Division News

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.

Seriously. We want to raise awareness about ProudToBeGIM Week which is this week, February 25 – March 1, 2019.

Here’s the idea: we challenge you to post a short video (<1 minute) or a few words and perhaps an action photo to describe why you love being GIM. Then challenge 3 other GIM Twitter colleagues to do the same.

For this Spotlight we caught up with Ashley Cabacungan, a GIM staff member who joined our Division of General Internal Medicine in August of 2017. Ashley graduated from East Carolina University in 2017 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Health Studies and a concentration in Community 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.”

We asked Dr. Karen Goldstein to tell us about new leadership in this remarkable Durham ESP center and to catch us up about her own research on topics related to patient-centered interventions and healthcare disparities.

Submitted by Karen Goldstein, MD, assistant professor of medicine, general internal medicine

We spied tweets from this event and asked Dr. Sata to fill us in!

This past week, February 13, 2019, over 50 local hospitalists, both physicians and advanced practitioners, members of the NC Triangle chapter of the Society of Hospital Medicine (#TriangleSHM), met for a business meeting at the Embassy Suites in Brier Creek. Our photo to the right shows the outgoing Chapter president, Dr. Mike Craig (UNC), outgoing secretary, Dr. Nadia Pasha (Duke), guest speaker, Dr. Lenny Feldman (Hopkins), and incoming president, Dr. Suchita Sata (Duke).