ACS Medical Student News: Winter 2019-2020

Welcome to ACS Medical Students News. This quarterly newsletter will keep you informed on important opportunities and medical student initiatives throughout the College.

Any feedback regarding this newsletter is greatly appreciated. See past issues of ACS Medical Students News.

Thank you,

Hanna Lakew
Assistant, Division of Member Services
hlakew@facs.org

ACS 2019 Clinical Congress Travel Award

This year, the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Division of Member Services announced a new travel award for Student Members transitioning into residency to attend Clinical Congress. Michael Visenio, MD, an intern at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, was the inaugural recipient of the award. In the following essay, he reports on how attending Clinical Congress 2019 provided him with an opportunity to access the many learning and networking opportunities available at Clinical Congress.

Students and Trainees in Global Surgery: The Future of the OR

Thank you to everyone that joined the Students and Trainees in Global Surgery session at this years Clinical Congress!

If you weren't able to attend, please be sure to connect with the Global Surgery Student Alliance and the International Student Surgical Network to learn more about opportunities and resources available to students interested in global health!

RAS-ACS Hangout on Medical Student Mistreatment – Highlights

Camila Roginski Guetter
Medical Student Community Administrator

“The discussion was centered on medical student mistreatment, focusing especially on ways to early identify it and how to act upon it. Higher incidence of mistreatment has been shown to occur in specific phases during medical training such as during clerkships. Therefore, it is imperative to raise awareness on this issue and consequently create a safe space nationwide for students to speak up and have the most advantageous learning experience possible. Abused students can later become abusive residents or faculty, thus early detection and action is crucial.”

Surgery Interest Group Spotlight

The American College of Surgeons (ACS) is happy to celebrate our medical student members by highlighting the activities of Surgery Interest Groups (SIG).

Uniformed Services University Student Surgery Interest Group

“In November of 2018, the Surgery Interest Group at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) turned over its leadership positions to new students in the School of Medicine Class of 2022. The new leadership had a mission to revamp the SIG presence on campus and bring forth more opportunities for students to learn more about surgical specialties”

Get the ACS Medical Student Toolkit

As you know, becoming a Medical Student Member demonstrates your interest in a surgical career, and a commitment to learn more about this exciting and challenging profession. We encourage you to share your membership experience and support your fellow classmates in joining the ACS.

Connect your SIG with the College and receive the Medical Student Toolkit. The kit illustrates the benefits of being an ACS medical student member and includes a PowerPoint presentation containing information about the benefits of medical student membership, ACS giveaways, and brochures and information on how to apply.

Please complete and return the Toolkit request form to Hanna Lakew at hlakew@facs.org.

Request Medical Minutiae Today!

How the Personal Characteristics of Grit and Resilience Relate to Surgeon Well-Being

Britta Han, MD, MsEd; Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD
Resources in Surgical Education

This article is intended for surgical trainees, surgeons, and other members of the health care workforce, especially those involved in medical education or those who hold leadership positions. The specific learning objectives of the article are:

• Define grit and resilience within the context of surgical training and the field of surgery
• Highlight the problem of placing responsibility of increasing grit and resilience solely on the individual surgical trainee in the context of an already high-stakes, high-stress, and high-demand specialty and profession
• Provide suggested strategies to optimize grit and resilience in surgical trainees

Read the full RISE article

Caring: Isn’t that why we went to medical school?

Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons

You cannot write about caring; you must practice it. None of us went to medical school thinking we would be an oncologist, a neurosurgeon, or a stem cell biologist. But we did have vague aspirations of wanting to help others—to be involved in other lives. It was an altruistic avocation; how could it ever be lost? Don’t we all want to return to that initial avocation? But how and why not? What a privilege it is to participate in the care and well-being of another human being. We all wanted to make a difference. When we acknowledge and support human frailty, we receive as much as we give.

How then to teach caring? You have to teach from the patient’s point of view. When a patient is confronted with a diagnosis or potential diagnosis of cancer, the anger, the fear, the injustice of it all can never be underestimated. We should start by caring for the emotional pain of the presumed diagnosis. Imagine the missing life of your patient—the man who cares for a disabled spouse or the mother of an autistic child. Who will walk the dog?

Read the full Bulletin article

Get Published in the ACS Case Reviews in Surgery

The ACS Division of Education has an online journal, ACS Case Reviews in Surgery, which covers an extensive array of specialties, including breast, colorectal, pediatric, transplant, acute care, trauma, general, and rural surgery. The journal links to other College publications that cover similar topics, including the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, Selected Readings in General Surgery, and Evidence-Based Decisions in Surgery modules.

Medical students are encouraged to submit to ACS Case Reviews in Surgery; however, in order to do so, an ACS Fellow must be included as one of the case report authors.

For more information on this opportunity, contact Whitney Greer at wgreer@facs.org.

Join Your Local ACS Chapter

Enhance your experience as an ACS member by joining your local ACS chapter to influence surgical care and network with colleagues at the local level. Visit Find a Chapter to learn more about how to join today!