Yearly Archives: 2019

Blue Dean Leaving Duke Heart

We are sad to report that L. Blue Dean, executive director of development for the Department of Medicine and Duke Heart Center will be leaving Duke at the end of June. Blue is stepping away from medicine-oriented philanthropy to oversee Library Development for UNC-Chapel Hill. Blue joined the Duke Heart team in 2011 and has remained in this role for the last eight years while taking on additional responsibilities to oversee the development efforts for the Department of Medicine and, most recently, assisting with Duke University Health System campaigns which included Duke University Hospital, Duke Raleigh, and Duke Regional.

Blue led Duke Heart through the successful completion of the Duke Forward campaign, raising over $25M towards our $15M goal. In addition, Blue has built strong partnerships with our faculty and team that have resulted in meaningful and lasting gifts, including two endowed professorships within the last year, and $6.3M in new commitments this year.

Blue’s last day with us will be Friday, June 28. Duke Health Development and Alumni Affairs will work to fill Blue’s vacancy in a timely manner. We are sure Blue will be successful in her new endeavor.  Please join us in wishing Blue and her family the very best. Blue, you will be missed!

Heart Center Leadership Council:
We had our Spring Heart Center Leadership Council meeting with a great visit of the new CVRC space.  The leadership group was given tours by our own Paul and Sudar.  Pictures can be seen.  We also had a great “Shark Tank” like competition with finalist for the Heart Center Leadership Awards presenting.  This was a fun afternoon that let our leadership and philanthropy partners in the heart center see how many great resident/fellows and faculty we have in the Heart Center that could use funding to bridge gaps towards meanginful discoveries.  Thanks to all who participated.

 JD Serfas Presents Grand Rounds

One of our great Fellows JD Serfas gave a great grand rounds this week on Congenital Heart Disease focused on how Fontan repaired patients fail and can have improved outcomes.  The talk was an example of taking deep clinical knowledge and moving to generate the best systems and evidence to care for this growing population of patients.  Great Job

APP Milestone Anniversaries

Congratulations and happy anniversary to the following Advance Practice Providers from Duke Heart who recently have been recognized for their years of service to Duke University Hospital. Great job and many thankJs for your hard work!

CTICU:

Sara Jordan  5 years

Lynn McGugan 20 years

Mary Roberts  5 years

Amy Shing   5 years

Cardiology:

Michelle Martwick  10 years

Paige Rossman 25 years

Diane Sauro  10 years

Ericka Schwengel  5 years

Nicole Smith  5 years

Erica Sparacino  5 years

CTSDU

Sara Alexander  5 years

Catherine McKnight  5 years

Holly Noel  20 years

Alicia Ploeger  5 years

Roman Ross  10 years

 

Highlights of the week:

SCAI 2019 Held in Las Vegas

The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI), the international professional society for interventional cardiology, held its 2019 Scientific Sessions this past week (May 19-22) in Las Vegas, Nevada. The conference chair was Sunil Rao; Raj Swaminathan served on the program committee to help organize the peripheral vascular disease track. Duke Heart was very well represented with conference faculty including Manesh Patel, Schuyler Jones, Tony Gutierrez, and Brittany Zwischenberger all participating. The influence of Duke Heart on the field of interventional cardiology was evident with former Duke Heart fellows or faculty like Connie Hess, Matt Sherwood, Amit Vora, Ash Sastry, Chad Zack, Prashant Kaul, Wayne Batchelor, Mauricio Cohen, and Jim Hermiller giving lectures or moderating sessions. The keynote speaker was New York Times bestselling author Abraham Verghese who spoke on maintaining the physician-patient relationship in an era of digital health. This year’s SCAI had the highest attendance in its conference history with over 2100 registered participants. Congratulations to the Duke Heart interventional faculty! Nice job, Sunil!

 

Bloomfield & Team Receives Pilot Funding

Congratulations to Gerald Bloomfield and his team – they have been notified that they will receive an award of $25,000 in pilot funds from Duke Global Health Institute for their project entitled, Proteomic Profiles and Cardiac Dysfunction in Children and Adolescents with HIV.  The group consists of: Bloomfield; Svati H. Shah, MD; Winstone Nyandiko, MMed, MPH and Ibrahim Daud, PhD (both of Moi University); Andrew McCrary, MD (Pediatric Cardiology fellow and soon-to-be Duke faculty member); Michael Muehlbauer, PhD, and Nathan Thielman, MD.

 

Good Catch, Anna Landen!

Many thanks to Anna Landen, one of our CTOR physician assistants in Clinic 2F/2G for realizing that a patient had the incorrect blood type listed in their medical chart. Landen was recognized this week with a Good Catch award. Nice job, Anna!

 

Sabulsky Receives MHA

Congratulations to Richard Sabulsky, one of our CTOR physician assistants, who completed his MHA at George Washington University this year. Sabulsky was inducted into the Upsilon Phi Delta Honor Society for academic excellence in the study of healthcare management, as well. Way to go, Rich!

 

 

 

Upcoming Events & Opportunities:

June 21: Transforming Obesity Research at Duke

Are you concerned about managing patients with obesity? Are you aware of the vital role you can serve at Duke in helping address this challenge? The Dean’s Interdisciplinary Colloquia is sponsoring a one-day interactive event to bring together patients, researchers, clinicians and other experts to advance the science of obesity prevention and treatment. The event will be co-hosted by Duke Heart’s Matt Roe, and Sarah Armstrong of Duke Pediatrics, Population Health Sciences, and Family Medicine and Community Health. Keynote speakers include Lesley Curtis, interim executive director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute and Joe Rogers, Duke cardiologist and CMO of Duke Health.

 

Understanding and solving the complexities of obesity is one of the most pressing challenges facing the health of our generation.  Tackling this problem head-on will require all of us – patients, community members, clinicians, and researchers across the translational spectrum.  Rarely do we have the opportunity to intersect, yet experts across the spectrum of research at Duke are needed to address the causation, barriers in patient care, and treatment methods that influence obesity across the lifespan – from pre-conception through adulthood.

 

Please consider participating in this one-day event, which will take place at the new DCRI Morris Building on Friday, June 21 from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Registration closes on June 9. To register, please visit: https://conta.cc/2WRfZmp

Bobby Yeh – Cardiology Fellows Visiting Professor 2019

Bobby Yeh had a great visit with the Duke Cardiology program and fellowship this week as the visiting professor.  Bobby was kindly hosted by Sunil and Carrie Rao at their house.  There was a packed house of fellows to hear from Bobby about how his interests and research/clinical career was formed.  He then gave a great grand rounds on the unintended consequences of health policy decision rooted in a few clinical examples.

Verily Launches Baseline Health System Consortium

Verily, an Alphabet company, announced last week a new Project Baseline initiative, the Baseline Health System Consortium, comprised of Verily, Duke University Health System, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Mayo Clinic, Regional Health in South Dakota and University of Pittsburgh. The strategic collaboration will identify and develop solutions to significant challenges in clinical research, including making research more accessible and engaging for patients, clinicians, researchers and research sponsors alike. Adrian Hernandez and Manesh Patel will represent Duke within the Consortium.

Shout-out to Loungani

We are pleased to share with you portions of a note sent by Andrew Wang to Anna Lisa Crowley, commenting on the excellence and professionalism demonstrated by Rahul Loungani, one of our fellows.

“Last night, there was a very complex patient who had several post-procedural, unexpected, serious complications (arterial vascular complication, hypertensive urgency, hemoptysis, and ultimately tension pneumothorax). Although she was initially slated to go to OR and then an ICU bed, she returned to 7300 after 8 p.m. Rahul was exceptionally attentive to her complications before and after she went to OR, and continued to take responsibility for her treatment until she was ultimately transferred to SICU after 10 p.m.

In working with him on this and many other cases, I am impressed with his clinical acumen, judgment, care and professionalism.  He is unflappable (shows true Osler-modeled equanimity), honest and humble. Most importantly, he takes ownership for his work and his patients. When I offered him a compliment about his care for this patient, he shrugged it off, saying “She’s my patient.” I would fully trust him to care for my patients, me or my family.”

Nice job, Rahul!

DCRI Fellows Dinner:

We had the end of the year DCRI fellows dinner this week recognizing the tremendous talents and work of our amazing DCRI fellows this year.  We wanted to especially thank all of our faculty and staff that have supported our fellows this year.  Some photos from the Dinner included.

Rymer Receives 2019 Harrington Excellence in Fellowship Award

Congratulations to Jennifer Rymer, the 2019 Harrington Excellence in Fellowship Award recipient! Rymer has consistently demonstrated excellence in the care of patients and in her contributions as a Duke fellow, and overall as a highly skilled and valued member of the Duke Heart team. The award is named for Duke Heart alum Robert Harrington, former director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute and the former Richard Sean Stack, MD Distinguished Professor here at Duke. Harrington currently leads the Department of Medicine at Stanford University.

Very well deserved, Jen!

Schuyler Jones Receives 2019 Robert Califf Research Mentor Award at the DCRI fellows dinner:

The DCRI Fellows awarded Schuyler Jones the mentorship award for his unfailing honesty, integrity, and support in developing their research careers while working help them align and balance clinical and research interests.  Jon Piccini, the winner of the award last year, gave a great talk on the importance of perseverance. The award recognizes the significant amount of time and effort that many of our faculty put into training the fostering the next generation.

 

Dickerson Serving as Clinical Lead RN for DUH CDU and CMRI

Duke Heart is pleased to announce that April Dickerson, BSN, RN, PCCN has become Clinical Lead RN for Duke University Hospital’s Cardiac Diagnostic Unit and Cardiac MRI. Her position is effective as of April 29. April has served as a staff nurse within the CDU since July, 2011.  April joined the Duke Nursing team in 2004 as a staff nurse at Duke Regional Hospital on their cardiac step-down unit. April has been active within the CDU as a Charge Nurse, with patient education projects, staff skills validation, policy management, and Maestro improvements for the department.  She is a member of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses.

April earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from University of North Carolina Greensboro in 2018 and an Associate of Science in Nursing from Piedmont Community College in 2004.

Please join us in congratulating and welcoming April to her new role!

Congratulations Shelley Thompson and Diane Sauro!

A quick note of congratulations to Shelley Thompson, one of our terrific cardiology nurse practitioners! Shelley graduated with her DNP from Duke last weekend. Way to go, Shelley!

 

And, Diane Sauro, MSN, ANP, Director of Advance Practice for Duke Heart, graduated from the Duke Johnson and Johnson Nurse Leadership Fellowship Program on April 28. Such great news, Diane!

AHA Go Red for Women Luncheon Held in Raleigh

A number of our fabulous Duke Heart team members attended the American Heart Association’s Annual Go Red for Women Luncheon on Friday. Held at the Raleigh Marriott Crabtree Valley, the event focuses on preventing heart disease and stroke by promoting healthy lifestyles, building awareness and raising critically needed funds to support research and education initiatives. Cardiovascular diseases, which include stroke, claim the life of a woman about every 80 seconds. If you look closely, you might see Manesh Patel in the crowd of women shown here. Thanks to all who joined us!

Culture Pulse Ends Tomorrow!

If you have not already done so, please complete the 2019 Culture Pulse survey, which closes tomorrow, Monday, May 20. Not sure what this is? It is a survey to gauge the work culture at Duke Health. Why does this matter? The climate in which we do our work significantly impacts our results—for our patients, their loved ones, and all of us. When that climate is healthy and optimized, we can get more done. If you lead a team of people anywhere within Duke Heart, please encourage each of your team members to check their email and to participate – it takes no longer than 10 minutes and is confidential. If you have any questions about the survey, please contact culturepulse@duke.edu. If you have not seen it in your email, please check spam/junk/clutter folders. Thank you!

Chief’s message:

Happy Mother’s day to all of our Duke Family and Friends.  This is hopefully only one of the many days where we all can appreciate the immense self sacrifice, love and commitment to family that moms around the world have.  We have many new mothers and fathers in the fellowship and hopefully this was a great day to enjoy this time of life.  Pictured are some of the fresh strawberries and other goodies we tried to get ready for Mom around our house this weekend. We also want to congratulate all the local students who graduated this weekend from colleges in the area.

Highlights of the week:

Rogers Named President-Elect of ISHLT

We are very pleased to share that Joseph Rogers has been named President-elect of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation. Rogers is a national thought leader on heart failure and transplantation; he is professor of medicine in cardiology and currently serves as Chief Medical Officer for Duke University Health System. His research interests focus on the clinical aspects of advanced heart failure, specifically in the pharmacologic and electrical treatments of systolic heart failure, the use of mechanical circulatory support devices, cardiac transplantation and palliative care.

ISHLT is committed to improving the care of patients with end-stage heart and lung disease through research, education and advocacy.  With 3,800 members from 45 countries, ISHLT is the world’s largest multi-disciplinary organization of its kind.

Congratulations, Joe!

Two Heart Faculty Members Receive Faculty Awards at Spring Meeting

Congratulations to Chet Patel and Harry Phillips for receiving faculty awards at the Duke School of Medicine Spring Faculty Meeting held earlier this week. Patel received the master clinician teacher award; Phillips received the professionalism award. Well deserved and great representatives of the Division of Cardiology!

 

 Krasuski Receives ACHA Research Grant

Congratulations to Rich Krasuski who was recently notified by the Adult Congenital Heart Association (ACHA) that he has been selected to receive one of six inaugural research funding grants that will help to advance scientific understanding of congenital heart disease in adults. Krasuski’s funding will allow his team to advance a pilot randomized controlled trial to evaluate the acceptability, feasibility, and efficacy of a four-month peer coaching intervention called Peer Coaching Adaptive Self-Management Interventions for Young Adults with Congenital Heart Disease (CHASM IN ACHD). We look forward to hearing more about this! Great job, Rich!

Happy Nursing Week!

This weekend concludes Nursing Week 2019. Shown here are some of our many Duke Heart nurses who participated in the events held throughout Duke.  We are so grateful for the work each of you do every day – thanks for the dedication, expertise and energy you bring to Duke Heart!

 

Happy (belated) Perfusion Week!

Happy perfusion week to all of our perfusionists! The American Society of ExtraCorporeal Technology celebrated Perfusion Week from April 29-May 3. We have an amazing team supporting our patients and CT surgery program! Thanks for all you do.

AATS 2019 Held in Toronto (May 4-7)

The American Association for Thoracic Surgery held its 99^th annual meeting from May 4-7 at the Metro Toronto Convention Center in Toronto, Canada. A number of members of Duke Heart’s cardiothoracic team were there to present, including:

Vignesh Raman presented “surgery is associated with survival benefit in select patients with clinical N3 non-small cell lung cancer”; Dr. D’Amico was a moderator for the session.

 

Matthew Hartwig as expert discussant in lung transplant session at AATS.

Jill Engel presented at AATS on ERAS Cardiac Implementation Strategies.

Carmelo Milano spoke on heart transplantation and minimizing primary graft dysfunction. (He also served on the planning committee for AATS 2019)

Charles Wojnarski presented on kidney dysfunction in LVAD patients.

Great representation at AATS for Duke Heart – nice work, everyone!

Good Catch Award

Kudos to Sara Jayne Alexander, NP for her good catch award presented earlier this week for “accurate assessment and escalation of care” – Nice work and many, many thanks!

 

 

 

Culture Pulse 2019

The Culture Pulse survey has been issued and closes on Monday, May 20. Not sure what this is? It is a survey to gauge the work culture at Duke Health. Why does this matter? The climate in which we do our work significantly impacts our results—for our patients, their loved ones, and all of us. When that climate is healthy and optimized, we can get more done. So, please participate because everyone’s voice matters. If you lead a team of people anywhere within Duke Heart, please encourage each of your team members to check their email and to participate – it should take no longer than 10 minutes and is confidential. If you have any questions about the survey, please contact culturepulse@duke.edu. If you haven’t seen it in your email, please check spam/junk/clutter folders. Thank you!

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.

We had the 6^th Annual Duke Sports Cardiology & Sudden Death in Athletes Symposium this week 4/27/19

Course directors: Jim Daubert, MD and Bill Kraus, MD

Guest keynote speakers: Mark Link, MD (Director of Cardiac EP at UTSW) and Jonathan Kim, MD (Chief of Sports Cardiology at Emory, and Team Cardiologist for the Falcons, Braves, Hawks, Dream, Sports Medicine at Emory and Georgia Tech)

Duke speakers/panelists: Jim Daubert, Bill Kraus, Al Sun, Salim Idriss, Beth Miller, Hap Zarzour, Igor Klem, Tracy Ray, Rich Krasuski, Andrew Wang, Chris Kontos

(plus panelist John Symanski from Atrium Health in Charlotte)

144 attendees registered (a new record for this event) – about 80 in person, and the rest for the webinar/enduring material (representing 12 states and 3 countries)

Special appearances by the head of the Duke Integrative Performance Excellence Group, and the Duke Football head coach. Incredible dialogue around challenging sports cardiology cases, football and cardiac health, ECG screening, commotio cordis, cardiomyopathies, Afib in athletes and physical activity guidelines. Program is partially funded by a generous gift from the Davis Family Foundation and the Duke Center for Prevention of Sudden Cardiac Events in Athletes, as well as Abbott, Medtronic, Boston Scientific, AtCor Medical, Sports Endeavors, and Ambry Genetics. The agenda is attached for reference.

 

Faculty win – Medicine Resident vs. Faculty Basketball Game at Cameron Indoor

The faculty pulled out a 55-51 win against the residents In a hard fought full court game the stretched the capacity of the faculty’s physician ability (thankfully we had three shifts of 5).  Game highlights included Azalea Kim and Will Yancy doing some great point guard work, Don Hegland and Steve Smith playing some important frontcourt time, and Rob Mentz with a break away that way almost perfect….

Importantly no one was injured.

 

Rich Krasuski works with NC State students to win Innovation Award

Rich worked with a  group of college students from NC State School of Textiles over the last year.  The group won an innovation award demonstrating their new technology at a Senior Design Showcase. Their project won 2nd place overall in Product Innovation and won the one and only Innovation Award from John Calvert, a retiree from the US Patent and Trademark Office.   You can see a photo of the students who helped with the  warp knit septal occluder.

 

 

 

 

Ngeno , Gersh, Granger at Africa STEMI in Nairobi

Titus, Bernard Gersh and Chris Granger were helping set up systems of care for STEMI in the Africa STEMI meeting this last week.  See photo attached.

Larry Jackson also received a REACH Equity research award and there is a post below from earlier in the week.

Duke REACH Equity Center Names 2019 Career Development Awardees

The Duke Center for REsearch to Advance HealthCare Equity (REACH Equity) has selected the second cohort of Career Development Awardees – REACH Equity Scholars.  Targeting junior faculty, these two-year awards support mentored research projects focusing on the REACH Equity theme: addressing racial and ethnic disparities in health by developing and testing interventions that improve the quality of patient-centered care in the clinical encounter – a setting in which racial and ethnic disparities are well-documented. The awardees will begin their time as REACH Equity scholars in July, 2019:

Larry Jackson II, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Cardiovascular Medicine, Adult Cardiac Electrophysiology was awarded this prestigious award in the last week for the following project:

Project Title: Decision Support Tools in Reducing Racial Disparities in Oral Anticoagulation use in Atrial Fibrillation

Dr. Jackson’s overall research aim is to apply the principles of shared decision-making to enhance patient-centered care and ultimately reduce disparities in the treatment of atrial fibrillation in racial and ethnic minorities. His REACH Equity project will determine patient (African American and white) and provider factors associated with acceptance or refusal of oral anticoagulants (OAC) for stroke prevention in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation and develop an evidence-based decision support tool to reduce racial disparities in OAC use.    When you see Larry please congratulate him.

The REACH Equity Career Development Award program is directed by Dr. Laura P. Svetkey, MD, Professor of Medicine and Associate Director of the REACH Equity Center. Scholars engage in mentored research and a career development program provided by the REACH Equity Center that includes a core curriculum, a works-in-progress seminar series, and an annual disparities research colloquium. Prior to the end of the 2-year award period, each scholar is expected to submit a grant application for next-stage funding.

Dr. Kimberly S. Johnson, MD, Director of the REACH Equity Center, said Duke selected these four scholars from an impressively competitive pool of applicants.  “Our inaugural group of REACH Equity scholars (https://sites.duke.edu/reachequity/funding-opportunities/career-development-awards-program/cda-awardees/) has made impressive progress in their first year. I am extremely excited to welcome this outstanding second cohort of scholars.  Their proposals provide creative solutions to developing and testing interventions that address health disparities in the clinical encounter across disciplines, diseases, and age groups.  I look forward to working with them over the next 2 years of their REACH Equity support and beyond.”

The REACH Equity Center is one of twelve Specialized Centers of Excellence, funded by the NIH through the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIHMD, https://www.nimhd.nih.gov/)

Request for Applications for the third cohort of scholars will be announced later this year for awards beginning July 1, 2020.

 

Hope everyone had a peaceful and passover and Easter weekend.  Unfortunately, hate crimes especially on these holidays against people based on faith, race, or background around the world remind us of the value of our families, friends, and most importantly our safety and freedom.

Judy Hochman Visit to Duke

We were especially fortunate to have Judith Hochman visit Duke Heart this week where she provided several informative and engaging lectures, interacted with faculty and fellows, and most importantly demonstrated what a lifetime of curiosity, scientific inquiry, and leadership looks like.  She is clearly a role model for us all – and we were happy to host her.

She gave the  Cardiology Grand Rounds on “The Role of Revascularization – from Acute Shock to Stable Occlusion After MI to Stable Ischemic Heart Disease.  We look forward to the conclusion of the Ischemia trial and she provided a great overview.

She also gave the Jerry Reves Heart Canter Lecture is Wednesday at 7 am in the Searle Conference Center.  The title of her talk there was  “Cardiogenic Shock Complicating Acute Myocardial Infarction: Can We Improve Outcomes?”  She provided the rationale for several ongoing studies and the possibility of the CABG Shock RCT.

 

MARVEL 2 – first two patients enrolled at Duke

A special congratulations to Dr. Frazier-Mills, Dr. Piccini, Susan Gerstl and the research team at Duke in enrolling patients into the Micra Atrial TRacking Using A Ventricular AccELerometer 2 (MARVEL 2) Clinical Study!

We applaud the work that Susan (and team did) to get this study up and running.  We activated in 95 days.  Susan actually had IRB approval in 60, and we had to wait on the budget to get approved. In addition, the RCs screened  250 Micra implants at Duke and accomplished in 2 days.

Great work.

EPIC – SEC coming Up

Please consider joining us for our annual collaborative meeting with other academic groups in the southeast at Emory.

We are excited to welcome Anita M. Kelsey, MD, back to Duke as the Vice Chief of Noninvasive Cardiac Imaging.  Anita is currently Associate Chief of Cardiology at Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford, CT.  She will join us July 1st and will help build a platform by which we can determine the appropriateness, measure the quality, and ensure we learn from the way in which we care for our cardiovascular patients using noninvasive imaging modalities across the Duke Health System.

Anita Kelsey first came to Duke as an undergraduate in Biomedical Engineering working with Olaf Von Ramm.  She completed Medical School and residency at the University of Connecticut and returned to Duke from 1995-1998 as a Cardiology fellow under the mentorship of Tom Bashore and Tom Ryan.

Kelsey returned to CT in 1998 where her clinical career has centered around Echocardiography, education, heart disease in women, and leadership.  She has served as Director of Echocardiography in Hartford integrating quality practices and education throughout the Trinity Health Of New England hospitals and medical groups.  She began the interventional echo program at Saint Francis and built an accredited school of cardiac sonography that boasts 15 winners of ASE national student awards. Kelsey serves on the Board of the Joint Commission for Accreditation of Cardiovascular Technical Schools.  She has designed an innovative echocardiographic reporting tool for use throughout the Trinity Health system structured to improve compliance with accreditation guidelines and reduce physician burnout.

Kelsey has served as Site Director for the University of Connecticut Cardiovascular Fellowship Program A, councilor for the CT Council of the American College of Cardiology, and past President of the CT Board of the American Heart Association.  She began a Women’s Heart Program at Saint Francis that has reached 11,000 women with special focus on the highest-risk, underserved, inner-city women.  Kelsey is program director for a Women’s Heart symposium, now in its 13^th year and associate program director for the Robert M. Jeresaty symposium, now in its 55^th year. She is also currently pursuing her MBA in the Weekend Executive Progam at the Duke Fuqua school with certification in Health Sector Management.  Kelsey is thrilled to be joining her daughter, a first-year Duke Cardiology fellow, Michelle.  We are thrilled that Anita is returning to Duke to help us as at Duke Heart.  Please welcome Anita when you see her around campus over the next few months.

Manesh

We would like to introduce a new resource within Heart – THE DUKE HEART INCUBATOR.

Have an idea or see something that could be better? Our team is here to help navigate the innovation process and get your ideas off the ground. LEARN MORE with our 1 minute video below. Let’s change the world!

Email:  heartincubator@duke.edu

About: https://www.dukeheartincubator.com/video

We want to especially thank our team – Maggie Meyer, Maria Carroll, Marat Fudim, and Muath Bishawi