Panel Discussion

Shanda Blackmon

Panelist

Shanda H. Blackmon, M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.S., is a minimally invasive thoracic surgeon. She completed Cardiothoracic Surgery Residency at Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston, Texas. She was awarded the Clinical Instructorship in thoracic surgical oncology at MDACC, until she was recruited to lead the Division of Thoracic Surgery at Houston Methodist, where she served as Chief  of Thoracic Surgery for eight years, serving as the Director of the Thoracic Tumor Board and Director of the Lung Cancer Screening Program. She has led esophageal support groups for 17 years. She was recruited to Mayo Clinic- Rochester. She holds several patents for novel technology, developed the UDD App, which is a virtual patient management platform for foregut surgery patients, developed a specialized team for complex esophageal reconstruction, is a Surgery Champion for 3D anatomic modeling and was the Medical Director of Mayo Clinic Consumer Platforms as well as Medical Director for User Experience within CDH. She is Board-certified by ABS & ABTS, currently has the rank of Professor, and has now moved back to Houston to lead the Baylor College of Medicine Lung Institute. She serves(d) on the following boards or councils: TSF, STS, WTS, ATS, and STSA.  Dr. Blackmon has published over 150 peer-reviewed manuscripts, given over 500 oral presentations, is internationally recognized, has published more than 100 instructional videos(@ShandaBlackmon for Twitter & https://www.youtube.com/c/ShandaBlackmon/videos). She is a former Deputy Editor for The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. She is the Past-President of Women in Thoracic Surgery, former Secretary/Treasurer of TSF, current Secretary/Treasurer of STSA, and was Council Chair & on Board of Directors for STS. She is the author of "The Support Group" which is from Mayo Clinic Press. 

Alessandro Brunelli

Panelist

Dr. Alessandro Brunelli is a Consultant Thoracic Surgeon and Honorary Clinical Associate Professor at the Department of Thoracic Surgery, St. James's University Hospital, in Leeds, UK. He moved to UK in 2014 after spending 15 years in Italy as staff thoracic surgeon in Ancona, leading the Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery Program.

Dr. Brunelli has served as the 30th President of the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS) in 2021-2022 and former Secretary General of the Society for 9 years. He is member of the ESTS Board of Directors since 2008. He has been the Director of the ESTS Database from 2008 to 2012 and is a member of the Educational Committee and Faculty of the ESTS School of Thoracic Surgery. Dr. Brunelli is leading the European Institutional Accreditation program. He is a member of the Thoracic Oncology and Thoracic Surgery HERMES task forces organized by the European Respiratory Society to standardize education in thoracic oncology across Europe.

He is the Author of more than 340 scientific papers published in peer-reviewed impact factored scientific journals with a personal impact factor of more than 1500, a Scopus H-index of 50 and more than 10,000 citations. 

He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. 

Dr. Brunelli is the co-Chair of the European Respiratory Society/European Society of Thoracic Surgeons joint task force appointed to develop guidelines for the selection of patients for lung cancer radical treatment and is the lead author of the Physiologic Chapter of the third edition of the American College of Chest Physicians guidelines for diagnosis and management of Lung Cancer.

His main professional and scientific interests focus on thoracic oncology surgery, minimally invasive thoracic surgery, sublobar resections, quality of care, risk stratification and modeling, patient reported outcomes and health economics.

Louis Perrault

Panelist

Louis P. Perrault received his medical degree from Université de Montréal in 1986. He completed 3 years of training in basic science research in Paris under the supervision of Professor Paul VanHoutte at Université Louis-Pasteur and obtained a doctor degree (PhD) in fundamental research in 1997. In 1997, Dr Perrault joined the department of cardiac surgery of the Montreal Heart Institute (MHI) as a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon. His areas of clinical expertise include: Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting Surgery (CABG), valve surgery and heart transplantation. As an active researcher of the MHI, his main study fields are endothelial dysfunction in left ventricular hypertrophy, pulmonary hypertension following CPB, stem cells therapy and heart transplantation. Outside the hospital, he is a Professor of Surgery and Pharmacology at the Université de Montréal and the director of the Extracorporeal Program of Perfusion since 2004. Dr. Perrault is a local Principal Investigator for the Cardiothoracic Surgical Trials Network (CTSNet) for the NIH/CIHR since 2007. He is also an investigator of the FRSQ (Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec). Dr Perrault has authored and co-authored more than 300 articles in peer-reviewed publications including New England Journal of Medicine, J Chir Thorac Cardio-Vasc, Circulation and J Heart Lung Transplant. He has been the senior author for more than 80 of them. In addition, he has written several book chapters. He has given over 60 conferences worldwide. His main research fields are endothelial dysfunction in left ventricular hypertrophy, pulmonary hypertension following CPB, stem cell therapy and heart transplantation.

Spencer Melby

Panelist

Dr. Melby completed his undergraduate training at Brigham Young University and earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Honors in Zoology. He then went on to medical school at the University of Utah School of Medicine and graduated in 2002. From there he did his surgical training at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University in St. Louis taking two years off from surgical training to do research in the laboratory of Drs. Ralph J. Damiano, Jr. and Marc R. Moon. After completion of four years of General Surgery clinical training, he did three years of training in the Early Specialization Program in Cardiothoracic Surgery. As part of that experience, he spent three months in the United Kingdom (principally in Southampton) as a traveling fellow with Mr. Clifford Barlow.  He was for three years an Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Currently he is an Associate Professor of Surgery in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Chief of Cardiac Surgery at the Veterans Administration specializing in adult cardiac surgery, including minimally invasive valve and a small incision access for valve replacement. His research interests include ongoing efforts in the investigation of atrial fibrillation and the effects of postoperative atrial fibrillation. Other clinical interests include valve, coronary bypass grafting, and aortic surgery in the adult population.  He is a member of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the American Association for Thoracic Surgery.

Rita Milewski

Panelist

Rita Milewski is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Yale University

Gloria Faerber

Panelist

Dr. Gloria Färber

Dr. Färber is Associate Professor and Vice-Chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University Hospital of Jena, Germany. She is leading the program for minimally invasive valve surgery and heart failure surgery including mechanical circulatory support and transplant.

Since 2019, Dr. Färber is an active member of the AATS. She supports EACTS in various roles, as chair of the task force heart failure and serving on the Program Committee for the annual meeting. She is a member of the board of the German Society of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery (DGTHG) and leading the network of women in cardiac surgery. Throughout her career she actively pursues basic and clinical research now focusing on minimally invasive valve surgery and heart failure.