Keneeshia Williams' drive to educate: TEDx presenter, ACS CASEL program
AUGUST 2021
Keneeshia N. Williams, MD, trauma and acute care general surgeon and chief quality officer for the Emory Department of Surgery at Grady Memorial Hospital, was a featured speaker at the virtual event "Humanity: The Repatriation," sponsored by TEDxWrigleyville, the Chicago-based production-affiliate of TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design). "The Repatriation" streamed live on August 25th and 26th, and was dedicated to 2021's renewal of human reconnection after the divisiveness of 2020.
Dr. Williams' talk, "The prosperity of investment: A journey from murder witness to trauma surgeon," was delivered from Chicago's Wrigley Field, and applied her life experience and medical expertise to offering nonideological, proven solutions to gun violence in America. Watch the talk here.
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to spreading noteworthy ideas, primarily in the form of TEDx talks that are delivered to live audiences and made available online.
Moving from her violence and injury prevention activism to her efforts to improve surgical education at an institutional and departmental level, Dr. Williams has also been accepted into the Certificate in Applied Surgical Education Leadership (CASEL) program of the American College of Surgeons.
CASEL's mission is to promote excellence in surgical education leadership, advance the quality of surgical training, and improve patient care by offering content and skill building opportunities using a mentored, hybrid-delivery model with an emphasis on applied learning. Dr. Williams' mentor is to be confirmed.
CASEL participants are tasked with undertaking a relevant surgical education leadership effort at their home institutions. Dr. Williams' project will be to develop a quality improvement curriculum for Emory medical students spanning the second, third, and fourth years of training. The approach will be based on students working with established quality and safety initiatives across Emory. Following graduation, the number of participants who continue to engage in quality improvement efforts will be noted.