Seth Landefeld, MD, Department of Medicine Chair

Welcome back to Letters to Tinsley. The residency program you helped build thrives, and the Department of Medicine has exciting news.

In a historic first, two new faculty—both past Tinsley Harrison residents—have been selected for the 2017 Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program. Latesha Elopre, M.D., and Gregory Payne, M.D., Ph.D., were chosen as finalists to receive one of 14 four-year career development awards given to health professionals who are from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine and are committed to developing careers in academic medicine! I invite you to read more about their tremendous honor here.

We are also thrilled that two of our faculty published original articles in The New England Journal of Medicine. Ken Saag, MD, MSc, demonstrated a new biologic drug boosts bone formation also reduces the risk of fracture in osteoporosis. Steve Rowe, MD, MSPH, reported an exciting new and effective combination drug therapy for Cystic Fibrosis patients, with additional breakthrough research soon to follow. We could not be prouder of their contributions to science.

This issue also includes some exciting updates from our health disparities track, with a first-person point of view report on UAB’s PATH Clinic, EAB Clinic, and more. Our residents love caring for patients in these clinics, just as many of you loved caring for people at Cooper Green before it closed. They learn a lot of medicine while also meeting the needs of some of our most vulnerable patients.

I am also extremely proud of the work your Program Director Lisa Willett, MD, is leading in creating an atmosphere of workplace respect. In collaboration with our Vice Chair for Culture and Diversity Monica Baskin, PhD, Associate Program Directors, and residents, she has developed a curriculum for dealing with discriminatory comments and behaviors from our patients—behaviors that can worsen patient care and learning but that we often overlooked in the past. “Supporting Trainees by Addressing Microaggressions by Patients” is an important step in making our environment a better, safer place to practice medicine.

I hope that in this season you'll join Bob Centor, Lisa Willett, me, and many others in giving to The Gustavo R. Heudebert Professorship in General Internal Medicine. In your training, you gained a deeply personal understanding of the value of both internal medicine and medical education, which will be enhanced by the Heudebert Professor. I hope each of you will give what you can, and I hope many will give $250 or $1,000 or more. We can do this together by honoring Tavo with our gifts.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We continually strive to live by our motto, “excellence without ego.” I hope you will drop in and see our program any time.

Best regards,

C. Seth Landefeld, M.D.
Professor and Chair, UAB Department of Medicine