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Duke Heart Pulse — March 17, 2024

By Tracey Koepke in Uncategorized on March 17, 2024.

Duke Heart Pulse – March 17, 2024

Highlights of the week:

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

We hope you are having a terrific weekend – Happy St. Patrick’s Day to one and all!

CV Emergencies Summit Held at Duke

The Summit for Regional Systems of Care for Cardiovascular Emergencies, hosted by Duke Heart, was held at University Tower on Friday, March 15. The event was open to regional partners in the care of patients with acute myocardial infarction including referring hospitals, EMS agencies, and other PCI centers. The event allowed participants to collaboratively review data and discuss processes to improve acute MI care across the state and region.

This was the first such regional CV emergencies summit held since before the COVID pandemic, with nearly 40 attendees representing Alamance, UNC Health, Mariah Parham, the Durham VAMC, the American Heart Association, and other sites across the Triangle participating.

“We had great leadership from Dr. Granger, Duke Cardiology, and the Duke Heart Network to reinvigorate this work post-COVID and continue driving emergency cardiovascular care and response forward,” said Jill Engel, Service Line Vice President, Duke Heart & Vascular.

A big thanks to all who joined us, to Melissa Williams and Natalie Horseman for helping to plan the event, and to Drs. Christopher Granger and Schuyler Jones, and all presenters for taking the time to share your knowledge.

Plans are already underway to host another regional summit in 2025. Great job all — Go Duke!!

Match Day 2024

Congratulations to all future Duke trainees! Duke’s Internal Medicine Residency matched 45 Categorical, 1 PSTP, 2 Medicine-Psychiatry, 6 Medicine-Pediatrics, 7 Neurology Preliminary, and 4 Preliminary trainees. Additionally, the categorical interns will have attended 37 different medical schools, 21 are female, 24 are male, and 17 identify as under-represented in medicine. Matches were announced on Friday, March 15.

To read the full story and find a link to a slide deck of incoming IM residents, please visit https://duke.is/r/y6y9.

A big shout-out to cardiologist and Cardiovascular Research Center member Chris Holley who, along with nephrologist Xunrong Luo, manage the physician-scientist training program (PSTP) recruitment for the Department of Medicine.

Improving Conversation Skills with Seriously Ill Patients

Did You Know? Patients from Duke cardiology, hepatology, and oncology are the most likely to end up in the hospital during their last month of life. These are the patients most in need of goals of care conversations, according to researchers from Duke in their recently published findings in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.

To make sure that clinicians feel comfortable and empowered to have these difficult conversations with patients and their families, members of the Duke Hospice and Palliative Care team offer VitalTalk communication training so that they can help clinicians do their best to take care of our patients.

VitalTalk skills training is open to those involved in conducting or supporting Goals of Care conversations for our patients with serious illnesses across Duke Health. The course consists of a 30-minute didactic lecture in the LMS system, followed by a 3-4 hour skills practice session. CME/CEU credits are available once both activities (LMS and live practice) are completed.

A limited number of seats are available in each of the upcoming online VitalTalk skills practice courses – use https://duke.is/VitalTalk to sign up for one of the following:

March 19, 1 – 5 pm
April 10, 8 am to 12 pm
April 10, 1 – 5 pm
April 12, 8 am to 12 pm
April 12, 1 – 5 pm
May 1, 8 am to 12 pm
May 1, 1 – 5 pm
May 16, 8 am to 12 pm
May 16, 1 – 5 pm
June 18, 8 am to 12 pm
June 18, 1 – 5 pm
June 21, 8 am to 12 pm
June 21, 1 – 5 pm

Once registered, you will receive an Outlook calendar invite, Zoom details, and instructions for completing the required pre-work module in LMS.

The trainings are limited to a small number of participants because they are extremely interactive. If you are interested in training but these dates do not work for you, please contact Jennifer Bowen to be added to a distribution list for future signups.

Once registered, if your plans change or you are unable to dedicate your full attention during the course, please let the team know ASAP so that you can be rescheduled and your seat offered to others on the waitlist.

If you have any questions, please contact Jonathan Fischer, MD, medical director of palliative care for Duke’s Population Health Management Office.

Support Frazier-Mills, Duke Health’s 2024 AHA Woman of Impact!

Please join us in supporting electrophysiologist Camille Frazier-Mills, MD, one of the Triangle American Heart Association’s Women of Impact in her campaign to raise funds to support Go Red for Women.

Frazier-Mills is representing Duke Health as a Woman of Impact in the 2024 campaign and we want to help her reach her campaign goal. By donating, each of us can support her campaign and help ensure more women have equitable access to cardiovascular care and better representation in critically needed medical research.

** Check out Camille Frazier-Mills’ campaign page and please donate by April 4. **

Every year across the country, a select group of individuals are nominated to be a part of Woman of Impact because of their passion and drive to make a difference. This 9-week blind competition is relentlessly focused on women’s heart health. The campaign launched on National Wear Red Day (Feb. 2) and closes on April 4. During this time, the nominees work to build campaign plans, recruit Impact teams, and inspire their networks to support the American Heart Association’s lifesaving mission.

At the end of the campaign, this special group of changemakers will be celebrated for the overall impact they have on the AHA’s mission and the Triangle community. The nominee who makes the greatest impact and raises the most funds locally will be named a local 2024 Woman of Impact Winner.

Additionally, the nominee who makes the greatest impact nationwide will be named the American Heart Association 2024 National Woman of Impact Winner.

Let’s help her reach and exceed her goal – let’s help her WIN! Go, Camille!

Please Vote in USNWR Best Hospitals for Cardiology & Heart Surgery

USNWR voting for Best Hospitals by specialty is still open in Doximity. If you are board-certified in the U.S. and have claimed your Doximity profile already, please log into your account by March 27 to complete the brief survey: submit your nominations.

New to Doximity? Find and register your profile to vote. Just go to Doximity’s login page, scroll to the bottom and click on “find your profile” – find yours and claim it/register. You can participate in the survey as long as you register on Doximity prior to the survey closing on March 27.

The survey allows you to list up to five hospitals as Best Hospital in the specialty in which you are board-certified. Your ballot counts even if you vote only for one hospital.

As with primaries and national elections, every vote is important!

ICYMI: A New Lemur to Visit

In happy (non-medical) news, the Duke Lemur Center recently announced the birth of Albus, a male Coquerel’s sifaka, who weighed in at 118 grams. Albus, which is Latin for “white,” was a common Roman surname and the moniker for the Roman port city of Portus Albus (“White Harbor”), was born to parents Rodelina and Johann. He has an older sister, Egeria.

The Duke Lemur Center, founded in 1966, is an internationally acclaimed non-invasive research center housing over 200 lemurs and bush babies across 13 species—the most diverse population of lemurs on Earth, outside their native Madagascar.

New additions are a great reason to visit the Center! Plan ahead, however, as reservations are required to visit. The main tour season opens in May and runs through the end of September.

Upcoming Events & Opportunities

March is National Nutrition Month
USNWR Best Hospitals Voting is open (through March 27). Please check your Doximity account and vote!

Cardiology Grand Rounds

March 19: Beyond the Bump: Navigating the Interplay of Cardiovascular Health and Obstetrics in the Modern Era with Sarah Snow, MD. 5 p.m., DN 2002 or via Zoom.

March 26: New Direction for CABG: Women and Robots with Brittany Zwischenberger, MD. 5 p.m., DN 2002 or via Zoom.

All Duke Cardiology Grand Rounds recordings are housed on Warpwire. To access recordings please visit:

NET ID and password required. Enjoy!

CD Fellows Core Curriculum Conference

March 19: HF/Txp Case Presentation with Aubrie Carroll. Noon. DHN 2201 (in-person only). Note room change!

March 22: Update on Mechanical Circulatory Support with Imran Aslam. Noon, Zoom only.

Upcoming CME Symposia

April 12: Duke Sports Cardiology & Sudden Death in Athletes

May 4: Duke Heart Failure Symposium

For any questions you might have about either event, please reach out to Christy Darnell.

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. Submissions by Noon, Wednesdays, to be considered for weekend inclusion.

Duke Heart in the News:

March 9 — Harry Severance

LinkedIn Pulse

Federal “Anti-Referral/Kickback” Laws – How They Paradoxically End Up Hurting Patient Care

March 11 — Duke Health

Becker’s Hospital Review

16 of nation’s top health systems form AI clinical safety network

March 12 — Duke Health

Medical Automation

First Partial Heart Transplant

March 12 — Nishant Shah

Health Central