On May 18th and 19th, we held the 20th Safar Symposium—an event which also included the 42nd Peter and Eva Safar lecture for the Sciences and the Humanities.
The first day of the symposium featured an opening session titled “Paradigm Shifts in Brain Injury Research” that included five outstanding speakers. Dr. Christina Master from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia presented a lecture titled “Minds Matter: Seeing Concussion through New Eyes.” Dr. David Loane, from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland presented on “Microglial Dysfunction in the Aged and Injured Brain,” Dr. Christopher Horvat, from UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh presented on “Augmented Intelligence in Pediatric Neurocritical Care,” Dr. Douglas Smith, from the University of Pennsylvania presented on the “Havana Syndrome and the Accidental Asset,” and Dr. Jeremy Herrmann from UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh presented on “Cold Shock Proteins—Can We Achieve the Neuroprotective Promise of Therapeutic Hypothermia.”
The opening session also included presentation of three awards. On this special occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Safar Symposium, Dr. John Williams, former chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, was presented an award for his vision in founding the Safar Symposium 20 years ago. Dr. Jeremy Herrmann received the 21st Nancy Caroline Award as the top trainee at the Safar Center, and Jeremy Henchir, received the 4th S. William Stezoski Award for excellence for contributions as a technician in the Safar Center.
The 42nd Peter and Eva Safar Lecture for the Sciences and Humanities was given by Dr. Geoff Manley, Professor and Vice Chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of California San Francisco and was titled “Track-TBI: A 14 Year Journey to Transform Research and Clinical Knowledge in TBI.” It was tour de force that cataloged the important work of the National TRACK-TBI investigative group that is being led by Dr. Manley –work that is having a huge beneficial impact on the field.
During the afternoon of the first day, we featured our annual Multi-departmental Trainee’s Research Day program that included oral and poster presentations by trainees from 5 departments. It featured a total of 5 oral and 41 poster presentations by trainees at all levels with a great interaction with judges from each of the departments along with many other esteemed guest judges. Eight trainee awards were made including:
Sydney Lamerand – from the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, received first prize oral presentation for her work titled “Modulation of neuropathic pain in multiple sclerosis by spinal microglia and sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor S1PR1.”
Brittany Nelson – from the Department of Critical Care Medicine, received second prize oral presentation for her work titled “Short chain fatty acid supplementation following traumatic brain injury.”
Emanuel Loeza-Alcocer – from the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, received first prize poster award for his work titled “Effect of dorsal root ganglion stimulation on orthodromic compound action potentials.”
Abigail Hellman – from the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, second prize poster award for her work titled “Neuropeptide Y1 interneurons in inflammatory pain circuits.”
Elizabeth Castellano – from the Department of Critical Care Medicine, poster award for her work titled “Vitamin C is mandatory for the TCA cycle production of anti-inflammatory itaconate.”
Nina Lane – from the Department of Emergency Medicine, poster award for her work titled “Association between finger plethysmographic features and impedance-based thoracic fluid content measurement in a lower body negative pressure model of hemorrhagic shock.”
Sarah Svirsky – from the Department of Neurological Surgery, poster award for her work titled “Restoring neurogranin expression after controlled cortical impact: A novel therapeutic approach for altered post-synaptic signaling after TBI.”
Eleni Moschonas – from the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation poster award for her work titled “Examining the potential efficacy of chronic galantamine on attentional functioning and cholinergic neurotransmission after experimental traumatic brain injury.”
The second day of the symposium, which took place at the Winter Institute for Simulation, Education, and Research (WISER) at 230 McKee Place in Oakland, also featured 5 outstanding speakers addressing the topic of “Excellence in Simulation.” Dr. Mark Scerbo from Old Dominion University presented on the topic of “Scholarship in Healthcare Simulation: An Editor’s Perspective.” Dr. Geoffrey Miller from Johns Hopkins address the topic of “Assessing Assessment in Healthcare Simulation.” Shelita Kimble, from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center presented on “Simulation and Cancer Care Navigating the System,” while Dr. Michael Spooner from Mercy One North Iowa gave a presentation titled “Confronting Fear: At the Heart of Simulation.” Finally, Dr. David Salcedo from Case Western Reserve University spoke on “Best Practices in Implementation of XR in Simulation.” The program characterized the remarkable progress that has been made in the simulation field, and how it is impacting patient care, from cancer care to the battlefield.
Overall, the symposium was another great success. We had a total of 253 attendees for the programs collectively both in person and virtually. Thanks to Dr. Manley and all the faculty presenters for their exceptional contributions to our program. Congratulations to all the trainee presenters and award winners. Sincere thanks also to the judges for their contribution to our program and trainee education across the five departments.
Finally, we are grateful to the sponsors of the event including the Departments of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Critical Care Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Neurological Surgery, and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, WISER, the Ake and Inger Grenvik Endowment, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, UPMC, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, and generous support from Alan Braslow and Virginia Klunder, and the S. William Stezoski family.