As a trauma surgeon, Dr. Ron Barbosa is an outlier given SAGES’ mostly MIS and general surgery membership.
Still, unlike more specialty heavy societies, Dr. Barbosa values his membership in a society that is more general and practical – and with annual meetings and sessions that he says, “have a very high percentage of me paying attention.”
He adds, “SAGES does a good job of recognizing that much of its population are non-university people and allowing non-academic surgeons to have input.”
In addition to the annual meeting, Dr. Barbosa also says that he often looks to SAGES online educational videos (https://www.sages.org/video/) when he needs help with a case he doesn’t do. He also points to the value of reaching out to follow SAGES surgeons, including friends like Drs. Eric Knauer and Vahagn Nikolian.
As a member of SAGES Acute Care Surgery Committee, Dr. Barbosa is working on getting a white paper published and helping establish the committee’s Facebook presence. After 24 years as a trauma surgeon, Dr. Barbosa says the goal is to “get trauma surgeons more familiar with MIS, and MIS surgeons more familiar with acute care goals.”
Outside of the OR, the father of four has an active presence on Twitter/X where you can follow him @rbarbosa91.