Division News

Wendy Henderson, MD, was recently appointed as the new Associate Chief of Staff for Ambulatory Care Services at the Durham VA Medical Center.

The Society of Hospital Medicine annual conference is next week!

The annual meeting of the Society of General Internal Medicine is coming up, and we are beyond excited! 

The Duke Institute for Health Innovation(DIHI) has announced recipients of their 2019 Innovation Awards. Among the 10 recipients were 2 in DGIM, listed below! These awards support high-potential care delivery innovation projects in the areas of population health and analytics, novel patient interactions, new and team-based models of care, and optimization of patient flow. This is the sixth year that the institute has funded projects through a call for innovation applications (RFA) across Duke Health.

Duke Hospital Medicine sponsored a special training last week for physicians to get their "DATA 2000 waiver". Such certification allows clinicians to prescribe buprenorphine which is used to treat opioid use disorder. Buprenorphine has a much lower risk of overdose compared to methadone but previously was limited to treatment programs only.

Duke Palliative Care is part of our division of general internal medicine. While many in palliative care are generalists, the team also includes other specialists, some from geriatrics, oncology, and pediatrics. The leader of Duke Palliative Care is David Casarett, MD, professor of medicine (general internal medicine).

The Duke Office of Licensing and Ventures has recognized 31 women who are innovative, collaborative, forward-thinking, and strong leaders on the cutting edge of technology and therapeutics. Among them are five faculty from the Department of Medicine: Martha Adams, MD; Kim Blackwell, MD; Kathleen Cooney, MD; Jennifer Freedman, MD; and Lori Orlando, MD.

Submitted by Patrick Hemming, MD, assistant professor of medicine (general internal medicine)

This past Wednesday, over 60 faculty, students and residents from Duke and UNC gathered at the University Club in Durham for our inaugural #ProudtobeGIM gathering. We had a great time as you can see from our photos. If you took pictures yourself, please feel free to share or tweet as part of the nationwide campaign. 

Here’s the question: is the health of a neighborhood improving or are healthier people displacing long term residents? This is the subject of research by Nrupen Bhavsar, PhD, assistant professor of medicine (general internal medicine). Bhavsar already is establishing himself as an investigator about the methodological limitations of the EHR and here is another insight, the use of data to understand population health.

Nia S. Mitchell, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine, division of general internal medicine, was an invited speaker last week at Wake Forest for their Seminar Series in the Center on Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism. The title of her presentation was “Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS): an option to treat obesity in the underserved.”