Division News

Post submitted by Shelby Reed, PhD

Last week the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published the American Cancer Society 2015 update for breast cancer screening for women at average risk. In the issue there is also a review by Duke researchers who conducted an evidence review supporting the guideline. Several of these authors are from general internal medicine.

James Davis was a featured speaker October 6th, alongside the Deputy Secretary of Health Services, NC Department of Health & Human Services and the Executive Director of the North Carolina Alliance for Health, for the launching of “Race to Quit, NC,” the official kick-off of a statewide smoking cessation campaign.

Davis is a GIM faculty member and Director of Duke’s Center for Smoking Cessation.

Posted by John Williams, MD, MHS*

The 23rd Cochrane Colloquium was held in Vienna, Austria, October 3-7. It is the premier conference focused on the methods for conducting systematic reviews. As director of the Durham Evidence Synthesis Program (ESP), I attended with the goal of learning new methods to use at our center and to present results from an ESP research project.

Learning new approaches

This week we learn about GIM in Moshi, Tanzania, at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center, where Leah Zullig (GIM) and Yousuf Zafar (Oncology) are working with a pilot study sponsored by Duke Global Health/Duke Cancer Institute. As part of the study, the team is validating the quality of the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center.

This picture shows Dr. Zullig (GIM) and Dr. Zafar (Oncology) with two medical students from Kilimanjaro Medical College and staff from medical records and the cancer registry.

Ebony Boulware, MD, MPH, chief of the division of general internal medicine, recently received a funding award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).

This week Virginia Wang, PhD, accepted an invitation to be on the editorial board of Health Care Management Review. Dr. Wang is a GIM investigator in Health Services Research & Development.

If you came you were able to meet a new hospitalist who’s also the IRB representative for GIM, Neil Stafford, shake hands with a new faculty candidate, figure out who’s Shelby Reed and who’s Reed Johnson, and by the way, they do research together. You might have seen yourself in the slideshow continuous loop on the large screens. Dizzy now? Visit our blogsite and enjoy the slideshow.

Over the next 10 weeks, Kevin Schulman will participate in teaching healthcare leaders in the Healthcare Leadership Academy, a program based in Lagos, Nigeria. The subject is how to excel in governance and provision of quality services. The underlying mission is to help stabilize health systems for this vulnerable population so that Africa can sustain the economic growth achieved over the past decade.

Dr. Lori Orlando is the subject of this week’s faculty spotlight. Orlando talks about falling into her unique role in Precision Medicine and what it’s like to be an internist for Duke Executive Health. Read more about her passions for the out-of-doors, even horseback riding!

How long have you been at Duke? How long have you been in the division of General Internal Medicine?