UCSF DEM Newsletter - San Francisco

On June 23, San Francisco's COVID Command Center hosted a surprise celebration for our Department of Emergency Medicine's very own Dr. Mary Mercer, at which by proclamation of Mayor London Breed, the date was declared Mary Mercer Day, for her awe-inspiring grit, grace, and dedication to the COVID response since March 2020. Mary Ellen Carroll, Executive Director of the Department of Emergency Management, read the proclamation on behalf of Mayor Breed. Grant Colfax, Director of Health for the City and County of San Francisco, presented Mary with a Public Health Hero award.

WHEREAS, the City and County of San Francisco traditionally recognizes individuals who have made significant and remarkable contributions to the vitality of our City, the dedicated and remarkable work of Dr. Mary Mercer truly represents San Francisco values at their best; and

Whereas, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Mary Mercer joined the Department of Public Health Command Operation in March of 2020 without hesitation, supporting the Medical Branch and leading the effort to organize the distribution of Personal Protective Equipment for healthcare providers across San Francisco; and

Whereas, Dr. Mercer played an essential role in planning, coordinating and mitigating COVID-19 surge across hospitals in San Francisco including implementing a field care clinic at Southeast Health Center, supporting patient level-loading and other emergency medical response functions; and

Whereas, Dr. Mercer supported the COVID Command Center as the Health Services Operations Director, serving as a vital partner and sharing her vision for what would become the future for vaccinations in San Francisco; and

Whereas, Dr. Mercer has led the COVID-19 Command Center as Vaccine Branch Director, playing a key role in vaccinating over 81% (and counting) of eligible San Franciscans within six months; she led teams to get vaccine to San Franciscans by plane, train, and automobile; and

Whereas, Dr. Mercer invested in a multi-disciplinary team that centered community voices to guide an equitable vaccine response in San Francisco neighborhoods impacted the most by the COVID-19 pandemic; and

Whereas, in the face of uncertainty, Dr. Mercer led a dedicated team of extraordinary skilled doctors, nurses, medical and healthcare professionals and staff who collectively and successfully combated the COVID-19 threat during the global pandemic; she led by example by battling on the frontlines at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital’s Emergency Department to save lives; and

Whereas, with a wicked awesome sense of humor, Dr. Mercer is widely considered by her colleagues as a cherished friend and a respected mentor, her expertise and guidance will positively impact future leaders and those who are interested in serving in the healthcare industry for generations to come; now

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that I, London N. Breed, Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco, do hereby proclaim June 23, 2021 as…

Mary Mercer

Day

…in San Francisco!

Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland Integration

On July 1, we welcomed thirteen new faculty and six new MSP physicians into our UCSF DEM family from Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland: (Faculty) Drs. Chris Baker, Michael Bell, Lisa Hart, Alan Johnson, Nel Latronica, Sara Leibovich, Karim Mansour, Kevan McCarten-Gibbs, Jim Naprawa, Sima Patel, August Saulys, Ashkon Shaahinfar, Kevin Whitelaw, and (MSP Physicians) Drs. Tom Dalton, Morgan Leighton, Juliana Liang, Chad McCarthy, Mahnoosh Nik-Ahd, and Ron Yalon (not pictured).

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Ellen Henderson on her July 1 retirement from the BCH Oakland Emergency Department after nearly 31 years of tremendous service. Dr. Henderson came to Oakland from the Medical College of Virginia where she had served as the Director of the Pediatric Emergency Department and Critical Care Transport System, and together with other leaders in the BCH Oakland Emergency Department during that era was instrumental in establishing the reputation of its program as one of the finest in the nation. Throughout her career in the Emergency Department, Dr. Henderson was universally acclaimed as an outstanding teacher, wise clinician and a cherished colleague who was unfailingly generous in her compassionate and empathetic support of her colleagues during challenging times.

Achievements

Dr. Carol Chen was selected to represent our WHO Collaborating Centre for Emergency and Trauma Care on the International Federation for Emergency Medicine (IFEM) WHO Implementation Taskforce (WHOTT) for a 2-year term. She will join 3 representatives from each of the six WHO regions in the world along with representatives from WHO collaborating centers and the WHO Headquarters.
In July, Dr. Dina Wallin was awarded ACEP’s National Emergency Medicine Junior Faculty Teaching Award, and Dr. Eric Isaacs was awarded ACEP’s National Emergency Medicine Faculty Teaching Award.
In July, Dr. Hemal Kanzaria joined the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations as a Core Faculty Member.
In July, Dr. Aaron Harries received an appreciation letter from Dr. Catherine Lucey, UCSF Executive Vice Dean and Vice Dean of Education, for his incredible contribution to medical education in response to the last year’s dual epidemics of COVID-19 and racial injustice. His efforts to create an online version of the Emergency Medicine Sub-I given the learning constraints in the clinical environment required extraordinary flexibility and creative problem solving. As a result of his dedication, UCSF graduated the outstanding physician workforce that our state and nation needs to fight this global pandemic.
Dr. Starr Knight was selected to be a Member-At-Large on the ZSFG Medical Executive Committee.
Dr. Jackie Grupp-Phelan was featured at the annual PECARN meeting on July 21-22.
Dr. Mahnoosh Nik-Ahd completed the Health Professions Education (HPE) Pathway.

Grants and Funding

RESEARCH GRANTS

Dr. Rob Rodriguez was awarded a grant for PROCOVAXED (PROmotion of COvid-19 VA(X)ccination in the Emergency Department). The goal of this research is to increase COVID-19 and influenza vaccine acceptance and uptake in vulnerable populations whose primary (and often only) health care access occurs in emergency departments (ED Usual Source of Care Patients).
Dr. Anneka Hooft received a Thrasher Research Fund Early Career Award for her project “Epidemiology and prevention of post-discharge pediatric mortality in Rwanda.”
Dr. Anita Vashi was funded by VA HSR&D to serve as a Researcher-in-Residence, a program that allows investigators to spend time in national policy or clinical programs to help with analysis and bring research knowledge to policy and program planning, with the National Office of Emergency Medicine and Office of Community Care to evaluate non-VA ED use and costs. Funding will begin on October 1 in the amount of $35,000.
Drs. Rosny Daniel and Research (NCSP) fellow Vidya Eswaran were awarded $50,000 co-funded by the Research Development Office (RDO) and the Academic Senate for their project "Addressing Anti-Black Racism in Mental Health Emergency Settings at UCSF."

Invited Presentations

Dr. Ashkon Shaahinfar (pictured above in BCH Oakland Integration) gave Grand Rounds at BCH Oakland on June 29 with a presentation entitled "Point-of-Care Ultrasound for the General Pediatrician" co-presented with Dr. Anelah McGinness.

Dr. Mimi Lu gave the following presentations:

"Pediatric ECGs" at the PEM Fellow Conference, Division of Paediatric Emergency Medicine, Hospital for SickKids, University of Toronto, virtual, June 17.
Four lectures at AAEM's (American Academy of Academic Emergency Medicine) 27th Annual Scientific Assembly in St. Louis, Missouri, in-person, June 20-24:

Pediatric Emergency Medicine Literature Update. Plenary session.
Meeting of the Minds. Pediatric Appendicitis.
Sweet Kids: Updates in Pediatric DKA.
The Crashing Kid. Resuscitation for Emergency Physicians Preconference Course.

"Intro to PEM (for EM folk!)" for the Intern Orientation Series, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Maryland, virtual, July.
Three lectures at Symposia Medicus' 3rd Annual Summer Conference on the Acute Care of the Critically Ill Patients. Big Sky, Montana, in-person, July 21-24.

Dangerous Practices in Pediatric Emergencies
The Febrile Infant: A 2021 Approach
Pediatric Emergency Medicine Literature Update

On June 1, Dr. Rob Rodriguez (pictured above in Research Grants) presented "The COVID-19 Pandemic: Year One Experience of a Frontline Provider and National Advisor" at UCSF Osher Mini Medical School.
On July 14, Dr. Rodriguez gave a lecture for Jacobi/Montefiore Emergency Medicine Residency (Albert Einstein College of Medicine) entitled "The Precision CT Approach for Selective CT in Blunt Trauma."

Media Coverage

In collaboration with San Francisco Department of Public Health, the Latino Task Force, and the non-profit organization Cultura y Arte Nativa de las Americas (CANA), our Department of Emergency Medicine's very own Dr. Nancy Anaya was featured in a Spanish-language public service announcement in July to counter vaccine hesitancy and encourage pregnant mothers to get their COVID vaccinations. "¡Vacúnate Ya!"

In collaboration with 510media, many of our Department of Emergency Medicine colleagues including Drs. Evelyn Porter (pictured above), Joe Graterol, Kayla Enriquez, Rosny Daniel (pictured above in Research Grants) and alumnus Dr. Joe Nelson, were featured in a public service announcement in July entitled We Are You to help address vaccine hesitancy by sharing personal experiences and perspectives. For more information about the project, please visit https://www.weareyousf.org/ and click "Hear the stories."

Dr. Chris Colwell was featured in an SF Gate news article from June 14 entitled, 'Fentanyl has changed the whole landscape': San Francisco faces worst drug epidemic ever.
Dr. Colwell was on Good Morning America on July 22 speaking on differences between the unvaccinated and the vaccinated in the pandemic.

Dr. Theresa Cheng, who is currently the Immigration Team Co-Director at UCLA Law's COVID Behind Bars Data Project, was interviewed by The World, public radio's weekly broadcast with 2+ million subscribers, discussing the COVID outbreaks in immigrant detention centers.
Dr. Cheng was featured in a July 13 news article in El Paso Matters, entitled Efforts to vaccinate ICE detainees hindered by distrust, misinformation.

Emergency Medicine Reviews and Perspectives (EM:RAP) had a featured discussion in their July Emergency Medicine Abstracts podcast about a paper co-authored by Drs. Jon Gelber and volunteer physician Amandeep Singh (not pictured) et al, entitled, A prospective study of the incidence of intracranial hemorrhage in survivors of out of hospital cardiac arrest.

Dr. Andi Tenner was featured in a July 7 news article by Here/Say Media entitled, As COVID evolves, so does San Francisco’s vaccination strategy.
On July 29, Dr. Andi Tenner was named by Here/Say Media as one of several key Women Who Led San Francisco Through the Pandemic at a panel discussion regarding City women in vital leadership roles.

Fellowship Activities

The EMS/Disaster Medicine Fellowship wrapped up another year of the Digital Learning Academy, the innovative monthly remote learning consortium of all the CA EMS Fellowship programs, on June 22.

PEM Fellow Boot Camp, July 12 - 14, organized by Drs. Nel Latronica and Heidi Werner.

Publications

Alwan RM, Kaki DA, Hsia RY. Barriers and facilitators to accessing health services for people without documentation status in an anti-immigrant era: a socioecological model. Health Equity. 2021 Jun 25;5(1):448-456. doi: 10.1089/heq.2020.0138. eCollection 2021. PMID: 34235370. PMCID: PMC8252901.

Carvalho CJ, Fuller MP, Quaidoo EA, Haider AS, Rodriguez JJ, Wong AHK, Duong MM, Rodriguez RM. A review of COVID-19-related publications and lag times during the first six months of the year 2020. West J Emerg Med Integrating Emerg Care Popul Health. 2021; 22(4).

Dillon DG, Rodriguez RM. Screening performance of the chest X-ray in adult blunt trauma evaluation: Is it effective and what does it miss? Am J Emerg Med. 19 Jun 2021;49:310-314. Online ahead of print. doi: 10.1016/j.ajem.2021.06.034. PMID: 34182276.

Harada MY, Lara-Millán A, Chalwell LE. Policed patients: how the presence of law enforcement in the emergency department impacts medical care. Ann Emerg Med. 28 Jul 2021;S0196-0644(21)00380-2. doi: 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2021.04.039. Online ahead of print. PMID: 34332806.

Hoops K, Fahimi J, Khoeur L, et al. Consensus-driven priorities for firearm injury education among medical professionals. Acad Med. 6 Jul 2021. Online ahead of print. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000004226. PMID: 34232149.

Lacocque J, Siegel L, Sporer KA. Prehospital, post-ROSC blood pressure and associated neurologic outcome. Am J Emerg Med. 5 Jun 2021;49:195-199. doi: 10.1016/j.ajem.2021.05.073. Online ahead of print. PMID: 34144261.

Nik-Ahd M, Agrawal AK, Zimel M. Diagnosis and management of pediatric primary bone tumors in the emergency department. Pediatr Emerg Med Pract. 2021 Jul;18(7):1-20. Epub 2021 Jul 2. PMID: 34196516.

Ornelas C, Torres JM, Torres JR, Alter H, Taira BR, Rodriguez RM. Anti-immigrant rhetoric and the experiences of Latino immigrants in the emergency department. West J Emerg Med. 7 May 2021;22(3):660-666. PMID: 34125043.

Rodriguez RM, Torres JR, Chang AM, Haggins AN, Eucker SA, O'Laughlin KN, Anderson E, Miller DG, Wilkerson RG, Caldwell M, Lim SC, Raja AS, Baumann BM, Graterol J, Eswaran V, Chinnock B, REVVED UP Investigators (Chan V, Anaya N, Wong AH, et al). The rapid evaluation of COVID-19 vaccination in emergency departments for underserved patients study. Ann Emerg Med. 2021 May 31:S0196-0644(21)00436-4. doi: 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2021.05.026. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34272104; PMCID: PMC8165082.

Shaahinfar A, Ghazi-Askar ZM. Procedural applications of point-of-care ultrasound in pediatric emergency medicine. Emerg Med Clin N Am. 2021; 39 (2021) 529–554. doi: 10.1016/j.emc.2021.04.006. Epub 2021 Jun 11. PMID: 34215401.

Vashi AA, Orvek EA, Tuepker A, et al. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Innovators Network: Evaluation design, methods and lessons learned through an embedded research approach. Healthc (Amst). 8 Jun 2021;8 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):100477. doi: 10.1016/j.hjdsi.2020.100477. Epub 2021 Jun 23. PMID: 34175094.

Watkins K, Gelber J, Kaushik N, Shaahinfar A. Young child with seizure. Annals of Emerg Med. 2021;71(6):597-600. PMID: 34030774.

Yan BW, Hsia RY, Yeung Victoria, Sloan FA. Changes in mental health following the 2016 presidential election. J Gen Intern Med. 2021 Jan;36(1):170-177. doi: 10.1007/s11606-020-06328-6. Epub 2020 Oct 31. PMID: 33128680 PMCID: PMC7602772

Special Publications

Cheng T. COVID is spreading like wildfire in ICE facilities - decarceration, reducing transfers, and public health measures can help. MedPage Today. 31 Jul 2021.

Lipsitch M, Mark McClellan M, Rodriguez R. Opinion: We’re part of a planning group for a covid-19 commission. Here’s why we need one. The Washington Post. 2 Jun 2021.

Strother C, Webb T, Joshi K, Nik-Ahd M, Kelley M, Waseem M. Simulation Case 1: Anaphylaxis. In: Burns RA, ed. Emergency Medicine Resident Simulation Curriculum for Pediatrics (EM ReSCu Peds). Academic Life in Emergency Medicine; 2021:1-30. ISBN 978-0-9992825-8-8

UCSF Library's Open Access Publishing

We wanted to make sure everyone was aware of the polices regarding open access fees for publishing in open access journals. The University policy to use the UCSF Library Open Access funds is as follows: “Requests for funding must be submitted no more than seven (7) days after a manuscript has been accepted for publication by the publisher, and before it has been published. Publication as a preprint in advance on sites such as bioRxiv or Research Square, or as an in-press proof on the publisher's site is acceptable. The acceptance date entered on the application form must match the publisher's acceptance date to avoid the application being denied.

Applications for manuscripts that have not yet been submitted or accepted cannot be funded, and reimbursements cannot be granted for previously published works.”

Please let the research manager, Robin Kemball (robin.kemball@ucsf.edu) know if you need assistance with the process for applying for the funds. A link to the informational website is below.

https://guides.ucsf.edu/oafund

In addition, our department is able to cover 3 publication fees to the journal of WestJEM per year due to a departmental membership. These will be issued on a first come first serve basis. If you plan on publishing in WestJEM and would like to see if we have any available licenses for use please contact the research manager Robin Kemball (robin.kemball@ucsf.edu).

Staff Announcements

Effective July 1, Erin Harrison joined our DEM Staff team serving as our Executive Analyst to the Chair. Erin will be working with Dr. Peter Sokolove and fellow colleagues across our department and will report to Christine Montgomery. Erin has been with the University of California for nearly 20 years. She started her career at UC San Diego, but then decided that San Francisco was really the city for her. Erin’s road to Emergency Medicine has had curbside visits in Neurosurgery, Radiology and Pharmacy. She is now very excited to join the DEM team and looks forward to meeting everyone in person. She is a California native, born and raised in the north part of the state amongst almond orchards and the gorgeous outdoors of the foothills. Outside of work, she enjoys exploring the food scene in this amazing city. She and her partner Marcelo love traveling as well as exploring restaurants and trying out new recipes together in their kitchen.