Laura Caputo, MD
One of the newer members of the division of General Internal Medicine, Laura Caputo, MD, has hit the ground running, serving as a full-time hospitalist at the Durham VAMC, starting the internal medicine book club and serving on the hospital ethics committee. In this week’s faculty spotlight, Caputo talks about her work, her research on medical students’ comfort in ethical issues, and using her residents as guinea pigs to test new recipes.
How long have you been at Duke? How long have you been at the division of General Internal Medicine?
I first came to Duke in the summer of 2011 for my intern year and have been here ever since! After finishing residency in 2014 I moved across the street to work at the VA Hospital.
What are your responsibilities within the division? What does a typical day for you look like?
I’m a full-time hospitalist at the VA, so most of my responsibilities are in clinical work and teaching, and every day is a little different. A typical shift can vary from caring for patients on the non-teaching service to doing medicine consults to rounding with residents on Gen Med. In the coming years we hope to have even more time on the teaching services, and I’m looking forward to that! This year I’ve also served on the hospital Ethics Committee and have kickstarted the new Internal Medicine Book Club.
What has your experience on the Ethics Committee been like? What sort of ethical issues most affect our veteran community? How does working on this committee help you meet this group’s needs?
The committee is comprised of an interdisciplinary team of physicians, social workers, nurses, and administrative staff, and meets monthly to discuss in- and outpatient ethics consults placed by providers. The questions in each consult vary but most commonly relate to the ethics of medical decision-making and end-of-life care. These issues often involve complicated patient and family dynamics and are rarely black and white. When advice from the ethics committee is sought by the primary team, it gives us the opportunity to guide providers in carrying out the wishes and best interests of our veterans.
You co-wrote a 2013 article about residents’ and medical students’ comfort in handling ethical issues. What were the major findings of this article? What sort of ethical issues have you faced so far, and how have you dealt with them?
The purpose of this study was to quantify the comfort level of residents and medical students with the difficult ethical issues they were likely to encounter on the wards, and to see whether different types of training in medical school made residents more prepared for the ethical challenges ahead. We found that while exposure to structured ethical training and years of experiences correlated directly with self-perceived confidence, most programs lack a formal ethics course, and on the whole students and residents alike felt suboptimally prepared for the ethical issues they would face during their medical career. My interest in the topic of medical ethics encouraged me to join the VA’s Ethics Committee, which has allowed me both to utilize the skills I gained from residency and to improve them.
What made you decide to practice internal medicine? How have your experiences so far compared to what you thought they would be like in medical school?
In medical school and particularly in residency, I was always able to find something that interested me in every rotation I went through. As this pattern continued, I realized I wanted to pick a specialty that challenged me to use as much of what I had learned in the last seven years as possible. Internal medicine was the obvious choice, since it requires both strong interpersonal skills and a confident command of a wide breadth of knowledge. So far it’s been everything I had hoped, and even though I’ve finished my training, I’m still learning something new every day!
You lead the Department of Medicine Book Club, which will be meeting in June to discuss The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. How did the idea for this club come about? What has the response been like so far?
The book club came about from a combination of a shared love of reading with other members of the department, and the desire to find out what kind of impact an humanistic activity like a book club could have on the Department of Medicine as a whole. We have built a research study around the events that uses a brief survey to track participants’ senses of community and self-reliance over time, and are excited to have just accept a grant from the Trent Memorial Foundation Endowment Fund to keep our work going for the next calendar year. So far we’ve been so encouraged by the very positive response from students, residents, fellows, and faculty alike, but we’re always eager to welcome new faces! If you have questions or you’re interested in attending, send me an email at laura.caputo@duke.edu. If you’re reading this, you’re invited!
Have you recently read any books, articles, blog posts or other material that would be of interest to the division?
My favorite medical author is the exceptional Atul Gawande. He has a column in the New Yorker that is always worth the read and often reminds us what medicine is like outside the walls of our institution. His most recent article focuses on cost-conscious care, why it matters, and why we should utilize it more. I’m always reading new books, but the best ones end up in the Book Club!
What passions or hobbies do you have outside of the division?
I’ve always loved cooking and baking, and finishing residency has given me a chance to try plenty of new recipes. There may be some cross-over with the division, though, since I often end up using my work colleagues or the residents on gen med as guinea pigs for my newest concoctions (I’ll admit, some are better than others).
Now that it’s warmer, my fiance and I have been enjoying the weather by going out for walks in the gardens, bike rides on the trails, and the occasional day trip on the motorcycle. We’ve also been house-hunting and planning a wedding, which are time-consuming, to say the least.
By the time this spotlight runs, you will have been newly married. Who to and where are you planning for your honeymoon?
Towards the end of May I’ll be marrying Mike Pietak, one of Duke’s epilepsy fellows (and starting in July, the newest addition to the Duke Neurology of Raleigh team). We’ll be in Nassau, Bahamas, for the week after the wedding.
Caputo with her new husband, Mike Pietak, during an Easter visit to Duke Gardens.
