Center for Surgical Trials and Evidence-based Practice (C-STEP)
The Center for Surgical Trials and Evidence-based Practice (C-STEP) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) is a multi-disciplinary program designed to advance evidence-based practice in surgery by providing young faculty and surgical trainees with formal training in clinical research, mentorship, resources, and funding to perform high quality research.
The goals of C-STEP are:
- To foster and develop surgical faculty, staff, and trainees (including medical students) interested in clinical research.
- To advance the surgical evidence base and its application in clinical practice.
C-STEP provides program to medical students, surgical residents, and young surgical faculty including:
- Fellowship in Clinical Research
- Advanced Degree Programs
- Focused Research in Surgery for Medical Students
- Clinical Research Lecture Series
- Clinical Research Roundtables
- Pilot Grant Programs
- Surgical Journal Club
- Clinical Research Symposia
- Research Network
Fellowship in Clinical Research
The C-STEP Clinical Research Fellowship is accepting beginning July 1, 2019. The 2-year program is established for surgical residents interested in a career in academic clinical research with a focus in pediatric surgery. Fellows will obtain a Master’s Degree in a Clinical Research established by the Center for Evidenced-based Medicine and Clinical Research at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth. The Master’s program curriculum focuses on training clinical investigators in designing and conducting patient-oriented research of high quality. In addition to the educational foundation, fellows will work with established faculty mentors with advanced degrees in clinical research to develop expertise in the scientific research process. This would include identifying key problems in pediatric surgery, gathering and analyzing the current evidence and literature, and developing/implementing a clinical research study. In addition, fellows will work with mentors to learn the mechanisms of becoming a funded clinical researcher. Applicants should have completed the PGY-2 year of an ACGME-accredited general surgery residency program by the start of the fellowship. Pay and benefits will commensurate with NIH guidelines for PGY level.
Please visit the Center for Clinical Research and Evidenced-Based Medicine for more information regarding the Master’s Degree in Clinical Research.
To see a list of selected C-STEP publications, click here.
Summer Research Program
Lecture Series in Clinical Surgical Research
Every summer, the surgery and pediatric surgery faculty have MS-1 students work with them through the NIH-funded Summer Research Program offered through the medical school. Through C-STEP, we plan to augment the summer research program’s seminar series by providing a 6-week series on clinical research with a surgical focus. All students are welcome to attend. Due to COVID-19, the lectures will be held at various times on Thursdays via WebEx.
2020 Lecture Schedule
June 23 – Double Lecture Day
3pm start: Developing a research hypothesis – what is a PICO question, and how to develop one? (Lecturer: KuoJen Tsao)
4pm start: What study design should I use? (Lecturer: Curtis Wray)
June 25 – Double Lecture Day
3pm start: How do I appraise the literature? (Lecturer: Mary Austin)
4pm start: Now that I have question, how do I do a literature search? (Lecturer: Matthew Greives)
July 2 –
4pm start: What basic statistics do I need to know? (Lecturer: Lillian Kao)
July 9 – Double Lecture Day
3pm start: Translational Research (Lecturer: Matthew Harting)
4pm start: Now that I have results, how do I write an abstract and make a poster presentation? (Lecturer: Linda Li)
July 16 –
3:00pm: How do I give a presentation? (Lecturer: Akemi Kawaguchi)
July 23 – TBD
Our Residents
| Name | Graduation Year | Undergraduate Degree | Doctor of Medicine | Residency | Faculty Mentor | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Erin M. Corsini, MD | 2020 | Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA | Albany Medical College, Albany, NY | General Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX | Mara B. Antonoff, MD Wayne L. Hofstetter, MD Thoracic & Cardiovascular Surgery |
 | Dalya Ferguson, MD | 2020 | University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX | McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, TX | General Surgery McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, TX | KuoJen Tsao, MD Pediatric Surgery |
 | Gabrielle Hatton, MD | 2020 | University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI | New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY | General Surgery McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, TX | Lillian Kao, MD |
 | Oscar A. Olavarria, MD | 2020 | Unidad Educativa Colegio Champagnat, Caracas, Venezuela | Universidad Central de Venezuela, School of Medicine “Luis Razetti”, Caracas, Venezuela | General Surgery McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, TX | Mike Liang, MD Minimally Invasive Surgery |
 | Seyed Arshia Arshad, MD | 2021 | The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX | Doctor of Medicine Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, Bryan, TX | General Surgery The University of New Mexico School of Medicine Albuquerque, NM | KuoJen Tsao, MD Pediatric Surgery |
 | Naila Dhanani, MD | 2021 | Texas A&M University, Bryan, TX | Doctor of Medicine Texas A&M Health Science Center, Bryan, TX | General Surgery McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, TX | Mike Liang, MD General Surgery |
 | Kayla Isbell, MD | 2021 | University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL | University of Alabama School of Medicine, Birmingham, AL | General Surgery Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA | Lillian Kao, MD |
 | Nicolas Zhou, DO | 2021 | University of Colorado, Boulder, CO | DO - Midwestern University, Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine, Glendale, AZ | General Surgery McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, TX | Wayne Hofstetter, MD Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery |
Faculty
| Lillian S. Kao, MD, MS (Co-Director) | General Surgery and Critical Care Surgery |
| Kevin P. Lally, MD, MS (Co-Director) | Pediatric Surgery |
| Mary Austin, MD, MPH | Pediatric Surgery |
| Marty Blakely, MD, MS | Pediatric Surgery |
| George Chang, MD, MS | Surgical Oncology |
| Bryan Cotton, MD, MPH | Acute Care Surgery |
| Charles S. Cox, Jr., MD | Pediatric Surgery |
| Clara Fowler, Sr. Librarian | Literature Appraisal |
| Maureen Goode, PhD | CCTS |
| Matthew Greives, MD, MS | Pediatric Plastic & Craniofacial Surgery |
| Matthew T. Harting, MD | Pediatric Surgery |
| Akemi Kawaguchi, MD | Pediatric Surgery |
| Kathleen Kennedy, MD, MPH (Program Advisor) | Neonatology, MS in Clinical Research Program |
| Pam Lally, MD | Pediatrics, Database Design |
| Charles C. Miller III, PhD | Epidemiology, CV Surgery |
| Eric Thomas, MD, MPH | Internal Medicine, Health Quality and Safety |
| KuoJen Tsao, MD | Pediatric Surgery |
| Jon Tyson, MD, MPH (Program Advisor) | Neonatology, Center for Clinical Research and EBM |
| Curtis Wray, MD | Surgical Oncology |
Contact Us
For more information regarding C-STEP and its fellowship programs, please contact:
KuoJen Tsao, MD
KuoJen.Tsao@uth.tmc.edu
or
Lillian Kao, MD, MS
Lillian.S.Kao@uth.tmc.edu