Highlights from 2024
The Duke Department of Surgery is proud to reflect on another year full of thrilling advancements, successes, and accomplishments by all of our teams. Our department's commitment to exemplary patient care, education, and research has resulted in growth like never before. And with new infrastructural investments that support groundbreaking innovation and equity, diversity, and inclusion, our teams of faculty, staff, trainees are reaffirming our commitment to being better tomorrow than we are today, in all facets of our mission.
Indeed, it is this multi-faceted approach to surgical care that uniquely elevates Duke Surgery--we recognize that effectively and thoughtfully caring for all of our patients extends well beyond surgical technique, and that interdisciplinary collaborations are our superpower.
Here, we take a look into how our department has implemented this philosophy in four key areas over the past year: expanding options for transplant patients; addressing peri-operative factors to improve patient outcomes; building better surgeons inside and out of the OR; and strategically investigating how we deliver care to all patients in need.
Expanding the Donor Pool in Transplantation
Optimizing Patient Options
From deep biological insights to innovative therapeutic strategies, Duke Surgery consistently expands the limits of what is possible for patient care through a culture of multidisciplinary collaboration.
In transplantation, our robust participation in clinical trials for ex vivo perfusion devices and donation after circulatory death organ utilization has impactfully expanded the donor pool for adult and pediatric patients alike, while explorations in gene therapy aim to optimize organs that would otherwise be unviable or at risk for rejection.
In this specialty and beyond, our interdisciplinary collaborations generate groundbreaking options that make our surgical care a source of hope for even the sickest patients in our care.
Recognizing the Value of Individualized, Perioperative Care
Optimizing Patient Outcomes
While surgical care may culminate in the operating room, our surgeon–scientists recognize factors contributing to successful patient outcomes extend beyond this singular step of our patient's health care journey.
By gaining a better understanding of the impacts of perioperative variables like nutrition, molecular signatures, and access to interdisciplinary care, our surgeons can deliver tailored, individualized plans that better prepare our patients for surgery and recovery.
The more we learn about our patients, and the unique variations between them, the better equipped we are to deliver personalized care that substantially improves overall outcomes.
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Creating Community for Shared Growth and Learning
Optimizing Our Surgeons
At Duke Surgery, ‘community’ means more than just our surroundings.
By creating safe spaces in which to share experiences with colleagues and garner support through commonalities, our Duke surgeons are strengthening each other more than ever before.
Innovative programs and initiatives seek to look deeper within ourselves and assess the humanistic values of surgery. Faculty are leading surgical education into a new era of support and mentorship, while we also look outwardly to the community around us to engage with future surgeons in exciting new ways.
Our faculty's and trainees' deeper engagement with the profession and each other is setting a new standard for what it means to be a good surgeon.
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Addressing Barriers to Care Through Strategic, Data-based Solutions
Optimizing Delivery of Care
Duke Surgery is investing in the future in impactful ways, with innovative infrastructures being implemented within and outside the walls of the hospital with aims of optimizing how—and to whom—we deliver care.
Data scientists, health system operations managers, surgeon–scientists, and a wealth of experts in other fields are working closer than ever to methodically and systematically identify, address, and rectify issues in how patients seek and receive surgical care.
Together, Duke Surgery teams are driving innovative change.
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More From 2024
Visit our Newsroom for additional stories, news, and announcements of department accomplishments across 2024 and more.