Basic & Translational Science Research Committee Call
Tuesday, September 12, 2023
Minutes
On the call: Ashley Holder (chair), Suzanne Warner (co-chair), Carlos Chan, Jash Datta, Mei Li Kwong, Paige Brlecic, Jessica Weaver, Joal Beane. JJ Jackman (staff)
The committee talked about the collaboration with CTC on a Journal Club idea – several ideas were presented (the two articles we’ve suggested for a Journal Club are linked below):
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9055512/
- This would be a bit different than a typical Journal Club in that we’d talk with the author about what kind of work went into authoring the article (40% about the paper, 60% about the creation of the paper – suggested)
- Not just the science itself but also the process to get there
- The goal of this is an online, virtual Journal Club – we have the opportunity to make it what we want it to be – similar audience to Fall Courses, but hopefully broader
- Talk of CTC promoting this through other societies such as AHPBA, AACR, Pancreas Club, trauma societies, and also global surgery – Jash and Jessica: let us know any specific societies you think this should be promoted to.
- Leveraging opportunity to discuss reviewer comments and how their reviewer comments were dealt with to make the papers stronger.
- A blueprint on how to digest large pieces of information and break them down
- Also a blueprint on how to critique and understand the limitations of a manuscript and learn from this so as not to make the same mistake on your next manuscript.
Tuesday, November 28th at 7pm Eastern/6pm Central was tentatively suggested as the date of the presentation. Ashley will contact Anne Stey (CTC chair) with these suggested articles, and suggest that both are presented in an hour-long format:
- 10 minutes each talking about the finding of the paper
- 10 minutes each about how the sausage was made
- 10 minutes for Q&A
- We will hold questions to the end and have 20 minutes with both authors
- We will announce the webinar at the Fall Courses and send the papers out twice – once at 2 weeks out, and again 1 week out.
- Should also send out a few prompt questions to help with discussion from the audience (“What do you think was an unexpected finding for the authors? is an example…)
Future Committee meetings (there was a calendar glitch, so JJ will fix these going forward):
Tuesday, October 10th
Tuesday, November 14st
Tuesday, December 12th
Tuesday, January 9th
All meetings begin at 6:00pm Eastern.Basic & Translational Science Research Committee Meeting
Tuesday, August 15, 2023
6:00pm Eastern/5:00pm Central/4:00pm Mountain/3:00pm Pacific
Minutes
On the call: Ashley Holder (chair), Suzanne Warner (co-chair), Mei Li Kwong, Joal Beane, Jash Datta, Jessica Weaver, Lily Cheng, Russell Witt, Dave Harris, Carlos Chan.
AAS Committee Project Proposal Brainstorming (see description below)
Two ideas discussed:
- Short 3 to 4 minute educational videos of high yield information – what it takes to develop a BTSR program – How to build a team – how to reach out to external mentors, Basic ingredients of a specific aims page – How to convert funding from local to regional to national. Take webinar ideas from the upcoming Fall Courses and submit proposals later (next deadline after September 8 deadline).
- Specific Aims page review or workshop – offer this peer review as a service. Quarterly, and at least when the last cycle is due – example would be 2 committee members, 4 times a year, depending on the number of submissions. Open it up to senior residents and fellows and junior faculty – offer as an in-person event at FC and ASC, then two times that are on zoom – part of the grant writing course perhaps? Idea to add it to SIC, charge an extra fee and use the money for a URM scholarship for the workshop.
ACTION ITEM – Drs. Datta & Beane will work up a draft for this proposal by the end of the month, so we can review and tweak to submit by September 8th.
Call for manuscripts to discuss at AAS Journal Club (collaboration with Communications Committee)
ACTION ITEM: Let Ashley know if any committee members (or your colleagues) have an article or topic that’s been published in the past year that would be appropriate for Journal Club.
We would love to feature one of our committee members. We had talked about articles potentially being about wellness or resident education or surgical ergonomics, and articles that could cross disease types or topics – approachable from trainees and faculty from multiple specialties.
Review blog posting due dates
| Mei Li Kwong (& trainee) | July 23 | How Inclusive are Referrals to Cancer Clinical Trials? |
| Paige Brlecic | Date? | Bench to Bedside: Return from Research |
| Susanne Warner | August 23 | Fall Courses are for Everyone! |
| Barbara Coons | Date? | what to do with your time between jobs |
| Joal Beane | October 23 | |
| Emily Keung | November 23 | |
| Carlos Chan | November 23 | Industry Sponsored Studies: Friend or Foe? |
| Jessica weaver | December 23 |
Updates from Executive Council Meeting at the Annual Retreat – Ashley attended the AAS Summer retreat in July – the EC and AAS leadership were pleased with her report on the committee’s activities. One caveat that came from the meeting for all committees – apparently there had been a request for access to demographic and institutional data from the Program Committee, looking at who submits abstracts to ASC and who publishes those. The process for distributing information like this has not been formalized, and there was robust discussion about this. So please make sure that requests of this nature are formally submitted as proposals to the Exec Council.
Institutional Sponsorship Opportunities at FSRC
ACTION ITEM: Committee members who think they may have a department chair or division chair who is supportive of AAS, please consider asking them to sponsor the Fall Courses.
Funds can sponsor a breakfast or lunch, with thank yous published on the website, at the course, on the agendas on site. These are not huge costs – $1000-$3,500. Paying for a lunch on site supports the resident attendees and allows them to stay together during the lunch break.
Project Proposal Description from the AAS
The next round of AAS Committee Project proposals will be due no later than September 8th. AAS Committees are encouraged to develop projects and programs to benefit the membership of the Association. These have historically taken several forms, including fellowship exchange programs, travel awards, surveys, white papers, educational videos, etc. These projects need to be vetted by the AAS Officers prior to presenting for approval to the AAS Executive Council.
Committees seeking approval for any projects must submit their proposal to the AAS Officers. The AAS Officers will discuss each proposal during one of three in-person meetings annually. The submitted proposal should contain:
- Project description: outline of the project, the targeted population, how it will benefitthe AAS, project deliverable(s), long term goals and sustainability of the project
- Budget: An estimate of the cost of the project (with enough detail to understand how that estimate is being generated), and the financial request ofAAS from the proposing committee
- Timeline: A timeline of key dates and events.
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Basic & Translational Science Research Committee Meeting
Tuesday, July 18, 2023 @ 6:00pm Eastern
MINUTES
On the call: Ashley Holder (chair), Suzanne Warner (co-chair), Jessica Weaver, Emily Keung, Russell Witt, Mei Li Kwong, Dave Harris, Carlos Chan
Review final plans for FSRC: Speakers, moderators, break-out sessions – Ashley reviewed the schedule grid as it stands – we’re on track for a successful course. Mei Li Kwong and Emily Keung volunteered to help with the Small Group sessions.
Update blog posting due dates– The schedule is below for our year – there are a few spots available, we’d like to post a blog approximately every other month…For the folks below with “??”, let us know what month you’d like to post.
| Dave Harris | Feb 23 | Academic Recruitment Package – POSTED |
| Joal Bean | ASAP | |
| Adam Lucy | May-23 | Pragmatic tips for dedicated research time-POSTED |
| Mei Li Kwong (and trainee) | July 23 | How Inclusive are Referrals to Cancer Clinical Trials? |
| Paige Brlecic | ?? | Bench to Bedside: Return from Research |
| Susanne Warner | Sep-23 | Everything Everywhere all at Once |
| Barbara Coons | ?? | what to do with your time between jobs (career transition) |
| Emily Keung | Nov 23 | |
| Joal Bean | ?? | |
| Carlos Chan | Nov-23 | Industry Sponsored Studies: Friend or Foe? |
| Jessica weaver | Dec-23 |
Discuss Journal Club Idea from Communications Committee – Communications asked if we wanted to participate in a Journal Club across AAS and SUS. Our initial concern as that they wanted to have them very focused, and we think it might be better for broader, less specialty-specific topics that could crossed across specialties like Education, Access to Care, Global Surgery…to specialty specific and we might lose audience, so we gave that feedback. We think ultimately this will be given to us to take over, and our goal would be to produce a Journal every 6 months, one from CHSR and then one from us. We need Volunteers to spearhead this – let us know!
Brainstorm about Hot topic and Committee Sessions for ASC 2023: Suggested topics:
- translating the value of academic surgery into salary
- firearm violence – how to protect yourself (patient on surgeon safety) or events in schools (trauma surgeons) – this was suggested as the Committee Session
- social media and academic surgery (Twitter is a mess, so what’s next? Threads?)
- increasing Diversity in leadership within the realms of new state laws
- Carlos brought up a brand new development regarding NIH Funding – for any international collaborations that use NIH funding, the outside collaborators need to send a copy of any experimental data to the USPI every 3 months.
We will suggest Firearm Violence and the NIH Funding as our Committee session (SUS leads this year, but we’ll suggest these to them). If these get shot down, we will put forward as Hot Topics.
https://www.academicsurgicalcongress.org/session-proposal/
https://www.academicsurgicalcongress.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Past-Hot-Topic-Sessions-2010-2023.pdf
https://www.academicsurgicalcongress.org/past-meetings/
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Basic & Translational Science Research Committee Meeting
Tuesday, June 6, 2023
6:00pm Eastern/5:00pm Central/4:00pm Mountain/3:00pm Pacific
MINUTES
Dr. Holder welcomed the group. On the call: Ashley Holder, (chair), Suzanne Warner (co-chair), Barbara Coons, Dave Harris, Lily Cheng. JJ Jackman (staff)
FSRC – We need a head count from the committee of who is attending this year, October 21 in Boston. We also need volunteers for these 2 sessions: 1) Volunteers for CV Building/Fellowship Strategy/Networking Session, and 2) Volunteers to Moderate the BTSR Breakout session.
BTR Breakout Session (20-25 mins):10 min talks w/ time for panel questions at end. We need to finalize the speakers we’d like to reach out to:
- Managing and Presenting BTR data – ask Juliet Emamaullee first, with Ash and Scott as alternates.
- Innovation and Inventions – ask Mark Melcher with Anai Kothari as alternate.
- Optimizing Your Basic/Translational Research Experience (New Skills/New Money) – Tentatively-Ariane Christie, with Jen Jen Yeh and Dr. Coon’s resident’s suggestion as alternates.
- Planning Your Research Career as a Surgeon-Scientist – ask Yolanda Colson first, with Loretta Erhunmwunsee and Cliff Cho as alternates
JSR Manuscript Review: This committee has yet to be contacted by the Publications Committee to review manuscripts – JJ will try to get a timeline for when these requests may come in.
Blog Posting: our blog schedule is updated and HERE. Committee members are encouraged to take a look at the schedule and all contribute blog articles for the year.
Blog Idea – Barbara Coons: finishing her fellowship and expecting her first child; Polling colleagues – “If I had extra time between my fellowship and first job, what would I have done with that time?” or “What I would have done with a summer vacation.” If someone has time between training and first job here are some diverse and interesting ways people have spent that time. Also, working around your family plans – births, marriages, life events…ways to have a relaxing career transition.
Meeting was adjourned.