APIC and SIS Webinar: Is Uncomplicated Diverticulitis an Infectious Disease?

Lillian Kao is Professor and Chief of the Division of Acute Care Surgery at UTHealth Houston McGovern Medical School. She is also the Vice-Chair for Quality for the Department of Surgery.

Philip S. Barie graduated from Boston University with simultaneously awarded Bachelor of Arts (cum laude) and Doctor of Medicine degrees in 1977. In 2003, Doctor Barie received a Master of Business Administration degree (with academic distinction) from Auburn University. He trained in general surgery at The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center under the tutelage of the renown G. Tom Shires, M.D., who stimulated his interest in trauma and critical care. After receiving a NIH National Research Service Award Postdoctoral Fellowship in trauma and burn research at Albany Medical College under the tutelage of Samuel R. Powers, Jr., M.D., he joined the Weill Cornell Medicine faculty in 1984, rising to the ranks of Professor of Surgery (with tenure) and Professor of Medicine (Public Health), and is currently Professor Emeritus of Surgery

Doctor Barie has been recognized as a Master Surgeon Educator by the American College of Surgeons, and a Master of Critical Care Medicine by the American College of Critical Care Medicine (one of fewer than 20 surgeons world-wide). He is also a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the American Surgical Association, the Southern Surgical Association, the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, the Surgical Infection Society, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, among the more than 25 societies to which he has been elected.

Doctor Barie has devoted his career to the education and training of students, residents, fellows, and peers in surgery, and to the study, prevention, and management of surgical infectious diseases and critical surgical illness and injury. His investigative focus has been the epidemiology of multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, the host biologic response to infection, and the pharmacotherapy of infection and sepsis. He has received the Peter C. Canizaro Award of The American Association for the Surgery of Trauma; the Best New Book Award of the Association of American Publishers (for the textbook Surgical Intensive Care); the Presidential Citation (thrice), the Distinguished Service Award, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society of Critical Care Medicine; and the Distinguished Alumnus Award of Boston University School of Medicine.

Doctor Barie is the author or coauthor of more than 275 peer-reviewed manuscripts, six books, and more than 100 book chapters among more than 830 total publications. He has delivered nearly 400 invited lectures nationally and internationally, including numerous visiting professorships and named/endowed lectureships. Doctor Barie founded the journal Surgical Infections and served as its editor-in-chief for 17 years, serving currently on the editorial board of it and several peer-reviewed journals, including the The American Journal of Surgery, in addition to reviewing ad hoc for nearly 60 peer-reviewed journals.

Doctor Barie has been honored for his teaching five times at Weill Cornell. Doctor Barie is listed among America’s Top Doctors, New York Magazine’s Top Doctors, and is mentioned in Who’s Who in America. He is a Past-President of the Society of Critical Care Medicine, the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma, the Surgical Infection Society, the Halsted Society, and the New York State Society of Surgeons. He serves pro bono as the Executive Director of the Surgical Infection Society Foundation for Research and Education.

Robert Sawyer graduated from undergraduate and medical studies at the University of Michigan.  He performed his general surgery and critical care training at the University of Virginia, where he was on faculty for 20 years, eventually becoming Professor.  In 2017 he moved to the Western Michigan University Homer Stryker MD School of Medicine to become Chair of the Department of Surgery, where he continues to practice Acute Care Surgery and research surgical infections.