No clinical division/department at Stanford has changed more than the Division of General Surgery. To accomplish our core mission of providing the highest quality patient care, cutting edge research, and an outstanding education to medical students and General Surgery residents, a program of recruitment of surgical leaders was begun in July 2000. At that time, Ralph S. Greco, M.D. came to Stanford from the Robert Wood John son Medical School as the Johnson & Johnson Distinguished Professor of Surgery, Chief of the Division of General Surgery, and Program Director of the General Surgery Residency Program. Dr. Irene Wapnir , Dr. Greco's spouse, arrived at Stanford at the same time as Associate Professor and participating principal investigator at Stanford for the National Surgical Adjuvant Project for Breast and Bowel Cancer (NSABP). Eleven new faculty have been added to the Division including Dr. David Spain - Chief of Trauma/Surgical Critical Care, Dr. Mark Welton - Chief of Colorectal Surgery, Dr. Myriam Curet - Chief of Minimally Invasive Surgery and Dr. Jeffrey Norton - Chief of Surgical Oncology.
The culmination of this recruitment of faculty gives the Division of General Surgery a group of outstanding leaders in senior positions. Within this structure, it is now possible for General Surgery to fulfill its mission of quality patient care, research, and education with a faculty that rivals any west of the Mississippi . These developments also provide the infrastructure to support our goal in surgical training, which is to develop the next generation of leaders in surgery in the United States . The vehicle for this is the General Surgery Training Program, which continues to flourish and competes favorably with the best programs in the country for the finest graduates of medical schools in the United States . The General Surgery Training Program was site visited by the Residency Review Committee in 2003 and was fully accredited for five years with an increased compliment of categorical residents to six in each of the five clinical years, as well as a commendation for teaching excellence.
It is our hope that all of our faculty, new and continuing members of the Division as well as all of our surgical residents will build on this legacy as we move into the 21st century as dedicated as ever to quality patient care, teaching and research.
Minimally Invasive/Bariatric Surgery
General Surgery at Stanford has had a very active program in gastrointestinal and minimally invasive surgery for two decades. Dr. Myriam Curet was recruited in 2001 from the University of New Mexico to head the Minimally Invasive Surgery Program as Associate Professor of Surgery. Simultaneously, Dr. Curet became the Associate Program Director of the General Surgery Training Program. Dr. Curet brings to this position a national reputation in minimal access surgery and surgical education. In July of 2003, Dr. John Morton joined Dr. Curet to head the Stanford Program in Minimally Invasive Bariatric Surgery. Dr. Morton comes to Stanford from the University of North Carolina where he completed a fellowship in Minimal Access Surgery.
Colorectal Surgery
In the spring of 2001 Dr. Mark Welton , a nationally prominent colorectal surgeon accepted our offer to become Associate Professor and Chief of Colorectal Surgery at Stanford. Dr. Welton had been at the University of California San Francisco for the better part of a decade and brings to his position an outstanding clinical practice and well-developed clinical interest in colorectal cancer surgery, and the surgery of inflammatory bowel disease. Dr. Andrew Shelton was recruited in the winter of 2001 from the University of Minnesota to join Dr. Welton in the section of Colorectal Surgery. Dr. Shelton, an Assistant Professor, completed his surgical training at UCSF and in addition to his interest in colorectal surgery, is an accomplished minimal access surgeon. The combination of Drs. Welton and Shelton gives Stanford the opportunity to develop the finest colorectal surgery program in the region.
Trauma/Critical Care
No program at Stanford benefited as much from new leadership as the section of Trauma/Critical Care. In the summer of 2001, Dr. David Spain was recruited from the University of Louisville to become Professor and Chief of Trauma/Critical Care at Stanford. Dr. Spain is a nationally prominent academic surgeon. He is a member of the Society of University Surgeons and Chair of their Committee on Social and Legislative Issues. Dr. Spain plans to develop the Stanford Trauma Institute with a primary emphasis on the care of the multiply injured, injury prevention, critical care, and research into cell biology and the genomics of injury. To complement Dr. Spain , Dr. Susan Brundage was recruited from Baylor University as Associate Professor in the section of Trauma/Critical Care. Dr. Brundage comes to Stanford with an outstanding reputation in surgical research and clinical surgery. She is a recipient of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) Research and Education Foundation Scholarship Award. Dr. Brundage will head the Trauma/Surgical Critical Care laboratory and has been given the lead in developing a Trauma/Surgical Critical Care fellowship at Stanford. In September of 2003, Dr. Rochelle Dicker joined Drs. Spain and Brundage from the University of California San Francisco . Dr. Dicker is an accomplished trauma surgeon and has just completed a fellowship in injury prevention at UCSF.
Surgical Oncology
Finally, on August 1, 2003 Dr. Jeffrey Norton joined the Division of General Surgery as the Chief of the section of Surgical Oncology. Dr. Norton is a nationally and internationally prominent surgical oncologist. His most recent position was Professor at the University of California San Francisco . Before that, he served as Chief of Surgery at the San Francisco VA Medical Center where he settled after a long and distinguished career at the National Cancer Institute and Washington University in St. Louis . Dr. Norton is an established clinical investigator and an outstanding clinical surgeon. It is our expectation that he will bring together all of the oncology programs in the Division of General Surgery, including those in breast cancer, melanoma, gastrointestinal, and pancreatic cancer. Dr. Greco joined Dr. Norton in the Surgical Oncology Clinic at the new Stanford Cancer Center , which opened its doors in the spring of 2004.
Palo Alto Veterans Hospital, Surgical Service
The Palo Alto Veterans Hospital is an important component of the Training Program and is a Dean's affiliated hospital staffed by Stanford University Faculty. Residents in the general surgery training program rotate in the PGY 1, 2, 4, and 5 years of training on the general surgery, vascular, cardio-thoracic, ICU, and Urology services. There are three fulltime Stanford faculty based at the VA medical center. Dr. Sherry Wren is Chief of General Surgery at the VA Hospital and Site Program Director of the training program. Dr. Wren is also the head of the Clinical Clerkship in General Surgery at Stanford and has distinguished herself as a gastrointestinal surgeon and educator. Dr. George Yang MD, PhD is an outstanding scientist and surgeon. He has already distinguished himself in the field of tissue engineering and has received numerous grants and awards to support this critically important research program in the Division. The third faculty member is responsible for the minimally invasive and Bariatric program including a program in robotic surgery with a DaVinci S robotic system. Their clinical and research interests are in foregut and bariatric surgery.
