August 2023 Program Briefing

WHAT’S NEW

Our 1st year residents are off to a great start! Embrace this pivotal moment as you navigate the transition into the month of August.

Congratulations to our 3rd year residents on securing fellowships. Here’s where you can find them:

• Emily Lobo, DPM is attending the Southeast Permanente Foot & Ankle Trauma & Reconstructive Fellowship.
• Mary Brandt, DPM is attending the Fellowship for Foot and Ankle Reconstruction at the Lehigh Valley Orthopedic Institute.
• Jon Nigro, DPM is attending the Tri-Valley Orthopedic Specialists located in San Francisco, California.

John Nigro and Isaac Kline will oversee the wet lab. Mary Brandt and Jacob Gross will oversee radiology rounds. We expect all residents to actively assist and participate on a regular basis.

REMINDERS

Two residents on service can NEVER be off or away at the same time. This is an established rule we have had for quite some time but has not been enforced.  However, moving forward, this will be strictly enforced.  Our surgical volume has increased and there are more clinical, as well as academic demands on our residents.  The burden on a training program, specifically to those residents on service, is unfair when more than one resident is off service.  Obviously, extenuating circumstances are exception, i.e. illness, etc..  But this is the exception!

Our first Scott Alter Lecture Series this academic year will be on September 9, 2023. The speakers will be Drs. Michael Downey and Jason Nowak. See the Fall line up below:

• September 9, 2023 – Drs. Michael Downey and Jason Nowak
• October 7, 2023 – Drs. Christopher Hyer and Adrianne Ross
• December 9, 2023 – Drs. Jack Schuberth and Ryan Rigby

We will be attending the Pirate game on Saturday, August 26, 2023. I hope everyone can make it. Unfortunately, the structure of our residency training program makes it difficult us to connect with one another.  It is not often we get to spend time together is a group.  Please try to attend.

The first-Annual Research Retreat is being held on Friday, October 27, 2023, at the George J. Magovern MD Conference Center, at Allegheny General Hospital. Please consider presenting here.  Please see the attached flyer.

PAPERWORK!!! Please be timely with your paperwork.  There are many people depending on the timely submission of your statistics, results, cases, etc..  Please develop a habit of turning in your paperwork on time.

Reminder to the attending physicians: Please provide dates and topics for your wet labs and lectures to Debbie as soon as possible.  She is trying to coordinate calendar for the next several months.

FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

Dr. Matt Sorenson and Dr. Kyle Peterson will be starting a new fellowship in August 2024. This will be in Chicago. This will involve 22-30 cases per week with heavy trauma, sports medicine and reconstruction.  There will be virtually little to no wound call and minimal hospital call.  Surgery will be $60,000/year with benefits. Dr. Sorenson’s contact information is [email protected].

The 2nd year residents should start considering fellowship opportunities.

QUOTE / SCRIPTURE

“Work as if you were to live 100 years, pray as if you were to die tomorrow.”  ~Benjamin Franklin

“We are so inclined to cover up our poverty and ignore it that we often miss the opportunity to discover God, who dwells in it.”  ~Henri Nouwen, Bread of the Journey, 1997

SUGGESTED SHOWS & PODCASTS

• Dopesick on Hulu. It is based on the OxyContin crisis from several years ago. Michael Keaton is the main actor, and for those of you that don’t know, he is from Robinson township.
• The GoodFellows podcast, a fascinating conversation on the United States’ relationship with China. Listen here.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Thank you to Isaac and Emily for their presentations to get us started on radiology rounds for this academic year. I would also like to thank Dr. Andy Vyonas for doing our physical diagnosis course again this year. If I am not mistaken, I believe he has been doing this for us every year since the late 90s.