Author: Department of Surgery

Matthew J. Carty, MD, has been awarded a $2.8M Department of Defense Peer Reviewed Orthopaedic Research Program (PRORP) grant for his study “A Novel Approach to Lower-Extremity Amputation to Augment Volitional Motor Control and Restore Proprioception”.

This clinical trial will evaluate a fundamentally new surgical approach to lower extremity amputation, with the goal of providing significantly improved voluntary motor control and restored sense of position (proprioception) in the residual limb. The proposed study is aligned with the PRORP-CTA Surgical Care Focus Area, specifically Surgical Techniques to Optimize Gait.

Matthew J. Carty, MD
Associate Surgeon, Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Director,  Lower Extremity Transplant Program, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Associate Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School

Matthew J. Carty, MD, is an associate surgeon in the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), an associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and a research scientist at the MIT Media Lab Center for Extreme Bionics.

Dr. Carty’s clinical expertise is in complex reconstruction of the extremities and trunk, for which he serves as the director of the BWH Lower Extremity Transplant Program and the co-director of the BWH Microsurgical Breast Reconstruction Program.

His primary research interests involve surgical approaches to maximize limb function in the setting of severe traumatic injury, including novel procedures related to limb amputation, limb salvage and bioprosthetic neural linkage systems.

This year’s honorees and their abstracts include:

• Marko Boskovski, MD, MHS, MPH, PGY-4 General Surgery Resident: “De novo Genetic Variants and Post-Operative Outcomes in Congenital Heart Disease”
• David Harris, MD, PGY-3 General Surgery Resident and Research Fellow: “Sleeve gastrectomy restores mucosal immunity and improves metabolic phenotype in a weight-independent manner”
• T. Konrad Rajab, MD, BChir, PGY-6 Resident in Cardiothoracic Surgery: “Intralipid Improves Oxygenation after Rat Orthotopic Lung Transplantation”
• Kaspar Trocha, MD, T32 Research Fellow in Vascular Surgery: “Pre-Operative Short-term Protein/Methionine Restriction Attenuates the Surgical Response to Injury via Hydrogen Sulfide Up-Regulation”

Adil Haider, MD, MPH, has received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) – National Institute on Aging (NIA) grant for his study “Comparative Effectiveness of Trauma Center Care for Older Americans“.

Trauma is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among Americans aged 65 and over. Ensuring older trauma patients receive the optimal level of trauma center care may be one important way to improve outcomes; however, the effectiveness of trauma centers in improving outcomes among older patients remains unclear.

This study will determine the effectiveness of trauma center care among older patients, specifically focusing on differences between traumatic brain injury (expected to benefit from higher-level trauma center care) and hip fracture (manageable regardless of treating facility) while addressing short and long-term outcomes including mortality, complications, readmissions, functional status, hospice enrollment and cumulative direct costs.

Adil Haider, MD, MPH
Kessler Director, Center for Surgery and Public Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Associate Surgeon, Division of Trauma, Burn, Surgical & Critical Care, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Adil Haider, MD, MPH, is an active trauma and critical care surgeon, prolific researcher, and the Kessler Director for the Center for Surgery and Public Health (CSPH), a joint initiative of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is also the deputy editor of JAMA Surgery and president-elect of the Association for Academic Surgery (AAS).

Dr. Haider is credited with uncovering racial disparities after traumatic injury and establishing the field of trauma disparities research. He is regarded as one of the foremost experts on healthcare inequities in the United States, with projects focused on describing and mitigating unequal outcomes based on sex, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age and socioeconomic status. His other research focuses on long-term clinical and functional outcomes after trauma and emergency general surgery, optimal treatment of trauma/critically ill patients in resource-poor settings, and advanced analytic techniques for surgical health services research.

Dr. Haider has formally mentored more than 120 research trainees, published more than 230 peer-reviewed papers and serves as principal investigator on extramural grants worth more than $8M. He believes that equality is the cornerstone of medicine, and his professional goal is to eradicate disparities in healthcare in the United States.