I am a dentist, oral pathologist and a MD. I finished dental school in Taiwan in 1980 and came to the USA in 1983 to attend the pathology graduate school at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) in Portland OR. I received my oral pathology certificate in 1986. I subsequently enrolled in the medical school of the same institution. I graduated in 1990 and was accepted to Barnes/Washington University General Surgery Residency Program. I underwent an intense well-structured general surgery training under Dr. Sam Wells and the distinctive group of faculty members at Barnes Hospital. I finished the 7-year surgery residency at Wash U in 4 years and I passed the American Board of Surgery exams.
My academic career began in LSUHSC- New Orleans after I finished my surgical residency at Washington University. I worked my way up starting from an instructor all the way to a tenured full professor in 2010. I was named the best teacher of the year 6 months by medical students after my arrival. I was nominated for the Allen Copping teaching award for seven consecutive years after the award was established, the most prestigious and selective award of the whole institution with 1 win per academic year. Upon my seventh nomination, I won.
Prior to Katrina, my academic responsibilities for the first 11 years at LSU were surgical education and patient care. I was one of the founding surgeons who established the level-1 trauma center at Charity Hospital. I was then put in charge of surgical education and the surgical oncology service at The Charity and University Hospital and as a consultant for VAMC to assist in major complicated surgeries. I completely revised the teaching conferences and curriculum. The average ABSITE scores for the whole resident group rose form 30% to almost 60% and it stayed up for the next 8 years while I was in charge of surgical education. I was named the Director of Surgical Education and Division Chief of General Surgery in 2002 as a reward for my excellent performance in all arenas and assignments.
After Hurricane Katrina, I was detailed to VAMC/Baylor College of Medicine in Houston for 6 months. I was offered a position at Baylor in 10 days! However, I decided to stay with LSU. I drove back and forth weekly to Lafayette and Baton Rouge where my residents were continuing their training. I did that to conduct my weekly teaching conferences simply to ensure the resident education would not be disrupted by the terrible natural disaster. Despite the difficult weekly commuting and the tumultuous chaos, we went through, I am proud and pleased to report that the residents’ 2006 in-service scores remained strong!
Returning to New Orleans, I shifted my career path from solely surgical education and indigent cancer patient care to establishing a Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) treatment center and conducting research to advance my own academic career while continuing teaching and training students and residents. Together, colleagues and I created a multidisciplinary NETs clinic that has since become one of the best-known centers nationally and abroad. I operated on NETs patients with advanced disease. I undertook complex major operations: combined bowel, pancreas and liver resections with extensive mesenteric & retroperitoneal lymph node dissections despite most of them (85-90%) being deemed “unresectable” by other surgeons in the country.
Over the years, I developed many new innovations and modifications for the surgical treatment of NETs. I have presented these innovations at important yearly meetings since 2008: NANETS (North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society) 2008-2019; American College of Surgeons 2010-2017; ASCO/GI Cancer Symposium 2012-2017; SSO (Society of Surgical Oncology) 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017; AAES (American Association of Endocrine Surgeons) 2009, 2010, 2014; SAGES 2012, ISGIO (International Society of GI Oncology) 2014-2015.
Most importantly, the 5-year and 10-year survival rates of our stage IV Mid-Gut NETs patients (87% and 77%, respectively) have doubled that reported in SEER database (48% and 34%). Further, I am honored and humbled by being granted the privilege to serve on the NETs world expert panel of the AJCC’s (American Joint Committee on Cancer) 8th edition cancer staging manual and the expert panel for the treatment guidelines revision organized by NANETS.
I joined Baylor University Medical Center (BUMC) to chair the Neuroendocrine Tumor Research and Treatment Center on 1/8/2018. Within 6 months, the NETs program was not only up and running but there was a tenfold increase of patient influx. This required the creation of an exclusive NETs Tumor Board! In addition, I worked with the pathology department to initiate some landmark research projects and with Nuclear Medicine division staff in attempt to establish new imaging and treatment modalities. The NETs program flourished and blossomed on a solid foundation. Nonetheless, I sincerely missed teaching and the daily close interactions with residents/students!
In early March of 2019, the opportunity to be a founding residency program director became available. Interestingly, the newly proposed Residency Program of Mercer University/Trident Medical Center/HCA/Charleston SC offered me the position. I accepted the offer, resigned from BUMC on 8/14/19 and moved to Charleston SC on 10/1/2019. I worked tirelessly with coworkers and consultants to have all needed documents ready and flowless for application submission before the deadline on 12/19/19. The final accreditation was pending the official site visit on 2/17/2020. Unfortunately, the proposed residency program was deferred due to the Covid pandemic, and the application was officially voluntary withdrawn on 6/30/2020.
I was invited to join Medical University of South Carolina after I left Trident. But the offer was further delayed with the pandemic, so I accepted the other offer to be the new surgery residency program director at Permian Basin in May 2021. I then officially became TTUHSC faculty on 10/1/2021 when TTUHSC-Permian Basin became the official academic institution for this rural community-based residency program.
I took the job offer on 5/25/21 to work for the consortium for the new founding residency as the founding program Director to file the application before the ACGME deadline July 16, 2021. It was not an easy task because the previous residency program was shut down by ACGME. The previous program had a lot of serious citations that I have made proposals, provided actionable resolutions to address, erase or rectify all the citations in addition to file a brand-new application for the new program. Nonetheless, I submitted application in time. I then worked hard to prepare all faculty and coworkers for the readiness of our official accreditation site visit on October 14, 2021. We passed the site visit, and our program was officially approved April 14, 2022. I immediately went to work with friends and colleagues around the country and successfully recruited six residents to 3 different PGY levels and our residential program began on July 1, 2022.
We then participated in the National Match in 2023. We went through more than 500 applicants and interviewed 47 candidates. We then ranked a total of 38 residents, and we ended up matching with our number three and number four choices among the 38 we listed for the NRMP match. We then continue to participate national match and expand to take 2 preliminary residents and 2 categorical residents yearly.

I’ve assumed the associate program director position January 2024 to focus on weekly resident teaching conferences, development of teaching file and teaching PPT on different surgical topics for the residents and faculty. I attend weekly teaching conference and monthly journal clubs and I run the monthly tumor board for the residency. I finished SESAP 18 and do daily quest exam and continue to work on Score question bank review for our resident education.

In addition, I am working in planting research seeds in the department and TTUHSC-Permian Basin to help residents submit publications. In addition, I worked with Barry J. Maurer MD PhD. and C. Patrick Reynolds MD., PhD, Associate Professors of Pediatrics and Medicine, Texas Tech University Health Science Center, in attempt to expand cancer tissue biobanking at the Permian Basin. I served as the Co-investigator on this CPRIT TREC Core grant submission and I had submitted NIH- or CPRIT-style biosketch.

I currently in the process in exploring potential collaborative research between the Surgery faculty of the University of Medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). I have provided and emailed them a list of specific topics/areas that I am interested and want to explore with RCSI faculty. This list will be circulated among RSCI faculty. I am waiting for the responses. Once the contact data of any interested RCSI faculty becomes available, I will connect with them directly for next steps.

The School of Medicine at the Permian Basin will start providing seed grants for faculty, residents/fellows, and medical students (with separate application tracks for each). I was asked to serve as the Chair of the Seed Grant Review Committee, with the planned grant cycle, Request for Applications will be announced late October, with a review period between February 20^th to early April.

Languages

Chinese
Mandarin

Interests

Cancer
Genomic/proteomic analysis
Surgery

Driven by a Mission

Driven by a Mission

Driven by a Mission

Driven by a Mission

Driven by a Mission

Driven by a Mission

Driven by a Mission

Driven by a Mission

Driven by a Mission

Driven by a Mission

Yi-Zarn Wang

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