Great time had by all at the 7th Annual FSIE Summer Celebration at Ecotrust in downtown Portland! The Innovations team and friends happily cleaned up and exchanged their daily scrubs for an elegant night on the town. Money was raised for programs such as the FSIE Summer Internships, research scholarships and educational travel awards. Thank you to all who made the party such a success and to everyone who contributes to the mission of FSIE to inspire, innovate and educate! See you next summer! 

The students ended the academic portion of the FSIE Summer Internship program with a special hands on didactic in the lab. The team headed out to the off-site FSIE partner lab facility for an outstanding session on electrosurgery. We started off with an introductory didactic where they got to hear how all their physics classes do actually pay off in real surgical applications (V=IR, Ohm's law anyone?). Then they performed flexible endoscopic surgery on live and explant human simulation models. The day concluded with an absolutely mind blowing and inspiring lecture about the future of medicine by Dr Lee Swanstrom (TED talks ain't got nothin' on our FSIE President!). A huge thanks goes to John Day and ERBE for supporting this lab! It was a perfect way to end the summer student program!

​Congratulations to the FSIE Undergraduate Summer Surgical Interns! This year the formal 6 week program received a record number of applicants from around the country. The committee made final selections in the fall and the lucky winners are (top left clockwise in photo):
 
Anthony Jones Cal State East Bay
Hannah Creasey Lewis and Clark  
Naly Setthavongsack Portland State University
Natalie Bolton Creighton University
Roshini Mudunuru Purdue University
 
It has been a pleasure getting to know this group of bright and motivated students as they head into the last few weeks of the program. The interns have been busy! In addition to ample hands on labs in the PSSI, operating room experiences and clinical shadowing they have been productive researchers working on a variety of projects. They also learned about sterile technique, anesthesia and robotic surgery from our Providence Portland Medical Center Operating Room partners and have had weekly lectures from expert surgeons in the fields of foregut, colorectal, endocrine, hernia, thoracic and hepatobiliary surgery. We look forward to the upcoming hands-on electrosurgery laboratory and “Future of Surgery” lecture by Founder and President Dr Lee Swanstrom followed that night by the certificate ceremony at the 7th Annual FSIE Summer Celebration! Thanks to Co-Direcor Walaa Abdelmoaty, SIM lab coordinator Rosen Ilchev, student coordinator Matt Glasgow, administrator Lisa Leeth and the entire Innovations Team for making this internship program such a success!