The Department of Medicine salutes Scott Novack, MD (PGY-1, Anesthesia) for his extraordinary patient care. While on the renal ward, he encountered an unresponsive dialysis patient and immediately arranged for an emergency CT. He took the patient to radiology himself, but afterwards couldn’t find an available bed for the patient to be monitored closely. Unwilling to compromise patient safety, Dr. Novack persevered in finding a way to get his patient intubated and transferred to the Neurology ICU. 

Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington and Director of the Seattle STD/HIV Prevention Training Center, Jeanne Marazzo, MD, will lead the Division of Infectious Diseases beginning early next year. She is internationally recognized for her research and education efforts in the field of sexually transmitted infections, especially as they affect women’s health. 

In a Department of Medicine pilot program, Katherine Romp, MD (GIM) demonstrated a way to recover time spent in computerized physician order entry. The positive results, in both physician satisfaction and productivity, so impressed Primary Care leadership that they have approved implementation of the program on a permanent basis. 

Elizabeth Turnipseed, MD (GIM) has been promoted to Co-Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs in the Department.

The General Endowment Fund of the UA Health Services Foundation just awarded over $1.4 million in annual faculty grants for projects in clinical care, patient research, medical education and laboratory research. Six of the 13 grants went to faculty in the Department:

• Marc Cribbs, MD (Cardiovascular Disease) was awarded $113,000 for the “UAB Comprehensive Pregnancy and Heart Program.”
• James Willig, MD (Infectious Diseases) received $134,156 for “Wound Selfie: A Mobile Health Approach for Home Monitoring of Surgical Site Infections.”
• John Mountz, MD (Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology) was awarded $109,835 for a “Next Generation Flow Cytometer to Streamline Core Operation in the Comprehensive Flow Cytometry Core.”
• Steven Rowe, MD (Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine) received $159,800 for a “Micro-CT Scanner for Ultra-High Resolution Live Imaging of Large and Small Animals.”
• Stefan Kertesz, MD (Preventive Medicine) earned $45,000 to establish an “Albert Schweitzer Fellowship Alabama Chapter.”
• J. Michael Wells, MD (Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine was awarded $132,557 for “Natural Language Processing to Identify COPD Exacerbations in Real Time (NICER).”

The University of Alabama Hospital has met all of the Core Four Criteria and has achieved 2015 Leader in LGBT Healthcare Equality status from the Healthcare Equality Index.

Coming Next Week: Shyam Varadarajulu, MD, Professor of Medicine at the University of Central Florida and Medical Director for the Center for Interventional Endoscopy (CIE) at Florida Hospital will present "Interventional Endoscopy: Today and Tomorrow."

View this week's slides here.

Do you have Good News to share? If so, please email the Department of Medicine's Director of Communications, Carolyn Walsh.