Hail to the Chief: Dr. Jason Lee

This article is part of a series of interviews with Stanford Surgery faculty who were, are, or will be presidents of surgical societies. Dr. Jason Lee is a professor of surgery and current president of the Vascular and Endovascular Surgery Society (VESS) for 2021-2022.

Rachel Baker: I was exploring the VESS website and it says that it is an association for “young vascular surgeons.” What does “young” mean?

Dr. Jason Lee: This is one of our national societies focused on the needs of the early career vascular surgeon. The VESS (formerly PVSS) was developed over 30 years ago to be a society that champions the needs of vascular surgeons in their first 15 years of practice.

To accomplish that goal, the executive council and leadership track are limited to vascular surgeons within their first 15 years of practice. That is distinct from our largest and most historic national society, the SVS, which we are so fortunate and privileged that in the same year we have two Stanford vascular surgeons as presidents of societies, namely Dr. Dalman and the SVS.

I think if other specialties and surgical societies take note, and make a slight shift towards giving younger members leadership opportunities when they are right in the sweet spot of their career—when they're very active clinically, research-wise, or teaching-wise—and we see it as an opportunity to really push the specialty and the society forward, I think societies will have a lot more meaning and purpose to the young people we're trying to inspire, mentor, sponsor, and coach.

That's why I loved getting involved in societal leadership particularly in the VESS: the opportunity to give bigger opportunities to folks that are up and coming: the residents, the trainees, the junior faculty. They can't be thinking: “it's going to take me 30 years in practice to get to a position where I have the opportunity to lead.” We really have to give them the opportunity now.

The VESS goes out of their way each year as we select the next group of committee chairs and officers to really cultivate the next group coming down the pipeline. In my own leadership opportunities locally and nationally, I’m personally committed to focusing on our young faculty and trainees and picking the next generation of surgeons to lead.

This is my 15^th year in practice and 14^th year of going to the VESS. If I would've missed the leadership chance, because mentors didn’t push me more than a decade ago, I wouldn’t have this amazing opportunity to be president.

RB: What happens after your 15^th year? Do they kick you out?

JL: No, then you become a distinguished member of the society.

I think it makes a lot of sense for the VESS in its stated purpose to champion leadership within first 15 years of practice. The first meeting I went to, Dr. Harris sponsored my membership. I was brand new faculty, and he was generous in his mentoring and encouraging me to get involved in the VESS. I never thought that 14 years later I'd be the president of the VESS. There was no thought in my mind at that point that this could or should or would be accomplished. I think that's what's cool about a society that’s existence is to allow a platform for the early career vascular surgeon to shine.

RB:  Talking a little bit about your platform. You’re taking over at a pretty tumultuous time; since the murder of George Floyd last summer, there's been a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, and then there's been so much violence against Asians. How do you think surgical societies can combat racism?

JL: My platform and message certainly will be tied around what I’ve worked on at Stanford for the past 14 years here on faculty, namely trainee development and research focuses. I want to utilize the VESS to champion even further early career investigators and educators, giving members a chance for the podium, scholarship and seed grant awards, and an opportunity for national leadership.

But, you're absolutely right, in the midst of all this going on in the US this past year, I'm also not naïve nor ignorant enough to not address it. As I have a voice for this national vascular surgical society, I want to bring continued spotlight to diversity, equality, and inclusion. In fact, my own partner Venita Chandra as chair of our women and diversity committee for the VESS, wrote our position statement on diversity, which was a very elegant, succinct statement. In the past month, we further amplified the message for our AAPI colleagues and young surgeons and trainees.

Because we’re a surgical society focused on championing young members early in career, we’ve gone out of our way to recognize the next generation and the heterogeneity of thought and look and appearance and gender and everything else.

I think all surgical societies have a voice and should be on the platform to talk about things that affect surgery. And I think absolutely based on what's happened in the country this past year and then these past few weeks, the surgery societies need to express their viewpoint on this.

Beyond this, however, we're really going to show our difference by putting action to these words. The best way a surgical society can do that is to go out of their way to include a more diverse involvement on executive councils, selection committees, scholarship recipients, come up with new funding. We should just spend money on this. As a leader in this society, I’m going to focus on giving back to all the younger surgeons that make up the next generation of thought leaders.

RB: You're also coming in at the tail end of the pandemic. VESS and lots of other societies went virtual for their meetings. Are you thinking that some of these things will hold over?

JL: Ah very timely and somewhat controversial. If you read my president’s message on our website, I’ve always felt surgery is a team sport, and being a champion for the younger generation will not be attainable virtually. I will host our annual meeting in January 2022 in Aspen/Snowmass, and plan on making it the largest VESS we’ve ever had, and hope by then this will one of the first large scale surgical society meetings in person. When everybody is safe and when it's safe to congregate, we need to make up for some lost time.

What we've lost in the virtual meetings this past 14 months are the chance interactions: standing in the back of the room, listening to a presentation, seeing an interested student or resident or colleague from another institution next to you and say, “Hey, what do you think about this?” That's lost in the virtual world.

I think coming out of the pandemic, we, as the surgery society leadership, have to find a way to do it safely and to get back to the comradery and team sportsmanship that is surgery. I think you, Rachel, you can see it in the day-to-day by all of us not going to grand rounds. We’re all sitting on zoom. I think it's terrible, and I’m frankly tired of it. I think of the young faculty that came to Stanford to be sponsored, mentored, and coached by people and exchange ideas freely. On the zoom platform, everybody is by themselves, and it's a little depressing.

RB: Well, I'm glad someone else misses grand rounds. I thought it was just me.

JL: No. I mean, some people, some kids are doing better on virtual and some learning styles are probably better where they don't have to interact as much.

I think you know how much of a basketball fan I am and in using that analogy that again that surgery is a team sport: being in the OR, being at grand rounds. There’s a team organizing a society meeting. There’s a team organizing a department, organizing a division, organizing a research project. Surgery and vascular surgery are not individual things.

So, I think coming out of the pandemic, getting the meeting and everything back to more of a team environment again, will rejuvenate vascular surgery. And I hope other leaders who are organizing their meetings for 2022 are thinking that through and focused on it.

RB: I'm surprised you were saying that your platform is more focused on research. I expected it to be education-based.

JL: Yeah, those who know me will have thought I’d focus on education, but that’s where I feel in my involvement on the VESS council for a decade already, I’ve focused on that. I set up the first fellows course at the VESS when I had an early opportunity to be program chair in 2010. VESS already does a great job of having a medical student program, a fellows’ program. This year we also will likely add a resident’s program, but that—to me—wasn’t a revolutionary thing.

I want the VESS to further evolve to be stronger as a research infrastructure and supporter for young surgeons. Again, since we are doing well financially, I think the most prudent way to spend the money is re-invest it into the membership, so my first move was to create a VESS Research Consortium (VRC) that can set up a registry of cases and study clinical outcomes of cases many of our members are innovating in. I’d also like to push for more seed grant opportunities, as I feel increasing the spending on that, to me, is the best way to improve young surgeons influence on vascular surgery in the United States. That's what I want to really highlight this year as something that's new and, honestly, something that's doable in a year as president.

RB: Clearly, you've got a lot of different stuff going: you're on spring break with your kids. you are president of this society, you're doing research, you're part of the program directors society. How do you keep it all straight?

JL: These are all things that I've very passionate about. I went out of my way early on since joining the faculty to get involved in things that I knew were actually interesting for me, rather than things I thought I was supposed to be doing or what others told me to do. I’m very fortunate to have the great support of my partners in the Division and Department for always setting a high bar, and I’m so privileged to have worked with all the trainees that have come through Stanford Surgery.

I would tell others in the Department, choose what you love to do. For some people it could be translational research and NIH funding, or being a program director and focusing on education and skills acquisition and mentoring. Many of our young surgeons really are passionate about a particular disease entity and want to provide best care for patients suffering. For other people it could be division or department leadership or societal leadership or taking on a cause. I want young faculty to really embrace the things that they say yes to, and then go out of their way to just really, really, really work hard at it.

But all that being said, none of this is possible in my life without a super supportive family structure at home. Most folks here know how lucky I am to have Maisie, Justin, Maddie, and Jordan. They allow me to do all these things, they’re proud of me for it, and they’ll even play tennis on the weekend with me, and yes, while we’re on spring break now they said it was ok to get on this interview!

RB: You sort of just answered my final question, but I’ll ask it anyway in case you have something to add. What advice do you have for young surgeons that want to go into leadership?

JL: I'd like point out a vignette of what Dr. Dalman told me early on. He brought me to my first program directors’ meeting. It was in 2006, and I was just finishing fellowship. I had signed on to join the faculty, and I remember he went out of his way to bring me, and then he said: “when you're at the meeting, you don't just want to go to the meeting. At some point, based on your experience and your opinions, if you think you have something to contribute, go up to the microphone, introduce yourself, and ask an intelligent question. Don't ask a question just to ask a question. Ask an intelligent question and people at the podium, on the panel, the leadership of that society will remember.”

Honestly, that has stuck with me. If you're already away from your family and from your practice, take advantage of letting people know you are there and actively engaged.

So that's what I would say to those wishing to get involved in regional and national leadership societies: go to the meetings, participate in the discussions, ask questions, volunteer, and most of all when you’re given some early responsibility, do it with the effort and passion that will make Stanford Surgery proud.