General Surgery: Regional & Community

Pictured: John Risolo, M.D.

Faculty Listing:

Theodor I. Kaufman, M.D., F.A.C.S., Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery, Chief Division of Regional Surgery

Regional General Surgery:

Asfandyar Khan, M.D., Assistant Professor of Clinical Surgery

Du Van Nguyen, M.D., M.S., Assistant Professor of Clinical Surgery

Andrew Powers, M.D., Assistant Professor of Clinical Surgery

Svetlana Yudina, M.D., Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery

Community General Surgery:

John P. Risolo, M.D., F.A.C.S., Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery

Regional General Surgery

The UR Department of Surgery is dedicated to delivering the highest level of general surgical care to patients located in the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes Regions.

Although COVID-19 presented many obstacles for healthcare facilities, our Division continued to thrive and grow.We worked together with leaders from our four affiliate hospitals – Noyes Memorial in Dansville, Jones Memorial in Wellsville, St. James in Hornell and F.F. Thompson in Canandaigua – to design, organize and implement an effective,efficient and consolidated approach to care access and delivery. During peak pandemic times, and due to state-mandated restrictions of elective surgery at the University, the Department of Surgery was able to shift surgical cases from Rochester to our affiliate hospitals. This created operational efficiencies and optimized our capabilities while allowing patients to receive necessary operations.

In 2020, I took the helm as Chief of the Division of Regional Surgery. We recruited Drs. Andrew Powers and Asfandyar Khan, who joined Dr. Du Nguyen. In early 2022, Dr. Svetlana Yudina joined our division so that the faculty complement is now up to five full-time surgeons covering the region. In order to accomplish our mission of keeping patients local, we work in conjunction with the employed general surgeons at our affiliates – Drs. Joseph Talarico and A. David Peter at F.F. Thompson and Dr. Brian Foresman at Noyes Memorial to make this happen.

For the first time we have added URMC graduate medical education to our affiliates with R3 surgical residents now having a regular 7-week rotation at F.F. Thompson. This is a step toward integrating surgical graduate medical education in the region with the ultimate goal of having a rural residency training program.

Since our Division was formed a few years ago, we have actively increased the types of operations being performed in the region that would have previously been done exclusively at Strong Memorial and/or Highland Hospitals.By retaining patients in our local facilities, transfers to and further congestion of the Strong Memorial Hospital have been avoided. Our belief is that, if possible, people deserve to be near loved ones when having surgery – and we are proud to deliver a streamlined approach to care, from pre-operative work-ups to surgery to post-operative care. We remain passionate about ensuring that all patients, no matter their location, have access to general surgical care that is on par with our academic medical center while being close to home.

Theodor I. Kaufman, M.D., F.A.C.S. Associate Professor of Clinical Surgery and Chief, Division of Regional Surgery