The new UCSF Surgery Laboratory at SFGH was inaugurated yesterday with an open house for UCSF/SFGH faculty and staff.

The construction of the lab, which will serve the faculty and residents in surgery at SFGH, is the result of a partnership between the UCSF School of Medicine, the City and County of San Francisco, the UCSF Department of Surgery, and the UCSF Division of Surgery at SFGH, according to William Schecter, MD, Chief of Surgery at SFGH.

The laboratory has been a goal of the surgery division since Schecter became chief in 1993. He acknowledged School of Medicine dean Haile Debas and UCSF surgery chairman Theodore Schrock for their support of the new laboratory. The laboratory, located on the second floor of Building 1 on the SFGH campus, has 5,780 square feet, including office space.

The SFGH surgery faculty has decided to concentrate their research efforts on the study of the Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome. "We believe the laboratory will augment the sense of intellectual excitement in surgery that all of us feel at SFGH. We will take the observations that we make in the intensive care unit, ward and operating room to the laboratory for careful study," Schecter said.

The bottom line, he said, "is to conduct research that will lead to improved care for our patients."

By Alice Trinkl

1st appeared 4/29/97