Mary Klotman – New Dean Duke School of Medicine
Dr. Mary Klotman was named the Dean of the Duke School of Medicine. The announcement found here captures Dr. Klotman’s academic and collaborative nature. She is “a nationally renowned physician-scientist and academic leader who has served as chair of Duke’s Department of Medicine for almost seven years -- has been named dean of the Duke University School of Medicine and vice chancellor for health affairs at Duke University. Klotman will assume these roles July 1, 2017.
Klotman’s appointment follows a six-month national search that was launched when Dr. Nancy Andrews, announced she planned to step down as dean. Andrews was the first female dean of a nationally acclaimed medical school, and leaves after a decade in the post on June 30, 2017.
“Mary Klotman is a visionary leader, deft executive administrator, and congenital collaborator with an unwavering commitment to excellence,” said Dr. A. Eugene Washington, chancellor of Health Affairs at Duke University and president and CEO of Duke University Health System, in announcing Klotman’s appointment. “She has amply demonstrated her exceptional ability to engage diverse groups to successfully advance all the missions of our academic health system. I am confident Mary will continue to excel in capitalizing on the enormous talent and promise of our people in Duke Health to improve health worldwide.”
We are excited to continue to partner with Mary to affect the way we teach, discover, and take care of heart patients at Duke. As you can imagine, she has already started engaging with many people and groups across the University and Health system.
Lifetime Achievement Award – Health Care Heroes announced by Triangle Business Journal
Longtime Duke Cardiology faculty member Harry Phillips was awarded the Lifetime achievement award by the Triangle Business Journal this week. The awards ceremony will be held on March 16th. The nomination was extensive and captured many of the things that Harry has meant to our cardiology division over 40 years. Here is a small excerpt that I felt conveyed Harry’s commitment…
Dedicated to ensuring access to life-saving cardiovascular services to patients across the region and state, Dr. Phillips prioritized ready and open communication with local cardiologists and physicians. As an active interventional cardiologist, he was routinely the first person called by physicians and hospital leaders with clinical care scenarios or broader health issues. The patient remains at the heart of Dr. Phillips’ efforts, and he is always investigating and looking for ways to improve patient care. His unerring emphasis on facilitating patient access to Duke, day and night, through rapid follow-up on calls to his community based peers has engendered respect and gratitude throughout the Southeast.
It also naturally led him to assume increasing responsibilities including increasing responsibility within Network Services, Duke’s outwardly facing department responsible for facilitating affiliations with hospitals and healthcare organizations throughout the US.” Harry continues his great work as Chief Medical Officer for Duke Network Services.
We also congratulate Sean Sondej, Associate Vice President of Heart Services for Duke University Health system who was named a 2017 Healthcare Hero for his work in Heart Care.
2017 Duke Fellows’ Presentation Skills Course Feb 4-5
Again this year we had an esteemed group of Duke Heart faculty (Andrew Wang, Tracy Wang, Sunil Rao, Pamela Douglas, Rob Mentz, Jimmy Tcheng, and Penny Hodgson) educate and train our future cardiovascular leaders on presentation skills. This well-attended course with 24 fellows from US and Canada is shown below.
Robert Califf back to work as Duke Cardiology Faculty
Rob Califf has re-joined the Duke Faculty and was kind enough to provide this update, one he will also post on his blog ...
Grateful for a Warm Welcome Back
After 2 years away and several months of great uncertainty, I found myself with a packed up car heading out of town from our nation’s capital on January 19th to make room for the new regime. I will not miss the beltway, but I will miss the amazing experience of public service and the great institutions of FDA in its place within the HHS family (NIH, CDC, CMS, etc.). After a weekend of unemployment for the first time in 38 years, I experienced reentry to Duke. What a great feeling to be welcomed warmly by so many people!
Now that I’ve rediscovered the facilities, Duke parking and other aspects of life at Duke, I’m settling into a period of discovery. What are the priorities, the aspirations and the problems? My hope is to be able to talk with as many people as possible, to record and process the information and to relay my observations to current leaders as they make their plans at a time of change—a new chief of cardiology, a search for a new chair of medicine as Dr. Klotman moves to Deanship and a new President of the University. I want to thank Manesh, Eric Peterson, Mary Klotman and many staff who have supported my reentry and made it relatively painless.
My hope is that I can also provide advice and assistance based on past experience and insights gained over the last 2 years that will make a difference for their careers and projects. Duke is a special place—full of deeply motivated people in a special place and time in a country and region struggling with its identity and entering a period of extraordinary potential and risk.
Stay tuned for a chronicle of my observations as I start this new phase and feel free to contact me if you want to talk about an idea or an issue.
Rob Califf
UPCOMING EVENTS – February 2017
Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub FRS to be Reves Visiting Professor
We are very fortunate to have Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub FRS visit us as the Dr. Jerry Reves Visiting Professor February 12th through 15th, 2017. Dr. Reves established this endowed lecture over 20 years ago through his personal philanthropy to Duke. As you all know, Jerry Reves was the first Duke Heart Center director and is a former Chairman of Anesthesia at Duke.
Professor Magdi Yacoub is a British-Egyptian world-renowned cardiothoracic surgeon that has revolutionized cardiac surgery both for children and adults. He is also one of the world’s most prominent cardiac transplant surgeons and is Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Imperial College London.
More details about his academic achievements are shown below.
From Wikipedia: Yacoub's major achievements may be summarized:
- Establishing heart transplantation in the UK and becoming the world's leading transplant surgeon
- Establishing and becoming a master of the 'Ross Procedure' or pulmonary autograft, including a randomised control trial
- Pioneering the modern arterial switch operation
- Promoting the use of left ventricular assist devices for the 'Bridge to Recovery' and establishing the largest experience in the world
- Establishing the Heart Science Centre, Magdi Yacoub Institute for research into the causes and treatment of cardiac disease
- Establishing the Chain of Hope Charity which provides cardiothoracic surgical care to the developing world
- Championing academic medicine, humanitarian surgery and becoming an example of a minority surgeon who has flourished in an institution-dominated field.
He was involved in the restart of British heart transplantation in 1980 (there had been a moratorium following the series of three performed by Donald Ross in 1968), carried out the first British live lobe lung transplant and went on to perform more transplants than any other surgeon in the world.
For our Fellows, Faculty, and Staff please welcome Professor Yacoub at the events and Reves Lecture that we have planned.
Please join the Duke Program for Women in Cardiology and DUCCS for a special event…
The Art of Combining Your Medical Practice and Your Passions, featuring Suzie Brown Sax
- Friday, February 24, 2017, 7:30 pm
- 21c Museum Hotel, 111 North Corcoran Street, Durham, NC 27701
- All are invited including significant others.
- Drinks and dinner will be served.
Suzie is a transplant cardiologist from Vanderbilt University who pursues music and songwriting in her spare time. She will share her thoughts about career choices and then perform after dinner.
Dr. Tom Wallace to be DUCCS visiting Professor February 9-10th
Tom Wallace is a clinical cardiac electrophysiologist at St. Vincent Heart Clinic in Arkansas. Tom will return as a DUCCS visiting Professor. He is a past graduate of our general and EP fellowship and will engage our fellows and faculty in discussing how high quality EP care can be delivered.
Duke Heart Safe Choices Event – February 18th 8 am to Noon
To all Cardiology Faculty: please consider attending the Duke Heart Safe Choices event February 18th from 8 AM to Noon. We will, as we have in past events, have small groups work through real Duke Cases to determine ways in which we can use systems to improve care. This multi-disciplinary approach will include – Faculty, fellows and staff in cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery. Please let Maggie Meyer know if you can attend.
Call for Applications for AHA-Duke Strategically Focused Heart Failure Research
Network Research Fellow Application
Duke Cardiology was recently awarded one of the American Heart Association’s Strategically Focused Research Network Heart Failure (AHA SFN) grants. A key component of the AHA SFRN program is development of the next generation of scientists who will focus their careers on enhancing our understanding of heart and vascular disease and reducing its global burden. This grant mechanism provides funding for selected trainees with exceptional talent to spend at least one dedicated year of research embedded in the component projects of the Center’s grant. Three thematically linked projects form the foundation of the Duke Center for Heart Failure and Diabetes Research – a basic/discovery project, a clinical trial and a population-based study. It is expected that each Center integrates its projects to demonstrate the bench-to-bedside approach to scientific discovery but also collaborates with other AHA SFRN sites in hopes of creating a broader scientific and educational synergy.
The Duke AHA SFRN program is studying the overlap between diabetes and heart failure in a multidisciplinary research environment. Specifically, our discovery project is being led by Dr. Svati Shah and is focused on developing a higher level of evidence around the importance of branch chain amino acids and other metabolic pathways that are key drivers of diabetes and heart failure. The clinical project is being directed by Dr. Mike Felker and is studying the role of behavioral interventions and improving compliance on outcomes in patients with heart failure and diabetes. Our population study is being led by Dr. Adrian Hernandez and is evaluating existing national datasets and clinical trial information to define and optimize the pharmacological approaches to diabetes care in a heart failure population.
We are currently soliciting applications for a 1-2 year funded fellowship position in the Duke Center for Heart Failure and Diabetes Research to start in July, 2017. Competitive applicants should be in a course of study leading to a degree in science or healthcare (RN, MD, PhD) or have completed this degree and be engaged in post-doctoral research training. The Center’s Fellowship training experience has been designed to develop the skills required for a successful career in academic medicine. It is anticipated that the selected applicant will identify a specific project/mentor and focus 70% of their time on the AHA grant project. It is also expected that within 6 months, the selected awardee will develop and implement his/her own research project. The remainder of the awardee’s time will be focused on understanding the principles of team-based research and accessing other educational opportunities available at Duke including institutional course work focused on data analysis and preparation, research integrity, professional writing and grant development, academic life, and presentation skills. Interested applicants should send a letter of interest and their curriculum vitae to
- Joseph Rogers, MD
- Division of Cardiology
- Duke University Medical Center, Box 3034
- Durham, NC 27710
- joseph.rogers@duke.edu
Duke Heart Publications this week
An important study this week in the NEJM from Joe Rogers and Carmelo Milano:
- Arnold SV, Spertus JA, Vemulapalli S, Li Z, Matsouaka RA, Baron SJ, Vora AN, Mack MJ, Reynolds MR, Rumsfeld JS, Cohen DJ. Quality-of-life outcomes after transcatheter aortic valve replacement in an unselected population. A report from the STS/ACC transcatheter valve therapy registry. JAMA Cardiol 2017.
- Demissei BG, Cotter G, Prescott MF, Felker GM, Filippatos G, Greenberg BH, Pang PS, Ponikowski P, Severin TM, Wang Y, Qian M, Teerlink JR, Metra M, Davison BA, Voors AA. A multimarker multi-time point-based risk stratification strategy in acute heart failure: results from the RELAX-AHF trial. Eur J Heart Fail 2017.
- Manning MW, Cooter M, Mathew J, Alexander J, Peterson E, Ferguson TB Jr, Lopes R, Podgoreanu M. Angiotensin receptor blockade improves cardiac surgical outcomes in patients with metabolic syndrome. Ann Thorac Surg 2017.
- Di Biase L, Callans D, Georg Hæusler K, Hindricks G, Al-Khalidi H, Mont L, Cosedis Nielsen J, Piccini JP, Schotten U, Kirchhof P. Rationale and design of AXAFA-AFNET 5: an investigatorinitiated, randomized, open, blinded outcome assessment, multi-centre trial to comparing continuous apixaban to vitamin K antagonists in patients undergoing atrial fibrillation catheter ablation. Europace 2017 Jan;19(1):132-138.
- Xian Y, Federspiel JJ, Hernandez AF, Laskowitz D, Schwamm LH, Bhatt DL, Smith EE, Fonarow GC, Peterson ED. Use of intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator in acute ischemic stroke patients taking non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOACs) before stroke. Circulation 2017.
- Heidenreich PA, Zhao X, Hernandez AF, Schwamm LH, Smith E, Reeves M, Peterson ED, Fonarow GC. Impact of an expanded hospital recognition program for stroke quality of care. J Am Heart Assoc 2017;6(1). Cooper LB, Mi X, Mentz RJ, Green JB, Anstrom KJ, Hernandez AF, Curtis LH. Management of newly treated diabetes in Medicare beneficiaries with and without heart failure. Clin Cardiol 2017;40(1):38-45.
- DeVore AD, Velazquez EJ. Rethinking revascularization in left ventricular systolic dysfunction. Circ Heart Fail 2017;10(1). Sun JL, Boyle SH, Samad Z, Babyak MA, Wilson JL, Kuhn C, Becker RC, Ortel TL, Williams RB, Rogers JG, O'Connor CM, Velazquez EJ, Jiang W. Mental stress-induced left ventricular dysfunction and adverse outcome in ischemic heart disease patients. Eur J Prev Cardiol 2017. Barasa FA, Vedanthan R, Pastakia SD, Crowe SJ, Aruasa W, Sugut WK, White R, Ogola ES, Bloomfield GS, Velazquez EJ. Approaches to sustainable capacity building for cardiovascular disease care in Kenya. Cardiol Clin 2017;35(1):145-152.
- Feigal JP, Boyle SH, Samad Z, Velazquez EJ, Wilson JL, Becker RC, Williams RB Jr, Kuhn CM, Ortel TL, Rogers JG, O'Connor CM, Jiang W. Associations between positive emotional well-being and stress-induced myocardial ischemia: well-being scores predict exercise-induced ischemia. J Psychosom Res 2017 Feb;93:14-18
- Burroughs Peña MS, Dunning A, Schulte PJ, Durheim MT, Kussin P, Checkley W, Velazquez EJ. Pulmonary function and adverse cardiovascular outcomes: can cardiac function explain the link? Respir Med 2016;121:4-12.
- Rogers JG, Pagani FD, Tatooles AJ, Bhat G, Slaughter MS, Birks EJ, Boyce SW, Najjar SS, Jeevanandam V, Anderson AS, Gregoric ID, Mallidi H, Leadley K, Aaronson KD, Frazier OH, Milano CA. Intrapericardial left ventricular assist device for advanced heart failure. N Engl J Med 2017;376(5):451-460.
- Rogers JG. Optimism, pessimism, and pragmatism: musings on the cost of medical innovation. JACC Heart Fail 2017.
- Sherwood A, Blumenthal JA, Koch GG, Hoffman BM, Watkins LL, Smith PJ, O'Connor CM, Adams KF Jr, Rogers JG, Sueta C, Chang PP, Johnson KS, Schwartz J, Hinderliter AL. Effects of coping skills training on quality of life, disease biomarkers, and clinical outcomes in patients with heart failure: a randomized clinical trial. Circ Heart Fail 2017;10(1). Apple FS, Cullen L, Felker GM, Ginsburg G, Morrow D. Cardiovascular disease: impact of biomarkers, proteomics, and genomics. Clin Chem 2017;63(1):1-4.