The DOM Dispatch - August, 2020 |
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Monthly newsletter for the CU Department of Medicine. In this issue:
-Faculty Recognition: Call for Nominations
-Task Force on Race Correction in Clinical Decisions
-Clinical Spotlight: Integrated Transgender Program
-WellDOM Champions Spotlight
-National Hospital and Specialty Rankings
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Message from the Chair
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I’m on vacation this week, taking a much needed rest with my family. I decided to take this week off because we’re either in the eye of the hurricane or we’ve dodged a very destructive bullet. Talking with the experts and reading the literature only convinces me that the future of Covid-19 in Colorado is uncertain. Since leadership is about hoping for the best while preparing for the worst, I decided I needed some rest before the next potential onslaught of Covid-related decisions and responsibilities. I suspect that many of you could use some time off, and I encourage you do so.
2020 has been tough. In fact, there’s a lot that has happened over the past five months that seems somewhat of a blur. However, the one thing that’s crystal clear to me is that our faculty, staff, and leadership have done an outstanding job faced with an extraordinary challenge. You, my faculty, staff, and leadership, have demonstrated the most dedication, professionalism, comradery, and data-driven decision making that I have witnessed in my entire career. I have been inspired by your actions – thank you.
Yet, as I reflect back to the beginning of this year and think about the potential challenges ahead, I can’t stress enough how important it is that we find time to step away, to relax and spend time with our friends and family. Don’t let SAR-CoV-2 overwhelm you. Be creative and thoughtful about how you recharge and stay connected. This is our first-ever ‘staycation’, and at least for the past 24 hours it has worked out just fine. I’ve always thought that persistence requires rest, a supportive community, and an altruistic goal.
Stay well, stay connected, and take some time to recharge your mitochondria.
My very best wishes,
David A. Schwartz, MD
Professor of Medicine and Immunology
Robert W. Schrier Chair of Medicine
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COVID-19 Campus Resources |
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Celebration of Promotions
The Department of Medicine announces the Associate Professor and Professor promotions and tenure awarded for this academic year, effective July 1, 2020. Please join in congratulating your colleagues. Read more.
Call for Nominations: DOM Faculty Recognition
We are now soliciting nominations for Department of Medicine faculty who have had transformative and innovative accomplishments in the past three years.
Nominate your colleagues by Sept 30, 2020, including regular and volunteer Department of Medicine faculty members across all affiliates, at all ranks, inclusive of MD/DO, PhD, and Advanced Practice Providers. For any questions regarding the nomination process or the fall virtual recognition event (TBD) to recognize our outstanding faculty, contact Sonia Flores at sonia.flores@cuanschutz.edu.
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Program Updates
New Faculty Orientation
- Scheduled for virtual delivery Sept 8 from 3-5pm as an introduction to the DOM.
- All new faculty, regardless of rank, are encouraged to attend.
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Questions: DomFacAdvancement@ucdenver.edu.
Junior Faculty Mentoring Program
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New faculty – a mentor identification form is due to the Faculty Advancement Office within 90 days of your start date. Additional information around requirements and online forms can be found here.
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Requirement reminder – 2 mentor progress reports are due by Dec 31, 2020. Please submit online forms here. Questions: DomFacAdvancement@ucdenver.edu.
Mid-Career Faculty Women's Leadership Development Program
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Strategic Career Planning Lunch and Learn with Dr. Judy Regensteiner is rescheduled to Sept 3. Successful virtual delivery of Difficult Conversations Lunch and Learn took place on July 22. Questions: DomFacAdvancement@ucdenver.edu.
Mid-Course Review
Assistant to Associate Professor Promotion Process Update
- 2020 promotion applications are due to the Department of Medicine Oct 31.
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To help mitigate the impact of changes due to the COVID-19 response, all Assistant Professors regardless of year in rank are offered a 1-year promotion timeline extension.
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To ensure the extension offer has been reviewed, all Assistant Professors must send an e-mail to Katie Rodriguez to accept or decline the offer by Aug 31, 2020.
- The 1-year extension offer is for all Assistant Professors but specifically targeted to those 3-4 years in rank with the ability to assess impact of pandemic response on their readiness for promotion.
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Requests for extensions greater than 1-year must use the standard promotion extension request form. Please work with your Division Administrator to complete.
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Questions: Review the 2020 SOM Promotion Extension FAQ or contact katie.rodriguez@cuanschutz.edu
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LEADERSHIP 101: Communicating with Employees During a Crisis
As we navigate the ever-changing environment of this pandemic, the communication of our leaders is imperative to propelling the Department’s mission forward. Harvard Business Review provides communication guidance and strategies to encourage effective communication rooted in urgency, transparency, and empathy.
The communication of our leaders during a crisis is critical to maintaining operational standards amongst uncertainty. In the times ahead, consider exploring ways to harness these five recommendations within your upcoming communications to faculty and staff.
By utilizing communication strategies rooted in urgency, transparency, and empathy, leaders will be empowered to drastically influence how their teams respond and perform moving forward. Specially, leaders will be able to identify the instrumental ways of discerning what information to share and how to convey it - 5 Tips for Communicating with Employees During a Crisis; Harvard Business Review; Brooks Holtom, Amy C. Edmondson, and David Niu 7/9/2020.
Currently Harvard Business Review offers special coronavirus coverage for leading and working through a pandemic. These resources are available here. Also, did you know the Harvard Business Review is available to all faculty and staff through our Strauss Health Sciences Library’s organization subscription to the journal? (Journal search “Harvard Business Review”).
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DOM Initiatives - Diversity & Justice |
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Task Force: Race Correction in Clinical Decisions
Sonia Flores, PhD, vice chair of diversity and justice, is forming a task force with representation from each division to examine how race corrections are used in internal medicine sub-specialties, as well as focus on gender health care disparities, including LGBTQ+.
Division heads were requested to nominate representatives. If interested, please contact sonia.flores@cuanschutz.edu.
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Biobank Steps up COVID Testing at UCHealth
Although the Colorado Center for Personalized Medicine's Biobank Laboratory was initially asked to perform relatively minimal COVID-19 testing (fewer than 1,000 tests performed between March 26 and May 28), the demand has escalated. The Biobank has performed 28,312 COVID-19 tests in July (as of July 28) and a total of 34,409 for UCHealth.
Additionally, patients who elect to receive the COVID-19 antibody test can also consent to having their blood sample entered into the Biobank for further genetic research, providing researchers the ability to compare DNA and help create therapies, repurpose drugs, or even develop a vaccine.
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CCTSI - New Researcher Management and Leadership Training Course
Anne Libby, PhD, and Judy Regensteiner, PhD have developed a new course called Researcher Management and Leadership Training, which is targeted to early-career researchers and mentors who believe that modern scientific careers require management skills. Course content includes an action learning plan, and lessons on leadership, finance, and administration, management—starting, growing and maintaining teams and mentorship. Learn more.
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Program Spotlight: UCHealth Integrated Transgender Program |
Under the leadership of the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes, the UCHealth Integrated Transgender Program is a national model of care for transgender patients.
At the clinic, patients can see multiple providers on the same day, in the same room, sometimes at the same time, and for one co-pay. A vast spectrum of gender-affirming hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgery is offered, and the program is the only place in Colorado that currently offers phalloplasty.
Read more about the program's recent accomplishments in clinical care, research education, and community engagement and advocacy.
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Program for Academic Clinician Education (PACE) Scholars
The Department of Medicine's Program for Academic Clinician Education (PACE) supports the career development of our department’s clinician-educators. These faculty members make crucial contributions to the success of our department by developing and improving innovative educational programs, and engaging in educational research to guide how we teach and assess health profession learners.
The PACE program provides scholars with financial support, which may be used for medical education research, innovative program development in education, salary support and/or career development of the scholar. Read more.
Announcing the DOM 2020-21 PACE Scholars
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Amiran Baduashvili, MD, Visiting Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Hospital Medicine
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Adrienne Mann, MD,
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Hospital Medicine; Deputy Chief of the Medicine Service, Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center; Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program
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Melissa New, MD,
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary Sciences and Critical Care Medicine, Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center
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Golden Tafadzwa Fana, MD, Lecturer, Consultant Physician, Department of Medicine,
College of Health Sciences at the University of Zimbabwe
(Mentored Project without Funding)
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Elizabeth Kudron, MD, MPH,
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Bioinformatics & Personalized Medicine
(Returning Scholar)
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"COVID 6" Hospital Medicine Fellowship Perseveres Despite Pandemic |
COVID posed the single greatest challenge to Hospital Medicine's fellowship mission of training future faculty. Six of the fellows started their fellowship on March 1, just days after the first case of community-spread COVID-19 had been documented in the U.S.
This group, self-titled the "COVID 6", showed incredible patience as the program’s leadership figured out how to change their orientation to virtual, reschedule their clinical experiences and struggle to approach teaching as much about COVID and personal protective equipment as they were about traditional medicine topics.
"They handled these battlefield promotions with grace and poise, agreeing to shift their focus from their own personal development to the division, the department and the hospital," said Brian Wolfe, MD, one of the program leads.
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DOM Initiatives - Wellness |
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The WellDOM Team (Wellness in the Department of Medicine) is here to support you. Visit our website and the DOM COVID 19 page for resources and information.
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Resources
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WellDOM Champions: These contacts are members of your Division designated to proactively support wellness activities within the teams and help disseminate information on wellness resources.
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Virtual Balint Groups are starting this summer! No matter your level of training or experience, Balint Groups provide a supportive environment of a small group of colleagues to help clinicians reduce burnout and rediscover joy in medicine. Both daytime and evening groups are available. Groups meet monthly and following the first three sessions, members will be asked to commit to regular attendance. Sign-up now.
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Coping with COVID-19: Wellbeing Survey
The DOM is participating with the American Medical Association to use a brief survey to understand the impact of COVID-19 on our faculty. Please complete the survey by Aug 10, which should take less than 5 minutes to complete.
Responses are anonymous. We will share this data in aggregate form with hospital and departmental leadership to develop strategies to better support our faculty during this challenging time.
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WellDOM Champions Monthly Spotlight
Katie Dickerman, MSN, ANP-BC
WellDOM Champion for the Division of
Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Katie has been a nurse practitioner for 11 years. She started her advanced practice career at Washington University in St. Louis where she worked in oncology. She moved to Denver with her family in 2015 and has been with the Division of GI and Hepatology since that time. She serves as lead APP for the division and enjoys her work in both the ambulatory GI clinic and on the therapeutic GI inpatient consult service.
Why do you think wellbeing work is important?
Wellbeing is fundamental to many aspects of life and can affect how an individual performs in many ways. A strong sense of wellbeing can improve overall health, confidence, goal attainment and relationships, among many others. What I hope that people gain from exploring wellness initiatives is that even small changes can make big differences. Wellness endeavors don't have to be all encompassing or overwhelming and should be individualized.
How do you take care of your own wellbeing?
I prioritize my wellbeing with regular exercise, spending quality and uninterrupted time with my husband and children, exploring outdoors and getting plenty of rest. I really try to limit unnecessary input from social media, television, technology on the weekends so I can focus my energy on my family and activities that I enjoy like cooking, hiking and reading.
What are you most excited/passionate about in terms of wellbeing?
I enjoy exploring the idea of wellness with my peers and colleagues. Wellness needs are highly unique to each individual and I appreciate learning what others do to achieve wellbeing. I'm hopeful that additional research will help identify actionable items that we can apply to help fellow health care providers prioritize wellbeing.
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Upcoming Events
DOM M&M Conference, Aug 11, 12-1pm via Zoom. Drs. Andy Levy (Denver Health) and Dr. Tyler Miller (VA) – A Second Chance on a First Impression: Splenic Infarct and Heart Block in Patient with a Prosthetic Heart Valve
Epic Physician Builder Course
Available online for faculty who want to learn more about the operability of
Epic and gain the skills to develop process and quality improvement based changes
within the system. Classes are virtual and repeat monthly. Visit here to create a UserWeb account and enroll (courses offered monthly).
All sessions are held 8am-5:30pm CDT:
- Physician Build (Advanced) – Aug 5-7
- Physician Build (Analytics) – Aug 10-12
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CEPS Small Grants Awardees – DOM Funded Projects
The Clinical Effectiveness and Patient Safety (CEPS) Small Grants Program announced the 2020-2021 grant awardees. The CEPS Small Grants Program funds quality improvement efforts that put evidence into practice, implement innovative process improvements, and/or enhance skills and knowledge of healthcare providers.
The goal of each funded initiative is to improve patient safety and/or enhance the quality and cost-effectiveness of healthcare delivery.
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Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding Admissions: Improving Quality of Care after Endoscopy- Timothy Yen, MD (LInQS Fellow, Gastroenterology & Hepatology)
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Improving the Value of Care for Hospitalized Patients Experiencing Homelessness- Erin Bredenberg, MD (Hospital Medicine)
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Improving Dyslipidemia Management in Type 1 Diabetes- Shoshana Tell, MD (LInQS Fellow, Endocrinology, Metabolism & Diabetes)
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DOM Morbidity & Mortality Conferences –
Sign up to Present a Case
The DOM QPS team would like to extend an invitation to divisions to schedule case presentations for this monthly conference.
Last year, we had a diverse representation from several divisions and we’d love to see the same engagement this academic year.
Determining a case and finding presenters will be done later as we approach your chosen month. Please sign-up here to choose a month to present a case.
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DOM QPS Annual Report for AY2019-2020
Detailed in this report:
- Highlights of Department and Divisional M&Ms presented during the past academic year and associated QI projects
- Annual Shark Tank projects and their progress towards improving high value care
- Description of the new Leaders in Informatics, Quality & Systems (LInQS) Fellowship program
The DOM QPS AY19-20 annual report also highlights our efforts to support faculty as they navigated COVID-19 and the contributions we’ve made to the DOM and UCHealth to improve the quality and safety of care.
The report can be viewed here.
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Hospitals and Specialties Garner Top National Rankings
For the ninth year in a row, U.S. News and World Report ranks University of Colorado Hospital (UCH) No. 1 on its list of the state’s best hospitals. UCH is also ranked among the nation’s best in nine specialties including No. 2 in pulmonology & lung surgery, a distinction UCH shares with National Jewish Health, and rated high in two adult specialties. This is the first year that rheumatology, at No. 11, has been nationally ranked.
Ranked specialties:
- Pulmonology & Lung Surgery #2
- Rheumatology #11
- Diabetes & Endocrinology #18
- Cancer #44
- Cardiology & Heart Surgery #39
- Orthopedics #39
- Neurology & Neurosurgery #39
- GI & GI Surgery #39
- Kidney Disorders #45
High performing specialties:
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The Lown Institute also named the UCH one of the best hospitals in the country on its hospital index, which ranks hospitals on a scale that considers patient outcomes, civic leadership, and value of care. The University of Colorado Hospital was graded A+ overall and ranked No. 18 out of 3,282 hospitals nationwide and No. 1 in Colorado.
The Lowen index also reports that Denver Health Medical Center ranks No. 1 in the state of Colorado in the category of civic leadership, which reflects its commitment to equity, inclusion, and community health.
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HIGHLIGHTED MEDIA CLIPS AND COMMUNITY OUTREACH |
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Women of Color on the Front Lines
Sarah Rowan, MD, associate professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases practices at Denver Health. Dr. Rowan, who is also an artist, was inspired to create art that features women of color who have been providing care in the time of COVID-19.
She emailed friends at local hospitals, including Shanta Zimmer, MD, senior associate dean for education, associate dean for diversity and inclusion, and professor of medicine, to ask for selfies that could be turned into portraits, which are now featured on a specially created website, Women of Color on the Front Lines.
There was a huge response — Dr. Rowan received more than 150 photos of physicians from across the country. She reached out to dozens of other artists to help create the portraits.
“I hope that it serves as a visual representation that our society values women and racial diversity in medicine, and their commitment is worth recording with artwork,” Dr. Rowan said in a recent CPR News interview on this project. “I hope that people feel honored and appreciated. I also feel hopeful that this will inspire young people to go into medicine, particularly young Black people or Latinx people.”
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The CU Anschutz Multidisciplinary Center on Aging's Elder Abuse Task Force was awarded $831,972 from the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice to build The University of Colorado Statewide Vulnerable Elder Protection Clinical Team starting in January 2021.
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The Multidisciplinary Center on Aging and Steve Johnson, MD, professor of medicine from the Division of Infectious Diseases were featured on a national panel sponsored by AARP to discuss “Managing Our Lives during Summer and Fall While Safely Living With the Threat of COVID-19” on July 23.
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Beyond the Headlines: August Feature |
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Let's take a break from the usual headlines and highlight the beauty and wonder of our world...
Mark Earnest, MD, division head of General Internal Medicine, captured a series of hummingbird photos in this stunning collection.
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Construction Disruption: Academic Office 1
Construction work will take place outside the Academic Office 1 (AO1) Building on Aug 18 and should be completed by Aug 20.
The project will remove the curtain walls (large glass windows) on the north, south, and east sides on the outside of the building to investigate the leaking gaskets and windows. It is anticipated this construction work will cause limited noise and dust. Questions? Contact Andy Madsen at andy.madsen@cuanschutz.edu.
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Beware of Phishing Scams and Report Them
The university relies on you to report suspicious email that you receive at work. This allow us to investigate its legitimacy and, if necessary, block other similar attempts from reaching more email boxes. Trust your instinct. If you’re not sure, assume a suspicious email is not valid. It's better to report an email that seems suspicious than to disregard it. The information security team welcomes all reports.
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Masks and Face Coverings on Campus
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Colorado Pragmatic Research in Health Conference
Are you involved in designing and conducting research for the community/public health? Learn how to develop and test interventions that meet your stakeholder needs, making an impact on health even faster at the first national Colorado Pragmatic Research in Health Conference (COPHRCon), held virtually
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Eighth Annual CCTSI CU-CSU Summit:
“COVID-19 and the Colorado Research Environment”
The aim of the virtual CU-CSU Summit on Aug 19 is to engage researchers at all levels of training from each CCTSI partner campus – CU Anschutz, CU Denver, CU Boulder and Colorado State University – who are interested in learning more about research resources, analysis and collaborations. The summit will feature an informal poster display, highlighting recent and ongoing clinical, translational and basic research activities that relate to the topic of COVID-19 research. Register now.
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Practical Global Health Training
Prepare for your next international medical experience and positively impact the global community. Get equipped with knowledge, skills, tools, and resources in order to be an effective and responsible volunteer on the ground.
Providers from all medical specialties and healthcare disciplines (RNs, APRNs, PAs, Techs, EMTs, MDs, Pharmacists) and health students are welcome. The workshop will be held Aug 31 and Sept 1. Register now.
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Rocky Mountain Highlights in Gastroenterology and Hepatology 2020
The 7th Annual Rocky Mountain Highlights in Gastroenterology and Hepatology will be held Sept 19. This FREE webinar opportunity will give those in the field of Gastroenterology and Hepatology a chance to earn CME, CNE and MOC credit. Please see the conference brochure for the complete exciting didactic line-up. Register now.
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Population Mental Health State of Science Conference
This full-day, virtual conference will focus on integrated care, early prevention, mental health technology and health equity. Save the date for Oct 12. Read more.
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Bugs and Drugs Symposium
Improve your clinical practice with education on updated diagnosis and treatments of infectious diseases, hosted by the University of Colorado College of Nursing Office of Continuing Nursing Education and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Save the date for Nov 7. Read more.
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