Graduation season officially kicked off for the Department of Internal Medicine on Friday, June 3, when members of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine gathered at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Iowa City to send off the department’s largest cohort of subspecialty trainees. As friends, family, and colleagues gathered, they helped themselves to refreshments and small plate appetizers and caught up with each others’ lives.

As the social hour concluded, Ferhaan Ahmad, MD, PhD, director of the Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship, took to the podium to serve as the emcee for the evening. Ahmad began by noting that events such as this and fellowship programs as large and complicated as those in the division require the work of many and that they all, especially Fellowship Coordinator Cari Harland, were due a round of applause, which the audience enthusiastically supplied.

As is tradition every year, first the division announced the recipients of a slate of awards.

The Paul and Mary Neuhauser Award
Derek Eshun, MB, ChB
Corina Iorgoveanu, MD

The Dr. Lyle A. and Mabel R. Baker Award
Doosup Shin, MD

The Dr. Irving George Pesek Humanitarian Award
Katie Halbmaier, DNP, ARNP, FNP-BC

The Lewis E. January Memorial Clinical Teaching Award
Denice Hodgson-Zingman, MD

The Chief Fellow Award
Tyler Rasmussen, MD, PhD

The Kanu A. Chatterjee Award for Clinical Excellence
Tyler Rasmussen, MD, PhD

Interspersed with those awards were two other traditions–“Name that Fellow” with only a baby picture and “Two Truths and a Lie”–the latter of which afforded each fellow an opportunity to reveal a little bit about their past, sometimes jaw-dropping stories, but all in voluntary good fun.

 

Then it was time for the formal recognition of each graduate. Ahmad introduced each in the Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship and where they would be headed next. Some onto further training, others into private practice or faculty positions. Once through, Sidakpal Singh Panaich, MBBS, director of the Interventional Cardiology Fellowship, introduced his program’s two graduates. He was followed by James R. Hopson, MD, cardiac electrophysiologist, filling in for Steven Bailin, MD, director of the Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Fellowship. Finally, Linda Cadaret, MD, director of the Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Fellowship, introduced that program’s graduating fellow.

After all that, it was time for some group photos and a few final good-byes to the departing graduates, all of whom have meant so much to the division and the department.

 

Congratulations to all this year’s graduating fellows!

Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship
Colin Burnett, MD
Derek Eshun, MB, ChB
Corina Iorgoveanu, MD
Jai Parekh, MBBS
Tyler Rasmussen, MD, PhD
Doosup Shin, MD
Ahmed Zaghloul, MB, ChB
Jin Zhao, MB, PhD

Interventional Cardiology Fellowship
Rakesh Ponnapureddy, MBBS
Shubha Deep Roy, MBBS

Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Fellowship
Kanishk Agnihotri, MB, ChB

Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant Cardiology Fellowship
Mansour Esmaeili, MD