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Jim Johnson, MD, is able to listen to patients remotely via high-performance electronic stethoscope.Thanks to the new Tele-ICU initiative led by Steve Stigler, MD (Assistant Professor) and Jim Johnson, MD (Professor) in Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care, patients in the Intensive Care Unit at Vaughan Regional Medical Center in Selma can be remotely monitored and treated by UAB physicians. Using a secure internet connection and digital diagnostic tools such as the electronic stethoscope, UAB pulmonologists will operate the Tele-ICU service 24/7. They will also train Vaughan’s family medicine residents in critical care medicine. The telemedicine approach is an exciting new means of patient care that is advantageous both for patients and health care providers.

Physicians in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care launched a new telehealth program on July 2, 2018. The initiative, led by Steve Stigler, MD, and James E. Johnson, MD, will enable UAB physicians to monitor and treat patients in the Intensive Care Unit at Vaughan Regional Medical Center in Selma without leaving the UAB campus.

Jaroslaw Zmijewski, PhD and Victor J. Thannickal, MD (Division Director) have demonstrated that IPF can be reversed with the diabetes drug Metformin.A research team led by Jaroslaw Zmijewski, PhD (Associate Professor) and Victor J. Thannickal, MD (Professor and Director) in Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care, has shown for the first time that established lung fibrosis can be reversed using a diabetes drug treatment that targets cell metabolism. Experimental findings using lung tissues from patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and a mouse model of lung fibroblasts have been reported in Nature Medicine in an article entitled “Metformin reverses established lung fibrosis in a bleomycin model in a bleomycin model.”

Dana Rizk, MD (Associate Professor, Nephrology) led research efforts that were published in an article entitled “A Novel Method for Rapid Bedside Measurement of Glomerular Filtration Rate,” that was printed in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. The new injectable biomarker will potentially allow early detection of kidney damage and possible new therapies.

The Department of Medicine is delighted to welcome Douglas R. Morgan, M.D., MPH, as our next Director of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, effective October 1. A global expert in the epidemiology and prevention of gastric cancer, Dr. Morgan is currently Associate Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University. He will lead the Division in expanding its clinical, educational, and research programs to meet the needs of Alabama and to advance prevention and treatment of GI diseases globally.