Media Coverage

Philip L. Glick, MD, professor of surgery — who is the president of the United University Professions (UUP) Buffalo Health Sciences Chapter — shares details of UUP’s guiding principles for the reopening of the university. The principles prioritize the health and safety of the university community. UUP represents more than 4,300 professional staff and faculty employed by the university at Buffalo. “We hope when the approved plan for reopening is returned, that UB’s administration will reach out to union leaders, in the true spirit of true shared governance, and request our help and support,” says Glick.

Publications reported that medical students and residents in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences have been delivering meals to food-insecure children in the Buffalo Public Schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. The effort is the brainchild of James K. Lukan, MD, clinical associate professor of surgery and director of the general surgery residency program at the Jacobs School. “The idea came when the Buffalo Public Schools announced they would be closing for some period of time,” Lukan said. “Understanding that many public school students depend upon the schools’ meal programs, I reached out to some district contacts.” 

Niagara Frontier Publications reports that students in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences have been delivering meals to food-insecure children in the Buffalo Public Schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. The effort was the brainchild of James K. Lukan, MD, clinical associate professor of surgery and director of the general surgery residency program at the Jacobs School. “The idea came when the Buffalo Public Schools announced they would be closing for some period of time,” Lukan said. “Understanding that many public school students depend upon the schools’ meal programs, I reached out to some district contacts.”

Helen H. Cappuccino, MD, clinical assistant professor of surgery, will be teaching a new class called “Culinary Medicine,” which exposes medical school students to ideas about how food can be as important as medicine in healing. The students will learn about healthy meal preparation and about food that can help prevent, or moderate, obesity, cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes. “We will also discuss fad diets, supplements, and teach the student doctors about how difficult it can be (and costly) to eat healthy foods, and to work with their patients to identify strategies to eat in a healthier way,” says Cappuccino. 

The Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons notes that Steven D. Schwaitzberg, MD, professor and chair of surgery, presented the Excelsior Surgical Society/Edward D. Churchill Lecture, one of 11 named lectures at the association’s 2019 Clinical Congress.

Along with his collaborators, Sikandar Z. Khan, MD, has found that among patients who had endovascular interventions for critical limb ischemia (CLI), those taking ACE inhibitors had higher rates of overall and amputation-free survival than those not taking them. “Our study shows that these drugs are associated with improved amputation-free survival and overall survival,” explains Khan, who is a clinical assistant professor of surgery.

Linda M. Harris, MD, professor of surgery, answers questions about building her vascular medicine career in Buffalo. She explains why it is important to raise awareness about women and vascular disease and gives insight into why it was challenging to train with so few women in her field. She also discusses the medical training opportunities in Buffalo. “We hear from trainees that they don’t realize how good we have it here until they go to a boot camp and meet colleagues from around the country,” she says. “I came here for my training, with no intent to stay in Buffalo, but I fell in love with the city,” she adds.

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is partnering with a San Diego firm to develop a new way to see and treat cancer tumors. The work is led by Joseph Skitzki, MD, clinical assistant professor of surgery. Skitzki says the technology allows researchers to modify a tumor and make it express signals that attract an immune response. He is hopeful that it will improve patients’ response to immunotherapies and longer-lasting responses.

Linda M. Harris, MD, professor of surgery and program director of the vascular surgery integrated residency and vascular surgery fellowship, is interviewed in a story about the first annual women’s vascular summit and how vascular diseases differ among men and women in symptoms and how treatments may be impacted by health care views of gender. “Back (when I was training as a doctor), a lot of vascular disease was not thought to occur in women. So if I had gone to an emergency room 10-15 years ago with chest pains and you went to the emergency room with the same chest pains, they would have assessed you for heart attack and they would have said that I either had reflux or anxiety or a panic attack,” she said.

The UB Drone STEM competition held at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences featured local high school students competing to demonstrate skills from flying a drone simulator to completing peg transfers using minimally invasive laproscopic tools. “Some of these skills are the exact same skills that surgical residents in training do to become board certified surgeons and are required before they can go out into practice,” said Steven D. Schwaitzberg, MD, professor and chair of surgery.

The Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences is teaming with Mariner Endosurgery to test a new 3D surgical navigation system. “This cutting-edge navigation system brings surgeons unprecedented 3D spatial awareness during minimally invasive abdominal procedures,” said Stephen D. Schwaitzberg, MD, professor and chair of surgery. “The potential to expand this to other types of surgery is intriguing as well.”

Philip L. Glick, MD, MBA, professor of surgery and director of UB’s MD-MBA Dual Degree Program, authored an opinion piece. “The Jacobs School realizes what additional skill sets our students need to succeed in the current complex medical profession and are truly preparing all of our students to be tomorrow’s leaders,” he writes.

John B. Ortolani, MD, assistant professor of surgery, is interviewed for an article about genetic testing and what it can tell individuals about their future health risks. Ortolani said a thorough family health history can help genetic counselors decide if testing is warranted and, should a positive test for mutations result, if specialists need to set up more frequent health screenings.

Twenty-five health care professionals were chosen for the inaugural Excellence in Health Care Awards. Faculty members in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences include Timothy M. Adams, MD, clinical assistant professor of surgery; John L. Butsch, MD, clinical assistant professor of surgery; Elad I. Levy, MD, professor and chair of neurosurgery; Steven D. Schwaitzberg, MD, professor and chair of surgery; Fuad H. Sheriff, clinical assistant professor of medicine.

Kathryn Bass, MD, clinical associate professor of surgery, was interviewed about a local child who suffered second-degree deep and partial burns over about 12 percent of her body and was successfully treated with amnion stem cells interviews. Bass treated the child and has written five peer-reviewed medical papers about how to use cell therapy on child burns. “I haven’t done a split-thickness skin graft in two years,” she said. “Tissue regeneration – understanding stem cell biology – opens up a whole new world of medicine.”