6 fantastic aspiring doctors completed an intensive 2-week internship this week. The program included lectures from surgeons, live surgery and hands-on skills. The course ended with an awesome liver surgery lab and the final knot-tying competitions! Thank you to the dedicated Innovations Team who made it possible. It was a great time for all!

FSIE board member Dr Kevin Reavis serves as the Chairman of the AMA Digestive Disease Section Council and SAGES AMA board representative. In this role, Dr Reavis presented testimony in support of equitable insurance coverage for patients. He argued opposition to the practice of some private insurance companies arbitrarily denying coverage for procedures by declaring them "experimental" if those same procedures are accepted by Medicare. Here is his full 60 second floor speech regarding Resolution 110. 

“Good morning Dr. Speaker...
Kevin Reavis from Portland Oregon
Delegate for the Society of American Gastrointestinal & Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES)
Speaking on behalf of the Digestive Diseases Section council as chair.
No conflicts.
We agree with our colleagues in New York and speak in support of referral for report.
We understand that there may be unintended consequences with this resolution, however denial of well established disease treatments as "experimental" for perpetuity must end. There is no limit to what an insurer can term "experimental" and throw out denial after denial after denial.
"allow markets to determine benefit packages" as mentioned in the reference committee report is an invitation for denial as well.
We enjoy providing our patients the latest appropriate treatments for complex diseases. Once these treatments have been vetted by the AMA and have a CPT and further established as appropriate by Medicare it is incredibly frustrating to explain to patients that their treatment has been denied and their insurance company is less willing to cover their treatment than the federal government.
Referral for report will allow us to move forward in formulating a transition from this most aggravating reality. Thank you.”

FSIE is pleased to welcome another outstanding group of undergraduates to participate in the Annual Summer Surgical Internship after a 2 year pandemic hiatus. We received an overwhelming number of excellent candidate applications and carefully selected 7 students for the internship. They come from a wide variety of universities including OSU, University of Michigan, Connecticut College, California State Fresno, Vanderbilt University and UNLV. Former 2019 intern Sarah McKay has returned from medical school at Albany Medical to continue her research and serve as the program coordinator. A truly stellar group!