thanks Paul!!!

Question, in the 4th paragraph, how is "prior to that" not an introductory phrase?

To follow up....

My second complex sentence "Being a board..."

New one : I received a fellowship in surgical oncology at the City of Hope Medical Center in 2014.

My third : " The advancement in.."
New One: I was the first surgeon to perform a SILS laparoscopic cholecystectomy.

My fourth: "My fellow peers..."
New one: I need help. I do not know how to word this in a way where I am not losing the "meat" of the paragraph. Only thing I can think of is just do There was a pregnant patient with bilateral breast cancer and then literally cut out the rest of the information.

In 2015 I was awarded Chairman of the Department of Surgery by the president of Northwest Medical Center. There was a pregnant patient with bilateral breast cancer. My fellow peers nominated me for this position after saving a life of a young lady with bilateral breast cancer. She was 27 weeks pregnant with twins when she was first diagnosed. I quickly coordinated the schedules of an obstetrician, oncologist, and plastic surgeon. We performed a double mastectomy successfully.

The fifth one: " What I bring"
New One: I will bring to your practice a proven commitment of first-rate health care along with excellent patient treatment. and continually improving the quality of life for the patients. What I will bring to your practice is a proven commitment of first-rate health care, excellent patient treatment, and the desire to continually improve the quality of life for my patients

--Again stuck. Only thing I can think of is only saying the first sentence and literally cutting everything else out.

Why is this difficult? Or am I making it out to be difficult?

Simple sentences can be quite complicated, though they can only have one subject and one predicate. The fact that there is an introductory phrase doesn't mean that the sentence is not a simple one. If it contained a verb/predicate, that would be different because the sentence would then be a complex one.

Don't forget that almost all sentences are either simple, compound, complex or compound-complex, and there is no way that your sentence belongs one of the last three types.

Here's an example of a complicated sentence containing no less that six preposition phrases (three are introductory) but it is still a simple sentence:

"On Wednesday at my house, in the garden, from about midday, the dog played very happily with the cat until about 3 o'clock".


Why do you ask? Have you been told to avoid such phrases, or do you have some other concern?


PaulM