The Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) announced that Sandra L. Wong, MD, MS, FSSO, is its president-elect. Wong, a surgical oncologist, is the chair of the Department of Surgery at Dartmouth-Hitchcock (D-H). She is a nationally recognized authority in the management of soft tissue sarcoma, melanoma, Merkel Cell carcinoma, and gastrointestinal cancers.
“The SSO is dedicated to advancing the best possible surgical care for patients with cancer through research, education, and multiple quality initiatives,” Wong said. “As such, the SSO is really my go-to professional society and I’m so honored to serve in this leadership role. I look forward to continuing multidisciplinary collaborations in order to improve clinical cancer care and outcomes for all.”
Wong’s health services research program has been funded by National Institutes of Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the American Cancer Society. Her research broadly focuses on the quality of care; she is currently working on the development and implementation of electronic patient reported outcomes to improve symptom management and on the study of rural disparities in surgical oncology care. Wong has expertise in the development and implementation of clinical practice guidelines and advises on health policy and technology evaluation. She has published well over 210 peer-reviewed studies and also serves as the Health Services Research and Global Oncology Section Editor for the Annals of Surgical Oncology. Wong has been honored with numerous medical student and resident teaching awards.
Wong is the William N. and Bessie Allyn Professor of Surgery at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and Professor of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. Her term as SSO president begins in 2022.
About Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health (D-HH), New Hampshire’s only academic health system and the state’s largest private employer, serves a population of 1.9 million across northern New England. D-HH provides access to more than 2,000 providers in almost every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH. DHMC was named again in 2020 as the #1 hospital in New Hampshire by U.S. News & World Report, and recognized for high performance in 9 clinical specialties and procedures. Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health includes the Norris Cotton Cancer Center, one of only 51 NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers in the nation Children's Hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, the state’s only children’s hospital; member hospitals in Lebanon, Keene, and New London, NH, and Windsor, VT, and Visiting Nurse and Hospice for Vermont and New Hampshire; and 24 Dartmouth-Hitchcock clinics that provide ambulatory services across New Hampshire and Vermont. The D-HH system trains nearly 400 residents and fellows annually, and performs world-class research, in partnership with the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and the White River Junction VA Medical Center in White River Junction, VT.
About the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, founded in 1797, strives to improve the lives of the communities we serve through excellence in learning, discovery, and healing. The nation's fourth-oldest medical school, the Geisel School of Medicine has been home to many firsts in medical education, research and practice, including the discovery of the mechanism for how light resets biological clocks, creating the first multispecialty intensive care unit, the first comprehensive examination of U.S. health care cost variations (The Dartmouth Atlas), and the first Center for Health Care Delivery Science, which launched in 2010. As one of America's top medical schools, Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine is committed to training new generations of physician leaders who will help solve our most vexing challenges in health care.