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Daniel Abbott, MD: Using telehealth to increase efficiency and patient satisfaction
Dr. Abbott’s research focuses on efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the care of cancer patients. He is interested in implementing and broadening the use of telehealth to maximize resource utilization and patient satisfaction.
Laura Bozzuto, MD, MS: Endocrine Therapy and Breast Cancer
Dr. Bozzuto’s research interest focuses on the effects of endocrine therapy for young patients with breast cancer.
Rebecca Minter, MD, MBA, FACS: Fostering autonomy in surgical training
Dr. Minter’s research efforts are primarily focused within the domain of surgical education, including the development of training frameworks that explicitly define progressive entrustment and the development of autonomy. She has helped to champion a new, competency-based assessment framework of Entrustable professional activities (EPAs), and is currently partnering with the American Board of Surgery to deliver faculty and resident development interventions nationally to pilot programs in the U.S. that are implementing EPAs.
Muhammed Murtaza, MBBS, PhD: Using Genomics and Computational Biology to Improve Cancer Patient Outcomes
Dr. Murtaza’s research is focused on leveraging genomics and computational biology to bridge diagnostic gaps and improve outcomes for cancer patients. The lab investigates new strategies for improving accuracy of and access to circulating tumor DNA analysis for early detection, treatment response monitoring, and for tracking and leveraging cancer evolution.
Heather Neuman, MD, MS: Improving care for breast cancer survivors
Dr. Neuman’s research focuses on patient-oriented clinical outcomes including patient decision-making, quality of life, and survivorship. Her primary research uses mixed methods to improve the quality and efficiency of breast cancer follow-up provided to breast cancer survivors. Secondary research interests include the use of decision aids to improve patient decision-making surrounding breast cancer surgery.
Sean Ronnekleiv-Kelly, MD: Unraveling the progression of pancreas cancer
Dr. Ronnekleiv-Kelly studies the formation and progression of pancreatic cancer. He is especially interested in a type of ‘environmental sensor’ pathway that has strong correlations with cancer development and progression – the circadian clock. The proteins in this pathway function to regulate circadian rhythms (circadian clock proteins). Dr. Ronnekleiv-Kelly explores how circadian disruption contributes to pancreatic cancer progression in mouse models and human-derived models of pancreas cancer. He has also generated novel models of Fibrolamellar carcinoma (FLC) in order to understand the pathogenic mechanism by which the oncogene fusion in FLC (DNAJB1-PRKACA) promotes tumor growth and spread. From this mechanistic understanding, he works to identify novel therapies.
Patrick Varley, MD, MS: Quality of Surgical Care in Medically Complex Patients
Dr. Varley conducts health services research into systems, provider and patient factors which influence the quality of surgical care in medically complex patients. His previous work has focused on confirming the importance of frailty as a risk for adverse surgical outcomes, as well as implementation of practical strategies to routinely identify frail patients prior to surgery. His current work is aimed at improving cancer care delivery within the Veterans Affairs system by analyzing the influence increasing care fragmentation due to expanded use of non-VA care.
Sharon Weber, MD: Reducing hospital readmission rates
Dr. Weber conducts health outcomes research on a variety of topics, including evaluation of preoperative predictors of postoperative complications, assessment of risk factors for readmission after major abdominal surgery, and evaluation of perioperative factors that impact outcome, including frailty. Her research interests include mixed-methods evaluation of risk factors for hospital readmission using a systems engineering approach, with a focus on the transition of care. She seeks to understand the causes of readmission from the patient’s perspective, with the goal of creating a tool that will help to decrease readmissions and associated health care costs. She is the director of the UW’s surgical transitional care program.
Lee Wilke, MD: Discovering new treatments for breast cancer patients
Dr. Wilke’s principal research interest is in clinical trials seeking novel methods of treating patients with breast cancer. Dr. Wilke is lead Principal investigator for the UW Carbone Cancer Center NCTN Lead Academic Program UG1 Grant and a Board member for the NCCN and NAPBC. She is a collaborator on multiple grants and trials evaluating novel medical and surgical treatments for breast cancer.
Syed Nabeel Zafar, MD, MPH: Improving cancer surgery and care
Dr. Zafar conducts health services research and research on global oncology/global surgery. He analyzes large datasets to study outcomes after cancer surgery, as well as disparities in outcomes after surgical care. He uses machine learning and predictive analytics to better predict outcomes after pancreas cancer surgery. His global research involves, research capacity building, surgical quality improvement and improving cancer care delivery in low-and middle-income countries.