News

Three faculty members from the Duke Department of Surgery have received distinguished professorships from Duke University. Distinguished professorships are awarded to the most distinguished faculty who have demonstrated extraordinary scholarship in advancing science and improving human health.

The Department of Surgery held its 4th Annual Research Day April 17. The department holds this event annually to advance its mission of improving patient care through research and training the next generation of surgeon–scientists. The event recognizes the accomplishments of fellows, residents, and students engaged in clinical or basic and translational research through the department.

The U.S. News and World Report has ranked the Duke University School of Medicine 2nd in surgery among the best medical schools in the country. This 2nd place ranking is up considerably from the department’s 5th place ranking last year.

The Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research has released its 2018 rankings of NIH funding for basic and clinical science departments, revealing that Duke Surgery ranks highest nationwide with more than $30 million in funding committed to research.

Please join the department in congratulating Laura Horst Rosenberger, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Division of Surgical Oncology, whose abstract has been accepted by the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) for presentation at the 72nd Annual Cancer Symposium.

Dr. Rosenberger will present her abstract, “Axillary Lymph Node Dissection in Node-Positive Breast Cancer: Are 10-Nodes Adequate and When is Enough, Enough?” during the Breast Parallel Session of the symposium. Abstracts were reviewed and accepted by a blind peer-review program committee.  

Photo: Dara Schoffner (Women of Spirit), Margie Scott (Cancer Survivor Support Ministry), Gayathri Devi (Duke), and Gwendolyn Villines (Women of Spirit)

Even well-insured women experienced financial toxicity associated with cancer care

Even when they had good health insurance coverage, women with breast cancer reported having financial worries related to their care, and the vast majority said they preferred to know about treatment costs at the time of diagnosis.

The findings from a study by Duke Cancer Institute researchers highlight the importance of considering medical costs as women face breast cancer treatment decisions.

Congratulations to Anjuli Gupta, MD, Breast Surgery Fellow, who will be presenting on "Breast Surgery: Adjuvant Chemotherapy Guided by a 21-Gene Expression Assay in Breast Cancer" during the 2018 Association of Women Surgeons (AWS) Annual Conference. Dr. Gupta will be presenting during the Landmark Papers in Surgery Scientific Session, in which participants discuss not their own original research, but instead influential works in surgery that have been published in the last year. Dr. Gupta is mentored by Oluwadamilola Fayanju, MD, MA.

Dr. Nina Tamirisa, Fellow in Breast Surgical Oncology, has been awarded a Conquer Cancer Merit Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

Shelley Hwang, MD, MPH, Vice Chair of Research and Chief of Breast Surgery, has been accepted as a member of the 2018–2019 class of fellows in the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Program.