This week was the department’s 59th annual Internal Medicine Research Day. This tradition gives us a chance to celebrate the incredibly broad spectrum of activity conducted by members of this department. Like all our missions, research is inextricably linked with education and clinical care, as it should be, but the immediacy we find in working with trainees and patients means research is often the quiet one in the trio. For this one day a year, we get to turn up the volume on research and marvel at the assembly of talent, wisdom, and hope that is all contained within our quest to unravel some of the most puzzling knots. My thanks to this year’s organizing directors, Drs. Alejandro Comellas and Alicia Gerke, two strong leaders in the pulmonary division, for their creativity with this year’s event. Thank you also to the esteemed Dr. Nadia Hansel, Physician-in-Chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Director of their university’s Department of Medicine. Her keynote address was a stark reminder that sometimes the root causes of what make our patients sick may be treated more effectively than with expensive drugs. Good research helps us find the evidence to support our recommendations. Finally thanks to the record number of poster presenters sharing their work and to the administrative personnel who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make the day run smoothly, especially Jess Jensen and Lori Strommer. [You can read a recap and see photos from Tuesday’s events here.]
Photo for Reflection
Research is painstaking, methodical, and—by design—never-ending. Getting results that do not fit our hypothesis is one way we know we are doing it right. Whether results confirm or contradict, they should always lead to more questions. Research builds bridges, like Bixby Bridge here, which offers stunning views of the northern California coast. For more than 90 years, it has connected communities in and around Big Sur to the rest of the iconic Highway 1. The construction took more than two years, suffered setbacks, and was not without its critics. But the engineers who designed it and the laborers who built it trusted their vision and their skill, and it still stands today as a testament to their trust and teamwork. Iowa’s research mission asks the same trust from each of us, that we commit to our ideas, believe in our skills, and lean on each other on the road ahead.
Upi’s “Oh, WOW” moment
Our experiences within University of Iowa Health Care must go outside our walls and outside our immediate community. We have a responsibility to share the discoveries we make in the clinics and on the wards, in the labs and in the classrooms, with other clinicians in the region. All our continuing medical education events achieve this goal. I have been impressed by the amount of effort and thought our divisions put into staging their CME offerings. A decades-old one, Progress, continues to innovate and reach new audiences, as they move the two-day multidisciplinary conference from Iowa City to Des Moines for the first time. Two other recent events also show the same commitment to community. First, the Metabolic Health in Motion conference, led by GI/Hep faculty Drs. Marta Tejador Bravo and Tony Sanchez, did more than bring in local and international experts on the urgent needs presented by MASLD for a two-day conference and a 5K fun run. They also continue to build an enduring resource with content available year-round from our faculty, from other departments in the college, and even other colleges. Similarly, the Iowa Cardiovascular Summit in its second year also marshaled a beyond-comprehensive interdisciplinary conference on issues around electrophysiology and heart failure. Record numbers of industry sponsors, a poster session for trainees, and attendance off the charts . . . Well done, all!
Finally
I’m looking forward to sharing more information with you at next Thursday’s Grand Rounds on 10/16 at noon. My fourth quarterly department update since coming to Iowa will also feature some other voices besides mine. Thanks in advance to those presenters and to all of you for attending. We’ll leave plenty of time for questions too. In the meantime please be sure to take a few minutes to respond to the Working @ Iowa survey, which has already landed in your Outlook inbox. Make your voice heard! Check out this resource if you have questions.
And speaking of community, I just want to thank the faculty and staff and their families who attended the recent gatherings at my home over the last couple weekends. No one will shake me from the belief that these little moments of fun add up and give us the foundation to make the harder moments easier to navigate when they inevitably arrive. Joy is the real fuel to everything we want to accomplish.
