We are enjoying a very successful year on the Acute Care Committee. Our highlights include:
Continued collaboration with the AAST on lap-endoscopic approaches to emergency general surgery patients. Eric Pauli gave a tremendous hands-on course on endoscopic bleeding control and Brent Matthews gave a masterful talk on hernia management in the acute setting, both at the 2019 AAST annual meeting. There has been a request to conduct an advanced endoscopic course with AAST every year to give exposure to the Trauma/CC fellows. Plans have already been made for their meeting next fall.
Established a collaboration with EAST on lap-endoscopic approaches to emergency general surgery patients. Past SAGES president Steve Eubanks and several SAGES members Sharona Ross, Andrea Pakula, Matt Martin, Micheal Cripps, Sara Hennessey, and Kimberly Davis gave tremendous lectures at the 2020 EAST annual meeting. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and there were several requests for another course next year.
We've been asked by the World Society of Emergency Surgery (WSES) to provide similar expertise and faculty to their annual meeting and we are in discussions about making this a possibility in 2021.
We are on schedule to have a 5 society acute care session at SAGES to include SSAT, EAST, AAST, ASCRS, and SAGES.
We continue to have a Facebook journal club that offers CME.
We have started and hope to publish by December 2020, our best practice guidelines on management of surgical oncology emergencies.
Educational Resources
February 25, 2020
The Educational Resources committee continues to work hard to provide the lastest and up to date material for our SAGES members. The 2 big projects we are working on are listed below.
1. Masters Content Review: We are finalizing the review forms and should be able to launch the review of all Foregut content soon. We are working with the Curriculum Task Force to provide feedback on the review mechanism. We have a pool of about 9-10 reviewers and estimate each reviewer to have about 50-60 videos to review. We will be working on improving the process to provide the best educational platform for our SAGES members.
2. Subscriptions: I think we can say the subscription pilot did very well. We currently have about 822 subscriptions and more coming in. We offered the candidate members a complimentary subscription this year and hope to continue this to help them stay informed on best practices. The subscription content material will be continually updated to offer our SAGES members the most up to date information. The Educational Resources committee's entire library of educational material ($3500 value) is available for a $25/year subscription fee.
Community Practice Task Force
February 15, 2020
The Community Practice Task Force is growing and ever-evolving. We have recently updated our goals as follows:
Organize the efforts regarding Community Practice Surgery.
Promote the SAGES member participation of Community Practice Surgeons.
Create novel and innovative ways to engage our Community Practice Members.
Establish a forum for Community Practice Surgery members to identify and address specific concerns. Broadly, the task force will encompass topics such as:
Career Development
Leadership skill development
Mentorship
Advocacy and Policy
Billing/coding
Credentialing
Business of Surgery
Operational and financial matters, marketing, recruitment
We will communicate yearly with the Program Chairs to help promote sessions that will be of particular interest to the Community Practice Surgeon. We are in the works of creating a White Paper highlighting the Community Practice Surgeon.
Facebook Task Force
November 16, 2019
Update as of November 15 2019.
Mission of this task force was to initiate and then expand SAGES experts and eduction materials into the world of closed (private) Facebook communities with the intent to foster transparent, immediate, and global collaboration between surgeons wishing to optimize patient outcomes. The future goal is to weave these dynamic platforms and posts into the larger education initiatives of SAGES. The 8 private SAGES Facebook communities have all been thriving and clearly global. All growth is because of the hard work that many individuals put into each group. Each surgeon admin and moderator should be commended. All groups started in March 2017. We have also published a SAGES white paper on these groups. Heather Logghe, MD has been hard at work finishing and soon publishing the Delphi process research she completed that demonstrates the value within each group. Plan to submit to EC before January 2020.
SAGES Colorectal Surgery Masters Program Collaboration: 2540 members. Very active and growing globally. Key moderator: Dan Popowich. top 10 countries: USA, India, Egypt, Pakistan, UK, Mexico, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Italy, and Brazil.
SAGES Foregut Surgery Masters Program Collaboration: 2490 members. Very active and growing. Key moderator: Andrew Wright. top 10 countries: USA, India, Mexico, Pakistan, UK, Egypt, Canada, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Australia.
SAGES Bariatric Surgery Masters Program Collaboration: members 1428. Key moderators: Alison Barrett and Laura Doyan
SAGES Robotic Surgery Masters Program Collaboration: 1400 members. key moderators: Rockson Liu and TJ Swope
SAGES HPB Surgery Masters Program Collaboration: 1268 members. growing. many contributors doing amazing work here.
SAGES Acute Care Surgery Masters Program Collaboration: members 1040. many key contributors.
SAGES Hernia Surgery Masters Program Collaboration: membership at 1059. David Earle current key moderator doing a fantastic job.
SAGES Flex Endo Masters Program Collaboration: 564 members. Eric Pauli moderating.
Technology and Value Assessment
November 14, 2019
This Fall 2020 at SAGES, San Francisco, TAVAC engaged in small-group strategic planning on two fronts:
A research project. The preliminary areas of interest were:
1. AI to drive technology (with AI Task Force); algorithms for medical and surgical care.
2. Carbon footprint of technology (Green tech, biodegradables).
3. Bias in publications regarding devices; re-validate current devices in regard to bias.
4. Evaluate Non-FDA Approved procedures.
6. Best practices (ERAS), drive best practice use (work with VA).
7. Value of Weight Loss Interventions (Cost per Lb).
8. ICG in Colorectal Surgery.
TAVAC Goals. Using Value as the over-riding mission, and considering the “P’s”of stakeholders - Patients, Payors, Providers, Public - and the drivers of value - outcomes, safety, cost, choice, accessibility, physician health:
What is TAVAC trying to answer?
1. How to we define/measure value for different stakeholders? (Patients, providers, payers) – Find common/overlapping ground between groups, and Perception for each stakeholder group
2. What outcome measures are there, and which ones matter, and to who?
3. Absolute value versus relative value
4. How do we improve value? Can we change/improve practice? And to Whom to do improve value for? (What do our statements do; what’s its purpose; the perception of these statements)
5. Change “cost” to “value” in committee goals
6. Algorithm for defining value (quality/cost) and identifying quality and cost measures
7. Defining value relative to the overall healthcare system
TAVAC in the coming months will narrow these questions to a new, concise strategic plan that will guide it’s key products moving forward.
Ongoing Projects Update:
1. Tech alerts of new FDA devices published bi-montlhy
2. TAVAC documents on WATS3D, Cellvisio, VBA, endoluminal bariatric, microinstruments, stents, mesh are forthcoming.
3. A new futures technologies blog is forthcoming.
Thank you to my co-chairs Sharona Ross and David Renton, and all of the committee members.
Shawn Tsuda MD
Research and Career Development
November 5, 2019
The Research and Career Development Committee has several exciting new initiatives:
· We are currently in the process of updating the Delphi study to determine the top research priorities of SAGES as an organization. We plan to complete this study by SAGES 2020.
· We plan to organize a joint subcommittee with members of the alternative task force to review the past awarded grants from 2015-2019 with the objective of identifying grants that have potential for external funding and provide the PI with infrastructure and mentoring.
· We are in the process of developing a Grantsmanship Masters sub-pathway which will become part of the future Leadership/Professionalism Masters Program
· We plan to work closely with the We R SAGES and Community Practice Committees to brainstorm on how to more effectively integrate leadership/professionalism/career development topics into the annual SAGES meeting program.
· We will continue to work with the Acute Care Task Force and AATS (in addition to other societies) to foster multi-societal collaborations on future registry studies.
Bylaws
November 3, 2019
SAGES Bylaws Fall Meeting Summary
October 27, 2019
Request for approval:
Insertion of a general code of conduct statement into Article XIII. Membership, Section 1
Suggested revision to be inserted at the end of this section
SAGES is dedicated to providing a safe, inclusive, and welcoming experience for all members. We encourage diversity of thought and expression. Civility and professionalism are expected from all SAGES members. SAGES members will neither engage in, nor condone, any discrimination or harassment that contributes to an uncomfortable, ineffective or hostile environment.
Suggest adding the graphic describing the balance of attributes SAGES members should strive for - presented previously during a similar discussion during the We R SAGES task force Spring meeting.
Insert an additional item into Article XIII. Membership, Section 13. Maintenance of SAGES Membership
Suggested revision of adding the new item number would adjust the current numbering, based on the executive committee’s review. The Bylaws committee suggests inserting the recommended item as “#4”. Thereby pushing the current “#4” – Failure or refusal to cooperate, to now become the new “#5”.
Suggested revisions to the current text
Item 4 – Violation of the SAGES Code of Conduct during SAGES Annual Meetings and Events
SAGES is dedicated to providing a safe, including, and welcoming experience for everyone at every SAGES sponsored event. We encourage diversity of thought and expression. Civility and professionalism are expected at every SAGES sponsored event. SAGES members, meeting/event attendees and guest will neither engage in, nor condone, any discrimination or harassment that contribute to an uncomfortable, ineffective or hostile environment.
SAGES members, meeting/event attendees and guests have an obligation to act if they notice unethical or inappropriate conduct in other SAGES members, attendees of SAGES meetings/events or their guests. If directly approaching the individual(s) is insufficient to resolve the problem, this obligation includes reporting the conduct to any member of the SAGES Executive Committee, Executive Director or any member of the Ethics Committee. The disciplinary process outlined in SAGES Bylaws, Article XIII, Section 13 will then be followed.
Suggest changing references to the “Ethics Liaison Group” to the more current “Ethics Committee” in Article XIII, Section 13
Background:
The committee recommends that a statement describing a general code of conduct expected from SAGES members be inserted into Article XIII. Membership. Additional comments regarding expected conduct when attending SAGES Annual Meetings and Events were also specifically recommended.
Please refer to the Code of Conduct that the Board had previously approved and circulated to annual meeting attendees in the Spring 2019.
Budget request (if any): Not applicable
Timeline and metrics:
Sallie Matthews will assist with coordinating the presentation of these recommendations through the appropriate processes/protocols to allow for potential approval during our next scheduled meeting during ACS 2020.
Collaborators (if any – other committees/organizations):
Executive Board
Executive Director
Ethics Committee
Technology Council
October 26, 2019
The Technology Council will be holding its first formal meeting at the ACS San Francisco 2019.
The main agenda will be updating members on plans for the NBT summit on Feb 21. It is from that NBT summit that we hope much of the additional business of the Tech Council will arise. The NBT Summit is part of SAGES Innovation Weekend in February that will also include the Advocacy Summit and the AI Video Annotation conference.
Other matters to be addressed at the Tech Council will be hearing from committee delegates about technology related opportunities / challenges and sharing across committees and hearing innovative ideas that representative committees would like to sound against their peers. We will also be looking to hear committee delegates how best to facilitate communication and collaboration on Tech related issues without adding a new layer of bureaucracy.