Of all the professional societies Dr. Jaisa Olasky has joined over the years, SAGES stands out above the rest. “I appreciate that the annual meeting doesn’t present only ‘standard of care’ types of talks, that instead there’s a really nice balance between providing information on standard techniques and presenting innovative ideas and new concepts. Also, committees are robust and continuously strive be productive and engaged between meetings.”
And Dr. Olasky has been pretty engaged when it comes to SAGES committees, serving on FUSE, FLS, Communications, Facebook and the Ed Council’s Assessment Group, and the current chair of the FUSE committee, which she joined in 2012.
Along with the dedicated work of co-chair Dr. Ivy Haskins and committee members, FUSE has already had a busy year, including running a novel simulation-based FUSE course in India in June, a program she hopes the committee will be able to bring to other countries in the future.
In addition, FUSE has expanded the dissemination of the FUSE Hospital Compliance Modules and is continuing to expand this program into more hospitals. Under Dr. Olasky’s leadership, the committee has made the FUSE exam more widely accessible by offering tiered pricing and online exam access, and has started a complete overhaul of online FUSE curriculum.
Dr. Olasky joined SAGES as a resident at LAC+USC (now Los Angeles General Medical Center), and attended her first meeting in 2009 in Arizona as a research resident with a specific fond memory: “I was planning a trip to Rome for the end of my research year. One of my mentors Dr. Peter Crookes suggested that I sit down with his friend Barbara Berci who deeply enjoyed traveling to Rome. Looking back on it I can’t believe she made time to meet with me in the middle of the meeting, but I ended up going to many of the places she suggested.”
She adds most of mentors, colleagues and SAGES co-committee members are now friends, including Dr. Crookes and Dr. Namir Katkhouda from residency, both of whom initially encouraged her to join SAGES. She also points to Dr. Dan Jones, who was her fellowship director at BIDMC (Beth Israel Deacon Medical Center) and has continued to be her mentor and FUSE supporter.
“In spring of 2012 when I was finishing residency in LA and had already matched for fellowship, he encouraged me to attend a FUSE talk at SAGES San Diego. I quickly learned how important this topic was, read the manual, and began to help work on the exam question writing.”
Outside of FUSE and SAGES, Dr. Olasky says she is “an avid Boston sports fan. Even now that I live in NYC I stream the 98.5 (Sports Hub) broadcast regularly when I’m walking to/from work. I probably listen to that—or an actual game broadcast—more than music.”