Weekly Updates - December 3, 2012

By residency1

From the Director

Happy December! And glad to see that Jeff, George, Jon Bae (wait, he was participating???) and others have been able to shave.  Looking forward to our next charitable endeavor, the Holiday Gift Drive!  We had a busy week, with kudos from colleagues to Josh Thaden and Armando Bedoya for rockstar night coverage on Duke Gen Med, and to Alex Clarke for helping out on a very busy night on 9300. Also kudos from the 8300 nurses for excellent work during a critical situation to Chris Merrick.   Belated kudos to Carli Lehr and Sajal Tanna for thanksgiving day coverage on CAD as well.  We also had awesome SAR talks from Megan Diehl and Nikki Storms as well as a spectacular noon conference by author Siddhartha Mukerjee.  if you haven't read "Emperor of all Maladies", its highly recommended. In other news, CONGRATS to Lindsay Boole and Oussama Saleh on their engagement! Loved seeing the sparkly smiles (and ring!) on Saturday night.   Was really fun to see you all dressed up (including best dressed Scott Tolan) at the holiday party.  Special kudos to Jeff, Jason, Ryan, and George for their performance! Lyrics available for anyone whose interested. Sunglasses for sale, cheap, as well. Please also take a minute or two to read the perspective on duty hours in last weeks NEJM. Definately helps start a much needed discussion. We are eagerly awaiting the Fellowship match and look forward to celebrating with the SARs! This weeks pubmed from the program goes to Saumil Chudgar! Disseminated Mycobacterium immunogenum infection presenting with septic shock and skin lesions in a renal transplant recipient. Biggs HM, Chudgar SM, Pfeiffer CD, Rice KR, Zaas AK, Wolfe CR. Transpl Infect Dis. 2012 Aug;14(4):415-21. doi: 10.1111/j.1399-3062.2012.00730.x. Epub 2012 May 1 Have a great week! Aimee  

What Did I Read This Week (by Aimee Zaas, MD)

[box]Detection of Chromosomal Alterations in the Circulation of Cancer Patients Using Whole Genome Sequencing Leary RJ, et al.  Science Translational Medicine Vol 4 Issue 162, Nov 28, 2012 [/box]

Why I read this? First of all, the second to last author was my co-resident and friend, Luis Diaz.  He's a spectacular researcher, and it's good to keep up with all the amazing careers of my co-residents Second, the talk this week by Siddhartha Mukerjee was inspiring and this article resonated with the cutting edge of cancer biology.  Third, given the context of controversy surrounding screening mammography (nice job, Meg Diehl on your SAR talk), imagine the potential of early nonspecific diagnosis of cancer from a blood test (the uber tumor marker) What Did The Authors Do? Using the concept that aneuploidy (chromosomal change) is the near sine qua non of cancer, and building on already used concepts of fetal genetic testing and known tumor monitoring, the authors hypothesized that they could use sophisticated multi parallel sequencing to find chromosomal copy number changes and other rearrangements in peripheral blood DNA. They used 10 controls, 7 colon cancer patients and 3 breast cancer patients and did high density sequencing (249,378,422 reads of 50 bp per sample!) and applied statistical algorithms to establish baseline data for copy number and rearrangements and then calculated the data for cancer samples.  The number of abnormalities was far greater in the cancer samples, indication of the potential power of this technique caveats- exploratory study with very pricey and computationally complex analysis.  Lots of potential for false positives.  Also, what would one do with this data? Lead time bias seems problematic, and without an a priori hypothesis of what cancer you are looking for, what do you do with a positive test? To me, the great part of this study is that it thinks about cancer diagnosis in an agnostic way and, with improvement in technology and lowering of price, it probably isn't as unachievable as it seems.  But, we need discussion in parallel with technology to know how to use it effectively.

From the Chief Residents

Grand Rounds

Day Date Topic Lecturer Time
Friday 12/7 M&M Dr. Schulteis & Dr. Cheely 8:00

Noon Conference

Day Date Topic Lecturer Time Vendor
Monday 12/3 INTERVIEWS 12:00 Panera
Tuesday 12/4 MED PEDS INTERVIEW 12:00 Saladelia
Wednesday 12/5 SAR Talks Mandy George, Adam Garber 12:00 Moe' s
Thursday 12/6 Stead Societies  12:00  Papa John's
Friday 12/7 INTERVIEWS  12:00  Nosh
  Annual Holiday Gift Drive Once again, we are appropriating the Paypal account for the ANNUAL HOLIDAY GIFT DRIVE.   We will doing this by Stead Society once more, although we're all going to be winners here.  We have identified five DOC families (yes, one for each Stead Society, very good) and we will be sending out specific lists to each society soon. BASICS: A.  2 ways to give:  1) Paypal, 2) Purchase gifts and bring to ACR office (wrapped with gift receipt inside, tag on outside identifying for whom and from which society, AND with a separate tag for us to know what it is so we don't duplicate). B.  TIMELINE:  Must have the donation by 12/13 in order to deliver to the DOC in time for delivery to the families. C.  BONUS #1:  Last year, we were able to get each person at least something from their list, and we were also able to help out several additional needy families with gift cards.  Any leftover funds will be used in the same way this year. D.  BONUS #2:  The friendly residents of the ECRC can always use electric razors and Renuzit air fresheners, should anyone be buying those.  These don't need to be wrapped, but can also be dropped off in the ACR office . . . PAYPAL LINK: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=YGR55TRWRB8VA Cash and checks also welcome ! Thanks! Joel Boggan   [divider]

From the Residency Office

ACP Call for Abstracts We would like to invite you to submit an abstract of your research projects, case reports or QI projects for the poster competition and presentation at the annual meeting of the  ACP NC Chapter at the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club in Durham on February 8-9. Please see the information and links below. This is a wonderful opportunity for all of you, and particularly for those of you who will be pursuing academic careers, to present your: 1-Clinical and basic research projects 2-Clinical cases 3-Quality improvement projects The abstract submission deadline is December 15. Please check out the link below and let us know if we can help you. SUBJECT:      Associates Poster Competition                       A notice was e-mailed to all Associate and student members of the North Carolina Chapter of the American College of Physicians earlier this month (A copy of the announcement is available in the Announcements area of you main page of MedHub).  Please encourage your residents to submit abstracts to be judged for poster presentation at the 2013 Annual Scientific Session, to be held at the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club in Durham on February 8-9. Feel free to share this information with any sub-specialty Program Directors for associates in Fellowship positions at your institution and encourage them to submit abstracts as well. Judges will accept as many abstracts for poster presentation as time and space permit, and will notify those accepted in mid-January to allow ample time for residents and students to prepare their posters. As was done in 2012, all abstracts that are submitted will be published in a booklet, which will be available to registrants at the meeting. To meet publishing deadlines we will have to adhere firmly to our December 15 deadline. Associates may enter in the following categories:

Clinical Research

Basic Research

Clinical Vignette

QI

Student

All abstracts MUST be submitted electronically via the Chapter’s Web site at the following web address: http://www.acponline.org/about_acp/chapters/nc/abstract13.htm The first author of all abstracts must be an ACP member. Non-member residents can become Associate members of the ACP.  We can provide you with membership forms or they can call Customer Service at 1-800-523-1546.  The winning poster in each category will receive a cash award of $300. The poster judged Best Overall Poster will receive an additional award and reimbursement of travel expenses to the 2013 ACP Internal Medicine Meeting. If you have any further questions, please contact Nancy Lowe at (919) 833-3836 or nlowe@ncmedsoc.org.   The Duke Science Review Like research?  Want to see your name in print? Want to get connected with medical, graduate and undergraduate students across campus who love science as much as you do? Come to The Duke Science Review information session on December 6th at 7 pm in the Duke South Amphitheater to learn more about how to get involved. DSR is the new premiere campus wide science review journal created by medical students for the Duke scientific community. The publication will give clinical physicians and researchers the opportunity to publish review articles on scientific subjects. These review articles can be about personal work or about any topic you are interested in! We will provide dinner (pizza, soda, and dessert), so please let us know if you're coming! RSVP to https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFNkOEZZQmlFNll4R1N3SmR6bm5LTGc6MQ   by  December 5. Who: The Duke Science Review What: Information Session When: December 6th at 7 pm Where: Duke South Amphitheater Why: To learn about the opportunity to publish review articles in DSR!  See you soon! DSR  dukesciencereview@gmail.com

Interested in Teaching (sponsored by The Office of the Primary Care Leadership)

Please save the date for the upcoming “Teaching the Outpatient Teachers” workshop sponsored by the Primary Care Leadership Track. This half day workshop will be on Friday January 11, 2013. There will be a morning and afternoon session for this workshop. The morning session will run from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm, and the afternoon session will run from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Topics to be covered include: giving streamlined feedback, using an iPad, staying on time in a busy practice, improve your musculoskeletal exam, and a review of compliance issues. To enroll in the workshop for either the morning or afternoon session please contact:  Blake Wiggins at blake.wiggins@duke.edu

CVRC Retreat

The next CVRC Retreat is scheduled for Saturday January 12, 2013 at the Searle Center Lecture Hall.  Our Keynote speaker will be Michael S. Parmacek, Herbert C. Rorer Professor of Medical Sciences, Director, Penn Cardiovascular Institute, Chief, Cardiovascular Division - “Transcriptional Programs Resulting Cardiovascular Development and Disease”.   Anyone who will be attending must RSVP no later than December 17, 2012 to: DUKECVRC@dm.duke.edu Amberly Adam, Duke Cardiovascular Research Center, DUKECVRC@dm.duke.edu

Randy Update

Randy has made great progress in his recovery and will begin working remotely from home, on a limited basis, this week! He thanks EVERYONE for their continued support and well-wishes during these past three weeks!

Dates to Add to Your Calendars

December 5       Fellowship Match day Note: The MedRes office will be closed (no admin staff on duty) December 24 - January 1, 2013

Contact Information/Opportunities

Virginia Commonwealth University Hospitalist Shifts Job Desc Hospitalist with salary 10312012 (2)

Useful links

Share