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The Penn Surgery Society News is published quarterly for its members, colleagues and friends of the Department of Surgery.

For submissions, inquiries or comments, please contact clyde.barker@uphs.upenn.edu.

Message from the ChairmanHumanism was a movement dur-

ing the Renaissance that extolled thepursuit of virtue through a reneweddevotion to classical Greek andRoman studies, particularly philoso-phy, poetry, and history. Hence theuse of the word “humanities” to sig-nify certain college courses. In medi-cine, the connotation of humanismhas been slightly modified to reflect

the adherence to ethical standards and delivery of compassionatecare, as embodied in the oath of Hippocrates.

Arnold P. Gold was a pediatricneurologist who espoused empathyand created a foundation that bears hisname. The foundation promotes youngphysicians to provide not only compas-sionate patient care, but also collabora-tive and scientifically excellent care. Dr.Gold died recently at the age of 92.His foundation established the GoldHumanism Honor Society, which recognizes students whodemonstrate compassionate patient care and are also role models,mentors, and leaders in medicine. Members are nominated by theirpeers.

Thus, the definition of humanism has evolved. Perhaps themost extreme interpretation of humanism is to sacrifice one’s life

in order to save the life ofothers. Don Liu MD PhDbegan his General Surgeryinternship at Penn in 1990.I was fortunate to be in thesame class as Don. He maybe the nicest person whomI have ever met. The moreDon was pushed (by theresidency), the gentler hebecame. He would just puthis head down and get the

work done with a calm smile, without complaining. Once, he wasinadvertently shocked during a code in the Cardiac ICU, butremarkably he didn’t go home until after his call shift ended. Donbecame the Chief of Pediatric Surgery at the University ofChicago. He was loved by all. In 2012, while on vacation with hisfamily on Lake Michigan, he noticed two children struggling in therough current of the lake. He immediately swam out after them.They made it back to shore, but Don perished. He had so muchmore to give – to his patients and their families, his three children,and his wife Dana Suskind, a pediatric otolaryngologist.

We have created a new prize for graduating surgical residentscalled The Donald C. Liu Humanism Hero in Surgery Award. The

award is supportedthrough the gen-erosity of DanaSuskind and JohnList. The Award willbe given periodicallyto a member of thesurgical housestaffwho exhibits com-passion and sensitiv-ity in the care of thesurgical patient in acollegial, collabora-tive, self less, andethical manner. Theawardee wi l l be

selected by the Chairman and the Vice Chair of Education, basedon peer and faculty nominations. Jon Morris identified the perfectprize - the Norman Rockwell painting (shown above) capturingthe innocence and camaraderie of young boys playing baseball.The painting symbolizes Don’s love of children, his own and allthe kids who so greatly benefitted from his expert and passionatecare over the years. Furthermore, Don was a devout baseball fanand a dad coach. He will not be forgotten.

Ron DeMatteo, MD

John Rhea Barton

Professor and Chairman

of Department of Surgery

Message from the Chairman 1

From the Editor 2-3

Steve Fishman 4

Ali Naji 5

Danny Jacobs 6

Alumni News 7

Sunil Singhal 8

Catching Up 8-9

Wall of Fame 10-12

IN THIS ISSUE

Donald Liu

I recently heard from his family that Joseph Mehl had died.This marked a sad end to an important chapter in my life. Half acentury ago Joe Mehl was motivated by generosity and courageto give a kidney to his younger brother Howard. The transplantwas HUP’s first and one of the first in this part of the country.

The news of Joe’s death brought back a lot of memories. InMarch of 1964 I was finishing my general surgery residency. Atthat time Jonathan Rhoads gave his chief residents a month off tosupplement their HUP training by visiting other centers. Likeother residents I went to the MayoClinic and to Houston to watch MikeDeBakey and Denton Cooley operate.Then because I had developed a vagueinterest in transplantation I decided tospend a week visiting hospitals thathad active kidney transplant pro-grams. It was easy to do because atthe time there were only 3 in thecountry, Joe Murray’s in Boston at theBrigham, David Hume’s in Richmond at Medical College ofVirginia and Tom Starzl’s at the University of Colorado inDenver. A year later I couldn’t have visited all the active U.S.transplant centers in a week or even in several months. By thenthere were probably 50. The explosion in activity had beencaused by Starzl’s demonstration that rejection of transplantedkidneys, previously found irreversible, could be stopped andreversed.

Notes I had saved from my trip reminded me what a differ-ent world it was in 1964. The Vietnam war was raging and beingprotested. Weeks before John Kennedy had been shot. TheBeatles had just arrived in the U.S. and were on Ed Sullivan’s TVshow. Several kidney transplant survivors I saw had beenimmunosuppressed by whole body irradiation rather than drugs.I was shown a patient who was being kept alive by a transplantedchimpanzee kidney. Still in the future were heart transplantation,liver transplantation, tissue typing, cross matching, brain deathof cadaveric donors, Medicare and almost 2 decades into thefuture cyclosporine and FK506. The highpoint of my trip camein Denver where the young Tom Starzl invited me to scrub and

first assist him on a kidney transplant. His enthusiasm and

optimism were infectious. I came away wanting to become atransplant surgeon.

But how to get started? Back in Philadelphia and almost fin-ished with my surgical training I found that there was no enthu-siasm for a transplant program at HUP. Besides I had no job offer.So I signed up for a year of research in the department of geneticswhere I learned that one of the world’s foremost transplant biol-ogists had just been appointed chairman. This was RupertBillingham.

At the time HUP’s nephrologists strongly opposed trans-plantation. It wasn’t hard to understand why. They saw it as toorisky since the published literature indicated that success of kid-ney transplants was less than 10%. From Starzl I had heard a dif-ferent assessment based on his results. But his results were uniqueand so new that not many had heard about them. Barely fivemonths before my visit with him in Denver Tom Starzl had givena dramatic report that would change the outlook for transplanta-tion. At a small conference organized by the National Research

Council about 25 of the world’s mostexperienced transplant clinicianswere assembled in Washington toreview the status of the field. Theresults they presented were terrible.Altogether about 200 kidney trans-plants had been done. Less than 10%of the recipients had survived as longas 3 months. Most of the patients hadbeen immunosuppressed by whole

body irradiation. Only 6 of them had lived a year. Hope wasexpressed that the new immunosuppressive drugs might be moreeffective. But when Murray reported his first 10 patients treatedwith 6- mercaptopurine and azathioprine instead of irradiationonly one had survived for a year. The others died within 6months. Thus at this point the drugs seemed no more effectivethan radiation. The mood at the conference was so gloomy thatsome participants questioned whether continued activity inhuman transplantation could be justified.

The gloom was then dispelled by only one presentation,given by a newcomer to the field, the young and at the time vir-tually unknown Tom Starzl. He described a new immunosup-pressive protocol that had reversed rejection and allowed greaterthan 70% renal graft survival. He had more surviving patientsthan the rest of the world’s better known experts combined. Atfirst his audience was incredulous. Tapes that recorded the subse-quent acrimonious discussion were later claimed to be lost buteventually Starzl’s unprecedented results were believed becausehe had brought with him charts detailing daily progress and lab-oratory studies of each patient. Starzl’s innovation based on hisconsistent success in dog experiments was to treat rejection with

Clyde F. Barker, M.D.

From the Editor

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Joe and Howard Mehl

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large doses of prednisone. Others had found rejection irreversibleand usually fatal. Although Starzl’s patients like the others alwaysbegan to reject while they were on azathioprine alone he couldstop the rejection, allowing the kidney to recover. The outlook fortransplantation was completely changed by Starzl’s report.Transplant historian Nick Tilney described it as “letting the genieout of the bottle”. Many of the conference par-ticipants promptly followed Starzl to Denverto learn how to adopt his immunosuppressiveprotocol.

A year later as I was midway through myresearch year with Billingham disseminationof Starzl’s results had softened the oppositionof HUP nephrologists to transplantation.With Billingham’s support I persuaded Dr.Rhoads that it was time for HUP to begin akidney transplant program. Even more impor-tant was Billingham’s help in convincing thechairman of medicine and the nephrologists to agree. Mainlybecause I had Billingham’s backing I was asked to take charge ofthe program and tentatively offered a faculty appointment in sur-gery. It would start 6 months later, after I finished my year ofresearch in July.

But before that, in February a young man who was workingin a Las Vegas casino got sick and was told he had kidney disease.He quit his job and came home to Philadelphia to be with his fam-ily. At HUP he was found to be in terminal renal failure. This wasJoe Mehl’s brother Howard. He couldn’t wait for treatment untilJuly. Because dialysis was not available for him, by July he wouldbe dead. Bill Bluemle a HUP nephrologist had the only artificialkidney machine in town. It was reserved for short term treatmentto rescue patients with acute tubular necrosis with the expectationthat their kidney failure was spontaneously reversible. As anexperiment Bleumle had one patient on chronic dialysis but therewas no room for another. If we were not ready to transplantHoward, he would have to die. I thought we were ready.

In many respects Howard Mehl was an ideal candidate fortransplantation, 22 years old, healthy and strong except for hiskidney disease and most importantly having 6 siblings. Althoughodds for a recipient’s success and risks to a donor were not verywell known at the time they were all eager to donate a kidney.Selection of the optimal one was tricky since tissue typing andeven cross matching were not available to us. However, inBillingham’s department Wayne Streilein a young HUP internistwas experimenting with a crude matching scheme. Lymphocytesfrom the recipient were mixed with those of a prospective donorand injected intradermally to hamsters that had been irradiated toprevent the animal’s immune response to the foreign cells.

Reaction of these cells to each other was not prevented and itsextent was reflected by the intensity of the skin lesion at the siteof the intradermal injection. Reactivity of Howard’s lymphocytesto those of each sibling were thus compared. Based on this test itlooked as if Joe would be the best donor.

Planning for the transplant operation was administrativelycomplicated. My position was still that of aresearch fellow in the genetics departmentwithout a surgical faculty appointment, hos-pital privileges or assigned clinical service. SoI arranged to put Howard Mehl on the sur-gical ward service. At the operation I chose asmy first assistant the resident who was thechief on that service. It was Scott Jones,future department chairman at theUniversity of Virginia. Also assisting in theprocedure was Tom Demeester, a Hopkinsresident who was spending a year in

Billingham’s lab and who later would become chief of surgery atUSC. I asked Bob Dripps to give the anesthesia. He was at thetime vice president of the University but had been the foundingchairman of the department of anesthesia. Backing me up was myvascular surgery mentor, Brooke Roberts.

Although I had lots of support there were enough skeptics tomake me uneasy that if the first transplant didn’t work out Imight not get to do another.

The operation went smoothly. The kidney began at once toproduce huge volumes of urine which within 24 hours causedHoward to lose more than 50 pounds of excess fluid.Accompanying me in several sleepless nights to monitor Howard’sfluid and electrolyte balance was a renal fellow named Rusty Slonewho would later become Surgeon General of the Air Force.

Within days Howard’s creatinine normalized but in anotherweek it rose as he began to reject the new kidney. This caused ussome anxiety but following the treatment learned from Starzl, weadded large doses of prednisone to the baseline immunosuppres-sant azathioprine. His renal function quickly normalized. Henever had another rejection or any other deterioration of kidneyfunction over the next 48 years. By then he had become one ofonly about a dozen kidney recipients in the world to maintainfunction of a transplanted kidney for that long. Then at age 70Howard died in his sleep from a myocardial infarction but withnormal kidney function.

For Howard Mehl HUP’s first transplant meant exchangingan early death for a long life enriched by a happy marriage, chil-dren and a successful business career. For Joe it meant the satisfac-tion of saving a brother’s life. For me it meant a job for which Iwill always be grateful for Joe Mehl’s generosity and courage.

Howard Mehl family

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Julius Mackie Distinguished GraduateAward Recipient Steve Fishman

Steven J. Fishman, M.D. is Professorof Surgery at Harvard Medical Schooland the Stuart and Jane Weitzman FamilyChair in Surgery at Boston Children’sHospital where he is also Vice-Chair ofSurgery for Clinical Operations.

Born and raised in the Chicago area,he obtained his combined B.S. and M.D.degrees through the Honors Program inMedical Education at NorthwesternUniversity. He then completed his train-ing in General Surgery in 1992 at theHospital of the University ofPennsylvania and in 1994 his fellowshipin Pediatric Surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital. He hasremained on faculty at Boston Children’s for his entire careerwhere he is active in the practice and teaching of the broadspectrum of pediatric surgery. He has a particular clinical andresearch focus in the area of vascular anomalies and in 1999became Co-Director of the Vascular Anomalies Center atBoston Children’s Hospital. Annually this center’s multidisci-plinary group evaluates about 1700 patients with heman-giomas, rare vascular tumors and vascular malformations ofall types. Steve is Past-President of the International Societyfor the Study of Vascular Anomalies. He also created andhosts an international registry of hepatic hemangiomas.

Over his career Dr. Fishman has authored over 200 scien-tific publications and chapters as well as two books includinga comprehensive reference work on vascular anomalies. Hehas a particular focus on developing an understanding andapproach to visceral vascular anomalies. Though these anom-alies are extremely rare, his international referral practice hasfacilitated the recognition of patterns in their clinical presenta-tion and opportunities for treatment. He has focused on devel-oping evaluation and intervention techniques including inno-vative operative procedures for the treatment of visceral vas-cular anomalies. Dr. Fishman also has extensive experiencewith resecting, debulking and reconstructing vascular malfor-mations and associated overgrown tissues of the torso, geni-talia, neck and extremities. He has also studied the role of

dynamic contrast lymphangiography of the thoracic duct

which has led to the use of novel treat-ments and reconstruction of thoracicduct anomalies. Recognizing the limita-tions of surgical techniques, he is focus-ing on understanding the biologic mech-anisms involved in the development andprogression of these lesions. Dr.Fishman frequently serves as visitingprofessor and speaker both nationallyand internationally as well as advisingseveral patient/family-oriented supportgroups. He often participates in theirgatherings and clinics.

In recent years, Dr. Fishman hasassumed a host of administrative leadership roles at BostonChildren’s. In 2015 he became the President of the Physicians’Organization and Senior Vice-President for Access andBusiness Services. He also serves on the hospital’s Board ofTrustees and the Executive Committee amongst many otherstrategic and operational responsibilities.

Dr. Fishman met his wife of 25 years, Dr. Laurie Fishman,while rotating as a senior resident on the surgical service at theChildren’s Hospital of Philadelphia. A turkey sandwich wait-ing for him in the newborn ICU after he missed the cafeteriaclosing for a trauma stat and an order from the surgical fellowled to their first date. Steve and Laurie’s proudest accomplish-ments are their three children: Mark (23), Jason (21) andRachel (18).

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Ali Naji Wins PrestigiousThomas Starzl Prize The citation below accompanied the announcement that AliNaji had been selected as the 2018 winner of the Thomas StarzlPrize, one of the field’s most prestigious awards.

Dr. Ali Naji, an internationally recognized transplant surgeonand immunologist, is the J. William White Professor of Surgery,director of the Penn Pancreatic Islet Transplantation Program, andassociate director of the Institute for Diabetes, Obesity andMetabolism at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.After earning his MD from Shiraz University School of Medicinein Shiraz, Iran, Dr. Naji completed his surgical training at theUniversity of Pennsylvania and, in 1981, earned his PhD inImmunology at the same institution. Dr. Naji has been a leader in the immunology of diabetes andin unraveling the mechanisms of immune tolerance. His seminalwork has contributed to our understanding of fundamentalprocesses, including the role of the thymus in regulating the main-tenance and loss of immune tolerance to tissue specific antigens inautoimmune diseases and transplantation. His laboratory wasamong the first to demonstrate the central role of B lymphocytesin orchestrating the immune attack against islet beta cells in Type1 diabetes, which has led the way for novel therapeutic interven-tions to preserve beta cell mass and promote transplantation. Inaddition to his groundbreaking scientific work, Dr. Naji has ledefforts to promote successful islet transplantation for the treat-ment of Type 1 diabetics. He established islet isolation at theUniversity of Pennsylvania and performed some of the firstattempts to repeat and extend the Edmonton protocol for trans-plantation in the United States. As part of the cooperative NIHsponsored islet transplantation consortium (CITR), translation ofhis research has demonstrated the efficacy of B lymphocyte direct-ed immunotherapy in the induction of islet allograft tolerance indiabetic non-human primates. He continues to work tirelessly topromote beta cell restoration and to maximize success of islettransplantation.

Dr. Naji has publishednearly 300 articles in thefields of transplantation,immunology, and dia-betes. He has an impres-sive mentoring record,training over 20 studentsand post-docs who havegone on to careers focusedon advancing scientificresearch at the interface ofdiabetes and transplanta-tion. Dr. Naji has receivedrecognition and honorsincluding the Universityof Pennsylvania’s Schoolof Medicine Dean’s Awardfor Excellence in Grad-

uate Student Training (2000), the Lady Barbara Colyton Prize forAuto-immune Research (2006), the Paul S. Russell Lectureship(2013), and the Paul Lacey Memorial Award Lecture (2013). The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, theDepartment of Surgery, and the Thomas E. Starzl TransplantationInstitute are honored to present the 2018 Thomas E. Starzl Prizein Surgery and Immunology to Dr. Ali Naji in recognition of hisoutstanding clinical and scientific achievements.

In addition to the above kudos selected for Ali by the Starzlprize committee his distinguished career has been marked bymany other achievements. As noted in the Winter 2017 issue ofthe Newsletter his research has been continuously funded by NIHfor over 30 years. In surgery he now ranks number one in NIHfunding with $13,196,605 in total NIH funds this year, twicethat of the 2nd ranked investigator. At a national level he has been elected to the prestigious pro-fessional societies including the SUS, ASA and Halsted Society. Hehas served on 5 separate NIH study sections, 5 editorial boardsand numerous national committees. It would be hard to identifyother individuals who are his peer as surgeon scientists. In addition, Penn Surgery Society members are well aware thatfor the last 40 years Ali has been an indefatigable mainstay ofHUP’s clinical transplant program. 5

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In August Danny Jacobs (HUP Chief Resident 1986) willmove from Galveston where he is Executive Vice President,Provost and Dean of the School of Medicine at the University ofTexas Medical Branch. In Portland he will become the fifthPresident of the Oregon Health Services University. The OHSU isan independent organization formerly known as the University ofOregon School of Medicine. Danny is a graduate of Harvard College and obtained his M.D.degree from Washington University School of Medicine. After fin-ishing his HUP residency he returned to Harvard as a research fel-low in surgery. He remained there for 14 years rising to associateprofessor of surgery and earning an MPH degree from theHarvard School of Public Health. He also served as AssociateProgram Director of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital’sClinical Research Center, chief of the hospital’s metabolic supportservices and director of its laboratory for surgical metabolism andnutrition. He left Harvard in 2000 to join the faculty at CreightonUniversity School of Medicine as the Arnold W. LempkaDistinguished Professor and Chairman of the Department ofSurgery. In 2003 he moved to Duke University as David C.Sabastian Jr. Professor and Chairman of the Department ofSurgery, chair of the private diagnostic clinic and of the board ofmanagers of the thousand plus member physician organization. In 2012 Danny moved to Galveston as Executive VicePresident, Provost and Dean of the School of Medicine at theUniversity of Texas Medical Branch. There he has been the chiefacademic officer responsible for almost 4000 employees and

trainees of the schools of medicine, nursing, health professions andbiomedical sciences. He has also overseen the institution’s researchprograms and has directed the School’s successful completion of a450-million-dollar capital campaign. He also developed strategicplans for the academic and clinical enterprises and was the dele-gated head of the faculty group practice in the UTMB HealthCare System comprising 681 beds, 77 ambulatory sites and $2.2billion annual budget. In addition to this remarkable career as anadministrative leader of top academic institutions Danny has beenan outstanding surgeon scientist His research has focused on theeffects of critical illness and malnutrition on cellular bioenergeticsand organ function and metabolism. A prolific writer he has pub-lished almost 300 peer-reviewed manuscripts. He has been amember of 12 editorial boards including the New EnglandJournal of Medicine, Surgery and the World Journal of Surgery.He is a member of many honorific academic societies includingthe Society of University surgeons, the American SurgicalAssociation, the American Physiological Society and the NationalAcademy of Medicine. In 2010 our department was proud to name Danny the MackieDistinguished Graduate Awardee.6

Dr. Danny O. Jacobs Appointed Presidentof Oregon Health Services University

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Faculty, Residents, Alumni of Penn Surgery

email your news to Clyde Barker

clyde.barker@uphs.upenn.eduAlumni News♦ Matt Boelig, MD (HUP Chief Resident 2017, currently a CHOP Pediatric Surgery Fellow) and Jason Han, MD

(Thoracic Surgery Resident) received the 2018 Penn Pearl Award for teaching medical students.

♦ Charles Vollmer, MD has been inducted as President of the Americas Hepato-Pancreato- Biliary Association.

♦ Caroline Reinke, MD (HUP Chief Resident 2014) received the American College of Surgeons Franklin H. Martin Faculty Research Fellowship.

♦ Scott Damrauer, MD received notice of intent to fund his VA Career Development Award: Precision Cardio-Metabolic Pheno- typing for Genetic Discovery and Risk Prediction

♦ Brett Ecker, MD was inducted into the PSOM Gold Humanism Honor Society, selected by the Society’s student members.

New Faculty♦ Francis E. Rosato, MD has been appointed Assistant Professor of Clinical Surgery in the Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery. MD - Jefferson Medical College, Residency - Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Laparoscopic Surgery Fellowship - Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

♦ Juliana S. Gebb, MD appointed Assistant Professor in the division of Pediatric Surgery. MD - College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York; Residency - Obstetrics and Gynecology - Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY; Fellowship - Maternal-Fetal Medicine - Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY.

♦ Gary W. Nace, Jr., MD is Assistant Professor in the Division of Pediatric Surgery. MD - Temple University School of Medicine; Residency - General Surgery - University of Pittsburgh Medical Center; Fellowship - Pediatric Surgery - Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Promotions♦ Oksana Jackson, MD

Plastic Surgery/CHOP - Promoted to Associate Professor in the Clinician Educator Track

♦ Lewis Kaplan, MD

Traumatology, Surgical Critical Care and Emergency Surgery/VAMC - Promoted to Professor in the Clinician Educator Track

♦ Rachel Kelz, MD

Endocrine and Oncologic Surgery - Promoted to Professor in the Clinician Educator Track

♦ Matt Levine, MD, PhD

Transplant Surgery - Promoted to Associate Professor in the Tenure Track

( i d

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Joseph E. Bavaria, MD received the

Award of Fellowship ad hominem of the

Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

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Catching Up With . . . Chuck BridgesContributed by Jon Morris

Chuck Bridges is a 1976 graduate of HarvardCollege with Magna Cum Laude honors and a majorin Engineering and Applied Physics. He then matric-ulated to Harvard Medical School where he alsoobtained a master’s degree from the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology in Electrical Engineering andComputer Science (1977-1980) and a Sc.D. inChemical Engineering. Chuck took his GeneralSurgical Residency at HUP which included threeyears of research in the Harrison Department. He was the recip-ient of the 1989 William Inouye Award for OutstandingResident Teaching and the 1990 Jonathan E. Rhoads SurgicalResearch Award. He remained at Penn for his CardiothoracicFellowship training from 1991-1993. His academic appoint-ments have included Assistant Professor of Surgery at the

University ofFlorida (1993-1995) and the University of

Pennsylvania (1996-2005), Associate Professor (2005-2010) and Professor of Surgery at the University ofPennsylvania (2010-2011), Professor of Surgery atthe Carolinas Health Care System (2011-2015) andProfessor of Cardiology at the Ichan School ofMedicine at Mount Sinai (2015-present). Chuck wasChief of the Cardiothoracic Surgery at PennsylvaniaHospital from 2001-2011 until he was recruited to bethe Chairman of the Department of Thoracic andCardiovascular Surgery at the Sanger Heart and

Vascular Institute, Carolinas Healthcare System in Charlotte,North Carolina from 2011-2014. He was then for three yearsGlobal Vice President of Johnson and Johnson Medical Devices(2015-2018). Chuck is currently the Global Chief TechnologyOfficer in the Pulmonary Hypertension Therapeutic Area ofJanssen Pharmaceuticals, in Research and Development.

Chuck in 1991

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Sunil Singhal Appointed ViceChair for Translational Research

Dr. Singhal will be responsible for overseeing thetranslational research portfolio of the department,increasing interactions of surgical investigators withother research programs in the University andimproving the education in research for our surgicaltrainees. He is extremely well qualified for this posi-tion.

Dr. Singhal is the William M. Measey AssociateProfessor of Surgery in the Division of ThoracicSurgery. He graduated from Dartmouth College andPenn Medical School. He completed his GeneralSurgery training at Hopkins and a fellowship at HUP in ThoracicSurgery.

His research has focused on intraoperative imaging of cancerand tumor immunology of lung cancer. He has had longstandingcollaborations with Evgeniy Eruslanov, PhD (Division of ThoracicSurgery) and Steve Albelda, MD (Division of PulmonaryMedicine). He is the Director of the Center for Precision Surgerywithin the Abramson Cancer Center. Dr. Singhal has three R01sand a Department of Defense grant, and is a project leader on aP01. He has published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation,Cancer Cell, and PNAS. He is one of the few surgeons who has

been elected to the American Society of ClinicalInvestigation. He recently received the LuigiMastroianni Clinical Innovator Award at Penn.

Dr. Singhal also directs the Thoracic SurgeryResearch Laboratory. The laboratory is developingthe next generation of intra-operative imaging bypursuing multiple approaches that will allow morecomplete resection of primary, micrometastatic andlymphatic disease while minimizing unnecessary tis-sue reductions and shortening hospital stays.

As part of the bench-to bedside-to benchapproach, the laboratory conducts both human and animal stud-ies. In the clinical arm, patients are enrolled in clinical trials toindentify local and distant metastases with the use of newly devel-oped software, imaging systems and non-radioactive isotopes.Through the excitation of molecules in non-toxic chemicals,malignant tissue previously undetectable can be identified duringoperations without harming patients.

Secondly, mouse systems examine modalities of nanotechnol-ogy and small molecules, utilizing reagents at the forefront of sur-gical imaging technology. New near-infrared and visible contrastagents target tumors allowing them to fluoresce in the OR.

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A Conversation with ChuckJoMo: What were the highlights of your training at Penn?

Chuck: Fantastic academic environment. Molded many of us to become surgeon-scientists, arguably more so than any other program in the U.S. while still focusing on practical surgical excellence.

JoMo: Which faculty influenced you the most and why?

Chuck: Hank Edmunds: See #1. He was the consummate CV surgeon-scientist continuously NIH funded for decades. Bill Norwood – the best technical cardiac surgeon in the world at the time I was there. I tried to emulate his technical prowess. Larry Stephenson – a great human being. How to be an amazing academic surgeon and still enjoy life. Jomo – the honorary black faculty member! He’ll know what I mean!

JoMo: When you were a junior resident, which Chief Residents had the greatest impact on you and why?

Chuck: Nicholas Tepe – my first Chief Resident as an intern. He knew everything! Mike Acker – always wanted to be in the 90%-tile plus club largely due to his influence. Danny Jacobs – never was on his service but always looked up to him.

JoMo: When you were a Chief Resident, which juniorresidents impressed you the most and why?

Chuck: They were all really good.

JoMo: Tell us what your greatest professional accomplish-ments have been since graduating Penn.

Chuck: Becoming the first African American Full Professor of Surgery atPenn, then a Department Chair at Carolinas Healthcare System.

Recently, 2015, I made the transition to industry as a Global Vice President of Johnson and Johnson Medical Devices. I found that I was uniquely qualified for this role based on both outstand-ing scientific and clinical preparation. Now I am Chief Technology Officer of Actelion Pharmaceuticals, a recent Johnson and Johnson acquisition. Meanwhile I am still an NIH-funded full Professor (of Cardiology) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (Part-Time).

JoMo: What do you miss most about Philadelphia?

Chuck: Home

JoMo: Who from your Penn Surgery days do you stay in touch with?

Chuck: Hansell Stedman, Joe Bavaria, many others.

JoMo: What are your current interests and hobbies outside of medicine?

Chuck: Running and Golf. Also, I competed in the 2016 World Rubik’s Cube Association US Nationals competition. I am among the fastest for my age in the world. That, is, few people over 50 compete!

JoMo: Tell us about your family.

Chuck: Three daughters: Hillary, Amanda and Lauren – Nonprofit Founder/CEO, Architect and Entertainment Industry profession-al. Graduates of Wash U (BA)/U of Copenhagen (MA); Harvard (AB)/Yale (M.Arch) and Penn (Wharton B.S.), respectively. Now have a 5 year old (Giselle) and a 16 year old step daughter (Kiley).

JoMo: What is the last book you read that you wouldrecommend and why?

Chuck: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari – a great view of the history of the universe focused on humankind. What makes it unique is that it does not merely catalogue this war and that but rather gets at the motivations for why we (humans) have done and continue to do what we do.

Catching Up With . . . Chuck Bridges (continued from page 8)

Chuck with his daughters (left to right)

Amanda, Lauren and Hillary 9

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Wall of FameContributed by Daniel DempseyHUP CHIEF SURGICAL RESIDENTS 1992

In 1992 Bill Clinton was elected president, Hurricane Andrewdevastated South Florida, and the USSR died. At HUP, five distin-guished chief surgical residents completed their general surgicaltraining under Dr. Barker.

Mark Shachner, born inNYC, came to HUP as a surgicalintern in 1985 after college atCornell and medical school at Yale.He had outstanding letters of rec-ommendation from Art Baue,Wayne Flye, and Dick Gusberg. As aresident Mark spent 2 years in thetransplant lab under Drs. Barker andNaji and one of his best memoriesas a resident is being introduced to“Black Bush” Irish Whiskey by DrBarker at a transplant meeting in Sydney, Australia. Another fondmemory is rounding with Ernie Rosato. Mark also recalls that whenhe came out of the lab, laparoscopic cholecystectomy was slowlybut surely starting to gain a foothold at HUP thanks in no small partto Jon Morris. Mark’s file is replete with superlatives including “out-standing in all areas; highly accomplished in and out of the OR; oneof our best” (Jack Mackie) and “superb; one of the very best” (JohnDaly). Among the people at Penn who influenced him the mostMark lists Ernie Rosato, Len Miller, Jon Morris, Clyde Barker, andBill Schwab. Some of the most important aspects about HUP sur-gical training for Mark were the excellent technical training, thebreadth of experience and the clinical approach to patients. He hasthis advice for new HUP surgical interns: “it gets better, andremember it is all about the patient”. Mark has been a busy generalsurgeon in Florida for many years. He does a wide variety of generalsurgery with a heavy emphasis onlaparoscopic and robotic procedures.Presently he is president of theSouth Florida Surgical Specialistswhich is a multispecialty multihospi-tal group of 50 surgeons and proce-duralists. Mark has two children.One son is an anesthesia resident atUT Knoxville and the other son is alawyer in Cleveland. He is an avidrunner who has completed multiple

marathons and ultramarathons.

Michael Lieberman was born in Englewood, New Jerseyand went to college at Bucknell (magna cum laude) and med schoolat UMDNJ Newark (AOA). He had outstanding letters of recom-mendation from Ben Rush and Bob Hobson, and from HankEdmunds and Dick Edie since he had done an elective rotation atHUP. He came to HUP in 1985 as a surgical intern and was quicklyattracted to surgical oncology. Michael spent two years in the labwith John Daly as a Cletus W. Schwegman surgical oncologyresearch fellow. Dr. Daly had recently arrived at HUP as the Rhoadsprofessor and inaugural chief of surgical oncology. Michael musthave done OK in the lab, since he was ultimately hired onto the fac-ulty at Cornell by Dr. Daly shortly after John arrived as the newchairman of surgery at Cornell and immediately after Mike finishedhis surgical oncology training at MSKCC. In addition to Dr Daly,Mike lists the following as very important positive influences on hiseducation and career: Ernie Rosato, Jack Mackie, Clyde Barker, andthe chief residents during his intern year. His performance as achief resident himself was described as “outstanding” by, inter alia,Drs. Rombeau, Daly, Mullen, and Mackie. Mike thinks that some ofthe best things about HUP surgical residency were the quality of theteaching both in and out of the OR, the breadth and depth of clin-ical experience, and the camaraderie amongst the residents andbetween the residents and surgical faculty. His advice to the newHUP surgery interns is this: “focus, work hard, and enjoy it”.Michael is one of the busiest surgeons at New York PresbyterianHospital (the old New York Hospital), where he does the full gamutof non-breast surgical oncology. He and Phyllis have two children(sons), both of whom are working in business in the NYC area. Heenjoys spending time with family and friends at his new house inEast Hampton.

Ed Savage was born in Brooklyn and arrived as a surgicalintern at HUP in 1985 after college at Columbia (summa cum laude,phi beta kappa) and med school at Yale. He was very highly recom-mended by Art Baue and Dave Tilson and quickly distinguishedhimself as an excellent resident. Ed spent 2 years in the lab withHank Edmunds who he acknowledges as the most important influ-ence on his training, along with Clyde Barker and Ernie Rosato.

Mark Shachner

10 Michael Lieberman

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Wall of Fame (continued from page 10)

While residents Ed and SteveFishman co-authored a book entitled“Essentials of Basis Science inSurgery” which for a few years wasquite popular with surgical residentsand medical students. Dr. Rosatodescribed Ed as “very talented” andJohn Rombeau said he was an “out-standing chief ” in the chief residentevaluations. Ed was obviouslyhooked on cardiothoracic surgeryand went to the Brigham for his CTfellowship. For the last 9 years he has been the director of the Heartand Vascular Center at the Cleveland Clinic facility in Weston FLwhere he does cardiac (especially valves) and pulmonary (includingVATS and robot) surgery. Ed recalls that some of the best thingsabout HUP surgical residency were the degree of independence forsenior residents, the great faculty/resident relationships, and honestM and M conferences. His advice to the new surgical interns atHUP is “take advantages of all the great resources at Penn and workhard”. In his spare time Ed enjoys biking, swimming, and gymworkouts. He has three children. His daughter, the oldest, is a mathteacher in St Louis and his youngest (son) hopes for a career in thetheater. The middle child (son) works as an engineer at Wash U.

David Deaton was born in Durham, North Carolina andwent to college in Philadelphia at Haverford. He returned toDurham for medical school atDuke, then came to HUP as a surgi-cal intern in 1985, very highly rec-ommended by Drs. Sabiston andBollinger. David’s father and grand-father were surgeons, so he came byhis interest in surgery genetically. AtDuke, David started to do researchon small bowel transplantation withDr. Bollinger, an interest he contin-ued at Penn when he spent 2 yearsin the immunology lab with Drs.Barker and Naji. Some of the most influential people for David dur-ing his HUP training were Drs. Fairman, Perloff, Mackie, Barker,and Naji. His performance as a chief was described by John Dalyas “superb”, and Jack Mackie described David as “one of the verybest in all areas”. David recalls that the strengths of his general sur-gery training included the camaraderie, the autonomy, and the teach-ing. From HUP, David went to UCLA for vascular fellowship withWes Moore where he got in on the ground floor of endovascular

therapies, which he wholeheartedly embraced. David has beeninstrumental in the development of, and FDA approval for, severalendovascular devices. He was a leading investigator in the first USEVAR trial, and testified before the FDA in 1999 for the firstapproved EVAR device in the US. David has been a primary inves-tigator on several phase 1 trials for different aortic endograft sys-tems, and did the first in man and first in US cases with the Aptusdevice. After a brief stint as Chief of Vascular Surgery atGeorgetown, David is currently on the faculty at the University ofSouth Carolina where he spends some of his time seeing patientsand operating. The rest of his time is spent in industry related todevice development and innovation. David is the CMO of Syntactx,an international contract research organization, and is a clinical advi-sor to Limflow, a startup company with a percutaneous system fordeep vein arterialization. Since 1999 David and his wife Lorrainehave lived in Annapolis where she has a very busy breast surgerypractice. They have two children, a son who works in film produc-tion in Los Angeles, and a daughter who works in international eco-nomic development. In his spare time David enjoys sailing, tennis,and skiing. His advice to the new HUP surgical interns is this: “sur-gical residency is like an all you can eat buffet—sample widely andmake sure you get enough”.

Steve Fishman was born in Chicago and got both his bach-elors and MD degrees (AOA) atNorthwestern. David Nahrwold andJohn Bergen very strongly recom-mended him for residency and hearrived at HUP as a new surgicalintern in 1986. Steve was both anoutstanding resident and a popularresident with his house staff col-leagues who elected him president ofthe HUP housestaff. He won theInouye Award, the Ravdin/RhoadsResearch Award, and the ResidentScholar award. Steve went into PaulAddonizio’s lab just as the ink was drying on Paul’s new contract aschief of cardiothoracic surgery at Temple. So Steve helped CarolFisher move Paul’s lab to Temple, but he also had a great researchplan as evidenced by his winning an American Heart Associationgrant that year. He was also first runner up for a highly competitiveSUS research grant and received an extraordinary letter from thecommittee about this, authored by Alden Harken. Unfortunately,due to unforeseen residency manpower needs, Steve only spent oneyear in the lab and was advanced a year ahead of his fellow interns.Among the most important influences during training Steve listsDrs. O’Neill, Zeigler, Rosato, and Mullen. He also singles out his

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David Deaton

Steve Fishman

Ed Savage

(continued on page 12)

Editorial Board: Ronald P. DeMatteo, MD

Chairman, Department of Surgery

Clyde F. Barker, MD

Donald Guthrie Professor of Surgery

Jon B. Morris, MD

Vice Chair of Education

Daniel T. Dempsey, MD

Chief of Gastrointestinal Surgery

James L. Mullen, MD

Vice Chair of Administration

Graphic Design: Robin Noel

Graphic Artist/Web Administrator

Department of SurgeryAttn: Clyde Barker, MD4 Silverstein/HUP3400 Spruce StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19104

Penn Surgery

S P R I N G 2 0 1 8

Wall of Fame (continued from page 11)

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senior residents Pat Bailey and Marty Karpeh. When asked to recall some of the best thingsabout his HUP surgical residency, Steve acknowledges that they were some of the best yearsof his career. He recalls particularly the camaraderie and mutual support amongst the resi-dents, the residents’ and attendings’ enthusiasm for learning, and the extensiveness of theclinical training inside and outside the OR. As discussed elsewhere in this newsletter, Stevecontinues to have an outstanding career in pediatric surgery at Boston Children’s’ Hospitalwhere he did his fellowship and where he holds an endowed chair. He is an internationalauthority on vascular anomalies. Not surprisingly, at Boston Children’s Steve is the presidentof the physician’s organization and senior VP for access and business services. He is veryinvolved with both department of surgery and hospital strategy for growth and partner-ships. Steve has this advice for the new HUP surgical interns: “take ownership of yourpatients, and try to really know them as both patients and persons”.

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Tuesday, October 23, 2018Penn Surgery Society Reception

Westin Boston Waterfront

6:00- 8:00 pm