Emily Ray Ko, MD, PhD
Emily Ray Ko, MD, PhD, is the subject of our next faculty spotlight. In this interview, Dr. Ko compares practicing hospital medicine between Duke and in Seattle’s Northwest Hospital, discusses her dual interests in patient care and molecular diagnostics research, and Atul Gawande’s Checklist Manifesto.
How long have you been at Duke? How long have you been at the division?
I joined Duke Regional Hospital as a hospitalist in 2012 after moving to Durham from Seattle, WA. Recently I became faculty in the division of General Internal Medicine which has allowed me a more expanded role in research since now I can officially be a PI on IRB submissions and grant proposals.
What are your responsibilities within the division? What does a typical day for you look like?
Part of what I love about my job is how interesting and varied my days are. I came to Duke as a full-time hospitalist after working in this position in Seattle for two years. During my first year here I evaluated my long-term goals and realized I missed being involved in research. After the birth of our second child I decided to reduce my clinical time to allow me to pursue research interests.
My clinical time at DRH is spent admitting patients as well as rounding on an average of 13-16 patients daily. Last week I took care of patients with heart failure, heart attacks, strokes, pneumonia, sepsis, COPD exacerbations, neurologic disorders, GI bleeds, and cancer. Some of my clinical time is spent teaching Physician Assistant students.
How does practicing in North Carolina compare to your time in Washington state? What are the biggest differences between these two locations?
The biggest difference in my clinical practice between the two practices is that while practicing at Northwest Hospital, a 280-bed community hospital affiliated with the University of Washington, the Hospitalist team managed the ICU patients with the Pulmonary/Critical Care doctors as consultants. It was a wonderful opportunity to learn a lot of critical care medicine and care for very complex patients. At Northwest hospital we had a bimodal curve of patients who were young but involved in drug abuse and other high-risk activities and those who were very old (80 to 110)–I actually cared for more than 10 centenarians while practicing there. At DRH there is a nice range of patients of different ages and from varied backgrounds. Patients struggle with similar social issues at DRH as they did in the northwest but with a healthy layer of southern culture and hospitality.
What made you decide to focus on hospital medicine? What’s the difference between your current work and how you thought hospital medicine would be in medical school?
I am not sure I really knew what hospital medicine was in medical school! I went to Stanford University and there was not a lot of hospitalists working there at the time. As a resident at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle I discovered what it meant to be a hospitalist since the majority of the teaching attending were hospitalists. In fact, we even had a “hospitalist” rotation. When starting residency I thought I would go on to specialize but found that I loved the variety and complexity of internal medicine patients. I couldn’t imagine just focusing on their heart failure and not addressing their anemia and delirium at the same time.
When I was deciding about a career in Internal Medicine a few things attracted me to hospital medicine. I enjoyed the clinical challenges of thinking through complex patients or those who were a diagnostic dilemma. I enjoyed the flexibility regulating my own time. For example, I might spend fifteen minutes educating one patient about new medications and discussing discharge plans but I may spend an hour with the next patient talking about end-of-life goals and care. Not only this, but the protected time off afforded by hospital medicine allows one to pursue other goals and interests.
Have you recently read any books, articles, blog posts or other material that would be of interest to the division?
What passions or hobbies do you have outside of the division?
I love travel and the outdoors. My husband and I actually traveled quite a bit before we got real jobs and had children. Currently I spend most of my free time with my six-year-old daughter, Olivia, and my 20-month old son, Sebastian. Since the weather is warming up we are spending more time outside playing, hiking and digging in the dirt.
What are some of the places you traveled to before having children? Did you have a favorite?
We have traveled to 10 countries on 5 continents. Highlights were hiking the Macchu Picchu trail in Peru, attending a week long wedding celebration in India (the food was amazing), and biking along the city wall in Xi’an, China. I do not have favorites. My daughter has the bug too and is already planning a trip to France to visit Monet’s garden and a mother/daughter hike of “a mountain.”
Emily Ko with her husband, Dennis Ko, from the Duke Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
