecapchallenge in Australia, Dr. Nassar talks about how the idea of scrub caps with names and positions took off at Stanford. 

Dr. Nassar is a Clinical Assistant Professor in our Division of General Surgery. He is Director of our Surgical Critical Care Fellowship Program, and Director of Stanford Health Care’s Surgery Coaching Program.

Episode 3: Labeled Surgical Caps

Drs. Liam Rose and Todd Wagner join this episode to talk about their paper published in JAMA Network Open: "Association of Expanded Health Care Networks With Utilization Among Veterans Affairs Enrollees.” The two authors describe the process of taking a project from idea to award-winning research.

Dr. Rose is a Health Economist who works at the VA Palo Alto’s Health Economics Resource Center and our own S-SPIRE Center. Dr. Wagner Directs the Health Economics Resource Center at the Palo Alto VA and is a Professor at S-SPIRE.

Episode 4: Expanded Health Care Networks

In this special edition of Scrubcast, we interview two of our winners from our annual Holman Day celebration. 

Dr. Jeff Choi, a general surgery resident just finishing his professional development years, won the award for best podium presentation in the clinical and health services research category. His abstract was titled “Tackling the Bedside Artificial Intelligence Barrier: Natural Language Processing to Extract Injury ICD10 Diagnosis Codes Real-Time from Electronic Medical Records.”

Dr. Cintia Kimura, is a postdoc hailing all the way from Brazil. She won the award for best poster presentation in the clinical and health services research category with her abstract titled "Effect of an online home-based prehabilitation program on outcomes after colorectal surgery."

Episode 5: Holman 2022

Can you teach an old drug new tricks? 

In this episode, we interview Dr. Nazish Sayed, an assistant professor in the Division of Vascular Surgery and the Cardiovascular Institute at Stanford University. Dr. Sayed has a unique role as a research faculty in the Department of Surgery and his expertise in vascular disease. We talk about the beneficial effects of statins on vascular function (in addition to their well-known cholesterol control function) and how statins can prevent cardiovascular diseases. Dr. Sayed et al published a paper in Nature Cardiovascular Research in May 2023 on statins at the molecular level (https://www.nature.com/articles/s44161-023-00267-1), and we discuss the challenges faced in getting the paper published (four years!). The episode concludes with a discussion of Dr. Joseph Wu, Dr. Joseph Woo, and Dr. Sayed's future research plans.

A Closer Look at Statins with Dr. Nazish Sayed

The Department of Surgery at Stanford University

A Closer Look at Statins with Dr. Nazish Sayed

StanfordSurgery