On Call: Catching Up with Three Surgeons

What have graduates of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health been up to lately? Three medical school alumni who are surgeons share their stories.

Samir F. Abdo, MD '76

I am in solo general surgery practice in a rural community setting in Southeastern Illinois. I am on active staff at Ferrell Hospital in Eldorado, Illinois, and Harrisburg Medical Center in Harrisburg, Illinois. I have been here my entire 30-year professional career. It has been a great place to raise four terrific children.

My practice has evolved significantly over the years. Typically, I do laparoscopic cholecystectomy, hernia repair, tonsillectomy, gynecologic surgery, skin lesions, some colon surgery and a lot of gastrointestinal endoscopy. My first few years in practice, I also did many vascular cases.

One memorable case was a repair of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm on a very high-risk patient at 3am. (I'm glad I don't do that anymore!) The patient went on to full recovery and a long healthy life.

I enjoyed almost every rotation in medical school, and felt I could have gone into any of those fields. But I was particularly attracted to surgery because we deal with rather sudden disruptions of a person's life that may have debilitating or even life-threatening implications. We help the patient overcome these unplanned situations and get them back to their normal living as quickly as possible.

Fortunately, we can accomplish this for the great majority of our patients. In the unfortunate cases where we are unable to cure the disease, we can hopefully alleviate the patient's suffering. Surgery is a very exciting and rewarding field both intellectually and emotionally.

I completed my five-year surgical residency at Akron General Medical Center in Akron, Ohio. It was a community hospital affiliated with Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine. It was a great program that prepared me well for the career I had planned for myself.

I'm forever indebted to all the great SMPH professors who provided the foundation of my medical education, especially the support and guidance of Dr. James Petterson. I was particularly honored to have had a rotation with Dr. William Middleton. (May I implore my classmates and fellow alumni to join the Middleton Society?)

Scott Gylling, MD '81

I am now in my 24th year of practice at Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Sacramento, California. I typically handle routine general surgery cases such as all types of hernia repairs, cholecystectomy, and breast and colon surgery.
 
A memorable case occurred in one of my first years in practice. A middle-age woman came in to the emergency department in the middle of the night in septic shock. Plain films showed mediastinal and retroperitoneal air in the upper abdomen. At surgery, she had a large inflammatory mass involving her transverse colon.

After removal of the mass and colostomy, I learned that the mass was a cystic cancer of the pancreas that had eroded into the colon. When I reversed her colostomy, I resected the rest of the pancreatic cancer with a distal pancreatectomy and splenectomy. She visited me every year until her death from a primary lung cancer, 16 years after I operated on her.
 
I chose surgery due to the great variety of cases. My third-year rotation at UW Hospital, with chief resident Luis Suarez, and the Chief, Folkert Belzer, influenced me immensely. I also did a fourth-year rotation in La Crosse with Bill Gallagher at Skemp Clinic and in Madison at St. Mary's Hospital. Prior to my third-year rotation, I was actually considering psychiatry! I did my residency at the University of California, Davis at the suggestion of Betty Bamforth, then assistant dean of the school.

Medical students interested in general surgery should know that much of it is emergency surgery. A lot happens at night and call is a necessary part of the practice. General surgery involves a wide variety of clinical problems and requires the ability to deal with problems rarely seen. The elective surgery is usually straightforward and high volume. You must be able to meet patients, rapidly establish rapport, solve their problem and move on to the next patient.

Although it is rare for me to follow patients for a long time, as in the example above, I have had the satisfaction several times of becoming the family surgeon, operating on parents, children and relatives. I feel that is the highest compliment.

Don J. Selzer, MD '96

I'm part of the 40-member Division of General Surgery at Indiana University (IU) School of Medicine. I see in-patients and out-patients at University Hospital and IU Health North Hospital. I also see weight-loss surgery patients at the IU Health Bariatric and Medical Weight Loss Center.

In addition to bariatric surgery, I focus on surgical treatment of foregut diseases and hernia repair. So, I commonly treat gastroesophageal reflux disease and other inflammatory and functional diseases of the distal esophagus, stomach and proximal intestine.
 
One case that stands out was a gastric bypass I performed on a 600-pound wheelchair-bound man. Over the course of the following year, he lost 250 pounds. When he returned for his one-year follow-up appointment, he and his wife had tears in their eyes. It was the first time in three years he was able to wear shoes.
 
I was strongly attracted to surgery when I entered medical school. The emphasis on primary care in our first two years caused me to reconsider. But when I entered the operating room on my first rotation as a third-year student, it was clear to me that I was in the right place. In my mind, the wide variety of diseases general surgeons treat allowed me to combine the best of both words.
 
As a fourth-year student, I was convinced an away rotation would confirm my interests. I was accepted to the trauma surgery service at IU, and, as they say, "That was that." I matched there and completed my surgery residency in 2002 following five clinical years and a one-year research fellowship. I then completed a one-year Minimally Invasive Surgery Fellowship at Mount Sinai Medical Center.
 
I'm involved in laparoscopic surgery and surgical education societies. As a member of the Simulation Committee of the Association for Surgical Education, I've helped generate a white paper on the use of simulation in surgical education.
 
My newest interest is political advocacy. As a result, I recently joined the Legislative Committee of the American College of Surgeons and the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons.