Supporting Our Talent

As we enter the period of recruitment for our next class of fellows and residents, I am reminded of the talent of our trainees and the opportunity to bring the best talent into our ranks that our recruitment efforts provide. This reflection was completely validated earlier this week when I learned of the achievement of one of our residents on the world stage. Last weekend one of our Internal Medicine Residents, Dr. Chris DeZorzi, delivered a presentation at the largest meeting of cardiologists in the world (the European Society of Cardiology) and walked away with one of the society’s top honors. Congratulations, Chris, and also to your mentor, Dr. Saket Girotra. Bear this news, and other accolades that set us apart from our peers, in mind as you interview fellowship applicants, who are visiting us now, and residency applicants, who will be walking our corridors a month from now. I believe that we all agree that trainee recruitment represents a major pipeline from which we can develop and recruit future faculty members into our department. As we meet candidates, remember that they are not just future trainees, but potential future faculty colleagues as well.

When faculty join our ranks, it is a joy to watch our colleagues achieve professional success. I was pleased to attend the recent celebration of our recently promoted professors. Our Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Development, Dr. Lois Geist, and her staff put considerable time and effort into the event that does honor to our colleagues’ achievements. I want to offer my congratulations to all of our faculty who are now full professors. Congratulations are also due to our Vice Chief for Clinical Programs, Dr. Kim Staffey, on her election to the open At-Large seat on the Hospital Advisory Committee. This is an important role and ensures that the department will always have a voice at a table where many policies and procedures are discussed and codified. Kim and I want to hear from you so that we can comprehensively represent your concerns in these forums.

Each time I write about the achievements of our faculty, I am reminded of our commitment to provide all of our faculty and trainees the necessary resources to succeed in scholastic and academic pursuits. Our department, the Carver College of Medicine, and University of Iowa Health Care offer many different resources to help us succeed in our work. I would like to highlight three individuals—among many—in our department who can support these missions, and I encourage you to avail yourself of these resources and individuals to the fullest. You should reach out to Thomas Callahan, a member of our Support Services Database Group, who can help you optimize your data storage in an economical way that is tailored specifically to your needs. In fact, as our need for data storage has increased, Thomas has identified opportunities for faculty and trainees to have access to more robust data storage options that you might not be aware of. We will be sending out more information to you about these options in the near future and will work with you to migrate some of your research data to these platforms. Lori Bassler, Research Administrator for Internal Medicine, leads a team of specialists who are available to help you navigate the ever-changing and complex world of grant management, from submission to post-award management. Finally, we offer writing support! Kris Greiner has considerable editorial expertise that is available to all faculty and trainees working on manuscripts for publication and on grant applications.

The College and UIHC also offers access to many core research facilities and institutes, which exist to support your research needs. I want to alert you to two new software platforms embedded within our electronic medical record system that offer tremendous opportunity for determining the feasibility of recruiting subjects for clinical studies or trials. Slicer Dicer and TriNetX allow anyone who is a member of UIHC access to more than 10 years’ worth of our data within Epic. Data are de-identified, but provide the ability to build cohorts based on a range of clinical and demographic criteria, as you search for new associations or develop experimental cohorts. I would encourage you to explore these two powerful tools that have the potential to put our EMR to work for us to advance our clinical research goals. Both of those links will take you to a wealth of information about the two programs.

Finally, last month I discussed another area where I want to hear your voice, the area of physician burnout. Since then our Grand Rounds have now hosted two presentations on this issue. You can view the presentation given by the Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Colin West earlier this month with a HawkID login. You can also view yesterday’s presentation from the University of New Mexico’s Dr. Philip Kroth at this link. The point that both of our distinguished colleagues have made clear is that the danger burnout presents is real and we want to help all our providers avoid it. Leadership in this department will continue to ask for your input as we look for solutions and ways to support each other.