If you or a WTS Member colleague have recently been honored with an award or promoted to a new position, please e-mail the information to wts@wtsnet.org to be reviewed for posting on this page.

• Jennifer Hirsch, MD was awarded the Nina Starr Braunwald award in March, 2010
  
• Leora Balsam, MD, Joanna Chikwe, MD, Yolonda Colson, MD, Blair Marshall, MD, and Shari Meyerson, MD were awarded Simulation in Thoracic Surgery Education Grants
  
• Jessica Donnington, MD recently received the initial IASLC/Lung Cancer Foundation of America Young Investigators Award
  
• A.J. Carpenter, MD, PhD, has recently been promoted to Professor of Thoracic Surgery of the University Health System, San Antonio, Texas.
  
• Shanda Blackmon, MD, was the recipient of the 2009 STS Legislative Advocacy Workshop Young Physicians Scholarship. Dr. Blackmon attended the event in Washington, DC, Sept. 13-15 and was able to meet with Texas members of the House of Representatives as well as both Senators (K.B. Hutichison and J. Cornyn). Dr. Blackmon said, "The workshop came at a crucial time during the health care debate."
  
• 2009 ABTS Diplomates
  Congratulations to the following women who were recently certified by the American Board of Thoracic Surgery.
  

  Dahlia M. Alspaugh, MD Romulus, NY	Vanessa R. Gibson, MD Sandusky, OH
  Gurjyot Bajwa, MD Cleveland, OH	Jasleen Kukreja, MD San Francisco, CA
  Leora B. Balsam, MD New York, NY	Theresa D. Luu, MD Atlanta, GA
  Elizabeth G. Butler, MD Evansville, IN	Alicia A. McKelvey, MD Hamden, CT
  Cynthia S. Chin, MD New York, NY	Alden M. Parsons, MD Raleigh, NC
  Subashini R. Daniel, MD San Francisco, CA	Sujata Subramanian, MD Seattle, WA
  Melanie A. Edwards, MD New Orleans, LA	Betty C. Tong, MD Baltimore, MD
  Stephanie M. Fuller, MD Philadelphia, PA	Karin P. Trujillo, MD Omaha, NE

  
  
• Congratulations to WTS member Patricia A. Thistlethwaite, MD, who was named as a Councillor at Large for the Western Thoracic Surgical Association. Her term runs through June 2011.
  
• Cardiac surgeon Cynthia Herrington, MD, a staff physician, surgical director of pediatric heart transplant and surgical director of lung transplantation at the University of Minnesota Medical Center in Minneapolis, has joined the medical staff at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, according to Vaughn A. Starnes, MD, director of The Heart Institute and chief of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, Hastings Distinguished Professor and chair of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California and the founding executive director of the new USC Cardiovascular Thoracic Institute. Dr. Herrington, who will hold the Ryan Winston Family Chair in Transplant Cardiology at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, began her assignment as an associate professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Children Hospital Los Angeles in July 2008.
• Tracey L. Weigel, MD, Andrea Schnell, Nancy Steinhauer, Traci Bretl, Jens C. Eickhoff, and Noelle K. LoConte, all from the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, Madison, Wis., received the 2009 STS Geriatric Patient Care Award. This award is presented to the authors of the best STS Annual Meeting abstract on the topic of aging and cardiothoracic surgery.  Their research, "Preoperative Thoracic Oncogeriatric Assessment for Patients With Thoracic Malignancies," explored preoperative Thoracic Onco Geriatric Assessments (TOGA) for older patients with thoracic malignancies. Their research determined that there was a positive trend that combined MNA, GDS, IADL, and BFI scores to predict postoperative events, but statistical significance had not yet been achieved. They concluded that TOGA is a concise, physician-friendly tool that may enhance geriatric patient care and may facilitate quality improvement and enable geriatric patients and their physicians to make informed treatment choices.
• Jacquelyn Quin, MD, has been promoted to Associate Professor at the Southern Illinois University Medical School.

• 2008 ABTS Diplomates
  Congratulations to the following women who were recently certified by the American Board of Thoracic Surgery.

  Farzaneh  Banki Los Angeles, CA	Samantha E. Kwon, MD Boynton Beach, FL
  Reshma M. Biniwale, MD  Glendale, CA	Winnie W. Lee, MD St. Louis, MO
  Shanda H. Blackmon, MD  Houston, TX	Katie S. Nason, MD Pittsburgh, PA
  Yvonne M. Carter, MD Washington, DC	Vita V. Sullivan, MD Ann Arbor, MI
  Vicky L. Chappell, MD Calera, OK	Bethany B. Tan, MD Suffolk, VA
  Rose B. Ganim, MD Northampton, MA	Alvina Won, MD Yakima, WA
  Carolyn E. Jones, MD Rochester, NY