Chief’s Message:

Hopefully you all had some time over the holidays to get some time to reflect, relax, and come back rejuvenated to help us with our mission of improving the cardiovascular health of our community and country in 2025. Thanks to all of you that helped care for our patients and deal with unexpected challenges that our system faced with the brief ED closure.

Over the first few weeks of 2025 – we will spend a little time just highlighting a number of the amazing accomplishments and people we have in Duke Heart.  Today we will highlight some of the people and awards over the last year.  This is not an exhaustive list but one we thought would represent the accomplishments of so many.  In the upcoming weeks we will highlight key research work with publications/findings and ongoing studies.  Thank you all for the support and we look forward to continuing our work in 2025!

 

 

2024 Comes to a Close and 2025 Begins

2024 Began with a kick-off celebration of the Centennial for Duke University. The event included Duke Health faculty members Dr. Joseph Turek and Dr. Louise Markert who appeared as part of a special segment featuring the story of Easton Sinnamon, the now 3-year-old boy who received the world’s first combination heart transplant-thymus procedure here at Duke in 2021.

In January, we learned that St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has invested nearly $13 million toward a new collaboration with researchers at Duke, Columbia, and Stanford Universities to expand the understanding of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR), vital proteins that have been linked to more than 100 human diseases and disorders. The GPCR Collaborative is led by Scott Blanchard, PhD, and M. Madan Babu, PhD, of St. Jude’s. The two are partnering with Jonathan Javitch, MD, PhD, of Columbia University; Georgios Skiniotis, PhD, and Alice Ting, PhD, of Stanford University, and Robert J. Lefkowitz, MD, of Duke University School of Medicine and Duke Cardiovascular Research Center.

We had a number of faculty take on new roles and appointments in 2024, including:

Jacob N. Schroder, MD, was named Surgical Director for Advanced Heart Failure of Duke Health’s Heart and Vascular Service line and the Duke Division of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery.

Jeffrey Gaca, MD, was appointed section chief for Adult Cardiac Surgery

Camille Frazier-Mills, MD was named Vice Chief for Clinical Services for Cardiology. Camille Frazier-Mills did an amazing job representing Duke Health as our Triangle Women of Impact nominee for 2024

Schuyler Jones, MD, director of Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories at Duke was named the Endowed Kent and Siri Rawson Director for Advanced Coronary Artery Disease in Duke Heart Center. Separately, he was also named director of our Invasive labs across Duke University Health System.

Chad Hughes, MD, Professor of Surgery, was appointed the inaugural Chief for the Section of Aortic Surgery, a new section housed jointly within the Divisions of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Vascular and Endovascular Surgery. Hughes will also serve as co-director, with vascular surgeon Chandler Long, MD, of the Duke Center for Aortic Disease.

Svati Shah, MD, MS, MHS, was named Vice Chief for Research in the Division of Cardiology. She currently also serves as the Associate Dean for Translational Research and Director of the Precision Genomics Collaboratory and Center for Precision Health.  She was also named associate dean for translational research for Duke School of Medicine/

Anita Kelsey, MD was named Vice Chief for Faculty Affairs and Operations in Cardiology.

Jeffrey Keenan, MD, assistant professor of surgery at Duke, was named Surgical Director, Mechanical Circulatory Support.

Deepak Voora, MD, was appointed Executive Director for the Veterans Affairs National Pharmacogenomics Program.

 

Awards & Recognition

Thomas Bashore, MD, professor of medicine in cardiology, received the Triangle Business Journal’s 2024 Health Care Leadership Lifetime Achievement Award.

Adam Williams, MD received the Thoracic Surgery Foundation (TSF) Every Heartbeat Matters Award for medical outreach in Honduras via our Duke Heart for Honduras program.

Senthil Selvaraj, MD was been selected as a recipient of an American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) 2024 Young Physician-Scientist Award (YPSA).

Kevin Cox was named to the 2024 Great 100 Nurses of North Carolina.

Duke cardiologist and rehabilitation specialist, William Kraus, MD, was selected as an American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) Citation Award winner for 2024. The prestigious Citation Award recognizes distinguished individuals who have made significant contributions to sports medicine and/or to the exercise sciences.

Perfusionist Scott Snider Received the 2024 AmSECT Award of Excellence

Kevin Thomas, MD, professor of medicine in cardiology and vice dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for Duke School of Medicine, was selected by the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) to receive it’s 2024 James H. Youngblood Excellence in Leadership Award.

Pamela Douglas, MD, was one of four Department of Medicine faculty members to receive the 2024 Department of Medicine Career Achievement Award recognizing their extraordinary impact on one of the department’s three core missions: education, research, and clinical medicine.

Zak Loring, MD was awarded an AHA VISN 6 Career Development Award

Dennis Narcisse, MD, was selected for 2024 ACC Career Development Award

Duke’s Heart team received the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s (SCCM) “Family-Centered Care Innovation Award” for Duke University Hospital.

The Duke Perfusion team recently earned its second Pillar Award for Perfusion Excellence from the American Society of Extracorporeal Technology (AmSECT).

Duke’s Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) Specialist Team achieved – for the very first time — 100 percent ELSO Adult ECMO Practitioner Certification (E-AEC) for our experienced ECMO Specialists.

We earned a Mitral Valve Repair Reference Center Award for the fifth year in a row. Duke is one of only 22 mitral repair centers recognized by the Mitral Foundation as having the volume and outcomes needed to qualify for the honor.

The American Heart Association’s (AHA) Council on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research (QCOR) Council presented Adrian Hernandez, MD, with their Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award during the AHA Scientific Sessions in November.

 

National Professional Society Leadership:

Below is a list of the national organizations in which our faculty serve on the national board or executive role

• American Association of Heart Failure Nurses: Steph Barnes – Board Director
• Heart Failure Society of America (HFSA) 2024-2025: Mike Felker as President
• Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Intervention (SCAI) – Board Trustee: Raj Swaminathan
• Heart Rhythm Society (HRS): Board Trustee: Jon Piccini, Program Chair for Sessions: Sana Al Khatib
• American Heart Association (AHA): National Board: Svati Shah, Manesh Patel
• American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS): National board: Thomas A. D’Amico

 

School of Medicine Faculty awards:

The cardiovascular team was blessed to have several members recognized at the School of Medicine Faculty Awards for 2024.

• Adrian Hernandez, MD, professor of medicine in cardiology received an Excellence in Professionalism Award
• Christopher Holley, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine in cardiology received a Research Mentoring Award
• Anita Kelsey, MD, MBA, professor of medicine in cardiology received the Master Clinician/Teacher Award
• Neha Pagidipati, MD, MPH, associate professor of medicine in cardiology received a Research Mentoring Award
• Madhav Swaminathan, MBBS, professor of anesthesiology, cardiothoracic anesthesiology/ critical care, received the Master Clinician/Teacher Award
• Annemarie Thompson, MD, professor of anesthesiology, pediatric cardiothoracic anesthesiology, received a Leonard Palumbo Jr., MD Faculty Achievement Award

 

Firsts & milestones

1st Barostim Device was implanted in January. Barostim is an implantable device now being used in heart failure patients with reduced ejection fraction.

In February we celebrated our record 161 heart transplants completed in 2023 and the 2000 Heart transplant milestone. Later that month, we implanted our 1500th Durable VAD.

In March, Duke became the first enroller for the Pulmonary Artery DenerVation Clinical Study Using the Gradient Denervation System in Heart Failure Patients with Pulmonary Hypertension Group 2 (PreVail-PH2 Study), an early feasibility, device study enrolling heart failure patients with pulmonary hypertension (PH).

Last summer, the Duke heart transplant team helped pioneer a new generation of Total Artificial Heart — A young Graham, NC, father became the second person in the world to receive a BiVACOR Total Artificial Heart (TAH) as a bridge to transplant, living with the device for 10 days before undergoing a heart transplant at Duke University Hospital.

Our first TriClip procedures were performed at DUH in September. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the TriClip transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (TEER) system in April. The TriClip TEER procedure, performed in the cath lab, offers a minimally invasive approach designed to repair severe tricuspid regurgitation, or a leaky tricuspid valve, in patients with severe symptoms.

Forsyth County, NC became the first county in the state to sign on for a partnership with Duke for feasibility testing of AED drone delivery to cardiac arrest bystanders.

 

Philanthropic Success!

1.5M legacy gift from an anonymous family to support Duke Heart Transplant patients, and a gift from HCLC member Bob Keegan, who kicked off fundraising for the Duke Heart Precision and Innovation Collaboratory with a gift of $1.5 million toward the $10 million fundraising goal.

 

Additionally, NC Walk for Victory and AHA Triangle Heart Walk were both big successess and we look forward to supporting both events again this year

The cardiology fellows named Paula Rambarat, MD as chief cardiology fellow for 2024-2025.

We welcomed new family members:  Rocky Matthew Davis, Patrick Tulp, Beck Allen Kusner, and Aspen Andreae.

We also mourned the passing of Aslan Turer, MD; Richard Everely “Rip” Waters, II, MD; Kristine Arges, RN; and HCLC member Scott Braswell.

And we wished Drs. Tom Bashore, Mike Sketch, Harry Phillips, and long-time team member Corey Miller all the best as they embarked on retirement.

We matched an incredible team of cardiology fellows for our incoming class of 2025!

 

Here’s to additional success and celebrations in the coming year!