Jo Buyske, MD, FACS, will receive the Dr. Mary Edwards Walker Inspiring Women in Surgery Award at Convocation tonight. A general surgeon whose practice has included minimally invasive, foregut, and acute care surgery, Dr. Buyske is being honored for her significant contributions to advancing women in surgery and her leadership as the first female CEO of the American Board of Surgery (ABS).
Education and Career
Dr. Buyske earned her medical degree at Columbia University in New York, New York, and completed a rotation on a Médecins du Monde and Médecins Sans Frontières mission to Mozambique during her medical internship. She then completed general surgery residency and a research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and launched her career at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts.
She became chief of surgery and director of minimally invasive surgery at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, as well as an associate professor of clinical surgery at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Dr. Buyske remains an adjunct professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania.
After initially serving as a volunteer oral examiner, Dr. Buyske joined the ABS as a director. Over time, she ascended to the position of associate executive director. In 2017, she became the Executive Director and CEO, a position she has held since.
Fostering Positive Change
At the ABS, Dr. Buyske helped shape both the organization and approaches to surgical training. This included improving lifelong certification to match the pace of clinical change and the needs of practicing surgeons and advancing the use of entrustable professional activities and competency-based learning in surgical training.
To help strengthen the surgical workforce, Dr. Buyske also helped implement family-friendly leave policies, updated approaches to scheduling, international rotation options, routes to practice reentry, and a broader cultural shift around workplace standards. Her overall aim, she has modestly stated, was “just being reasonable” to both women and men in surgery.
Surgical Humanitarianism
Building on her early experiences in Mozambique, Dr. Buyske also engaged in global surgical volunteerism, with a particularly strong connection to the nonprofit Partners In Health in Haiti.
She initially served as a respite surgeon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, before spending 5 years working to secure accreditation for Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais, the Partners In Health-run teaching hospital in the country’s central plateau. Drawing on her experience at the ABS, she helped the nonprofit and Haitian government create a system for training surgeons, nurse anesthetists, obstetrician-gynecologists, and emergency physicians.
Her volunteerism concluded with the commencement ceremony of the first class to benefit from the educational system she had helped to create. “That was one of the most profound moments of my life,” she said. “This is what I was put here to do.”
A Leader in Many Areas
At present, Dr. Buyske is a director of the American Board of Medical Specialties and a member of the board of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education International, where she previously served as a director. Dr. Buyske also was the first female president of the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons.
The Dr. Mary Edwards Walker Inspiring Women in Surgery Award is presented annually at Clinical Congress in recognition of an individual’s contributions to the advancement of women in the field of surgery. The award honors the fortitude and accomplishments of Mary Edwards Walker, MD (1832–1919). Dr. Walker volunteered as a surgeon during the Civil War, becoming the first female surgeon to receive a commission with the US Army. For her service, she became the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor.
Convocation will begin at 5:45 pm tonight in Hall B on the Lower Level. The ceremony will be livestreamed and available on demand soon after its conclusion.
