Michael A. Edwards, M.D.

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SUMMARY

Michael A. Edwards, M.D., has primary research interests and goals to use clinical data to improve understanding of obesity and the surgical management of patients with obesity, which include exploring how differences in practice patterns, differences in patient characteristics, differences in patient resources and differences in the overall health of the patient's community may impact outcomes in patients with obesity undergoing various procedures for weight loss; exploring the role of social determinants in surgical outcomes in racial and ethnic surgical patient cohorts; and improving surgical outcomes through surgical quality improvement initiatives.

Focus areas

• Determine the epidemiology and pathophysiology for differences in obesity outcomes among racial and ethnic patient cohorts undergoing weight-loss procedures. Using clinical data, this research focus seeks to understand how practice patterns, patient and surgical characteristics correlate with obesity surgery outcomes in different racial and ethnic patient groups.
• Investigate the role of overall community health on surgical outcomes. Using county health rank as a surrogate for a patient's overall community health, this research focus seeks to determine to what extent the health of a patient's community impacts outcomes following weight-loss surgery.
• Discover the social determinants of health-impact outcomes in surgical patients, including patients with obesity undergoing weight-loss procedures. Using clinical data, this research focus seeks to understand the interaction between the social determinants of health domains, and how they impact surgical outcomes in different patient cohorts based on race, ethnicity, surgical diseases and procedures.
• Standardize venous thromboembolism (VTE) risk stratification and prevention. This quality-improvement research seeks to determine the patient benefits associated with standardizing practices around VTE risk assessment and prevention.

Significance to patient care

Dr. Edwards' research focuses on better understanding differences in surgical outcomes, especially between racial and ethnic patient cohorts. Understanding these differences is critical to developing more patient-focused and individualized surgical practices and recommendations, ultimately improving surgical outcomes.