Several Department of Surgery faculty and trainees attended the 2021 Society of Asian Americans annual meeting in Chicago, IL and presented presentations, received awards, and were named to new leadership positions.

Faculty named to new leadership positions within the society include Daniel Chu, M.D., FACS, FASCRS, who was elected secretary elect as well as Vikas Dudeja, MBBS, who was elected as councilor. They will attend the SAAS retreat in Memphis, TN in February 2022.

Additionally, George Yang, M.D., Ph.D., was awarded the SAAS trailblazer award in person. The award will also be named in his honor moving forward as the George Yang SAAS Trailblazer Award.

Several faculty and trainees presented research at the meeting. In fact, UAB had the highest number of abstract submissions. UAB Surgery faculty and trainee presentations included:

Herbert Chen, M.D., FACS, Fay Fletcher Kerner Endowed Chair, is proud of the work of all of the faculty, trainees, and medical students.

 “The quality of these research projects is top-notch, and the UAB Surgery is proud to support dedicated research time and resources for members of our department,” said Chen.

The society provides scholarships for both trainees and junior faculty to help with career development, and presents awards for the best research submitted by members to the Academic Surgical Congress to showcase the advances being made by Asians Americans in the field.

The society is fully inclusive, defining “Asian” in the broadest sense to include those from East, Southeast and South Asia, as well as Persians, Arabs, Turks and any other nationality from the Asian continent. Furthermore, membership in SAAS is open to anyone of any ethnicity who has an interest in promoting underrepresented populations in any arena of academic surgery.