From standing on a stool, watching her surgeon-father operate, to learning patient care as a nurse and paying for medical school, Simoyi’s now ready to practice surgery herself.

Expanding the Emergency Department from the current 43 beds to as many as 80 would accommodate current traffic and allow for future growth, Health System leaders said Wednesday.

Dr. Richard P. Shannon, executive vice president for health affairs, told U.Va.’s Medical Center Operating Board that the Health System remains on solid footing, despite the changes and uncertainty surrounding American health care.

Researchers will track blows to the head and compare pre- and post-season MRIs and neurocognitive tests for both college and high school athletes.

In his first appearance before the Medical Center Operating Board, Dr. Richard P. Shannon, U.Va.’s new executive vice president for health affairs, stresses a commitment to safety as key to continued success.

With pro football players required to don thigh pads this season, Richard Kent and his colleagues tested 82 such pads. Thirty-seven were ultimately approved; amazingly, some of the others were actually worse than wearing no pads at all.

Jeffrey Barth, director of U.Va. Health System’s Brain Injury and Sports Concussion Institute, recently received the 2013 “Toggle” award, named for a “Doonesbury” comic strip character.

Dr. Chris Shaffrey, the only selection from Virginia in the survey, is described as “the go-to guy on the East Coast” and a “real innovator.”

The hospital’s sun-splashed new main entrance is the latest in a series of projects intended to improve the patient and visitor experience.

The rankings use a host of factors, including patient safety; patient outcomes; the use of advanced technology and procedures; nurse staffing; and accreditation and ratings from select outside groups.