Resident honored for abstract presentation at national meeting
Dr. David Suarez-Fuentes, a third-year resident with the UF Veterinary Hospitals’ diagnostic and imaging service, recently received the CT MRI Abstract Award from the American College of Veterinary Radiology for the presentation he gave at the group’s annual scientific conference in October.
Suarez-Fuentes’ presentation, which focused on his residency project, was titled, “Computed Tomography Features of Thymoma in Cats”.
“Thymomas are a rare neoplasm in cats and are reportedly the second most common mediastinal neoplasia in cats,” he said, adding that he conceived the idea for the project last year while studying for his board examinations.
“I discovered that the computed tomography, or CT, features of thymoma in cats were lacking in the current literature, yet were recently described in dogs,” he said. “As a passionate clinical researcher, I started investigating the possibility of finding a number of cases to develop an impactful study. I approached my mentor, Dr. Erin Porter, to further mature this project idea. In my search, I discovered several cases that met the inclusion criteria for this research project in the UF database. We added additional cases through collaborations with three other academic institutions, including NC State, Texas A&M and The Ohio State University.”
Last December, he participated in the 8th Annual UFCVM Resident Research Training Workshop, where he completed the logistics of the project.
“Describing findings for specific imaging cases that are lacking in literature is important for our community and profession,” Suarez-Fuentes said. “It helps us further characterize mediastinal masses in cats for surgical planning. I am grateful and honored to receive this award, and would like to thank my mentor, Dr. Porter, and as well as my collaborators/co-authors, Dr. Kip Berry, Dr. Jay Griffin, Dr. Nathan Nelson, Dr. Eric Hostnik, Dr. Carlos Souza and Dr. Jorge Hernandez, for helping me turn this idea into reality.”