With the resurgence across the country of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) case numbers across the country, our societal vigilance on physical distancing and personal protection must be maintained and strengthened while waiting for the availability of safe and effective vaccines as well as other preventative and therapeutic measures. As we head into the coming months, the American College of Surgeons believes there should be a consistent policy that protects essential medical services including surgery.
Surgeons have been at the forefront of patient care throughout the pandemic, redeploying to care for patients in intensive care units and emergency departments, as well as leading hospital responses to responding to COVID-19. Surgeons continue to care for COVID-19 patients while also handling surgical patient care.
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Nuances of patient characteristics demand a sophisticated approach to pain management.
Master the complexities of perioperative pain management with the real-life strategies highlighted in this new online program. Challenging patient scenarios across preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative periods are used to demonstrate the array of pain management approaches essential for effective surgical care.
The course includes eight interactive, case-based modules:
The recent virtual ACS Clinical Congress 2020 was a remarkable success! More than 30,000 people—nearly 16,000 of whom were international—registered to participate in this free surgical education event, which offered attendees cutting-edge content that focused on the latest scientific advances in surgery, contemporary surgical practice, systems of surgical care, quality and outcomes, leadership, patient safety, surgical education, and more. And the entire content of the virtual Clinical Congress and the opportunity to earn more than 200 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ will be available through December 31, 2020!
The program included Named Lectures, the Symposium of the Academy of Master Surgeon Educators, Special Sessions on timely topics, Panel Sessions, Scientific Forum Sessions, Video-based Education Sessions, Posters, and sessions aimed at surgical trainees and medical students. The different formats were aimed at facilitating learning and supporting the transfer of new knowledge and skills to surgical practice. The on-demand system allows selection and saving of sessions of interest for future access based on learning needs.
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Faculty Research Scholarship
The American College of Surgeons is offering two-year faculty research fellowships, through the generosity of Fellows, Chapters, and friends of the College, to surgeons entering academic careers in surgery or a surgical specialty. The fellowship is to assist a surgeon in the establishment of their research program under mentorship with the goal of transitioning to becoming an independent investigator. Applicants should have demonstrated their potential to work as independent investigators. The fellowship award is $40,000 per year for each of two years, to support the research. The deadline is November 30, 2020.
Full details are available here: https://www.facs.org/member-services/scholarships/research/acsfaculty.
Attention Chapter Members
The American College of Surgeons, SWPA Chapter has made updates to the bylaws of the organization.
A complete copy is available here. 2020-Bylaws-Final-For-Approval.pdf
Changes have been highlighted to help you review the new language.
Watch your email November 1st for your ballot to approve the revised bylaws.
Please contact us at acs-swpa@acms.org if you have any questions about these updates.
Registration for the FREE ACS Clinical Congress 2020, October 3–7, is open! The five-day program will include Named Lectures, Panel Sessions, the Symposium of the ACS Academy of Master Surgeon Educators, Special Sessions, Scientific Forum Sessions, Video-Based Education Sessions, and Meet-the-Expert Sessions. Experts from a variety of fields will address important and timely topics through these effective presentations.
View the Program-At-a-Glance to plan out your sessions of interest!
Don’t forget to take advantage of the more than 200 free AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ available for claiming after the conference and that will remain available through the end of January 2021. The Continuing Medical Education credits also will satisfy regulatory mandates, including state requirements for re-licensure.
The decision to cancel the in-person Clinical Congress because of a global pandemic, as happened in 2020 because of COVID-19, is rare, but not unprecedented in the history of the ACS. The ACS Archives provides information on parallels between today and more than 100 years ago.
Only five years after the ACS was founded, the world was experiencing two generation-defining events—World War I and the 1918 Flu Pandemic. The war began in 1914, with the U.S. joining the Allied Forces in April 1917; in March 1918, the first reports of flu-like illness were detected in the U.S. This first wave of flu activity spread unevenly throughout the world over the next six months. In September 1918, the second wave of flu emerged in the U.S. and peaked between September and November. Most of the total 675,000 influenza deaths in the U.S. occurred in this time period.
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It is our pleasure to invite you to participate in the ACS COT Trauma Quality Improvement Program’s (TQIP) Call for Abstracts. All abstracts received will be reviewed and considered for virtual poster presentation at the TQIP Annual Scientific Meeting and Training, December 7–10, 2020. We may select some abstracts for development as case studies or oral presentation during the scientific meeting.
This is your chance to share with other TQIP centers all the interesting initiatives you have put in place at your hospital. We want to know what internal performance improvement efforts you have embarked on and how you have been using TQIP in your center. Registry staff, we strongly encourage you to present any data quality initiatives you have put in place that have made a difference in your centers. You may submit abstracts on any QI topic, but we are specifically calling for abstracts on the following topics:
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The virtual ACS Clinical Congress 2020, October 3–7, promises to be an extraordinary surgical education event, and you’ll soon be able to lock in your participation. Registration for this free conference is set to open this week!
The five-day program will include Named Lectures, Panel Sessions, Symposium of the ACS Academy of Master Surgeon Educators, Special Sessions, Forum Sessions, Video-Based Education Sessions, and Meet-the-Expert Sessions. Experts from a variety of fields will address important and timely topics through effective presentations. ACS Division of Education staff are actively assisting session moderators and speakers with recording and uploading of their presentations, working beyond business hours and through the weekends. Staff continue to receive recorded presentations, to review them to ensure the quality, and to convene special meetings daily to coordinate efforts with other divisions across the ACS.
View the Program-At-A-Glance to plan out your sessions of interest!
And don’t forget to take advantage of the more than 200 free AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ available for claiming after the conference and that will remain available for a period of time afterward. The Continuing Medical Education Credits also will satisfy regulatory mandates, including state requirements for re-licensure.
Watch your inbox for notification of when registration is open or check back on the Clinical Congress website.
For additional information about the program or CME Credits, contact Ajit K. Sachdeva, MD, FACS, FRCSC, FSACME, at asachdeva@facs.org; Patrice Gabler Blair, MPH, at pblair@facs.org; Richard V. King, PhD, at rking@facs.org; M. Jane Burns, MJHL, at mjburns@facs.org; Olivier Petinaux, MS, at opetinaux@facs.org; or Alisa Nagler, JD, MA, EdD, at anagler@facs.org.
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Background: In January of 2021, finalized policies from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will result in significant cuts to physician payment for most surgical services delivered to Medicare patients, destabilize health system financing, and drastically diminish the opportunity for hospital and physician practices to recover financially from COVID-19. To learn more, visit https://www.surgicalcare.org. The ACS continues to urge Congress to intervene and prevent these cuts from moving forward.
Status: On August 3, 2020, CMS released the calendar year 2021 (CY2021) Medicare Physician Fee Schedule proposed rule. The ACS strongly opposes changes in the proposed rule which affirms, and in some instances increases, the payment cuts CMS announced last year. As proposed, general surgery would experience a 7% cut to Medicare payments, while nearly all surgical specialties will face additional reductions (cardiac surgery 9%, thoracic surgery 8%, vascular surgery and neurosurgery 7%, and ophthalmology 6%).
The ACS will continue to call on Congress to enact legislation to waive Medicare’s budget neutrality requirements for the E/M adjustments and to require CMS to apply the increased E/M adjustment to all 10- and 90-day global code values, but surgeon advocacy and outreach is critical to this effort.
Contact Congress today and urge lawmakers to prevent cuts to Medicare payment for surgical services!
https://facs.quorum.us/campaign/24973/
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