AUGS Raymond A. Lee Lecture
Thursday, October 8 | 1:30 pm - 2:05 pm
The Raymond A. Lee Endowment is a named lectureship created by AUGS to honor one person annually who contributed to the development and surgical advancement of urogynecology and to further advance the knowledge and teaching of gynecologic surgery through ongoing AUGS educational programs.
Advancing Women and Underrepresented Minorities in OBGYN
Presented by Dee Fenner, MD
Dee Fenner is the Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Bates Professor of Diseases of Women and Children at the University of Michigan. She holds a joint appointment as Professor of Urology. As a Missouri native, she attended undergraduate and medical school at the University of Missouri – Columbia. She completed a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan followed by a fellowship in Pelvic Reconstructive Surgery and Urogynecology at the Mayo Clinic-Scottsdale.
In 2001, Dr. Fenner returned to the University of Michigan where she continues her work in female pelvic floor dysfunction and medical education. She is nationally recognized as an expert in defecation disorders, surgical education, and reconstructive surgery. She has received research funds from the NIH and has served on several NIH study sections, organizing, and oversight committees. In addition, her research has been supported by private donors and industry.
Working with a multidisciplinary team, her major contributions have been on understanding how birth injuries impact pelvic floor disorders and developing new and novel treatments for accidental bowel leakage. She has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters.
She is the Past-President of the Association of Professors of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the American Urogynecologic Society. As Director of the Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery Board for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the American Board of Urology, she was instrumental in obtaining official recognition of the Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery from the American Board of Medical Subspecialties. Currently she serves as Vice-President of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
At the University of Michigan, she has served on numerous committees including the Admissions Executive Committee, the Operating Room Oversight Committee, ACAPT Committee for the University of Michigan Medical School, the Leadership Development Advisory Board and many others. Dr. Fenner has received numerous awards for her contributions as a physician surgeon, educator, and leader. Most notably, in 2011 she was awarded the “Continence Champion” by the National Association for Continence, in 2014 she was given the Sarah Goddard Award by the University of Michigan for Leadership in the advancement of women and in 2015 she was recognized with the Life Time Achievement Award by the American Urogynecologic Society. In 2017 she was the recipient of the prestigious Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics Lifetime Achievement Award.
Keynote Lecture
Thursday, October 8 | 3:25 pm - 3:55 pm
Explaining Racial Disparities in Health: The Limitations of Implicit Bias
Presented by Khiara Bridges, JD, PhD
Khiara M. Bridges is a professor of law at UC Berkeley School of Law. She has written many articles concerning race, class, reproductive rights, and the intersection of the three. Her scholarship has appeared or will soon appear in the Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, the California Law Review, the NYU Law Review, and the Virginia Law Review, among others. She is also the author of three books: Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization (2011), The Poverty of Privacy Rights (2017), and Critical Race Theory: A Primer (2019). She is a coeditor of a reproductive justice book series that is published under the imprint of the University of California Press.
She graduated as valedictorian from Spelman College, receiving her degree in three years. She received her J.D. from Columbia Law School and her Ph.D., with distinction, from Columbia University’s Department of Anthropology. While in law school, she was a teaching assistant for the former dean, David Leebron (Torts), as well as for the late E. Allan Farnsworth (Contracts). She was a member of the Columbia Law Review and a Kent Scholar. She speaks fluent Spanish and basic Arabic, and she is a classically trained ballet dancer.
AUGS Innovation Lecture
Friday, October 9 | 10:00 am - 10:35 am
Clinical Prediction Models, Machine Learning and Decision-making
Presented by J. Eric Jelovsek, MD, MMEd, MSDS
J. Eric Jelovsek, MD, MMEd, MSDS is an Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina where he currently serves as Vice Chair for Education and Director of the Women’s Health Data Science Program. Dr. Jelovsek received his MD degree from East Tennessee State University, completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Duke University and fellowship in Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery at Cleveland Clinic. He holds a Master’s degree in Medical Education with Distinction from the University of Dundee and a Master’s degree in Data Science from Northwestern University.
Dr. Jelovsek’s expertise lies in the development and validation of “individualized,” patient-centered prediction tools to improve patient and clinician decision-making around a variety of women’s health conditions including: the risk of pelvic floor disorders after childbirth, predicting prolapse recurrence and utility change after undergoing pelvic organ prolapse surgery, complications and health status after pelvic organ prolapse surgery, risk of recurrent urinary incontinence and adverse events after mid-urethral sling placement, risk of de novo stress urinary incontinence after surgery for pelvic organ prolapse, and transfusion during gynecologic surgery. Dr. Jelovsek currently leads the clinical deployment of these tools into the electronic medical record in the Department of ObGyn at Duke. Dr. Jelovsek currently serves as co-principal investigator in the NIDDK Symptoms of Lower Urinary Tract Dysfunction Research Network (LURN) and is involved in the study of unsupervised learning approaches such as clustering of lower urinary tract phenotypes. He also serves as an investigator in the NICHD Pelvic Floor Disorders Network and as a mentor in the NIDDK-Duke KURe Program and NICHD AUGS/DUKE UrogynCREST program.
Keynote Lecture
Friday, October 9 | 1:30 pm - 2:00 pm
Creating a True Culture of Safety in a Large Health System
Presented by David Mayer, MD
David Mayer, MD is executive director of the MedStar Institute for Quality & Safety (MIQS). In this role, Dr. Mayer leads specific quality and safety programs in support of discovery, learning, and the application of innovative methods to operational clinical challenges. Dr. Mayer also serves as chief executive officer for the Patient Safety Movement Foundation, where he leads global Patient Safety efforts and initiatives, and serves on the Clinical Advisory Board for The Leap Frog Group where he provides his expertise in fostering the organization’s mission of driving a movement for giant leaps forward in the quality and safety of American health care.
Prior to his appointment as executive director, MIQS Dr. Mayer served for over six years as vice president, quality and safety for MedStar Health, overseeing the infrastructure for clinical quality and its operational efficiency for MedStar and each of its entities. Dr. Mayer also designs and directs systemwide activity for patient safety and risk reduction programs.
Dr. Mayer joined MedStar from the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago, Ill. Over the course of 10 years, he held numerous roles including co-executive director of the UIC Institute for Patient Safety Excellence, director of UIC Masters of Science Patient Safety Leadership Program, associate dean for Education, and associate chief medical officer for Quality and Safety Graduate Medical Education. Concurrent with his other roles, he served as vice chair for Quality and Safety for the Department of Anesthesiology, where he was an associate professor of Anesthesiology and director of Cardiac Anesthesiology. Dr. Mayer also founded and has led the Annual Telluride International Patient Safety Roundtable and Patient Safety Medical Student Summer Camp for the last thirteen years.
In addition, he has significant experience in the private sector as director of Medical Affairs of the Hospital Products Division of Abbott Laboratories and was president and founder of Esurg Corporation.
Dr. Mayer attended the University of Illinois at Chicago for both his undergraduate and medical degrees. He completed his internship and residency at Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, followed by a fellowship in cardiac anesthesia. Additionally, he co-produced the patient safety educational film series titled “The Faces of Medical Error…From Tears to Transparency,” which won numerous awards including the prestigious Aegis Film Society Top Short Documentary Award.
Most recently, Dr. Mayer was recognized and elected as a member of the International Society for Quality in Health Care’s (ISQua) prestigious International Academy of Quality and Safety in Health Care (IAQS). He was listed on the Becker’s Hospital Review 2017 and 2018 lists of Top 50 people leading patient safety. He was also one of four medical professionals presented with the 2017 Humanitarian Award from the Patient Safety Movement Foundation for his lifesaving achievements in patient safety. He was selected by the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua) as an International Quality and Safety Expert, has been presented with the 2013 Founders’ Award from the American College of Medical Quality, the University of Illinois/American Association of Medical Colleges Humanism in Medicine Award for his commitment to teaching, service and patient advocacy, and was recognized by the Institute of Medicine in Chicago in 2010 with the Sprague Patient Safety Award.
He regularly presents and writes on topics related to quality and patient safety, and has received grant funding from the United States Department of Education, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation.