Wikipedia

Benjamin Starnes

Benjamin Starnes (born 1966) is a vascular surgeon and medical researcher. He holds the Alexander Whitehill Clowes Endowed Chair in Vascular surgery at the University of Washington.[2] He served as a U.S. Army surgeon for 15 years, doing three tours of duty, including in the last M.A.S.H. unit.[3] On the day of the September 11 attacks he was at the Pentagon rendering medical aid to victims, and his experience was later recounted in the book American Phoenix: Heroes of the Pentagon on 9/11.[4][5] He is among the primary authors of the official guidelines for diagnosis and management of aortic disease adopted by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association.[6]

Benjamin Starnes
Personal details
BornDelaware
NationalityAmerican
SpouseMarjorie Starnes
ChildrenCara Elise, Jessica Nicole
Alma materAlbright College
Jefferson Medical College
OccupationPhysician
Military service
Branch/serviceUS Army Medical Corps
Rank Lieutenant Colonel
Unit250th Forward Surgical Team[1]
Battles/warsKosovo War, Iraq War

Early life and education

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Starnes was raised in Odessa, DE by his father Ronald, a Methodist minister who taught philosophy and religion at Wesley College (Delaware), and his mother Martha, an elementary school teacher.[7][8][9] In 1985 he earned the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America.[10] Starnes graduated with a BS from Albright College and received his MD from Jefferson Medical College in 1992.[1][11]

Career

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After medical school, Starnes joined the U.S. Army. In 1998 and 1999, he was part of Task Force Hawk, supporting the NATO and U.S. involvement in the Kosovo War. Starnes, who became a captain, was stationed in Albania in the U.S. Army's last M.A.S.H. unit.[12]

Starnes served as a vascular surgery fellow at Walter Reed Army Medical Center during the September 11 attacks.[13] When American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, Starnes provided medical care to the injured.[5] Soon after, Starnes encouraged his brother to write a book about the events. Starnes recounts his experience in the book.[5][13][4]

In 2003, Starnes deployed to Iraq as a major and vascular surgeon. He was in the 250th Forward Surgical Team stationed at the Bashur Air Base in Northern Iraq.[1] Starnes became a lieutenant colonel.[14]

Starnes completed 15 years of service as an army surgeon and served three tours of duty, including two in Iraq.[3][13]

Starnes later became chief of vascular surgery and professor of surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle.[15][16] He holds the Alexander Whitehill Clowes Endowed Chair in Vascular Surgery.[2]

Starnes founded the company Aortica in 2014, which produced technology for treating complex abdominal aortic aneurysm disease.[17] In 2017, he led clinical trials of Aortica's technology at Seattle's Harborview Medical Center.[17]

Research

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In 2010, Starnes and his colleagues published a study on outcomes of different treatment regimens for hospital patients with ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, an injury with short-term survival rate of less than 58% in one hospital study.[18] The study found that the survivability rate increases when patients with different injury characterics are placed into corresponding treatment regimens such as endovascular aneurysm repair, open surgery, or palliative care.[18][19]

In 2012, Starnes was an author of research providing a classification system for patients with blunt thoracic aortic injuries.[20][21] The system is intended to guide therapy based on probable patient outcomes given the type of injuries.[22][23]

In 2017, Starnes published clinical trial results for an emerging type of treatment for patients with juxtarenal aortic aneurysms. Starnes tested the efficacy of endovascular grafts made by a physician specifically for the patient, instead of grafts manufactured beforehand.[24] The research found that physician-modified grafts were successful long-term for 94% of patients in the trial of 59 people.[25][26]

To develop further guidelines for medical decisions on vascular surgery, Starnes and colleagues in 2018 studied mortality rates of ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm hospital patients, examining which factors before surgery predict mortality.[27] He and his colleagues developed a scoring system[27] based on age, systolic blood pressure, and creatinine concentration values. They found that higher scores predicted low survival rates and thus low benefits of surgery.[28][29]

Starnes is among the primary authors of the official guidelines for diagnosis and management of aortic disease adopted by the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association[6][30]

Personal life

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Starnes is married to Marjorie Starnes.[9] They have two daughters.[31]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Dilanian, Ken (April 9, 2003). "Army surgeon, team jump into Iraq and set up surgical tent". McClatchy DC. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
  2. ^ a b "Benjamin W. Starnes, MD, FACS". UW Medicine. University of Washington Medicine. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
  3. ^ a b Sternberg, Steve; Huth, Lindsay (April 19, 2018). "Safety in Numbers: Low Volumes at Military Hospitals Imperil Patients With few opportunities to hone their skills, military surgeons are inadvertently putting certain patients at risk for adverse outcomes". US News & World Report. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
  4. ^ a b Starnes, Lincoln M. (May 24, 2022). American Phoenix: Heroes of the Pentagon on 9/11, with a foreword by Benjamin W Starnes. Seattle, WA: Girl Friday Books. ISBN 9781734880243.
  5. ^ a b c Talbott, Chris (September 10, 2021). "'American Phoenix' details UW surgeon's 9/11 experiences when he was an Army doctor and first responder at the Pentagon". Seattle Times. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  6. ^ a b Isselbacher, Eric M.; Preventza, Ourania; Hamilton Black, James; Augoustides, John G.; Beck, Adam W.; Bolen, Michael A.; Braverman, Alan C.; Bray, Bruce E.; Brown-Zimmerman, Maya M.; Chen, Edward P.; Collins, Tyrone J.; Deanda, Abe; Fanola, Christina L.; Girardi, Leonard N.; Hicks, Caitlin W.; Hui, Dawn S.; Schuyler Jones, William; Kalahasti, Vidyasagar; Kim, Karen M.; Milewicz, Dianna M.; Oderich, Gustavo S.; Ogbechie, Laura; Promes, Susan B.; Gyang Ross, Elsie; Schermerhorn, Marc L.; Singleton Times, Sabrina; Tseng, Elaine E.; Wang, Grace J.; Woo, Y. Joseph (December 13, 2022). "2022 ACC/AHA Guideline for the Diagnosis and Management of Aortic Disease: A Report of the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines". Circulation. 146 (24): e334–e482. doi:10.1161/CIR.0000000000001106. PMC 9876736. PMID 36322642.
  7. ^ Gellens, Jackie (November 16, 1970). "For Christmas In Odessa Starnes house to be open". Morning News (Wilmington, DE). p. 29.
  8. ^ "3 newsboys win scholarships". The Morning News. May 1, 1984.
  9. ^ a b "Obituary-Ronald Ware Starnes". The News Journal (Wilmington, DE). January 25, 2002. p. 23.
  10. ^ "Scout Honored". Morning News (Wilmington, DE). March 13, 1985. p. 60.
  11. ^ "1992 Commencement for Jefferson Medical College and College of Graduate Studies". Commencements, Jefferson Medical College. 168th: 11. June 5, 1992. Retrieved December 31, 2022.
  12. ^ "MASH makes a comeback: Series namesake finding a new home in Kosovo conflict". Charleston Daily Mail. Charleston Newspapers. April 27, 1999.
  13. ^ a b c Land, Ted (September 10, 2021). "Harborview doctor recalls treating the wounded at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001". King 5 (NBC). Retrieved December 28, 2022.
  14. ^ "Harborview doctors who served in Army focus mission on patients". King 5 (NBC). November 12, 2018. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
  15. ^ Esposito, Lisa (December 16, 2020). "Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm: When It's Surgery Time". US News & World Report. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
  16. ^ "Cook Medical's advanced TEVAR technology for new conformable stent- graft gets positive response from medical community". Interventional News. April 20, 2010. Retrieved January 3, 2023.
  17. ^ a b Mcgrane, Clare (June 28, 2017). "Biotech startup Aortica raising $4M to develop personalized blood vessel stents for aortic aneurysms". Geekwire. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
  18. ^ a b Zettervall, SL; Buck, DB; Soden, PA; Cronenwett, JL; Goodney, PP; Eslami, MH; Lee, JT; Shermerhorn, ML (2016). "Society for Vascular Surgery Vascular Quality Initiative. Regional variation exists in patient selection and treatment of abdominal aortic aneurysms". J Vasc Surg. 64 (4): 921–927. doi:10.1016/j.jvs.2016.02.036. PMC 5036976. PMID 27066949.
  19. ^ Starnes, BW; Quiroga, E; Hutter, C; Tran, NT; Hatsukami, T; Meissner, M; Tang, G; Kohler, T (2010). "Management of ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm in the endovascular era". J Vasc Surg. 51 (January): 9–18. doi:10.1016/j.jvs.2017.12.075. PMID 29753581. S2CID 21680383.
  20. ^ Forman, M. J.; Mirvis, S. E.; Hollander, D. S. (2013). "Blunt thoracic aortic injuries: CT characterisation and treatment outcomes of minor injury". European Radiology. 23 (11): 2988–95. doi:10.1007/s00330-013-2904-0. PMID 23722899. S2CID 27189871.
  21. ^ Brenner, M; Hoehn, M; Rasmussen, TE (2014). "Endovascular therapy in trauma". European Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery. 40 (6): 671–678. doi:10.1007/s00068-014-0474-8. PMID 26814781. S2CID 20405041.
  22. ^ Nagpal, P.; Mullan, B. F.; Sen, I.; Saboo, S. S.; Khandelwal, A. (2017). "Advances in imaging and management trends of traumatic aortic injuries". CardioVascular and Interventional Radiology. 40 (5): 643–654. doi:10.1007/s00270-017-1572-x. PMID 28078377. S2CID 24552422.
  23. ^ Starnes, BW; Lundgren, RS; Gunn, M; Quade, S; Hatsukami, TS; Tran, NT; Mokadam, N; Aldea, G (2012). "A new classification scheme for treating blunt aortic injury". J Vasc Surg. 55 (1): 47–54. doi:10.1016/j.jvs.2011.07.073. PMID 22130426.
  24. ^ Wu, H; Zhang, L; Li, M; Wei, S; Zhang, C; Bai, H (April 9, 2022). "Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Published Studies on Endovascular Repair of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm With the p-Branch". Front Surg. 9 (879682): 879682. doi:10.3389/fsurg.2022.879682. PMC 9098825. PMID 35574550.
  25. ^ Kansagra, K; Kang, J; Taon, MC; Ganguli, S; Gandhi, R; Vatakencherry, G; Lam, C (2018). "Advanced endografting techniques: snorkels, chimneys, periscopes, fenestrations, and branched endografts". Cardiovasc Diagn Ther. 8 ((Suppl 1)): S175–S183. doi:10.21037/cdt.2017.08.17. PMC 8639586. PMID 29850429.
  26. ^ Starnes, BW; Henegan, RE; Tatum, B (2017). "Midterm results from a physician-sponsored investigational device exemption clinical trial evaluating physician-modified endovascular grafts for the treatment of juxtarenal aortic aneurysms". J Vasc Surg. 65 (2): 294–302. doi:10.1016/j.jvs.2016.07.123. PMID 27687323. S2CID 5524761.
  27. ^ a b Tomic, I; Zlatanovic, P; Markovic, M; Sladojevic, M; Mutavdzic, P; Trailovic, R; Jovanovic, K; Matejevic, D; Milicic, B; Davidovic, L (April 15, 2022). "Identification of Risk Factors and Development of Predictive Risk Score Model for Mortality after Open Ruptured Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Repair". Medicina (Kaunas). 58 (4): 549. doi:10.3390/medicina58040549. PMC 9028269. PMID 35454387.
  28. ^ Ito, H (September 25, 2019). "Operative Strategy of Ruptured Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms and Management of Postoperative Complications". Ann Vasc Dis. 12 (3): 323–328. doi:10.3400/avd.ra.19-00074. PMC 6766759. PMID 31636741.
  29. ^ Garland, BT; Danaher, PJ; Desikan, S; Tran, NT; Quiroga, E; Singh, N; Starnes, BW (2018). "Preoperative risk score for the prediction of mortality after repair of ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysms". J Vasc Surg. 68 (4): 991–997. doi:10.1016/j.jvs.2017.12.075. PMID 29753581. S2CID 21680383.
  30. ^ Fontana, F; Coppola, A; Ferrario, L; et, al; al (2022). "Internal Iliac Artery Embolization within EVAR Procedure: Safety, Feasibility, and Outcome". J Clin Med. 11 (24): 7399. doi:10.3390/jcm11247399. PMC 9782076. PMID 36556015.
  31. ^ "Obituary for Martha Nash Starnes". News Journal (Wilmington, DE). January 27, 2004.
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