UPDATE - 11 January 2008

Hello TASSL Members:

Happy New Year!! Here are a few updates:

  1. Executive Council: We have now formed the TASSL executive council. Members consist of Danny Scott (President), Mo Shabahang (President-elect), Kent Van Sickle (At Large, 2 yr term), and Alicia Mangram (At Large, 2 yr term). The Executive Council met on January 10, 2008 via phone conference and had a fruitful meeting, keeping several items moving forward.

  2. TASSL Survey/Abstract Project: Thank you to all of the directors who completed the detailed survey in November regarding their centers and curricula. We submitted an abstract based on these data to the American Surgical Association and should be hearing back soon regarding its review.

  3. Website: Kent Van Sickle is doing a superb job serving as our webmaster. He has quite nicely assembled a lot of our materials and information: http://www.tassl.org. Please send any information regarding updates on your institutional information or other items of interest, links, etc. to Kent.

  4. Collaborative Projects: Several of our centers have initiated implementation of the FLS and/or the Open Knot-tying and Suturing Curricula that were launched as potential collaborative projects at our September meeting. We would like to encourage all of our members to implement these curricula if they desire to do so. Our goal is to pool all of the data from our individual institutions by the end of this academic year (June 2008) and analyze our collective work. Members of the Executive Council will be contacting each center to check on their progress and to offer assistance with these efforts.

  5. TASSL Dinner at ASE/APDS Meeting: Covidien is generously sponsoring a dinner for our members during the ASE/APDS meeting in Toronto at 7pm on Wednesday, April 16, 2008. Please RSVP to tristan.kersh@covidien.com for this dinner.

  6. 2008 Annual Meeting: Save the date: our next Annual Meeting will be held on Friday, September 5, 2008, with a dinner hosted on the evening prior. The meeting will be hosted at UT Southwestern in Dallas.

  7. 2009 Annual Meeting: Save the date: our 2009 Annual Meeting will be held on Friday, September 11, 2009, with a dinner hosted on the evening prior. The meeting will be hosted at Scott & White in Temple.

Hopefully, this information is helpful. Please do not hesitate to contact me for assistance or more information.

Danny

Daniel J. Scott, MD, Associate Professor
Director, Southwestern Center for Minimally Invasive Surgery
UT Southwestern Medical Center Department of Surgery
5323 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas, TX 75390-9156
214-648-2677 office | 214-648-2301 fax | Email
Website: http://www.UTSouthwestern.edu/SCMIS