Congratulations to the following six faculty members who are receiving distinguished academic promotions in the division of General Internal Medicine!
“It gives me tremendous pleasure to announce several faculty member promotions to Associate Professor and one to Full Professor. As you know, these academic promotions mark faculty members’ scholarly achievements and are a hallmark of professional accomplishment in our school. Faculty appointed to Associate Professor or Full Professor have achieved recognition within Duke and at peer institutions as leaders in their fields both nationally and/or internationally.”
- L. Ebony Boulware, MD, MPH – Chief, Duke GIM
TO FULL PROFESSOR:
John Paat, MD 
Professor of Medicine, effective March 1, 2018
Dr. John Paat is a distinguished clinician educator who holds significant clinical leadership roles and has developed a national reputation for his excellence in management and quality improvement. He originally joined Duke GIM as Assistant Professor in 1990 where he rose to become director of the clinical practice. He then moved to Mayo Clinic where he directed a large general medicine practice and became involved with institutional quality improvement planning. He was promoted to Associate Professor at Mayo, and kept that title when he moved back to Duke in 2011. Dr. Paat was instrumental in establishing one of the first academic primary care practices at Duke, and he has developed and led novel quality improvement efforts. He has taught house staff and medical students at every stage in his career and has lead quality improvement lecture series both here, in the business school and at Duke-NUS. His ratings as a teacher are consistently above the 95th percentile.
Dr. Paat has also excelled at clinical administration. He directed Duke GIM’s clinical practice during a time of rapid expansion, making it one of the most sought after primary care sites for both clinical care and education. Dr. Paat is an exemplary clinician, educator, and a nationally recognized clinical administrator at Duke who embodies our highest standards for academic achievement. His leadership in the PDC and in GIM’s clinical practice has allowed us to provide the highest quality of care to thousands of patients, and he is widely respected for this work.
TO ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR:
Saumil Chudgar, MD 
Associate Professor in Medicine, effective March 1, 2018
Dr. Saumil Chudgar is a renowned clinician educator and has achieved significant recognition for his educational efforts. He has been at Duke since he began medical school here in 2001 and became a Duke GIM faculty member in 2008. He was promoted to Assistant Professor in 2011.
During his time at Duke, Dr. Chudgar has served in a number of critical roles as a faculty member at Duke that integrate his interest in medical education and clinical care. He has an ubiquitous influence in the Duke Medical School curriculum and teaches across all four years of medical student education and has taken several major leadership roles. For Dr. Chudgar’s clinical duties, he attends on the General Medicine services at Duke University Hospital. In this setting, he frequently has medical students, house officers, and other trainees whom he instructs in the clinical care.
Dr. Chudgar has distinguished himself as an outstanding clinical teacher. He had won multiple awards from the medical students for his teaching excellence, including the Golden Apple Teaching Award for Clinical Faculty (5 times the Thomas Kinney Distinguished Teaching Award (4 times), and the Practice Course Professionalism Award (5 times). Winning these awards on multiple years is even more impressive when you consider he has been on faculty for less than 10 years!
For someone who has distinguished himself with excellence in education and clinical care, Dr. Chudgar has also made a commendable effort at research. He has 26 referred publications to date, 7 of which he is the first or senior author. He has published in several of the top medical education journals including Academic Medicine, The Clinical Teacher, and the Journal of Graduate Medical Education.
Dr. Chudgar’s expertise in medical education research, his mentorship and teaching abilities, and his educational leadership in the Duke community make him a premier leader in General Internal Medicine.
Jane Kim, MD
Associate Professor in Medicine, effective March 1, 2018
Dr. Jane Kim has achieved national recognition for her expertise in the field of Preventive Medicine. She is a national leader in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and leads the preventive services strategy, policy and program development for the VA. She completed her house staff training in Internal Medicine at Duke University Hospital, where she was Assistant Chief Resident, and a second residency in Preventive Medicine at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she was Chief Resident. She is now in a joint clinical role at the Duke Outpatient Clinic and the Durham VA Medical Center. Kim was named Instructor in Medicine in 2007 and promoted to Assistant Professor of Medicine in 2008.
Dr. Kim has served a number of important roles as a clinician educator at Duke. These roles include attending faculty at the Duke Outpatient Clinic, at the VA PRIME Internal Medicine clinic, and attending on the inpatient Medicine service at the Durham VA Medical Center. As a mentor she has engaged pre-medical students from Duke University who were considering medicine as a career. She was active as a mentor to Duke Internal Medicine residents through the Program for Women in Internal Medicine. Dr. Kim has made significant clinical, administrative and leadership contributions at the Durham VA Medical Center. In 2008, she was named Medical Director for the Durham VA Comprehensive Women’s Health Clinic, where she led the transformation of the women veterans’ health program. In 2013, Kim was named the Deputy Chief Consultant for Preventive Medicine in the National Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention (NCP), Office of Patient Care Services, VA Central Office, Department of Veterans Affairs. Dr. Kim advanced to Chief Consultant for Preventive Medicine in August 2016 at NCP. She is notably a VA expert in the lung cancer screening program and policy.
Dr. Kim has been recognized through various professional awards, including induction to the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society and as an awardee of a preventive medicine training grant from the American Cancer Society. She has demonstrated strengths as an administrator, clinician educator, national expert in preventive medicine, and leader in VA, the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system. We look forward to Dr. Kim’s continuing contributions to science and to the faculty and trainees of Duke University.
Paul Lantos, MD
Associate Professor in Medicine, effective March 1, 2018
Dr. Paul Lantos has achieved international recognition for his research and teaching, and is a highly valued faculty member of Duke GIM, the Hospital Medicine Program, the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, the Duke Global Health Institute and the institution. He came to Duke University Medical Center as a Medical Instructor in 2008, with joint appointments in General Internal Medicine and Pediatric Infectious Diseases. He was appointed Affiliate Faculty of the Duke Global Health Initiative in 2016, and he was promoted to Assistant Professor of Medicine in 2017.
Dr. Lantos quickly achieved both regional and national prominence after joining our faculty. In 2009, he was appointed to a panel by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) charged with reviewing their 2006 Lyme Disease guidelines. The epidemiologic problem of Lyme disease emergence in North Carolina became an area of research focus for him. After several publications, in 2014 Dr. Lantos received the KL2 Mentored Career Development Award from the Duke CTSA. This was a remarkable achievement given the heavy clinical demands of Hospital Medicine, and Dr. Lantos remains the first and only faculty member in Hospital Medicine to receive a career development award of any kind. It is a testimonial to his productivity and perseverance that he was able to build a portfolio and research plan to make him a competitive candidate for this award. During his three years as a KL2 scholar Dr. Lantos was extraordinarily productive, with 16 peer-reviewed scientific studies (12 as first author), 3 solicited review articles, 5 book chapters, and 2 published letters. He developed methodological expertise in geographic information systems (GIS) and geospatial statistics, culminating in an MSc in GIS from Johns Hopkins University.
As far as clinical duties, Dr. Lantos attends on the inpatient Hospital Medicine service at Duke Hospital, where he serves on both the resident teaching service and on the non-teaching hospitalist services. He also has a twice-monthly pediatric infectious disease clinic where he supervises fellows, rotating residents, and medical students. He has served as a research mentor and teacher for learners including the high school level, global health graduate students, and clinical fellows.
Dr. Lantos has been well recognized on a national level as an invited symposium leader and speaker at the IDSA annual meeting and has been a grand rounds or symposium speaker at numerous prestigious institutions. Internationally he has been a speaker at conferences in Mongolia, China, Germany, and Austria. Dr. Lantos has been an ad hoc peer reviewer for more than 20 medical journals, including Lancet and JAMA, and has served a three-year term on the Standards and Practice Guidelines Committee of the IDSA. We are extremely fortunate to have Dr. Lantos as a faculty member and leader in Hospital Medicine, Pediatric Infectious Diseases, and Global Health!
Noppon Setji, MD
Associate Professor in Medicine, effective March 1, 2018
Dr. Noppon (Pooh) Setji became a faculty member at Duke GIM in July 2003. Since then, he has served a number of critical roles as a Duke faculty member; responsibilities that integrate his clinical, research and academic interests. He has participated on the Med Surg Critical Care Core Safety Team, the Glycemic Safety Team, Service Excellence Team, Multi-Disciplinary Sickle Cell Committee, Hospital Medicine Academic Council, Familiar Faces Committee, Just Pull It Committee, GME Education Committee and multiple care redesign teams. He has been an outstanding role model and mentor to fellows and junior faculty. For Dr. Setji’s clinical duties, he serves as a hospitalist providing care to inpatients on the medical service of Duke University Hospital. In this setting, he frequently has medical students, house officers and other trainees whom he instructs in the clinical care, as well as the pathophysiology of multiple diseases and their treatments.
Dr. Setji has been extremely successful and has established himself as a leading regional and national authority on a number of hospital medicine quality improvement and patient care initiatives. In addition to his success in quality improvement, Dr. Setji has been an outstanding mentor and teacher. His curriculum vita impressively outlines his commitment as well as his success as an educator. He has supervised over 200 learners in his time here. His evaluations have been stellar with an average teaching score of 8.45 on a scale of 1-9 where 7-9 is superior. His medical student evaluations have also been extremely positive with an average score of 3.91 on a 4-point scale. This educational excellence was highlighted in 2007 by being the recipient of the prestigious Eugene Stead Teaching Award.
His commitment to leadership is evident by the roles he has taken at Duke. He has been the medical director for the 8100, 8200 and 8300 medical units at Duke University Hospital and now serves as the medical director for the Duke University Hospital Medicine Program. He also serves as the director of the Mortality Review Process for the health system.
We are extremely fortunate to have Dr. Setji as a faculty member and leader in Hospital Medicine.
Kathleen Waite, MD
Associate Professor in Medicine, effective March 1, 2018
Dr. Waite has a rich experience in clinical excellence and clinical education targeting multiple levels of trainees. She received her medical school and residency training at Duke and joined the Division of General Internal Medicine, at the rank of Assistant Professor, in 1993. She was instrumental in establishing one of the first academic primary care practices at Duke, and she has developed and led novel medical student educational experiences.
Dr. Waite has had two main areas of significant contributions to medical education: fourth year medical students and medical residents. She has taught fourth year medical students in the primary care setting since joining our practice. Numerous students have sought her out for their year- long continuity clinic rotation. In 2011, her efforts were recognized by the School of Medicine when she was appointed as Course Director for the Introduction to Primary Care Internal Medicine. Dr. Waite also serves as the faculty lead for the Good Samaritan Health Clinic near the Durham Rescue Mission. She precepts Duke medical students one night a month in that clinic. She was also instrumental in opening the Pickett Road Practice to our internal medicine house staff. Pickett is now one of three sites where house staff receive their primary care training. Over the years, Dr. Waite has served as primary preceptor for over 70 house staff. Her ratings by her students and residents are consistently above 95th percentile.
Dr. Waite is one of the most highly sought general internists in Duke Primary Care, and more recently Duke Signature Health. Numerous faculty and leaders at Duke seek her guidance and are lucky to count her as their primary care provider. She is an exemplary educator and clinician at Duke who embodies our highest standards for academic achievement.