Chief’s Message:

As the Academic year comes to a close and our summer breaks for kids start, I wanted to take this moment to thank the number of faculty, staff, and patients that help us build the next generation of cardiovascular leaders.  The people, our fellows and faculty are our greatest resource. The end of year activities are in full swing with some photos and updates from the Heart Failure group, the end of year cardiology fellows dinner with awards are coming up this week, and we will have some updates next week from the end of year interventional fellows.  We are the Duke Heart family, and it is great to see our fellows continue onto faculty life near and far.

Heart Transplant team: 4 Transplants, 36 Hours

A big shout out to our heart transplant team – they worked overtime this past week with already full schedules before taking on and completing four heart transplants in 36 hours. The ability to do this is due to the expertise of our surgical, medical and cardiac anesthesiology teams, as well as the ability and training of critical care staff to coordinate multiple complex cases at once. Many things have to go exactly right to pull off a feat like this, and because of their efforts, four patients and their families get the incredible gift of a new heart and more time together. Way to go, Jacob Schroder, Carmelo Milano, Chet Patel and the rest of our Heart Failure / Surgical teams.  Additionally, Saturday was Carmelo Milano’s birthday and we have a photo here of the 7W nurses singing / wishing him a happy birthday.

Kudos for Coniglio

In a note from William Locke, RN, PCCN, CN III, to Anna Lisa Crowley regarding Amanda Coniglio, one of our fellows, who was covering CDU-2K on June 4.

“I was very impressed with Dr. Coniglio because she had obviously looked up all of the stress test patients for that day at some point prior to her arrival for the morning huddle at 8 a.m. She knew all the important details regarding our patients’ clinical presentations, why the studies were ordered, and the particular questions the ordering providers wanted answered. She was readily available to the CDU team throughout the day, and was proactive in seeking learning opportunities. Her attention to details with regard to communicating effectively with the CDU team didn’t go unnoticed by the CDU team! She also participated in the case studies during Hi 5 lunch conference with Dr. Kisslo and was genuinely engaged in the CDU workflow. While we have many excellent fellows that rotate through the CDU, she stood out as exceptional and I wanted to share my thoughts and impressions.”

Nice job, Amanda! Way to represent Duke Heart!

Great Heart Center Grand Rounds:

Awesome talk on Tetrology of Fallot from cardiology, anesthesia and surgical perspectives by Drs. Krasuski, Hashmi and Turek at ⁦@DukeHeartCenter⁩ ⁦@DukeHealth⁩ ⁦@DukeSurgery⁩. Crazy hybrid case for percutaneous PV in an aneurysm.

 

 

 

Neurocardiology Interventional Update

The Neurocardiology Interventional service went out to dinner last week to review the program and discuss clinical protocols and future directions.  Shown here are Nathan Waldron, Arun Ganesh, Marat Fudim, Richard Boortz-Marx, Joseph Mathew, Jon Piccini, and Yawar Qadri. Also shown: the summary results from the first year of the program of bilateral stellate ganglion block in the first 20 patients (Sustained VT/VF is on the left and Defibrillation/Shocks are on the right).

 

Any clinician with a patient who has VT/VF that is refractory to medical therapy is encouraged to contact us – please reach out to Marat Fudim or Jon Piccini.

HF Fellows, APPs Celebrate Year End

Delayed post from our end of the year celebration and thank you for our amazing @DukeHeartCenter HF fellows from this past year: @haiderwarraich @FudimMarat and Toon Junpaparp. What a great year! @DukeHFDoc @_adevore @texhern @JRogersMD1

Our Heart Failure fellowship end-of-year celebration and thank you for the fellows and APPs was held last Sunday at chez Mentz. There was a hard fought Wiffle ball battle; Nanna finally got that home run. Steph, Jade, Erika and Todd shared their best stories of each attending. Steve, Marat, Sounok and Haider showed that they know more than just HF with their badminton and volleyball skills. Kids enjoyed the slip-n-slide.

Many thanks to the Mentz family for hosting. Congrats to each of our completing HF fellows – it looks like a great time was had by all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ICYMI: In the Journals

In addition to the weekly publications, we’d like to make sure to draw your attention to the following… Carolyn Lekavich and Rob Mentz are co-authors on the recently published AHA Scientific Statement on Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Heart Failure in the journal Circulation. The article was co-published as a consensus statement in the Journal of Cardiac Failure: Nutrition, Obesity, and Cachexia in Patients With Heart Failure: A Consensus Statement from the Heart Failure Society of America Scientific Statements Committee. Lekavich is a co-author on the JCF paper.

Gerald Bloomfield is a co-author on the recently published AHA scientific statement regarding heart disease and HIV: Characteristics, Prevention, and Management of Cardiovascular Disease in People Living With HIV: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association was published online last week in Circulation. The AHA issued a press release on this, which can be accessed here.

Nicely done, everyone!

Thrombosis Management Meeting:

I had the privilege of attending Thrombosis Management Meeting in Barcelona – 10th year with 1700 participants.  Although brief, great science, clinical cases and interaction with real world problems.  Some fun mixed with science – photos from the meeting included.