UAB Department of Surgery welcomes three faculty members in November

The UAB Department of Surgery continues to celebrate the growth of its nine divisions – with the addition of three new faculty members in the month of November! Help us welcome Dr. Martin Blakely, Dr. Julie Gail Grossman, and Dr. Helen Wohlgemut.

About Dr. Martin Blakely

Martin L. Blakely, M.D., joined the faculty of the UAB Division of Pediatric Surgery. He earned his medical degree from the University of Tennessee College of Medicine. He later earned his Master of Science in clinical research from the University of Texas Schools of Public Health and Medicine, and then a Master of Management in Health Care from the Owen Graduate School of Business at Vanderbilt University. He trained as a surgical resident at the University of Tennessee, the Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center, and the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He completed two postdoctoral research fellowships at Harvard Medical School, one with the New England Deaconess Hospital, and one with the Sandoz Center for Immunobiology.

Dr. Blakely is interested in using implementation science to increase the impact of clinical trials and improve clinical operations. He has served as a primary investigator and co-investigator on several NIH- and DOD-supported multimillion dollar trials.

About Dr. Julie Grossman

Julie Grossman, M.D., joined the UAB Department of Surgery's Division of Surgical Oncology as an assistant professor. She is board-certified in both general surgery and complex general surgical oncology from the American Board of Surgery.

She attended medical school at Tel Aviv University and completed general surgery residency at the Drexel College of Medicine and Washington University Medical Center.

Her clinical interests include soft tissue and retroperitoneal sarcomas, with emphasis on liposarcoma biology, genomic and immune landscapes, and surgical outcomes; cutaneous oncology, including melanoma and sentinel lymph node biopsy in rare cutaneous malignancies; and translational investigation of tumor microenvironment and clonal evolution in solid tumors.

She is a member of numerous professional societies, including: the Transatlantic Australasian Retroperitoneal Sarcoma Working Group (TARPSWG), the Association of Program Directors in Surgery (APDS), the Association of Academic Surgery (AAS), Connective Tissue Oncology Society (CTOS), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO), the Association of Women Surgeons (AWS), and American College of Surgeons (ACS).

About Dr. Helen Wohlgemut

Helen Wohlgemut, MBChB, M.S., joined the UAB Division of Plastic Surgery as an assistant professor. She earned her medical degree from the University of Aberdeen, then completed the North of Scotland Academic Surgical Foundation Programme. She completed the Northwest England Plastic Surgery Core Training Programme and then completed specialist fellowships focusing on microsurgery and hand and lower limb reconstruction. Dr. Wohlgemut earned a Master of Surgical Science from the University of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh.

Dr. Wohlgemut’s clinical specialty is hand and extremity reconstruction. Her research focuses on the delivery of upper extremity trauma care, specifically with respect to epidemiology, health economics and implementing change to existing health frameworks.