JH-IIRU Faculty Participate in American College of Surgeons Annual Clinical Congress

On October 9, 2013, JH-IIRU director, Adnan Hyder, associate director, Kent Stevens and faculty member, Amber Mehmood participated in the American College of Surgeons Annual Clinical Congress in Washington DC.

In the panel, “Developing, Implementing and Evaluating Trauma Care Systems: Experiences from Low- and Middle-Income Countries,” Dr. Stevens discussed the trauma care work in Kenya as part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Road Safety Program, and Dr. Mehmood discussed Pakistan’s efforts in trauma care and management. Also participating in the panel was former JH-IIRU post doctoral fellow, Hadley Wesson, who discussed trauma surveillance work at the Red Cross Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.

The panel, moderated by Dr. James Neifeld, a surgical oncologist at the Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Surgery and past JH-IIRU collaborator and  co-moderated by Dr. Hyder, focused on trauma care systems in low- and middle-income countries. The panel aimed to demonstrate that established interventions can make a significant impact on injury prevention and public health, while highlighting fundamental elements in strengthening the care of the injured patient, such as defining the epidemiology of trauma care injuries, implementing evidence-based trauma care interventions, and assessing the overall impact of these interventions.

This year marks the 100 year anniversary of the founding of the American College of Surgeons. The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational association of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to improve the quality of care for the surgical patient by setting high standards for surgical education and practice. The College currently has approximately 78,000 members, including more than 4,000 Fellows in other countries, making it the largest organization of surgeons in the world. There are presently more than 2,600 Associate Fellows.