2023 Department of Pediatrics Academic Annual Report

Thorac Surg. 2023; 115(3): 649-654. Norwood Operation: Immediate vs Delayed Sternal Closure. Asfari A, Jacobs JP, Byrnes JW, Borasino S, Prodhan P, Zaccagni H, Dabal RJ, Sorabella RA, Hammel JM, Smith-Parrish M, Zhang W, Banerjee M, Schumacher KR, Tabbutt S. Pediatr Cardiol. 2023; 44(1): 95-101. Health-Related Quality of Life After Single Ventricle Palliation or Tetralogy of Fallot Repair. Miller VM, Sorabella RA, Padilla LA, Sollie Z, Izima C, Johnson WH, Cleveland DC, Buckman JR, Maxwell KS, Smith R, Dabal RJ.

Xenotransplantation. 2023; 231-239. Public and Patient Opinions on Xenotransplantation and Cell Therapy. Maxwell KS, Padilla LA.

Xenotransplantation. 2023; 269-276. Kidney Xenotransplantation. Sickels A, Padilla LA.

Xenotransplantation. 2023; 51-58. Xenotransplantation and Pediatric Ethics Issues. Xenotransplantation. Padilla LA, Maxwell KS, Hurst DJ. Xenotransplantation. 2023; 255-267. Clinical and Ethical Implications of Adult Cardiac Xenotransplantation. Killian AC, Gray WH, Sorabella R. EXTRAMURAL AWARDS, RECOGNITION & LEADERSHIP ROLES Robert J. Dabal, M.D., serves on multiple national and international committees, including the World Society for Pediatric and Congenital Heart Surgery Database Committee and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) Congenital Heart Surgery Database Task Force. He was the congenital lead for the annual STS meeting in January of 2023 and will continue to serve on the Annual Meeting Program Committee as well as on the STS Workforce for Congenital Heart Surgery. Having served on the Birmingham Metro Board of the American Heart Association (AHA) for many years, he became the president of the board in the summer of 2021. He also serves on the advisory board of Heart Care International and the Alabama Organ Center/Legacy of Hope advisory board. He is the 4th-Year Clerkship Director for General Surgery and has served on the UAB Heersink School of Medicine admissions committee as a screener and interviewer for many years. Robert A. Sorabella, M.D., serves as the head of adult congenital heart surgery for Children’s of Alabama and UAB. He is an active member of the Southern Thoracic Surgical Association, a fellow in the American College of Surgeons and has recently been elected to the membership committee of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. At the most recent annual meeting of the Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Consortium, he was invited to share the Children’s of Alabama experience with ventricular assist devices and the superb results achieved by the program. He serves as an associate program director of the Cardiothoracic Surgical Residency Program at UAB. He is actively working with the STS Congenital Heart Surgery Database on clinical research projects with the goal of improving outcomes for children undergoing congenital heart surgery. W. Hampton Gray, M.D., is the newest faculty member to join our heart team after completing his training at the University of Southern California and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. He is a member of several national societies, including the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) and Southern Thoracic Surgical Association (STSA). He helped write several chapters for the newly published STS e-book, which is a national educational resource for cardiothoracic surgery trainees. He is beginning to participate in various hospital committees at Children’s of Alabama, such as the Heart Center Morbidity and Mortality Committee and the Heart Center Code Committee. He is working on several clinical outcomes research projects involving aortic arch surgery and cerebral perfusion methods in neonates and is an active member of the ongoing research efforts in xenotransplantation. Luz A. Padilla, M.D., MSPH, serves as the head of congenital research at Children’s of Alabama and UAB. She is a member of the American Heart Association. She has served as a board member on UAB’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) since 2016 and this year was appointed as vice-chair of the IRB. She served as a co-investigator in an R01 NIH/NHLBI grant related to Kawasaki Disease. She secured a contract with Springer and collaborated in writing a book related to xenotransplantation, which was published in 2023. She currently serves on a national committee that is creating ethical frameworks before xenotransplantation clinical trials are initiated. She is also the lead faculty sponsor of the UAB Heersink School of Medicine Public Health Interest Group.

2023 Academic Annual Report

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