The Innovative Spirit of Surgical Research

The Saint Louis University Department of Surgery, founded in 1837, has an illustrious history marked by countless breakthroughs in innovative surgical practice. The department opened the first cardiac catheterization lab west of the Mississippi and completed the first open-heart surgery and heart transplant in the Midwest.

Sameer Siddiqui, M.D., speaks at an event honoring SLU’s team of doctors who performed the first heart transplant in Missouri on February 8, 1972.

Sameer Siddiqui, M.D., speaks at an event honoring SLU’s team of doctors who performed the first heart transplant in Missouri on Feb. 8, 1972.

Over the last 10 years, it has expanded to include 10 clinical divisions and over 80 faculty members, with diverse research to benefit the SLU patient community and global population. Sameer Siddiqui, M.D., professor and Rollins Hanlon Endowed Chair of Surgery, said its current research spans disciplines such as plastic surgery, vascular disease, transplant surgery and cancer.

“The future is bright for the department," Siddiqui said. “At any one time, we have around 15 clinical trials ranging from cancer drug trials to surgical device interventions. Additionally, almost all of our divisions are starting to examine the utilization of artificial intelligence to enhance patient care.”

The AI research team — led by Henry B. Randall, M.D., associate professor of surgery, division chief of adult and pediatric abdominal transplantation and surgical director of liver transplantation — focuses its efforts on developing “deep learning” methodologies for the application of neural networks.

Keith Naunheim, M.D., (left), and Charles Andrus, M.D., (right), pioneering one of the earliest laparoscopic cases at Saint Louis University Hospital.

Neural networks are a type of machine learning that teaches computers how to process data like the human brain. The team has been redesigning the national system for the allocation and distribution of organs to further improve the utilization of hard to place organs such as kidneys. As this research develops, it will help physicians make critical transplant decisions to increase access to life-saving organ donations.

The department also stands at the forefront of transformative surgical practices, specifically with the creation of the Elective Surgery Acuity Scale (ESAS) developed by Siddiqui in 2020. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, he created the ESAS protocol to lead surgeons through a decision-making process to triage non-emergent operations. This tiered, acuity-based scale is now recommended by the American College of Surgeons and adopted by surgical societies worldwide.

“The future is bright for the department,” Siddiqui said. “To quote Isaac Newton, we stand on the shoulders of giants. We strive to be the most technically gifted surgeons, the most outstanding researchers and educators and the key thought leaders in our field.”