Applications are now open for the 2025 ACS/ASA Health Policy and Management Scholarship. The American College of Surgeons (ACS) and the American Surgical Association (ASA) co-sponsor an annual scholarship to subsidize attendance and participation in the Brandeis Executive Leadership Program in Health Policy and Management. The 2025 Program will be held in person, June 2-7, 2025, in Wellesley, Massachusetts. The award is in the amount of $8,000, to be used toward the cost of tuition, travel, housing, and subsistence during the period of the course.

The award is open to surgeons who are members in good standing of both the ACS and the ASA, practicing in the United States. Applicants must be at least 30 years old, but under 60, on the date that the completed application is filed. The deadline to apply for the 2025 scholarship is March 24, 2025. Learn more about this scholarship.

American Surgical Association Foundation Fellowship Research Awards
Applications are now open for the 2026-2028 ASA Foundation Fellowship Research Awards. The purpose of the ASA Foundation Fellowship is to support and encourage gifted young surgeons who choose careers in investigation and academic surgery. Fellows will be supported in an initial year; the Fellowship can be renewed by review of the Fellowship Committee for a succeeding year. During the Fellowship years, the Awardee should have a primary role in research and teaching. It is expected that the Fellow will have a faculty position following the Fellowship in the Department of Surgery of the sponsoring institution. The application deadline for the 2026-2028 awards is June 15, 2025. Learn more about these awards.

Surgeons and the discipline of surgery, particularly academic surgery, have a tradition of leadership both within medicine and within society. Currently, we are being challenged to harness our innate curiosity, hard work, and perseverance to address the historically significant deficiencies within our field in the area of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Surgery needs to identify areas for improvement and work iteratively to address and correct past deficiencies. This requires honest and ongoing identification and correction of implicit and explicit biases. More diverse departments, residencies, and universities will improve our care, enhance our productivity, augment our community connections, and achieve our most fundamental ambition - doing good for our patients. A working group, the Task Force on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, was formed at the time of the ASA's 2017 Annual Meeting, and charged with producing a work product to identify issues and hurdles and develop a set of solutions and benchmarks to aid the academic surgical community in achieving these goals. This "living document," Ensuring Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Academic Surgery, is now available online. Read more.

A working group of the ASA Council was formed at the time of the ASA's 2018 Annual Meeting and charged with producing a work product to assemble best practices in the principles of ethical leadership. Applying ethical principles allows leaders to chart clear paths to solutions both in the short and long term. In the monograph, the principles of ethical leadership exemplified by case illustrations provide a novel resource to help ensure ethical leadership in academic medicine and beyond. Read more.

Surgeons and the discipline of surgery, particularly academic surgery, have a tradition of leadership both within medicine and within society. Currently, we are being challenged to harness our innate curiosity, hard work, and perseverance to address the historically significant deficiencies within our field in the area of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Surgery needs to identify areas for improvement and work iteratively to address and correct past deficiencies. This requires honest and ongoing identification and correction of implicit and explicit biases. More diverse departments, residencies, and universities will improve our care, enhance our productivity, augment our community connections, and achieve our most fundamental ambition - doing good for our patients. A working group, the Task Force on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, was formed at the time of the ASA's 2017 Annual Meeting, and charged with producing a work product to identify issues and hurdles and develop a set of solutions and benchmarks to aid the academic surgical community in achieving these goals. This "living document," Ensuring Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Academic Surgery, is now available online. Read more.

There is an unacceptably high burden of death and disability from conditions that are treatable by surgery, worldwide and especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The major actions to improve this situation need to be taken by the surgical communities, institutions, and governments of the LMICs. However, the United States (US) surgical community, including the US academic surgical community, have important roles to play in addressing this problem. The American Surgical Association convened a Working Group to address how US academic surgery can most effectively decrease the burden from surgically treatable conditions in LMICs. Its consensus statement, "Global Surgery: Effective Involvement of US Academic Surgery," is now available in the Annals of Surgery. Read more.