CHICAGO (October 7, 6:00 pm CT): A global analysis of metabolites and small molecules in urine samples from patients with adrenal cancer has identified four biochemicals that, when measured together, can distinguish malignant from benign adrenal tumors, according to study results presented at the 2015 Annual Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons.

CHICAGO (October 7, 12:05 am CT): Last night, four surgeons received the 2015 American College of Surgeons (ACS)/Pfizer Surgical Humanitarian Award and Surgical Volunteerism Awards in recognition of their selfless efforts as volunteer surgeons who provide care to medically underserved patients abroad.

CHICAGO (October 6, 6:00 pm CT): For younger women with early-stage, noninherited breast cancer on one side, a unilateral, or single, mastectomy leads to a slightly higher quality of life and lower costs over the next 20 years compared with contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM), according to new study results presented at the 2015 Annual Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons. The quality of life and cost-effectiveness analysis was conducted in women under age 50 who had the most common type of breast cancer—sporadic, meaning no family history of the disease.

CHICAGO (October 6, 2:30 pm CT): Surviving neuroblastoma as a child can come with just as many challenges as the cancer itself, mainly because of the toxic effects of chemotherapy. But a team of surgeons is in the nascent stages of developing a more targeted method of treating neuroblastoma patients with chemotherapy and lower toxicity. Their research results were presented at the 2015 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons.

CHICAGO (October 6, 1:00 pm CT): Researchers from Drexel University have found that when surgical trainees train beyond competence using a simulator, they retain information longer and master surgical skills better than those who stop practicing when they achieve an initial level of proficiency. Their study findings were presented at the 2015 Annual Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons during a Posters of Exceptional Merit presentation.

CHICAGO (October 6, 10:00 am CT): When a trauma patient enters the emergency room, the medical team has what is known as the “golden hour,” a window of time to evaluate and stabilize the patient to prevent death. To help trauma teams optimize that limited time frame, trauma surgeons have developed a simulation training program that cuts precious minutes off evaluation times and gets trauma patients to medical imaging tests faster, investigators reported at the 2015 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons.

CHICAGO (October 5, 1:15 pm CT): A common weight-loss operation called sleeve gastrectomy can make testosterone levels normal in obese men, according to new findings presented at the 2015 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons.

CHICAGO (October 5, 12:01 am CT): Honorary Fellowship in the American College of Surgeons (ACS) was awarded to six prominent surgeons from Ghana, Australia, India, France, Argentina, and Barbados. The Honorary Fellowships were presented at the Convocation ceremony.

CHICAGO (October 5, 12:01 am CT): John A. Weigelt, MD, DVM, FACS, a trauma surgeon from Milwaukee, WI, received the 2015 Distinguished Service Award (DSA) of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) during the Convocation ceremony. The DSA is the highest honor bestowed by the ACS.

Description: ACS has released a new compendium of expert recommendations on strengthening the security and resilience of U.S. citizens after mass casualty events.

CHICAGO (September 2, 2015): The ACS launched Surgery Career Connection, a new career center that connects surgeons across all disciplines and career stages with employers offering career opportunities.

CHICAGO (August 3, 2015): The Commission on Cancer (CoC) of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) has granted its mid-year 2015 Outstanding Achievement Award to a select group of 20 accredited cancer programs throughout the United States. Award criteria were based on qualitative and quantitative surveys conducted during the first half of 2015.

[Commission on Cancer Quality Program]

CHICAGO (July 26, 2015–4 pm CT): Physicians have developed an analytical tool to identify surgical patients at risk for costly respiratory complications, which may help hospitals avoid those complications and their related costs as Medicare and commercial payers exert increasing pressure on them by eliminating payment for patient complications that occur after operations and may extend hospital stays.

[ACS NSQIP data study]

CHICAGO (July 26, 2015–4 pm CT): Long waitlist times often lead to a higher risk of death for children awaiting heart transplantation. However, the team at Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston, cut wait times by revising their waitlist protocols for donor heart size and patient severity status and presented results at the 2015 ACS NSQIP® Conference.

[ACS NSQIP Quality Program]

CHICAGO (July 26, 2015–4 pm CT): Surgical teams at Northwestern Memorial Hospital are decreasing the UTI rate by paying scrupulous attention to the use of catheters before and immediately after operations. Their efforts are believed to be among the first reported in the country to target UTI prevention in the OR by decreasing catheter utilization.

[ACS NSQIP data study] 

CHICAGO (July 26, 2015–4 pm CT): According to two new studies presented today by researchers at the 2015 American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP^®) National Conference in Chicago, ACS NSQIP provides more accurate data than administrative data for driving surgical quality improvement in hospitals.

[ACS NSQIP data study]
 

CHICAGO (July 22, 2015): ACS strongly believes that patients and their families deserve to have meaningful information available to assist them in selecting the right surgeon and responds to two public interest groups who launched websites promising to assist with surgeon evaluation.

CHICAGO (July 9, 2015): ACS has partnered with NAEMT to develop a medical preparedness course that empowers bystanders to become immediate responders to mass-casualty events.

CHICAGO (June 11, 2015): The American College of Surgeons and John A. Hartford Foundation announced they will conduct a four-year initiative that will lead to improved care of older surgical patients through a standards and verification program for hospitals. The Geriatric Surgery Verification and Quality Improvement Program will produce a framework generalizable to all hospitals—regardless of size, location, or population served—to improve the quality of care they provide to older adults undergoing surgery.

CHICAGO (June 5, 2015): Joseph P. Vacanti, MD, FACS, received the 2015 Jacobson Innovation Award of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) at a dinner held in his honor Friday, June 6. Dr. Vacanti, the John Homans Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, is also the director of the Laboratory for Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication, the codirector of the Center for Regenerative Medicine, and the chief of pediatric transplantation, at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA.

CHICAGO (May 28, 2015): Traumatic injury is the leading cause of death among people under age 45, but if trauma  physicians could deliver plasma to these injury victims within minutes of their arrival in the emergency room, more of them would stand a better chance of survival.

CHICAGO (May 22, 2015): The Recovery Room, a podcast produced by the American College of Surgeons (ACS), has released a new episode addressing  how bariatric operations effectively treat  obesity in pediatric and adolescent patients.

CHICAGO (May 4, 2015): The American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2015, one of the largest international meetings of surgeons, will convene October 4–8 in Chicago.

CHICAGO (April 15, 2015): The ACS gratefully acknowledges the U.S. Senate’s landslide 92-8 vote Tuesday to stabilize the Medicare program by repealing the SGR.

CHICAGO (April 14, 2015): A new ACS initiative uses a structured teaching and verification program that utilizes engaging media and self-assessment checklists to educate patients about self-care for complex wound conditions.

CHICAGO (March 26, 2015): The American College of Surgeons (ACS) is optimistic that much-needed Medicare program reforms are within reach following today’s vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015. ACS congratulates representatives for working together to develop a bill that implements meaningful reforms to the Medicare program, including permanent repeal of the broken sustainable growth rate formula (SGR) used to calculate physician reimbursement.

CHICAGO (March 20, 2015): ACS is commending lawmakers for working together to develop a H.R. 1470 (SGR Repeal ACT), which implements meaningful reforms to the Medicare program.

CHICAGO (March 16, 2015): The Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons has granted its 2014 Outstanding Achievement Award to a select group of 75 accredited cancer programs throughout the United States. Award criteria were based on qualitative and quantitative surveys conducted last year.

[Commission on Cancer Quality Program]

CHICAGO (March 4, 2015): The Joint Commission and National Quality Forum have awarded ACS NSQIP the John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award.

[ACS NSQIP Quality Program]

CHICAGO (March 3, 2015): According to the ACS, recent news coverage concerning exposing babies to peanuts to avoid a food allergy into adulthood sounds positive, but could have disastrous outcomes. 

CHICAGO (February 27, 2015 – 10 am CT): The majority of hospitals participating in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Project (ACS NSQIP^®) improve surgical outcomes over time, and improvement continues with each year that hospitals participate in the program, according to a new study published online today in Annals of Surgery. 

[ACS NSQIP Quality Program]

CHICAGO (February 6, 2015): The American College of Surgeons (ACS) recently released a statement emphasizing that the allocation of trauma centers should be based upon the needs of the population, rather than the needs of individual health care organizations or hospital groups.

[Committee on Trauma Quality Program]

CHICAGO (February 3, 2015): The American College of Surgeons addresses two studies in the February 3 issue of JAMA that discuss an ACS quality improvement program—ACS NSQIP. 

[ACS NSQIP Quality Program]

CHICAGO (January 7, 2015): Today ACS announced the launch of a new initiative aimed at stimulating more young surgeons (defined as under the age of 45) to become involved in the organization and increase membership.