Division News

Kathleen Batley, MD (left) Dr. Batley comes from the University of Colorado and just completed her Internal Medicine Residency. She is coming to Duke as a Medical Instructor for the Duke University Hospital group of Hospital Medicine. Gerardo E. Alcazar, MD (center) Dr. Alcazar just finished his Internal Medicine residency at the University of Arizona and now joins Duke University Hospital as a Medical Instructor for Hospital Medicine.

Did you know this? In recognition of the important contributions to teaching, research and patient care, our Medicine Chief Residents receive academic appointments as “Medical Instructors” in the Division of General Internal Medicine. In fact, many former Chiefs fill our leadership ranks at Duke. [Tip: Dr. Oddone was a Duke Chief. We are #ProudtobeGIM] The 2016-17 Medicine Chief Residents, pictured from left to right: Alyson McGhan, MD, Matthew Atkins, MD, Adam Banks, MD, and Aparna Swaminathan, MD.

      Can you believe we are already over halfway through 2016?! Let’s take a look back and see our most viewed news stories so far in 2016! We counted your click rate from eNews to the articles. Of course, the most popular always are Spotlights of our faculty and staff and announcements of the new faculty. Excluding those Spotlights and announcements, we found you are reading news articles, listed from 5th to 1st place in popularity:

Residents in the internal medicine training program see patients regularly at one of three continuity clinic sites. The ambulatory portion of their education is unique in allowing a longitudinal view of residents’ progress and building longer term relationships with both faculty and patients. Many DGIM faculty carve out a portion of their time to precept residents during their clinics. We would like to take a moment to acknowledge our division faculty who have brought their skill and dedication to teaching residents in the clinic setting this year.

The division of General Internal Medicine is conducting its annual faculty updates. All GIM faculty members will soon be receiving an email message containing a link to update the Duke CV, demographic information, and professional photo. The expected completion date is Thursday, September 1st.

Dr. Adrienne Klement joined the division earlier this month! She works as a hospitalist and medical instructor at the Durham VA Medical Center. Dr. Klement recently completed her Internal Medicine residency and fellowship in Hospice and Palliative Medicine at Duke. Her clinical interests include providing comprehensive care to our veteran population as both an internist and palliative care physician, and teaching medical students and residents.

Rowena Dolor continues to champion primary care research in her leadership role as the director of the Primary Care Research Consortium (PCRC), a network of primary care practices in the Duke University Health System and outlying communities. She is a primary care physician herself and serves on staff in the Ambulatory Care Service at the Durham VA Medical Center.

Congratulations to these general medicine faculty members who are recipients of recent research funding! Hayden Bosworth, PhD has received an award from Improved Patient Outcomes, Inc. for a project entitled “Utilization of an innovative intervention to improve medication adherence and clinical outcomes in gout patients.” Total funding will be $135,422.

Group visits have been around more than a decade, particularly for management of chronic illnesses such as diabetes. Gaining in popularity, some say the greeting at the next appointment will be “the doctor will see all of you now.” These researchers, led by Dr. Will Yancy, are taking a new approach with a serious focus on weight management as the primary goal. The team has recruited more than half of the participants and expects to complete the outcome assessments next summer. Here is the project outline. 

This blog post submitted by: Nrupen Bhavsar, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Duke General Internal Medicine.