Chief’s message: Spring Updates
Another busy week with our clinical services and academic teams. Please find some of the key updates below. The week started with the School of Medicine Awards – and we were fortunate to have several of our outstanding faculty recognized. Additionally, you will see that there are several kudos to our fellows, faculty, and staff for clinical and research work. This week we will have some important grand rounds and welcome many past fellows to Durham for Jess Peter’s Memorial Service. We look forward to the celebration of Dr. Peter and his contribution to Duke Cardiology.
Highlights of the week:
Heart Center Faculty Earn SOM Awards
On Tuesday, May 12, the Duke University School of Medicine awarded the 2026 Faculty Awards, honoring outstanding contributions in teaching, research, clinical care, professionalism, and service. These awards celebrate the excellence and dedication of faculty members who embody the school’s mission and values.
Congratulations to the following:
- Donald D. Glower, MD, professor emeritus of cardiothoracic surgery, was awarded the Master Clinician/Teacher Award. The award recognizes faculty for exceptional teaching and clinical service within the School of Medicine or Medical Center.
- Gerald Bloomfield, MD, MPH, associate professor of medicine in cardiology, was awarded the Michelle P. Winn Inclusive Excellence Award. The award recognizes individuals who have significantly advanced inclusive excellence within the School of Medicine community.
- Mitchell Krucoff, MD, professor of medicine in cardiology, was awarded the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award. The award honors faculty members who demonstrate compassion, clinical excellence, and respect in patient care.
- Stuart Russell, MD, professor of medicine in cardiology, was awarded a Duke Health Clinical Excellence Award.
The following Research Mentoring Awards recognize excellence in mentoring across clinical, translational, population health, and basic sciences:
- Christopher Kontos, MD, professor of medicine in cardiology, was awarded the Career Research Mentoring Award in Basic Science.
- Jennifer Rymer, MD, associate professor of medicine in cardiology, was awarded the Early Career Research Mentoring Award in Clinical/Translational Science.
- Christoph Hornik, MD, PhD, MPH, Samuel L. Katz Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics, a pediatric cardiologist and critical care medicine specialist, was awarded the Career Research Mentoring Award in Clinical/Translational Science.
For the complete list of all 2026 Faculty Awardees, please visit: https://duke.is/4/mjc3.
Congratulations to all!
2026 Heart Failure Congress
We had excellent representation at Heart Failure 2026, the annual congress of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology, held May 9-12, 2026, in Barcelona, Spain.
Serving as session co-chairs, speakers/presenters, and discussants, faculty from Duke included Drs. G. Michael Felker, Robert Mentz, Senthil Selvaraj, Marat Fudim, and Stephen Greene; Internal medicine resident Dr. Leela Ekambarapu and cardiology fellow Dr. Paula Rambarat joined them.
“A big shoutout to Paula Rambarat for her presentation. She smoothly navigated travel difficulty (with her young one in hand) to present novel insights from CONNECT-HF on severe heart failure and medical therapies. Making the HF group proud.” — Rob Mentz
Solid work, everyone!
Kudos to Goodwin, Roy & Bowen!
Schuyler Jones, MD, shared a lovely note with us this week about interventional cardiology fellows Nate Goodwin and Priya Roy:
“Good afternoon,
We received a great deal of wonderful feedback regarding the EMS education sessions held this week. Both sessions were highly interactive, and the team greatly appreciated the in-depth review of the cases they had been part of. Thank you all for your time, collaboration, and willingness to share your expertise and experiences with everyone.
Nate and Priya, you both did an outstanding job presenting the information in a way that was relatable, engaging, and easy to understand. You fielded a wide variety of questions thoughtfully and created an interactive learning environment that was very well received by the group.
A special thank you as well to *Brittney Bowen for all her assistance in coordinating the event and helping ensure everything came together smoothly. (*Bowen is an administrative specialist with Duke Heart Network)
Thank you again for your support, preparation, and dedication to helping strengthen education and collaboration across our teams.” – Natalie Horseman, associate clinical director, Duke Heart Network
Nicely done, Nate, Priya, and Brittney!
Shout-out to Champion!
We received a terrific note this week (shared with us by Anna Lisa Chamis) from Dennis Narcisse regarding an anecdote shared by an EMS provider at the education session held with Person County EMS in Roxboro last week:
“Hi Anna Lisa,
Hope you’re doing well. I just wanted to send you a note and highlight some great feedback that we received about Cosette Champion. Nate Goodwin and I are up in Roxboro today doing EMS education with Person County EMS providers. We are reviewing STEMI activations from Person County over the last 6-12 months and discussing the process.
One of the more senior providers commented on a case where he was riding with a new EMS provider on a STEMI activation back in early March. He said during all the chaos – Cosette stopped to ask for more info from the EMS providers and found out it was the newer EMS providers first STEMI case. He noted that Cosette took the time to explain the cath lab process, the STEMI images, and the entire cath lab process to them.
He went out of his way to note how great an impact this had on both of them and how they had told all their crews how incredible Duke Hospital treated them, especially because it was at midnight and there was so much happening at once. They credited this experience directly to how she treated their team.
Just wanted to highlight how great Cosette is — this is before she had ever been in the cath lab! She was the CICU fellow who took their call that night.” – Dennis
Fantastic job, Cosette!
Reminders
Next weekend: Dr. Jess Peter Celebration of Life
A Celebration of Life will be held in memory of Dr. Robert “Jess” Peter on Saturday, May 23, 2026, at The Washington Duke Inn, 3001 Cameron Blvd., Durham, NC, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., with the program beginning at 1:30 p.m. Dr. Peter’s obituary can be found on the Walker’s Funeral Home site.
The Duke Chronicle published a tribute to Dr. Peter on April 28, 2026. The article is ‘A guiding presence’: Professor of Medicine Robert Peter remembered for mentorship, influence on cardiology.
State of the School Address, June 10
The annual Duke University School of Medicine State of the School Address will take place from Noon to 12:45 p.m. on Wed., June 10, 2026. It will be held in the Great Hall, Trent Center for
Health Education.
At this year’s address, Mary E. Klotman, MD, Executive Vice President for Health Affairs and Dean of the Duke University SOM, will explore how the School of Medicine community is harnessing artificial intelligence to accelerate discovery, enhance education, improve patient care, and strengthen partnerships, all while keeping our people at the center of everything we do.
All faculty, providers, staff, trainees, and students are invited to attend. You are welcome to bring your own lunch. Light refreshments and limited giveaways will be available.
Please join us if you can!
DUHS Policy Updates
Two system-wide policies have been updated and will go into effect on June 1, 2026: Appearance Standards and Badge Swiping. These updates were developed in response to feedback about inconsistencies across departments and are designed to simplify expectations, reduce ambiguity, and better support operations in both patient-facing and non-patient-facing environments.
Key Policy Updates
Badge Swiping Policy Changes:
- For team members paid monthly, badge swiping will no longer be required for pay processing; however accurate and timely entry of PTO and leave remains your key timekeeping responsibility. Some departments may require exempt employees to swipe in for other operational purposes. For monthly team members, pay is not calculated by badge swipes.
- For team members paid bi-weekly, badge swiping expectations remain in place.
Appearance Standards Policy Changes:
- A single, systemwide standard now applies across DUHS, replacing department-level variations.
- Standards apply across patient-facing, non-patient-facing, and hybrid roles.
- Guidance has been updated to reflect different working environments, including clearer direction for patient care settings and more flexibility for non-patient-facing and hybrid roles.
Policy updates and additional resources, including FAQs, can be reviewed here: Appearance Standards Policy and Badge Swiping Policy. Final versions of the policies will be published to the DUHS Policy Site on June 1, 2026.
Upcoming CME Events & Opportunities
May is Celebrating Each Other Month at Duke Health. This is a time to pause, connect, and show gratitude for the ways we support one another and care for our patients, teams, and community. Thank you for all you do!
June 5: Wear Orange Day at Duke Health – in support of National Gun Awareness Day and “Wear Orange Weekend”. #DukeHealthWearsOrange
Cardiology Grand Rounds
May 19: Summoning Ghosts from Clinical Data: ECG-AI, Context Engineering and the Path to Trustworthy Clinical Intelligence with Ivan Nenadic Wood, MD. 5 p.m., DN 2002 and via Zoom.
May 26: Cardiology Grand Rounds topic TBA with Damarcus Ingram, MD. 5 p.m. DN 2002 and via Zoom.
June 9: From Predictive Analytics to a Learning Health System with Anthony Lin, MD. 5 p.m. DN 2002 and via Zoom.
All Duke CGR Recordings (except for those containing PHI) can be found on Duke Warpwire by year: 2026, 2025, 2024. Questions about recordings? Contact Tracey Koepke.
CD Fellows Core Curriculum Conference
May 20: TBD. Noon, DMP 7E39 and via Zoom.
May 22 Board Prep Tips & Tricks with fellows who have recently taken the Boards. Noon, Zoom only.
May 27: EP Case Conference with Vincent Delgado and Nishkala Shivakumar. Noon, DMP 7E39 and via Zoom.
May 29: EP Case Conference with Yoo Jin Kim and Rebecca Steinberg. Noon, Zoom only.
MMCVI Grand Rounds
Multi-Modality Cardiovascular Imaging Grand Rounds: A multi-imaging approach to cardiovascular disease cases. Thursdays, Noon to 1 p.m., via Zoom.
May 21: Imaging TOF Patient with Bharathi Upadhya
May 28: HFpEF Imaging Modalities with Rebecca/Harriet
June 4: Endocarditis with Fawaz Alenezi
June 11: CT Fractional Flow Review and Akshay Pendyal
June 18: D-Trans vs L-Trans Congenital Heart Disease with Fawaz Alenezi
June 25: Systemic and Pulmonary Hypertensive Heart Disease with Fawaz Alenezi
Victor J. Dzau Cardiovascular Seminar Series
May 27: G-Protein Coupled Receptors with Dr. Robert Lefkowitz. Noon, Auditorium of the Nanaline Duke Building, Duke University. Sponsored by Duke Cardiovascular Research Center and the Edna and Fred L. Mandel Jr. Foundation.
2026 Symposia
The dates for the following 2026 Duke Heart symposia have been set. We will announce others as they are added.
- June 6: Duke Heart Failure Symposium — Course directors are Marat Fudim, Rob Mentz, Richa Agarwal, and Stephanie Barnes. Location: Durham Convention Center, Durham, NC.
- September 26: Duke Case-Based Multimodality Imaging Symposium – Course directors are Sreekanth Vemulapalli and Anita Kelsey. Location: Trent Semans Center, Great Hall.
- October 30: 18th Annual NC Research Triangle Pulmonary Vascular Symposium – Course directors are Terry Fortin, Sudar Rajagopal, and Jimmy Ford. Location: Durham Convention Center, Durham, NC.
Please save the dates!
Hitting with Heart Softball Tournament
The 10th Annual Hitting with Heart Softball tournament will be held on Saturday, August 22 at Valley Springs Park, 3805 Valley Springs Road, in Durham. The tournament raises funds that will, in part, support the American Heart Association’s 2026 Triangle Heart Walk.
Have news to share?
If you have news to share with the Pulse readership, please contact Tracey Koepke, director of communications for Duke Heart & Vascular 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 team. Please call me with any questions: 919-681-2868. Feedback on Pulse is welcome and encouraged. Submissions by Noon on Wednesdays will be considered for weekend inclusion.
Thank you so much for keeping us informed,
Robb Teer