Presidential Address: The Mastery of Impossible
2025 SIS President Marc Jeschke delivers his President’s Address at the 2025 Annual Meeting on Tuesday, May 13, 2025.
SIS-E Webinar: International Surgical Wound Complications Advisory Panel
Click here to view the SIS-E webinar, made in partnership with ISWCAP and Essity.
Congratulations to Henri R. Ford, MD, MHA, FACS, on becoming the 104th ACS President!
Henri R. Ford, MD, MHA, FACS, was installed during Clinical Congress as the 2023-2024 ACS President, succeeding E. Christopher Ellison, MD, FACS. At the end of Convocation, he delivered his Presidential Address and promoted his theme, Achieving Our Best Together: #Inclusive Excellence.
“The past 3 decades have not only reinforced the concept that we achieve our best together but have also demonstrated convincingly and unequivocally that inclusive excellence is essential to accelerate progress and heal all patients with skill and trust,” Dr. Ford said. “It is our pledge to carry the mantle in the struggle for health equity and never waver from our core values as surgeons. This is our duty, this is our purpose, this is our calling.”
Dr. Ford is the dean and chief academic officer of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, where he has focused on developing the next generation of surgeon leaders, increased research funding, and worked to make the Miller School one of the most diverse medical schools in the US.
An ACS Fellow since 1996, Dr. Ford has a long and distinguished history of service with the College. He was on the ACS Board of Regents from 2012 to 2021. He also served for 4 years as Chair of the ACS Program Committee, which is responsible for planning and implementing ACS continuing educational offerings presented during Clinical Congress. Additionally, he was a liaison for the ACS Advisory Council for Pediatric Surgery and Chair of the ACS Ethics Committee, as well as the Past-Chair of the Nominating Committee and Past-Vice-Chair of the ACS Board of Governors. In 2022, he received the prestigious Owen H. Wangensteen Scientific Forum Award.
Creative Approach to Reducing Worldwide Problem of Surgical Infection
Infections after surgery are the leading cause of morbidity for patients and costs to the health care system. World Health Organizations and International Surgical Societies are trying to mandate surgical hand hygiene as a top priority to decrease surgical infections.
A September 2023 landmark publication in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has a creative solution for this critical surgical problem. In collaboration with the International Surgical Infection Society and Alberta Health Services, Surgery Strategic Clinical Network, Dr. Khadaroo, Professor of Surgery, Surgeon and Critical Care Medicine Specialist at the University of Alberta, has evolved, an 8-minute video which teaches best practices of surgical hand hygiene. This is accessible to all surgery team members and all levels of medical and nursing trainees worldwide. In 2017, Dr. Khadaroo published with the Surgical Infection Society, a Randomized Control Trial demonstrating that video education significantly improves traditional education in teaching sterile surgical technique. The NEJM video and publication is being released on September 7, 2023. Dr. Khadaroo has been invited by NEJM to develop further videos in the area.
Rachel Khadaroo, MD, PhD, FRCSC, FACS
Professor of Surgery, Department of Surgery & Department of Critical Care Medicine, University of Alberta Interim Scientific Director, Surgery Strategic Clinical Network (SCN), Alberta Health Services Certified Change Management Practitioner, Prosci