May 23, 2017

More than 300 members of the Texas Children’s Hospital Department of Surgery attended the eighth annual Edmond T. Gonzales, Jr., Surgical Research Day on May 19. The event provided a forum for researchers across the department to showcase their work.

“As the research enterprise within the Department of Surgery grows, this day, where we highlight the research being conducted in the department, is more important than ever,” said Dr. Charles D. Fraser, Jr., surgeon-in-chief at Texas Children’s Hospital. “The new research discoveries coming from academic surgeons and scientists at Texas Children’s Hospital are changing the future of health care.”

This year 159 abstracts were submitted for review. Eleven of these abstracts were chosen for oral presentations on Surgical Research Day and 130 were accepted for poster presentations. This year eight students vied for the Best Presentation award and three faculty members were chosen to present their research.

The 2016 keynote speaker was Dr. Michael Longaker, the Deane P. and Louise Mitchell Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Surgery at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Salter and Packard Children’s Hospital. He is a pediatric plastic surgeon who also directs Stanford Medical School’s Program in Regenerative Medicine and Children’s Surgical Research, and co-directs the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.

Laura Laux Higgins, director of special projects in the Department of Surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital, gave an ethics presentation on ethical violations in research. Higgins worked at leading legal firms as a litigator and spent several years at a top management consulting firm before joining Texas Children’s.

Awards presented at the event were the Samuel Stal Research Award for outstanding research by a resident or fellow, the Research Mentor Award, and Best Oral Presentation and Best Poster Presentation.

  • The Samuel Stal Research Award was presented to Dr. Luis De Leon, a post-doctoral research fellow in Congenital Heart Surgery. The award is named after Dr. Samuel Stal, former chief of Plastic Surgery at Texas Children’s.
  • Congenital Heart Surgeon Dr. Carlos Mery was honored with the Research Mentor Award. The award is given on an annual basis to honor a Department of Surgery faculty member who serves as a research mentor through career development, professional guidance or cultivation of research interests.
  • Best Oral Presentation award was given to Dr. James Fisher who is in the first year of his fetal surgery fellowship. He presented his work on the Development and Validation of a Fetal 3-D Surgical Simulator: Implications for Minimally Invasive In-Utero Gastroschisis Repair.
  • Best Poster award was given to researcher Andrew Lee from Anesthesiology for a poster on Use of the Baxter Faces (BARF) Scale to Measure the Severity of Nausea in Spanish Speaking Children.

Recipients of the 2017 Surgical Seed Grant Awards were announced as the grand finale of Texas Children’s Hospital Surgical Research Day. This grant program, funded by the Department of Surgery, allows surgery researchers to generate the preliminary data necessary for National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications and other extramural funding. Click here to find out who received a seed grant.

The Surgical Research Day Planning Committee included Dr. Jed Nuchtern (chair), Melinda Mathis (co-chair), Dr. Swathi Balaji, Shon Bower, Kathy Carberry, Dr. Jennifer Dietrich, Matthew Girotto, Laura Laux Higgins, Dr. Chester Koh, Dr. Lingkun Kong, Dr. Sandi Lam, Liz McCullum, Anissa Quiroz, Angie Rangel, Dr. Scott Rosenfeld, Stacy Staples and Veronica Victorian.

Three distinguished faculty members from Texas Children’s Hospital Department of Surgery have been given the Master Clinician Award for Excellence in Patient Care from Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Ellen Friedman, Dr. Edmond Gonzales Jr., and Dr. David Wesson are among the recipients of this award in 2017.

“Drs. Friedman, Gonzales and Wesson are accomplished academic surgeons who exemplify the ideals of the Master Clinician award,” said Dr. Charles D. Fraser, Jr., Texas Children’s surgeon-in-chief. “Each of these surgeons lead in their clinical specialties through excellent patient care. They are each model surgeon educators as well.”

The Master Clinician Award is Baylor’s highest institution-wide honor for faculty contributions to patient care. To be considered for the award, the faculty member must be an associate or full professor and have 15 or more years of clinical service as Baylor faculty. Consideration is given to the physician’s enduring contributions to clinical excellence, expertise in patient care as recognized locally, regionally or nationally, professionalism and communication, leadership, mentoring, clinical innovation, and continuous service to the Baylor community.

Friedman is a pediatric otolaryngologist at Texas Children’s and a professor of otolaryngology and the director of the Center for Professionalism in Medicine at Baylor. She previously served as chief of Otolaryngology at Texas Children’s and held the Bobby Alford Endowed Chair in Pediatric Otolaryngology at Baylor for 24 years from 1991 until 2014.

Friedman is a respected leader in the field of otolaryngology serving at a national level in many professional societies. She was the first woman to be president of the American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology (ASPO), and the American Broncho-Esophagological Association (ABEA) renamed a national award for Friedman. The Ellen M. Friedman Award for Excellence in Foreign Body Management is given for excellence in innovation, skill and education in the management of aero-digestive foreign bodies.

Gonzales is a pediatric urologist at Texas Children’s and a professor of Urology at Baylor. He served as chief of Pediatric Urology at Texas Children’s from 1974 until 2012. He was named Chief of Surgery serving from 1988 to 2012 and was the hospital’s first Surgeon-in-Chief guiding surgical efforts from 2008 to 2010. He was then named Director of Surgery at West Campus from 2010 until 2014. In his nearly 40 years at Texas Children’s, Gonzales has established a legacy of excellence for which the hospital and Baylor College of Medicine honored him by creating The Edmond T. Gonzales, Jr., MD, Chair in Pediatric Urology which he held from 2004 until 2012.

Within the field of urology, Gonzales has been a leader in the establishment and expansion of pediatric urology fellowship programs across the country. As a result of his work, pediatric urology fellowship positions have more than quadrupled since the early 1980s. In 2012, he was the recipient of the Urology Medal, the highest accolade bestowed by the Urology Section of the American Academy of Pediatrics, because of his pioneering work in pediatric urology and education. In 2001, the Scott Department of Urology at Baylor College of Medicine honored Dr. Gonzales with the F. Brantley Scott, Jr., Award for Innovation and Creativity in Urology.

Wesson is associate surgeon-in-chief for academic affairs at Texas Children’s and professor of Surgery and Pediatrics at Baylor. He also serves as interim surgeon-in-chief at Children’s Hospital of San Antonio. Wesson served as chief of Pediatric Surgery at Texas Children’s from 1997 to 2012. He led the efforts to grow and obtain Level I accreditation for the Texas Children’s Trauma Center and served as its director from 2007-2014. Dr. Wesson was also instrumental in building other Texas Children’s programs such as the Fetal Center, bariatric surgery and surgical oncology. At Baylor, Dr. Wesson is director of Faculty Education and Development for the Department of Surgery. He was also interim chair of the DeBakey Department of Surgery from 2011 to 2012.

Wesson is well known internationally for participating in some of the earliest definitive studies on the non-operative treatment of solid organ injuries in children. His research brought about a new method of treating splenic trauma non-operatively, and resulted in this protocol becoming the standard of care not only for children but also for all age groups. Wesson received the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma Millennium Commitment Award in 2000 and the Safe Kids Canada Founder Award in 2006. As a member of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma, Wesson is a survey team member for Trauma Center designation. He is a founding member of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention, and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Trauma.

All three surgeons receiving the Master Clinician Award have also received the Distinguished Surgeon Award from Texas Children’s Hospital.

May 16, 2017

Dr. Sundeep Keswani, surgical director of Basic Research and pediatric surgeon at Texas Children’s Hospital and associate professor of surgery in the Division of Pediatric Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine, was recently awarded a $300,000 grant over a period of three years for his project “Targeting the Extracellular Matrix: an Innovative Strategy to Improve Pulmonary Hypertension in Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia.”

The award was from the March of Dimes Foundation, which supports research consistent with its mission to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. Less than 10 percent of applications submitted annually to the foundation are awarded.

The focus of Keswani’s awarded research is to understand the molecular mechanisms of neonatal pulmonary hypertension and develop new innovative therapies for these patients.

“The data and ideas in this application were developed here at Texas Children’s and are a direct result of the support we have received from the Department of Surgery and the hard work of our team,” Keswani said. “This work illustrates the need for surgeons to engage in basic science research to take observations from the bedside to the bench with the overall goal of improving patient outcomes.”

Keswani is a member of the pediatric surgery and fetal surgery teams at Texas Children’s and the principal investigator for the Texas Children’s Laboratory for Regenerative Tissue Repair. His NIH-funded laboratory was launched about two years ago and spans all 10 surgical divisions at Texas Children’s. Researchers in the lab study the molecular mechanisms of regenerative fetal tissue repair and are actively developing novel therapeutics to achieve postnatal regenerative wound healing.

“Conducting research is essential to provide new techniques and treatments for children’s surgery,” said Texas Children’s Surgeon-in-Chief Dr. Charles D. Fraser Jr. “Dr. Keswani’s recent award from the March of Dimes is an example of how the Department of Surgery is continuing to grow in this area, bringing in new funding and contributing significant research findings. We are committed to basic and translational research by supporting surgeon-scientists at Texas Children’s Hospital.”

Other recent awards garnered by researchers in the Regenerative Tissue Repair Lab include:

Balaji receives Wound Healing Foundation Research Grant

Dr. Swathi Balaji received the 2017 Wound Healing Foundation-FLASH Clinical Wound Healing Grant Award for her proposal titled “Pathogenesis of Cutaneous Fibrosis and Scarring.”

It is unknown why some individuals heal with robust fibrosis and scarring while others heal from similar injuries with less scarring. Balaji and her colleagues want to understand how immunoregulatory factors, particularly lymphocytes, make decisive contributions to dermal fibrosis. They propose that there are fundamental biologic differences in how fibroblasts and lymphocytes crosstalk to influence scar formation in different people. At the completion of this study, their team hopes to better understand how inflammation shapes scar formation and start working towards the development of innovative tools to promote immune regulatory responses in wounds to prevent dermal scarring as well as help other disease processes characterized by excessive fibroplasia.

The Wound Healing Foundation (WHF), through the support of the Wound Reach Foundation presented this award to Balaji at the 2017 Wound Healing Society Annual Meeting in San Diego.

Basic science research conducted by Balaji received national awards

Balaji was this year’s recipient of the ACell Young Investigator Faculty Award presented to a junior faculty member for a research abstract at the Regenerative Medicine Workshop at Hilton Head. Balaji presented a keynote lecture on her work titled “Effect of Stretch on Extracellular Matrix and Morphology of Fibroblasts in Regenerative Wound Healing.”

Tissue repair after an injury can have a spectrum of fibrosis outcomes, and fibroblasts are the major cell type that regulates the extracellular matrix and fibrosis. Even within a single tissue, fibroblasts exhibit considerable functional diversity in response to different environmental factors such as biomechanical tension and inflammation.

Balaji and her colleagues want to explain the signaling mechanisms among fibroblasts that communicate and regulate their fibrogenic phenotype. Their group is studying the role of exosomes, which are microvesicles on the order of 30-150 nm and contain functional biomolecules such as proteins, lipids, RNA, miRNA, as biomarkers and/or targeted therapeutics to regulate the functional diversity of tissue fibroblasts and their cellular cross talk.

Dr. Monica Fahrenholtz, the postdoctoral fellow on this research project, received the Wound Healing Society trainee travel award at the conference. She gave a quick presentation at this year’s annual meeting.

April 26, 2017

Seven surgeons in the Texas Children’s Hospital Department of Surgery received Faculty Awards for Excellence in Patient Care from Baylor College of Medicine. The awardees will be formally recognized at the Baylor Annual Education Awards Ceremony on Thursday, May 18.

There are three categories of awards to recognize clinical excellence: Early Career, Star Award for mid-career faculty and Master Clinician for senior faculty members. The Early Career and Star Awards replaced the Rising Star Awards, which were given in previous years.

“I am immensely proud of the clinical expertise and accomplishments of our surgeons at Texas Children’s – including those who received recognition this year and those who will be honored in upcoming years,” said Dr. Charles D. Fraser, Jr., Texas Children’s surgeon-in-chief.

Early Career Awards

Four Texas Children’s surgeons received Early Career Awards: Dr. Carlos Mery from Congenital Heart Surgery; Dr. Laura Monson from Plastic Surgery; Dr. Bindi Naik-Mathuria from Pediatric Surgery; and Dr. Julina Ongkasuwan from Otolaryngology.

Early Career Award recipients are full-time instructors or assistant professors who spend at least 50 percent of their time engaged in patient care and have been in clinical practice as a Baylor faculty member for between two and five years.

The review committee examines applications for clinical excellence and expertise, a consistently high quality of patient care, professionalism and communication, leadership potential, the ability to work effectively with faculty, staff, students and administrators, and continuous service to the Baylor community.

Star Awards

Star Awards were given to Dr. Jeffrey Heinle from Congenital Heart Surgery, Dr. Chester Koh from Urology and Dr. Allen Milewicz from Pediatric Surgery.

Star Award recipients are full-time assistant professors, associate professors or professors engaged in patient care for at least 50 percent of their time, who have at least six years of clinical service as a Baylor faculty member. Faculty members who have transferred from other institutions and have comparable years of service are eligible for the award after three years as Baylor faculty members.

The Star Award committee bases decisions on similar criteria to the Early Career Awards adding the factors of local, regional or national reputation and clinical innovation.

“The dedication to their patients and families shines through for these Early Career and Star Award recipients,” said Dr. Larry Hollier, associate surgeon-in-chief for clinical affairs at Texas Children’s. “They set wonderful examples for their surgical teams, fellows and residents to follow.”

April 11, 2017

Forty-five campers attended Camp Keep Smiling’s Mardi Gras-themed weekend March 24-26, participating in everything from mask making to ropes courses and more.

Camp Keep Smiling is a camp for children with cleft lip and palate. Hosted by the nonprofit Camp for All, the camp provides a safe, fun environment for patients between the ages of 10 and 16 to engage in meaningful social interaction and gain self-confidence. Participants can enjoy activities like canoeing, fishing, archery, ropes courses, basketball and arts and crafts.

Admission is free of charge for patients as it is supported directly by donations.

Texas Children’s Pediatric plastic surgeon Dr. Laura Monson, who helped start the camp, leads the camp with other team members from the plastic surgery division. Physicians, nurses, OR staff and child life specialists serve as counselors who notice tremendous strides in the campers towards the end of the session.

April 4, 2017

Each year, the Denton A. Cooley Lectureship in Surgical Innovation honors the inventiveness, originality and vision of Cooley, one of the first surgeons at Texas Children’s Hospital and an international surgical icon and pioneer. The lecture on March 24 about the science of facial transplantation was the first lecture to be held after Cooley’s death in November 2016.

The 2017 Cooley lecturer was Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, the Helen L. Kimmel Professor of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and Chair of the Department of Plastic Surgery at New York University (NYU) School of Medicine and NYU Langone Medical Center. His lecture was titled “New Face, New Beginning: Reconstruction to Transplantation” and is available online.

Rodriguez, who is a plastic surgeon and dentist, took audience members through the history of facial reconstruction emphasizing improvements in plastic surgery, microsurgery, skin grafting, and bone and tissue transfer. He also shared his experience performing two successful face transplants and what he learned about the surgical transplantation process, organ procurement, organ rejection and many other aspects of the transplant process.

In August 2015, Rodriguez led a team of physicians at NYU in performing the most extensive successful face transplant completed to date. The recipient has continued the path to an excellent recovery and has shown no signs of rejection.

This success was due, in part, by the learning experience of the first face transplant he and his team completed in March 2012 at the University of Maryland Medical Center. This patient has experienced many life-threatening rejection episodes requiring immediate intervention.

“Dr. Cooley would have been so energized by this lecture and learning about the work Dr. Rodriguez is doing,” said Dr. Charles D. Fraser, Jr., surgeon-in-chief at Texas Children’s Hospital. “I hope everyone who attended the lecture and views it online and is inspired to innovate in every way possible.”

March 21, 2017

On March 17, the 500th liver transplant was performed in the Main ORs at Texas Children’s Hospital. Dr. John Goss, medical director of Transplant Services and surgical director of the Liver Transplant Program at Texas Children’s, led the team who transplanted a donor liver into a 5-year-old boy. This volume has only been accomplished by a handful of pediatric programs in the U.S., and Texas Children’s is now among this distinguished group.

The multidisciplinary team involved in the milestone included: surgeons Drs. John Goss, Christine O’Mahony, Thao Nguyen and Abbas Rana; anesthesiologists Drs. Paul Hopkins and Ann Ng; physician assistant, Marielle Faraone, and nursing circulator Jana Brunet, with surgical techs Susan Burnicle and Danielle Govea. Transplant coordinator, Ashton Bramlett, organized the transplant, ensuring all were informed and kept the parents updated.

The extended liver transplant team includes: anesthesiologists Drs. Rahul Baijil, Carlos Campos, Nicholas Carling, Yang Liu, David Mann, Nihar Patel, Steven Stayer, William Waldrop and Kenneth Wayman. Perioperative Services staff on the liver transplant team includes: nurses Theresa Bagley, Jana Brunet, Anita Hadley, Lindsay Meade, Audra Rushing and Wendy Sison, with surgical techs Megan Izaquirre and Marlon Wilkins.

“I would like to congratulate everyone at Texas Children’s who has contributed to the development of our Liver Transplant Program,” said Dr. Charles D. Fraser Jr., surgeon-in-chief at Texas Children’s. “Reaching this significant milestone is a reflection of the incredible teamwork and dedication of those who care for our transplant patients each day.”

The institution’s first liver transplant was completed on September 14, 1988. In 2013, the program performed 43 liver transplants, the largest number completed in one year at Texas Children’s.