Friends,
It is my pleasure to connect with you and share the next edition of our annual newsletter. Despite the lingering challenges we all continue to face in health care after the pandemic, our program continues to see positive areas of growth. This year we have continued our mission to provide evidence-based vascular care to the region while attracting the best and brightest residents. The pandemic-associated changes to the healthcare system have led us to adopt novel solutions around acute vascular care while enhancing the training experience. The establishment of the acute care vascular service has allowed us to increase case volume and develop a more structured system of graded responsibility for the residents. The upshot of the dual-service model is that our team is far more efficient, resulting in a decrease in length-of-stay and resource utilization despite staffing and financial constraints.
Thank you for your continued support and interest in the Division. I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
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Gift establishes the Kenneth and Joy Ouriel Family Professorship in Vascular Surgery
Kenneth Ouriel ’77, ’86M (Res), ’87 (Flw) and his wife, Joy Bracker Ouriel have committed $1.5 million to establish the Kenneth and Joy Ouriel Family Professorship within the Medical Center’s Division of Vascular Surgery. The couple’s endowed gift will advance excellence within the vascular surgery program and provide resources to honor, recruit, and retain world-class faculty and staff leaders.
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Vascular alumni spotlights
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Nicholas Morrissey, '88, '92M (MD) '99M (Res)
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Xzabia A. Caliste '16M (Res)
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Doran Mix '13M (MD), '19M (Res)
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Georgina Pappas, '22M (Res)
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"There is nothing quite like a Rochester-trained surgeon whether you stay at Rochester or go elsewhere. Its effect stays with you for life.” – Nicholas Morrissey, '88, '92M (MD) '99M (Res)
“Seeing how Dr. Stoner shaped the program and his leadership style, all that influenced my decision to stay in academia. I knew I wanted to mirror that relationship between attending and trainees. That was the kind of leader I wanted to be.” – Xzabia A. Caliste '16M (Res)
“If we are going to produce future surgeon scientists, it is necessary to set the foundation for that early on. It’s critical that we support those residents through this process with dedicated time away from the rigors of clinical care.” – Doran Mix '13M (MD), '19M (Res)
“Because of Rochester’s reputation for excellence, it’s expected when you arrive here that you know how to operate. But you gain a level of technical and clinical skills here that set you apart from other residency programs. And you learn how to be a surgeon leader." – Georgina Pappas, '22M (Res)
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Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI)
URMC is a national leader in vascular quality improvement through our participation in the Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI), a collaborative of regional quality groups that collect and analyze vascular surgery data to improve patient outcomes. “We are very pleased that our center has been recognized 5 years in a row as a high-performing VQI center. We have leveraged point-of-care data collection to measure what we do and to improve continuously,” said Dr. Michael Stoner, Chief of Vascular Surgery.
Stacey Esposito, RN, Vascular Surgery Quality Program Manager, notes, “Our division has incorporated VQI outcomes data into our monthly morbidity and mortality conferences and multidisciplinary quality meetings to identify complication trends and gaps in care to drive quality and process improvement initiatives.” Participating in VQI guides our efforts to standardize care processes, reduce costs, decrease complication rates, and improve patient care. VQI centers have seen measurably lower lengths of stay and costs for vascular patients compared to the national inpatient averages.
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Supporting research in vascular surgery
"As my professional life continues to evolve, I continue to realize how lucky I was to be able to train in the Rochester Vascular Surgery program. In addition to (literally) world famous mentors, I worked with an incredible number of future division chiefs, program directors, chairs, deans, innovators, and thought leaders. It’s easy to take one’s training for granted, but it takes some perspective to realize how special the training program in Rochester is and how outstanding technically Rochester faculty and graduates have been.
An obvious pillar of support for this entire effort is the research program. Involvement in research teaches the trainee how to ask and answer questions, and communicate effectively with the rest of the field. It creates the framework for a later academic career, and helps both the trainee and the program achieve excellence. I’ll take a little credit for starting the DeWeese endowment when I was division chief a decade ago, but give full props to Adam Doyle, Dave Linehan, and especially Mike Stoner for taking this to the next level and making it truly work. The Vascular Surgery Research Fellowship Fund, the James DeWeese Endowment, and now the Kenneth and Joy Ouriel Family Professorship are three ways to support surgeons of the future and especially the Division of Vascular Surgery in the present. Meliora!"
– Karl A. Illig, '95M (Res), '97M (Flw), MD
Chief of Research and Education
FLOW Vascular Institute
Illig spent 24 years at the University of Rochester, the last five years as program director and division chief.
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A conversation with Thomas Penn '77M (Res), MD
David Linehan, MD, Seymour I. Schwartz Professorship in Surgery and chair of the Department of Surgery, conducted a recent interview with alumnus and vascular surgeon Thomas Penn '77M (Res), MD. Please enjoy viewing the interview in three parts below.
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Shape Memory Medical Inc. IMPEDE® Embolization Plug
Congratulations to Doran Mix, MD, Andrew Schroeder, DO, and the team at the University of Rochester Medical Center for completing their first embolization case with the IMPEDE® Embolization Plug.
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Join us for this year’s Charles Rob, MD, Lecture
Thursday, November 3
7-8 a.m.
Upper S-Wing Auditorium, Room #3-7619
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Join us for the 2nd annual Vino and Vascular virtual alumni happy hour to hear updates about the Department of Surgery and Division of Vascular Surgery at the University of Rochester.
Thursday, March 2, 2023
8 p.m. (ET)
More details to follow, shortly after the New Year.
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Contact updates & class notes
Have you had a change in address? Do you have good news to share with your fellow alumni? You can submit your updates here, and please stay in touch by following us on social media via the links below.
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Curious to know where your fellow alumni live? Click on our interactive map to see where everyone is located.
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Support the Division of Vascular Surgery
Consider making a gift to the Vascular Surgery Research Fellowship Fund which provides funding for surgical trainees to complete a vascular surgery research fellowship.
For additional information about giving, please contact Jennifer Koehnlein, executive director of development, URMC Clinical Programs at jennifer.koehnlein@rochester.edu.
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