Building a Clinical Practice

Adam W. Beck, MD, FACS is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery and the Division Director of Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.  His clinical practice focuses on open and endovascular treatment of complex conditions of the aorta, including thoracoabdominal aneurysms. He received his medical degree from the University of Alabama and did his General Surgery training at the University of Texas-Southwestern Medical Center, which was followed by a Vascular Surgery fellowship at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH. He also completed a mini-fellowship in branched/fenestrated aortic repair at the Groningen University Medical Center in Groningen, The Netherlands. He has built two busy vascular practices with a focus on aortic surgery, having practiced at the University of Florida for seven years before moving to UAB as the Division Director in 2016. Tracy S. Wang, MD, MPH, FACS, is currently Professor in the Department of Surgery ​and Vice-Chair of Strategic and Professional Development. Her clinical practice is focused on the surgical endocrine disease of the thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal glands. She is Chief of the Section of Endocrine Surgery ​(Division of Surgical Oncology) at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Program Leader for the Endocrine Cancer program at the Froedtert Hospital/Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Center. She is the Program Director of the MCW Endocrine Surgery Fellowship. She received her undergraduate degree from Brown University and received her medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. She completed her surgical residency at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York and a fellowship in Endocrine Surgery at the Yale University School of Medicine.  She holds a Masters degree in Public Health from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

• 1. Clinical practice in the context of an academic career.- 2. Framing your academic career early.- 3. Financial considerations.- 4. Balance with being clinical and saying yes.- 5. Specialty-specific considerations.- 6. “Availability, Ability, and Affability”.- 7. Relationships within your department/institution.- 8. Building multidisciplinary programs.- 9. Basic science lab with clinical practice.- 10. Health services research / clinical practice.- 11. Education / clinical practice.- 12. Clinical trials / clinical practice.- 13. When to Say Yes or No (academic activities).- 14. Joining and become involved with surgical societies.- 15. Understanding Finances of Medicine.- 16. Building relationships with hospital administrators.- 17. New technologies – learning/utilizing/how to bring innovation to a hospital.- 18. VA.- 19. Community-affiliated academics.- 20. County Hospitals.- 21. Balancing multi-site practices/outreach in academics.- 22. Cardiothoracic.- 23. Vascular.- 24. Endocrine.-25. Robotic surgery.- 26. Colorectal.- 27. Bariatrics.- 28. Breast.- 29. Transplant.- 30. Surgical Oncology.- 31. Pediatric Surgery.- 32. Trauma/ACS.