Grants Funded
Grant applicants for the 2024 cycle requested a total of nearly $3 million dollars. The PSF Study Section Subcommittees of Basic & Translational Research and Clinical Research evaluated more than 100 grant applications on the following topics:
The PSF awarded research grants totaling over $650,000 dollars to support more than 20 plastic surgery research proposals.
ASPS/PSF leadership is committed to continuing to provide high levels of investigator-initiated research support to ensure that plastic surgeons have the needed research resources to be pioneers and innovators in advancing the practice of medicine.
Research Abstracts
Search The PSF database to have easy access to full-text grant abstracts from past PSF-funded research projects 2003 to present. All abstracts are the work of the Principal Investigators and were retrieved from their PSF grant applications. Several different filters may be applied to locate abstracts specific to a particular focus area or PSF funding mechanism.
Healthcare Disparities in Patients Undergoing Treatment for Invasive Melanoma
Antonio Forte MD, PhD, MS
2019
Mayo Clinic Jacksonville
National Endowment for Plastic Surgery Grant
General Reconstructive, Economics/Quality/Outcomes
The long-term goal of our study is to propose interventions that decrease disparities in costs in surgical treatment for invasive melanoma patients. Our overall objective, which is the
next step to pursuit of that goal, is to identify the factors associated with an increase in treatment cost in Florida patients with invasive melanoma. The specific aims of this project
are 1-Identify the economic impact of the demographic characteristics associated with higher surgical treatment costs; 2-Identify the physician specialties and level of experience
associated with higher surgical treatment costs; 3- Determine the influence of facility type and geographical location in surgical treatment costs, in Florida patients with invasive
melanoma. To achieve these aims, we will conduct a retrospective study using the Florida Inpatient and Outpatient Datasets. Inclusion criteria are patients with invasive melanoma
as the primary diagnosis, older than 18 years, who underwent surgical treatment. Data compilation of the variables gender, age, race/ethnicity, payer type, comorbidities and
location including region and rurality will be included as covariates of the same analysis for aim #1. Surgeon specialty and surgical volume will be included to indicate surgeon
experience relating to the surgery for aim #2. Facility types and facility regions, hospital sizes, and teaching status will be analyzed for aim #3. The rationale that underlies the
proposed research is that this new evidence will provide focus in developing new strategies to afford the differences, increase the adherence to the melanoma guidelines and as a
result decrease costs in surgical treatment of patients with invasive melanoma.
Antonio Jorge Forte MD, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Plastic Surgery. He holds an appointment in Plastic Surgery, as well as a joint appointment in Orthopedic Surgery and Neurosurgery. Dr. Forte is a board certified plastic surgeon, who has also obtained the Certification in the Subspecialty of Surgery of the Hand. Currently, Dr. Forte serves as Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Surgery at Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida.
Dr. Forte received a M.D. degree from Federal University of Ceara Medical School, in Brazil, and graduated magna cum laude (2006), followed by a Master's degree in Pharmacology (2009). He also completed a PhD in Sciences (Field: Clinical Surgery) at University of Sao Paulo in 2017. Furthermore, in addition to his six-year integrated residency training in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Yale University, he completed a one-year Hand and Microsurgery Fellowship at The Buncke Clinic. Dr. Forte is a member of the Editorial Board of Microsurgery and Annals of Plastic Surgery, and an invited reviewer for other major journals related to Plastic Surgery. His bibliography lists over 45 peer-reviewed publications in multiple scientific journals and book chapters.