Underwood Center for

Digestive Disorders

On the flight back from Washington, D.C., where I attended the annual Digestive Diseases Week (DDW) conference, to Houston, I had some uninterrupted time to look back at the last few months at the Underwood Center. Indeed, the Underwood presence at DDW wonderfully illustrated where we have come from and where we are heading. In D.C., 16 posters based on original research work were presented by Underwood faculty and trainees. Our presence was also evident in educational and other events; Dr. Mathur was one of the teachers at the Anorectal Diseases Workshop, Dr. Abraham taught the Post-Graduate Course, and Drs. Abraham, Noureddin, Quigley and Woods were speakers, panelists and/or moderators on “hot topics” sessions. Dr. Woods was recognized for her decades of contributions to, and leadership in, gastroenterology by receiving the prestigious “Women in Endoscopy” award from the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), and Dr. Quigley was recognized by the American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society (ANMS) for his contributions as a counselor over the past four years. Just a few weeks before DDW, our GI surgeons enjoyed equal success at their premier meeting for GI surgeons – the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES). All these activities speak to real progress at Underwood in Clinical and Translational research and to our growing recognition as a Center of Excellence nationally and internationally and to our being at the leading edge of our specialty and guiding the very best care for our patients. Truly leading medicine! We are pleased to formally announce that the Underwood Center is now a systemwide Center of Excellence. The Underwood system leadership team, sponsored by Executive Vice President Chris Siebenaler, has been working diligently over the past couple of years on creating infrastructure for digestive health services at all our Houston Methodist hospitals. Our sincere thanks to all who have participated in the journey towards integrating our GI services. Find the Underwood provider closest to you here.

This is the first newsletter that follows the retirement of Wade Rosenberg, MD. After a long and illustrious career, including his leadership of the Underwood center as a founding co-director, Dr. Rosenberg’s retirement has been celebrated with the inaugural Wade Rosenberg annual lecture in pancreatic surgery. Our speaker was Dr. Christina Ferrone, Chair of Cedars-Sinai Department of Surgery, a leading expert in pancreatic surgery in the country. Dr. Ferrone not only lectured to our group, but also spent time with the residents, fellows and the researchers in the department. The lectureship was a small recognition of Dr. Rosenberg's career, which has been transformative in Houston. During his career at Houston Methodist, he built a highly successful practice caring for general surgery and pancreaticobiliary patients and served as Surgical Director for the Houston Methodist Underwood Center for Digestive Disorders. During his 10 years of leadership, the Underwood Center has grown and achieved excellent ranking in outcomes. The Underwood GI Surgery System Strategy has been the focus of these past few months. Our surgeons are participating in and leading community events in many of our system hospitals to increase collaboration and integration of Underwood surgery both internally and with outside providers. One example is the successful event held at Willowbrook. The meeting highlighted cooperation and communication, and Dr. Yee Lee Cheah, a robotic GI surgeon gave an excellent lecture. We also continue to advance surgical GI research. Our faculty recently put together multiple presentations at our spring meeting. Planning is underway for participation in the Call for Research projects that the Underwood Center just recently released. Most of all, we are working on improving patient access to GI surgery through the Access Transformation initiative. We are in the final steps of planning a Pancreas Cyst Clinic led by Ashish Saharia, MD, with the support of the Underwood professorship. These are exciting times for GI Surgery at Methodist and Underwood Center. We encourage your ideas and input to advance our efforts and collaboration.