Chief’s message:

It has been a week in which our country and community have been challenged to move forward. We are all grieving for George Floyd, his family, and unfortunately all the violent deaths our country has witnessed as evidence of racism and injustice.  We can not imagine the feeling of frustration, helplessness, pain, and vulnerability.  The open wounds of racial injustice, inequality, and structural barriers to equity have festered in America for too long. These inequities have been further magnified in recent months by a pandemic and economic downturn that is creating heightened challenges and uncertainty for us all. Yet as noted by many, these hardships have fallen disproportionately on communities of color including African American, Indigenous and Latinx communities.  For our group, the path forward will continue to include listening, not tolerating any acts of hatred or racism, and striving for health equity in our own community, clinical practice, and actions.  Our core value of respect for and inclusion of people from all backgrounds will continue to be our north star.

Update from the week:

Mike Felker to become Vice-Chair of Clinical Research

We are excited to announce that Mike Felker, MD, MHS, Professor of Medicine with Tenure will assume the role of Vice Chair of Clinical Research for the Division of Cardiology.  Mike graduated from the Duke University Medical School, completed his internal medicine training at Johns Hopkins, and completed his cardiology and Heart Failure fellowships here at Duke.

Since joining the faculty in 2002, Mike has been dedicated to patient care, education, and research. He has many accomplishments during his time here at Duke, but most remarkable has been his ability to establish and grow the heart failure section through mentorship and research leadership. He has spearheaded the Heart Failure Network with the NHLBI, he has helped lead and understands our Clinical Research Unit, and now will serve as the Therapeutic Area lead for the Duke Clinical Research Institute.  During the transformation process at the DCRI, Mike was able to review and identify many of our opportunities for growth.  I am personally excited to have Mike brings his thoughtful approach to our divisional plans on clinical research reorganization as respond to and restart research during the pandemic.  When you see Mike, please welcome him to this new role.

I want to also personally thank John Alexander who has helped serve in this role in the Division over the last several years.  John provided consistent selfless leadership aimed at making our research enterprise stronger.  John will continue to be a force for our Division, and I look forward to his continued leadership with our clinical and research missions.

Congratulations to Rich Krasuski and our pulmonary hypertension group

Rich shared a few key accomplishments with our team over the last week.  The first was, that Sudar Rajagopal and Rih were awarded an investigator initiated research grant of $324,000 from Actelion/Janssen to perform the EPIPHANY (Effects of Combination Medical Therapy Followed by Balloon Pulmonary Angioplasty on Right Ventricular-PA Coupling and Hemodynamics in Chronic Thromboembolic Pulmonary Hypertension) Study.  This will be an important study in an evolving space.

The second accomplishment was, last week there was in press a special issue of Advances in Pulmonary Hypertension entitled “New Invasive Technologies and Devices in Pulmonary Hypertension” that Rich guest edited.

Have news to share?

If you have news to share with the Pulse readership, please contact Tracey Koepke, director of communications for Duke Heart at tracey.koepke@duke.edu. We would love to hear about your latest accomplishments, professional news, cool happenings, and any events or opportunities that may be of interest to our Duke Heart family. Please call with any questions: 919-681-2868. Feedback on Pulse is welcome and encouraged.