Abraham Selected for Strong Start New Physician-Scientist Award

Dennis Abraham, MD, assistant professor of medicine in cardiology, is one of five faculty members selected as recipients of the 2019 Strong Start New Physician-Scientist Awards. The Strong Start Program includes an annual award of $70,000 each year for a maximum of three years. This award supports outstanding lab-based clinician-scientists in the School of Medicine. In their letter notification, the committee stated that Abraham’s application was exceptional, and his research trajectory very promising.

“Receiving the Strong Start Award allows my lab to expand our work on how conditions such as hypertension and obesity result in the development of congestive heart failure,” Abraham said. “Specifically, the funds will support work investigating how adipose tissue and cardiac muscle communicate and how this affects metabolic function and cardiac performance. This award is particularly timely as we plan to expand this line of investigation to incorporate cutting-edge technologies and new scientific collaborations.”

Congratulations and great job, Dennis!

IHCC Held in Iceland

The second annual summit of the International 100K+ Cohorts Consortium (IHCC) took place in Reykjavik from April 23-24. Geoff Ginsberg served as co-chair of the event, which featured Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson, president of Iceland, who gave the introductory keynote. The goal of the summit is to continue the discussion and work towards enabling leaders of large-scale longitudinal cohorts worldwide to share best practices, discuss data sharing, explore standards, discuss common challenges, and the potential for larger collaborative sequencing strategy. To learn more, please visit: https://ihcc.g2mc.org/

Sunil Rao Elected to SCAI Executive Committee

Sunil Rao was recently elected to the Executive Committee as Secretary for the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI), the international professional society for interventional cardiology. This puts him on track to become President of the Society in 2022.

 

 

Kester Named COD for Intensive Care and Procedural Areas

We are pleased to announce Kelly Kester, MSN, RN, NE-BC, CCRN, as the Clinical Operations Director (COD) for Heart Intensive Care and Procedural areas effective June 1.  Kelly’s areas of responsibility will include the CTICU, CICU, Invasive Labs, CVSSU, and Cardiac Diagnostic Units.

Kelly received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Regis College and her Masters of Science in Nursing from East Carolina University. Kelly has held the Nurse Manager (NM) position of the CTICU (7W) as interim in 2013 and full-time in 2014. She has been serving as interim NM of the CICU since September 2018. Kelly has contributed to stabilizing the workforce in both Intensive Care units resulting in decreased nursing turnover and has initiated multiple quality improvement projects that have affected key quality outcomes. She is a recognized national and regional speaker at leadership and critical care conferences and a valued member of multiple hospital and health system committees.

Please join us in recognizing Kelly for her contributions to the CTICU and CICU and welcoming her to her new role as the Clinical Operations Director. Kelly will collaborate with Laura Dickerson, Clinical Operations Director of the Heart Step-down units, CMRI, and EKG as they continue to advance the excellent care provided in the Heart Center.

McVeigh Named Co-Team Lead, CAP

We are pleased to announce that Todd McVeigh, PA-C, has been named a co-team leader for the Cardiology Advanced Practice team as of May 1. Todd has worked on inpatient Cardiology since September 2016.  He is a 2015 graduate of the Duke Physician Assistant program and has experience in cardiology as well as urgent care and family medicine. Prior to joining the team at Duke, he worked as a PA for Cone Health Urgent Medical & Family Health and prior to that, he worked as a clinical exercise physiologist at Michigan Heart & Vascular Institute. Please join us in congratulating and welcoming Todd to his new role.

Pictures and Activities from the Week:

Meetings such as the great grand rounds by Cardiology Fellows Steve Greene on enrollment in CHF trials.  There was also breakfast beforehand.

 

 

 

 

Cath-CT Surgery Revascularization Heart Team Meeting

 

 

 

 

 

EPIC SEC was this last week and AATS is starting with our Surgical Colleagues with some presentations by CT surgery Faculty/Fellows and Cardiology Faculty – Matt Brennan on day 1.