Here are five physicians who have made recent Becker’s headlines for achieving clinical or leadership milestones:
1. Gastroenterologist William Evans III, MD, conducted the first endoscopic ultrasound-guided radiofrequency ablation for pancreatic cancer in the state of Kentucky Oct. 10. The procedure took place at Louisville-based Norton Audubon Hospital.
2. The Omaha-based University of Nebraska Medical Center’s department of anesthesiology appointed Peter Pellegrino, MD, PhD, as the first director of its new Anesthesiology Clinical and Translational Research Program.
2. Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based Ashton Center for Day Surgery became the first ASC in Illinois to perform robot-arm assisted total joint replacement surgery using the Stryker Mako 4 surgical robot. Samuel Lake, MD, an orthopedic surgeon and partner at Suburban Orthopaedics, performed the procedure.
4. The John Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute is the first in Louisiana to offer an AI-powered treatment for atrial fibrillation. According to Michael Bernard, MD, section head of electrophysiology at Ochsner Health, the use of Volta’s AI resulted in high disease-free rates during randomized clinical trials.
5. Cardiologists at UAB St. Vincent’s, part of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System, became the first in the Greater Birmingham area to use sound wave technology to treat severely calcified peripheral artery disease, according to a Sept. 5 system news release.
Interventional cardiologist Christopher DeGroat, MD, performed the hospital’s first intravascular lithotripsy case, which uses gentle sound waves to fracture hardened plaque and calcium in leg arteries.
