Eric R Frykberg MD Lecture

Barbara L. Bass, M.D.  FACS

Vice President for Health Affairs
Dean of the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Chief Executive Officer of The George Washington Medical Faculty Associates

 
Let’s reboot together: Finding new purpose in the almost post-pandemic era

About Dr. Bass

Barbara Lee Bass, M.D., professor of surgery, serves as the George Washington University Vice President for Health Affairs, Dean of the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Chief Executive Officer of The GW Medical Faculty Associates. In these roles, she leads the academic, clinical, and research missions and has strategic direction on all aspects of GW’s academic medical enterprise. 

For 35 years, Bass led a busy academic general surgery practice with a focus on GI and later endocrine and breast surgery, contributing to the education and training of hundreds of residents and medical students.  Her contributions to surgical education research, policy and innovation are noted by election as a founding member of the ACS Academy of Master Surgeon Educators.  Her research portfolio includes nearly two decades of basic and translational research on gastrointestinal inflammatory and growth disorders with continuous funding from the NIH and the VA Research Service and subsequently over a decade of research in computational surgery - the application of computational sciences to surgical disease and technologies, funded by the NSF, the European Union and others.  Her work in surgical quality system research began as a member of the founding advisory group to the VA cooperative study that created the VA NSQIP, and later as the site PI for the AHRQ funded study that led to the ACS NSQIP program for which Bass served on the founding ACS implementation committee.      

Bass has a long record of leadership in the profession of surgery, including as the 98th President of the American College of Surgeons after service on the Board of Regents and Chair of the Board of Governors.  She is a past Director and Chair of the American Board of Surgery and was president of the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract and the Society of Surgical Chairs, and Treasurer of the American Surgical Association and the Association for Academic Surgery.  Reflecting her scientific and scholarly work, she has served on the NIH Bioengineering Study Section, and on the editorial boards or as associate editor of leading surgical journals.   She has been recognized with honorary fellowships by three international colleges of surgery.

Bass has been a tireless advocate for equity and diversity for underrepresented minorities and women in surgery and health care careers, and is known for fostering careers of clinician-scientists and diverse leaders in academic surgery and medicine.  She is gratified to have been recognized for these contributions by the Association of Women Surgeons with the Olga Jonasson and the Nina Starr Braunwald awards.   

Bass earned her BS from Tufts University and MD from the University of Virginia. She completed training in general surgery at George Washington University and a research fellowship at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, serving as a captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps.  Prior to joining GW, Bass served as Professor and Chair of Surgery at Houston Methodist Hospital/Weill Cornell Medicine.  A proud mother, grandmother, beekeeper and cheesemaker, Bass is grateful for the abundant opportunities her career has granted.