Since 2014 The Dr. Andre Crotti Lecture has been part of the ICSUS annual meeting. In 2021 it was presented on Friday, June 25th by Dr. David R. Farley, recipient of the 2021 Dr. Andre Crotti Award for Distinguished Service to the Profession of Surgery. The presentation title of his lecture was Surgical Learning Requires....Assessment! During the Annual Surgical Update in Minneapolis, Dr. Farley also received an ICS Honorary Fellowship.
David R. Farley, MD, is a consultant in the Department of Surgery, at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Farley serves as associate director for the Mayo Clinic Multidisciplinary Simulation Center, and he is the director for the Simulation Research Fellowship Program. He joined the staff of Mayo Clinic in 1994 and holds the academic rank of professor of surgery, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science.
Dr. Farley earned his BS and MD at the University of Wisconsin and completed a residency in General Surgery at Mayo Clinic. He also completed one year of endocrinology research and added six months of surgical and educational training in Mannheim, Germany, as a Mayo Foundation Scholar.
Dr. Farley’s clinical interests focus on endocrine and laparoscopic surgical disciplines. His academic efforts lie with surgical education and simulation training in surgery, focusing on how to create better surgeons in less time. He is passionate about offering surgical trainees hundreds of repetitions using low cost simulation and then assessing them to make sure they are ready to operate on real patients.
As director of the General Surgery residency program for 15 years, Dr. Farley helped train over 300 young surgeons. He has been recognized at Mayo Clinic with numerous honors and awards for education (Distinguished Educator Award, Faculty Service Award, and 16 Teacher of the Year Awards) placing him in the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine Hall of Fame for teaching.
Dr. Farley was the co-editor for both Operative Techniques in General Surgery and Contemporary Surgery. He has authored over 300 articles, abstracts and book chapters, co-wrote three books, and has given hundreds of international, national and regional presentations.
Certified by the American Board of Surgery (ABS), Dr. Farley is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons (ACS). He has held leadership positions for professional organizations (ACS, Western Surgical, Midwest Surgical, American Association of Endocrine Surgeons, and the Association of Program Directors in Surgery), and is a past president of both the Minnesota Surgical Society and The Priestley Society. He became a director of the ABS in 2016.