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Become a member and receive career-enhancing benefits
Our top priority is providing value to members. Your Member Services team is here to ensure you maximize your ACS member benefits, participate in College activities, and engage with your ACS colleagues. It's all here.
Learn more about ACS members who have been recognized for noteworthy achievements.
December 6, 2023
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Have you or an ACS member you know achieved a notable career highlight recently? If so, send potential contributions to Jennifer Bagley, MA, Bulletin Editor-in-Chief, at jbagley@facs.org. Submissions will be printed based on content type and available space.
Three ACS Fellows Are Elected to NAM
Robert A. Montgomery, MD, DPhil, FACS, Lisa A. Newman, MD, MPH, FACS, and Joseph V. Sakran, MD, MPA, MPH, FACS, were elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service. The newly elected members bring NAM’s total membership to more than 2,400.
Dr. Montgomery, chair of the Department of Surgery at NYU Langone Health and director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute in New York, New York, was recognized for “significant contributions to the field of transplantation.” He led the team that performed the first successful genetically edited pig-to-human kidney xenotransplant and invented the type of “kidney swap” that is responsible for more than 1,000 kidney transplants a year.
Dr. Newman, chief of the Section of Breast Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, and executive director and founder of the International Center for the Study of Breast Cancer Subtypes at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine, was recognized for her efforts to address and eliminate breast cancer disparities across the world, and whose research on characterizing hereditary susceptibility for triple-negative breast cancer associated with African ancestry have earned worldwide acclaim.
Dr. Sakran, executive vice-chair of surgery, director of clinical operations, and associate professor of surgery and nursing at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, was recognized for his innovative work and exceptional leadership in firearm injury prevention that has been instrumental in establishing the urgency and intellectual foundation to drive research and evidence-based policy change at the local, state, and federal levels.
Bertagnolli Is Confirmed as New Head of the NIH
World-renowned oncologic surgeon and cancer researcher Monica Bertagnolli, MD, FACS, has been confirmed to lead the US National Institutes of Health (NIH)—the largest biomedical research agency in the world. Dr. Bertagnolli is the first surgeon and the second woman to serve in this role. Since October 2022, she has been director of the National Cancer Institute, the lead agency for cancer research and part of the NIH.
Previously, Dr. Bertagnolli was the Richard E. Wilson Professor of Surgery in surgical oncology at Harvard Medical School, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a member of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Treatment and Sarcoma Centers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, all in Boston, Massachusetts. She also has decades of experience in clinical research and executive leadership in oncology and cancer policy.
Dr. Bertagnolli was the recipient of the 2023 Owen H. Wangensteen Scientific Forum Award at Clinical Congress 2023 in Boston, Massachusetts.
Turner Becomes President-Elect of CMSS
Patricia L. Turner, MD, MBA, FACS, has been elected 2024 president-elect of the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS). She will transition to a 1-year term as president in November 2025. Dr. Turner—a general surgeon—is the ACS Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer. CMSS is a coalition of 50+ organizations representing more than 800,000 physicians that works to advance the expertise and collective voice of specialty societies in support of physicians and the patients they serve.
Desai Is Division Chief in North Carolina
Chirag Desai, MD, FACS, is the new division chief of abdominal transplant surgery and executive medical director of the University of North Carolina (UNC) Healthcare Center for Transplant Care in Chapel Hill. Since 2016, Dr. Desai has been with UNC at Chapel Hill, previously serving as surgical director of liver transplantation and director of the Chronic Pancreatitis and Autologous Islet Cell Transplant Program.
Rizzari Joins Vanderbilt
Michael D. Rizzari, MD, FACS, is now the surgical director of living donor liver transplantation at the Vanderbilt Transplant Center in Nashville, Tennessee, and staff surgeon in pediatric abdominal transplant surgery at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. Specializing in liver transplantation and hepatobiliary surgery, he also is associate professor of surgery in the Division of Hepatobiliary Surgery and Liver Transplantation within the Department of Surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Previously, Dr. Rizzari was in Detroit, Michigan, serving as surgical director of living donor liver transplantation at Henry Ford Hospital, a pediatric liver transplant surgery faculty member at Children’s Hospital of Michigan, and clinical assistant professor of surgery at Wayne State University School of Medicine.
