• Nineteen faculty and residents presented on topics spanning both clinical and research subjects
• Seth Berkowitz, MD, MPH, was a plenary speaker
• Anisha Ganguly, MD, MPH, was a finalist for the prestigious Milton W. Hamolsky Junior Faculty Scientific Presentation Awards

The Leadership in Academic Medicine Program (LAMP) has been designed to assist junior faculty at 大象传媒 within their first 3 years to build a sense of community, purpose, direction, and confidence so they may thrive in their career.

Drs. Arant and O鈥橲hea

Patrick O鈥橲hea, MD, MBA, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine, and Elizabeth (Eli) Arant, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, were among the graduate of this year鈥檚 LAMP cohort.

LAMP addresses the fundamentals of career planning and professional development while creating networking that will contribute to faculty success. The program is recruiting new applicants. Applications are due June 9. Please contact Dawn Morriston dawn_morriston@med.unc.edu for additional information about this new program.

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Here are the recipients of the 2025 Residents award! Faculty awarded by the 2025 class of residents are also listed below.

Bondurant-Eringhaus Award

Recipient: Brian Wood, MD
Awarded to a resident demonstrating commitment and excellence in research.

Chairman鈥檚 Awards

Recipients: Hannah Dee, MD & Lauren Goldbeck, MD
Given in recognition of residents who have had a great impact on the Department of Medicine and serve as leaders, role models, good citizens, and advocates who are not afraid to do the right thing.

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Farmer Award

Recipients: Emma Astrike-Davis, MD & Angel Miro Gonzalez, MD
Awarded to honor residents demonstrating extraordinary compassionate care, selected based on peer nominations.

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Fischer Awards

Awarded to residents demonstrating excellence in clinical teaching to medical student learners. Selected based on medical student feedback on teaching skills.

• PGY1: Mahalya Gogerly-Moragoda, MD
• PGY2: Rashmi Muthukkumar, MD
• PGY3: Pat Duggan, MD
• PGY4: Safiyya Adam, MD

Golden Boots Award

Recipient: Gus Hendrick, MD
Passed from recipient to recipient. Selected by those who prioritize excellent patient care over academic showboating.

From Christina Siems, MD (last year鈥檚 recipient): 鈥�This resident exemplifies what the golden boots represent every day through his unwavering dedication to patient care and his commitment to doing the right thing 鈥� even when 颈迟鈥檚 difficult. He consistently treats patients with the compassion he would want for his own family. Many examples could be shared but a standout moment came when he found a patient alone with acute change in status, quickly recognized the need for emergent intervention and navigated the next steps with skill and professionalism, even in the face of hierarchy challenges. He leads by example, places patients first and upholds the highest standards of care and is so deserving of passing these boots to for another great year!鈥�鈥�

Golden Speculum Award

Recipient: Chloe West, MD
To honor the resident who performed the most cervical cancer screenings. This resident performed 12 pap smears this year alone!

James Bryan Award

Recipient: Kevin Wang, MD
Honoring a graduating senior resident demonstrating outstanding outpatient care and fierce patient ownership.

Marilyn and Paul Milowsky Award for Compassionate Care

Recipient: Ryanne Buckley, MD
Honoring a graduating resident who demonstrates excellence in clinical care, outstanding patient relationships, and exemplary compassion.

Ney Berkowitz Award

Recipient: Justin McCallen, MD
Honoring a graduating resident who demonstrates a commitment to academic excellence, a compassionate approach to patients, an inspirational effect on others, and who best exemplifies the qualities of a master resident teacher.

Ontjes Award

Recipient: Reaves Houston-Dixon, MD
Award recognizing an outstanding intern who has demonstrated well-rounded excellence in clinical care and commitment to medical education. Selected with input from faculty, peers, and medical student comments.

Order of the Golden Probe

Recipient: Richard Jensen, MD
Selected to honor a resident who displays incredible dedication to the practice and mastery of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS), advocates for its use to advance bedside medicine, and educates others in this field.
For diagnosing a renal hemorrhage, teaching interns to place ultrasound-guided PIVs, and attending intern teaching more than any other resident.

Preliminary Intern Award

Recipient: Ayush Doshi, MD
Selected to honor a preliminary intern who displays the true spirit of what it means to be an internist.

WakeMed Resident Award

Recipient: Scott Taylor, MD
Award recognizing the most outstanding clinical performance at WakeMed, selected with input from the WakeMed teaching faculty.

Faculty

Fellow Award

Recipient: Steve Scarfone, MD

From the residents, 鈥�He prioritizes teaching and explains nuanced concepts in a way that actually resonates with both the resident teams and medical students. I wanted to personally highlight his availability, ease of communication, and willingness to put in the work for the betterment of patients (ie. writing H&Ps, calling family members, etc etc). Particularly in the wake of multiple overnight emergencies, he was not only available by phone but was immediately present at the bedside (usually with a probe in hand) and a plan in place.鈥�鈥�

Outpatient Faculty Awards

Recipients:听Katie Gill, MD & Michael Cunningham, MD

Inpatient Faculty Award

Recipient:Jonathan Parr, MD, MPH

From the residents,鈥�When we had the time, Dr. Parr made sure to give us teaching opportunities both from the students and from himself. Learned a great deal about evidence-based infectious disease management and took field trips to see how medicine works from derm path to radiology.鈥�

WakeMed Faculty Award

Recipient: Josh Whitham, MD

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大象传媒 Hospital Hillsborough Campus

Dr. Maureen Dale, director of the 大象传媒 Geriatrics Fellowship Program recently told NC Health News that many medical students aren鈥檛 exposed to geriatric medicine. On top of that, geriatricians typically receive lower compensation than other providers.

To boost the field鈥檚 profile Dr. Dale believes that medical students should get early exposure to geriatric medicine. As a result, this will hopefully help recruit more geriatricians to meet the growing demand for geriatric medical care.

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Drs. Simon Gray (left) and Jeffrey Jensen (right)

Jeffrey Jensen, MD, PhD, a hematology/oncology fellow, and Simon Gray, MD, PhD, an assistant professor in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, received 大象传媒 Physician Scientist Training Program awards. Dr. Gray received an Early-Stage Faculty award, and Dr. Jensen received a Resident/Fellowship Award, providing them with funds to support their research efforts for two years.

听A former PSTP fellow, Dr. Gray is now building upon the foundation of his prior work to investigate why some patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) do not respond to advanced therapies. Using a model he developed during his fellowship, Dr. Gray鈥檚 research seeks to understand the mechanisms of treatment failure in Crohn鈥檚 Disease and Ulcerative Colitis and to identify new therapeutic targets.

Dr. Jensen鈥檚鈥� research is focused on identifying and enhancing novel immunotherapeutic targets in NUT carcinoma. Through this work, Dr. Jensen aims to uncover new avenues for treatment in a disease where effective therapies are urgently needed.

Read more here.

A cross-disciplinary project led by听Thomas听Holowka,听MD, PhD, fourth-year fellow (PI) and听, MD, DTM&H,听associate professor (co-PI), will be piloting a service embedded within the ID clinic overseen by Claire Farel, MD, MPH, at Eastowne that is expected to diminish wait times for patients, and facilitate a more accurate diagnosis through a detailed patient history and exam. The project aims to use a cross-disciplinary approach to eventually reduce Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) infections in 大象传媒 Hospitals. Their project is funded by a Pilot Innovation Award.

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Dr. Christina Shenvi and the new book 鈥楪eriatric Emergency Medicine鈥�

In a recently published book, Drs. Christina Shenvi (大象传媒 Emergency Medicine Associate Professor) and (University of Saskatchewan) cover key topics on geriatric emergency medicine.听Other content contributors from 大象传媒 Emergency Medicine include Drs. Daniel Markwalter, Martin Casey, and Susie Kennedy.

The book covers topics like emergency department (ED) workup of falls in older adults, evaluation of frailty, team-based care, and others. It also highlights topics like mental health emergencies in the elderly, elder abuse, ED boarding and geriatric patients, and deprescribing.

Dr. Shenvi says, 鈥淲e gathered expert authors from around the U.S. and Canada to write articles on core topics such as falls, head injury, and medication management.鈥�

Learn more about the book .

recently announced recipients of the TraCS Clinical and Translational Science (CTS) pilot awards. Joshua Niznik, PharmD, PhD (Assistant Professor, Geriatric Medicine) and Anna Kahkoska, MD, PhD (Assistant Professor, Nutrition, Gillings School of Global Public Health) received a CTS award for听Exploring the Utility of Linked Patient Portal Message Data for Translational Science.

According to the impact statement: 鈥淭he proposed study will leverage a novel data source with great potential to advance the science of clinical research using real-world data by developing methodological tools to repurpose patient portal messaging data for research and generating novel insights into portal user activity.鈥� Congratulations to Drs. Niznik and Kahkoska on this award.

Read the full list of CTS awardees on the .

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Meet Julie Machen, MD, an internal medicine specialists, our featured Undergraduate Medical Educator of the month!

What was your journey into medical education?

As the oldest of four girls, I have loved teaching from an early age! I grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina, then attended 大象传媒 in the class of 2015. I moved to Boston for my Internal Medicine residency training at Beth Israel Deaconess hospital, where I participated in their Clinician Educator Track. Through that experience, I discovered how much I love teaching, mentoring, and designing curriculum. After residency, I lived and worked in Austin, Texas for a few years as a clinician educator before moving back home to Greensboro.

Tell us about what you鈥檙e up to now!

Currently, I am one of the core teaching faculty at the Internal Medicine residency program at Cone Health. I split my time between the inpatient and outpatient settings 鈥� I precept residents in our primary care clinic and I attend on our inpatient general medicine teaching services, caring for hospitalized patients. I also run our Medical Education Elective, where I get to teach residents how to teach, lead, and give effective feedback to students. My favorite thing about my job is getting to be a part of learners鈥� journeys from a brand-new student or intern to a full-fledged doctor who is ready to practice independently. Since we鈥檙e a smaller program (six residents per year), I really get to know each learner I work with and get to witness this progression regularly. Outside of medicine, I love spending time with my husband Luke (a Urologist here in town) and our three young children. We spend a lot of time at the Science Center, the Children鈥檚 Museum, and every park in town. My family still lives here in Greensboro, so it has been amazing to see them regularly, and to practice and teach in the town I grew up in.

What is your advice to medical students?

My biggest advice to medical students: Take the time to build and maintain relationships with people outside of medicine. (This is particularly important if you have a partner who is also in medicine!) Being a doctor is an amazing career, but it can also be a bubble. Having strong relationships with people outside of medicine has not only helped my wellbeing, but it also helps me see different perspectives and think critically when making tough decisions.

The clickable links below navigate directly to outside media articles which featured Department of Medicine faculty and staff throughout the month of April.

John Batsis, MD, side effect of statin

John Buse, MD, making GLP-1s affordable.

Emily Chang, MD, that will help keep your kidneys healthy.

Edwin Kim, MD,, and patients struggling with pollen allergies.

Seth Berkowitz, MD, jo discuss the programs health implications.

Anne Peery, MD, MSCR, revealing the $100 billion dollar cost of gastrointestinal disease.

Jacob Stein, MD, MPH, and other 大象传媒 researchers and adolescents were represented in cancer claims data.

Anisha Ganguly, MD, MPH,听on how lack of childcare impacts appointment adherence.

Amit Gupta, MD, MHPE, on doctors intuition and training.

David Weber, MD, MPH,why this flue season in NC has been so deadly.

John Buse, MD, and Matthew Cavender, MD, MPH, semaglutide reduces heart attack risk for patients with type 2 diabetes.

David Wohl, MD, recent measles outbreak.

Sarah Mcgill, MD, MSc, alpha gal syndrome as tick season begins.

John Buse, MD, in a study on the prevalence of hypercortisolism in type 2 diabetes.

Richard Loeser, MD, magazine on oxidative stress.

Matthew Cavender, MD, MPH, of putting semaglutides into a pill.

Edward Barnes, MD, MPH, experience of living with a J pouch.

Amanda E. Nelson, MD, and Thurston Arthritis Research Center researchers coauthored a study titled, 鈥淭ranslational genomics of osteoarthritis in 1,962,069 individuals鈥� in听Nature.

John Buse, MD, PhD,led a study finding 24% of individuals with difficult-to-control type 2 diabetes also present with hypercortisolism (Cushing鈥檚 syndrome).

鈥淢any patients have uncontrolled type 2 diabetes despite the use of the best available medications,鈥� said Dr. Buse. 鈥淚t is critical for clinicians to consider and address all factors that can contribute to inadequate glucose control. CATALYST鈥檚 results show that, for many patients, hypercortisolism is one of those factors.鈥�

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