Newsmaker: Dr. Ellen Dillavou
Noteworthy: Dillavou was named a Distinguished Fellow of the Society for Vascular Surgery in June during the society’s annual meeting in Chicago. She is a teacher and researcher in the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Much of her research has focused on how vascular disease in women differs from vascular disease in men. About half of her clinical work now involves improving the safety of hooking up dialysis equipment to patients’ veins.
Age: 42
Residence: Point Breeze
Occupation: Full-time vascular surgeon and associate professor of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and chief of vascular services at Magee-Womens Hospital. She is on the teaching staff at five UPMC hospitals and the Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System.
Education: Bachelor’s degree from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., and a medical degree from the University of Arizona. She performed her general surgery internship, residency and research fellowship at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, and her vascular surgery fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh.
Quote: About dialysis access surgery: “Although it’s not a glamorous area of vascular surgery, it is one that’s desperately needed.”