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The Department is delighted to announce three recipients of the Walter B. Frommeyer, Jr., Fellowship in Investigative Medicine. This annual research award is designed to foster the development of outstanding physician-scientists by supporting a two-year intensive, mentored research experience.

• Nav Bajaj, MD, (left) will be defining novel inflammatory, myocardial blood flow and metabolism endotypes in acute decompensated heart failure and their association with future cardiovascular outcomes

• Radhika Gangaraju, MD, (center) will investigate clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (chip) and racial differences in stroke

• Trisha Parekh, MD, (right) will examine the impact of stress on acute care use in low-income COPD populations

Congratulations to this year’s exceptional awardees!

The Department of Medicine celebrated the many accomplishments of our faculty at the 2019 Faculty Honors Reception last week. Awards abounded for extraordinary teaching, innovative research, and especially the ”Unsung Heroes” in each division who faithfully contribute without fuss or fanfare to make our department an amazing place to work. Congratulations these honorees!

Pictured L to R: Drs. Trisha Parekh, DOM Chair Seth Landefeld, Isabel Scarinci, Garrett Hurst, Deepti Bahl, Sarah Morgan, William Maddox, Gaurav Agarwal, Ali Ahmed, Olaf Kutsch, Clare Lyons, Andrew Sellers. Not pictured: Drs. Antonio DiStasi, Jim Johnson.

The winner of UAB’s Grand Challenge research competition at UAB has been announced! The Department of Medicine’s Mona Fouad, MD, MPH (Professor and Director, Preventive Medicine) will lead the charge to raise Alabama’s key health measures out of the bottom 10 in state rankings in the next ten years. With soaring rates of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, the challenge is indeed “grand.”

Fouad’s plan will promote practical individual health behaviors—like choosing more fruits and vegetables, increasing exercise, and smoking cessation—along with public policy initiatives. The Department of Medicine is elated to support this effort to improve health among all Alabamians.

Congratulations to all the worthy finalists, especially Dr. Eric Wallace (Associate Professor, Nephrology) who proposed the “REACH — Reengineering Equal Access to Comprehensive Healthcare” project to advance telehealth in Alabama.

Pictured: Drs. Seth Landefeld, Mona Fouad, and Eric Wallace

Ryan Kraemer, MD (Associate Professor, General Internal Medicine) noticed that he had to click from the provider view menu, to ambulatory workflow, to diagnostics, to cardiovascular just to view an EKG result in IMPACT. He brought this issue to Jonett Beasley, clinical informatics specialist for primary care, who designed the perfect fix. Now there is a CV/Pulmonary results tab in the Results Review Section for all EKG, Pulmonary Function Tests and Telemetry!

Ryan and Jonett remind you that, “If you see something, say something!”  Contact the clinical informatics specialist for your area to suggest other improvements, or email clinicalinformatics [at] uabmc [dot] edu.

The Division of Nephrology was delighted to celebrate the appointment of two new endowed positions in transplant nephrology last week. Vineeta Kumar, MD, was named the inaugural holder of the Robert C. and Cutessa D. Bourge Endowed Professorship in Transplant Nephrology. Roslyn Mannon, MD, was appointed the second holder of the Robert G. Luke, MD, Endowed Chair in Transplant Nephrology. We are proud to recognize both extraordinary physicians and grateful for the generous philanthropy that made these endowments possible!

Pictured L to R: Drs. Carlton Young, Vineeta Kumar, Roslyn Mannon, and Devin Eckhoff