GW Heart & Vascular Institute's Community Health Worker Helps Save Patient from Burning Building
Sawa Kamara and Kim Desormeaux
The GW Heart & Vascular Institute's community health workers make home visits and telephone contacts assisting inner city patients with both medical and social needs. These patients are affected by chronic conditions such as heart failure, diabetes, and hypertension. These patients need additional support to manage their disease processes successfully. On September 19, 2018 Kim Desormeaux and Sawa Kamara, our GW community health workers were on their way to a typical home visit. While driving as they approached the patient's neighborhood they noticed the patient's apartment building was on fire. Indeed, on that date, a fire broke out at the Arthur Capper Senior Building in Southeast Washington, D.C. The entire area was blocked off and their patient was disabled, wheel chair bound with a home intravenous medication and oxygen. Kim Desormeaux notified her direct supervisor, Linda Bostrom, nurse practitioner who recommended she park the car and survey the tenants to see if she saw her patient with the group of tenants that were already removed from the building. She immediately warned firefighters on the scene that her patient was not amongst the group and gave them her apartment number. The firefighters were able to find the woman still in the apartment and rescued her from the burning building to safety. Kim Desormeaux and Sawa Kamara were just doing their job but on this day went above and beyond the call of duty and made a tremendous difference in the outcome of this patient. The dedication shown by both of these woman are demonstrated daily and are so valued at the GW Heart & Vascular Institute.
GW Cardiology Graduates Present Grand Rounds
Drs. Monica Mukherjee and Jannet Lewis
Dr. Behnam Tehrani
We are proud of the fact that our GW cardiology graduates are making a difference in academic cardiology. Graduates of the GW Cardiology Fellowship program delivered cardiology grand grounds on GW's medical campus this month. Monica Mukherjee, MD, MPH, Director, Echocardiographic Research and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and graduate of the GW Cardiology Fellowship in 2012, presented her research on "Right Ventricle and Pulmonary Hypertension." Behnam Tehrani, MD, Director of Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at INOVA Heart & Vascular Institute and graduate of the GW Cardiology Fellowship in 2013 and GW Interventional Fellowship in 2014, presented "Cardiogenic Shock: Heart Team Approach to Management." Dr. Tehrani also presented his work at the annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) meeting in San Diego this fall.
GW Cardiology Faculty and Fellows
Volunteer at Food & Friends
Drs. Drew McCaffrey and Raza Yunus
The GW Heart & Vascular Institute's faculty, nurses, physician assistants, and fellows donated their time on a Saturday morning this month to prepare more than 200 packaged meals and groceries to support Food & Friends. Food & Friends provides over one million meals per year for people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other life-challenging illnesses in the DC region.
GW Heart & Vascular Institute Faculty, Staff, and Board Members
