Sunset Terrace resident elected to leadership position

Lillian S. Kao, M.D., has been voted president-elect of the Association for Academic Surgery, a one-year term.

Kao has previously served at AAS secretary, co-chair of the education and leadership committees and institutional representative. Her election was announced at the 7th Annual Academic Surgical Congress in Las Vegas, and her term will start in 2013.

The associate professor in the Department of Surgery at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston Medical School, Kao focuses her research on providing evidence-based care to improve surgical outcomes. She has won the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Physician Faculty Scholars Award and a National Institutes of Health award.

The AAS was founded in 1967 and has grown to be the largest association of academic surgeons. Its purpose is to provide exposure to the most current basic science, translational, clinical and education research pertaining to academic surgery.