Internal Medicine – Message from the Chair

We are rapidly approaching the end of the academic year. With that comes some special celebrations- especially recognizing excellence in teaching. Dr. Amy Cannella was awarded the Hirschmann Prize for Teaching Excellence from the COM and Dr. Jasmine Marcelin was selected as the speaker for the recent UNMC medical student convocation/hooding ceremony-both very special recognition of the impact each has had on medical student education.

We will soon celebrate our department research award winners at Research Grand Rounds in early June. All our winners are listed in the newsletter—Dr. Bryant England and Dr. Benjamin Teply are faculty winners and Dr. Apar Ganti is recognized for the faculty research mentoring award. We will also celebrate fellow, resident, and medical student awardees as well. And Dr. England was also selected as one of the COM Joseph R. and Harriet Gilmore Distinguished New Investigator awardees as well. Dr. Jonathan Ryder, infectious diseases fellow, received the best poster for original research at the spring UNMC all GME poster session on May 4th. The IM department resident and fellow poster session will occur on May 26th, and you are invited to see the good scholarly work our trainees have done.

There are lots of other fun items to find in the newsletter, including a couple of faculty who have taken the time to document the story of one of our early trailblazing women cardiologists, Dr. Helen Starke. And learn about who in the department are new NSRI fellows. Please note that one of our faculty, Dr.  Merle McAlvey will retire at the end of June after 50 years of service to the General Internal Medicine division and the department. He has educated a tremendous number of medical students and watched both the division and department change enormously. Many thanks to Dr. McAlvey for all he has done!

Our culture topic for May and June is focused on our shared UNMC/NM ITEACH value of healing. Some of our culture tools like “be here now”, “practice gratitude”, “cultural humility”, and “peer checks” help us create a healing space for our patients, learners, and one another. May is also Mental Health Awareness month and I appreciate so much those who are willing to share how they journey with life’s challenges and what resources they have found useful. I recall how valuable seeking counselling was for me after my younger brother’s suicide several years ago.  I am grateful for Dr. Richards’ frequent reminder that it is okay to not be okay and we want to help one another connect with resources.

While the weather has been up and down, there have been some great spring days and I hope you are getting a chance to enjoy some part of them. We look forward to more celebrations in June as residents and fellows finish training and soon new trainees will join us. Our upcoming department meetings are May 19th (there will be a special announcement at that meeting) and June 16th (when Dr. Linder, CEO of Nebraska Medicine will join us) by zoom.

Take care!

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