News Archive 2017

Stony Brook Medicine Internal Medicine Residents had a clean sweep in the Resident Research Competition at the New York ACP Resident and Student Forum held on October 28, 2017, winner 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in the research category! As 1st place winner, Kevin Zarrabi receives support from NYACP to present his research at the national ACP meeting in New Orleans in 2018.

1st place: Kevin Zarrabi, “Assessing Clinical Outcomes in Colorectal Cancer with Assay for Invasive Circulating Tumor Cells”. Mentor: Dr. Yue Zhang

2nd place: Gregg Cantor: Predictors of Non-calcified Plaque Among Patients With Obstructive Coronary Artery Disease on Coronary Computed Tomography Angiography. Mentor: Dr. Getu Teressa

3rd place: Jessica Harris and Qin Rao. “Reducing Inflammatory Bowel Disease Readmissions: A Retrospective Review of Factors Contributing to IBD Readmissions at a Single University Hospital Over a Period of 5 years”. Mentors: Ramona Rajapakse and Farah Monzur.

2017 Mid-Atlantic Society of General Internal Medicine Meeting in Newark, DE

• Patricia Ng, MD and Rachel Wong, MD, MPH- Show Me the Money! Preliminary Results from a tailored financial wellness program for Internal Medicine Residents. (Oral Abstract Winner for Education Innovations)
• Kevin Zarrabi, MD; Kelly Cummings, MD; Tejas Shah, MD; Nirvani Goolsaran, MD- Understanding the Barriers to Error Reporting: A Needs Assessment (Poster Winner for Education Innovations)
• Vadim Divilov, MD; Abhinav Rohatgi, MD; Bonnie Kiner-Strachan, MD- A Rare Case of Extramedullary Leukemic Infiltration of Bilateral Breasts as a First Sign of Relapse in AML
• Ruth Abeles, MD; Patricia Ng, MD; Muataz Yaziji, MD; Nand Wadhwa, MD- Mixed Cryoglobulinemia with Monoclonal IgM Kappa and IgG Kappa in the setting of Primary Sjogren Syndrome
• Aaron Levit, DO and Patricia Ng, MD – Rothia dentocariosa Endocarditis: A Rare Case of Fatal Disease

Dr. Audun Lier, PGY2, was awarded by competitive application the ID Week Mentorship Program Travel Stipend. The program provided one-on-one mentoring and opportunities to discuss career opportunities including global health. Dr. Lier presented his research on “Barriers to successful linkage to care among HCV positive individuals” at the recent IDSA meeting. Dr. Lier’s faculty mentor is Dr. Luis Marcos from the Division of Infectious Diseases.

We are proud to announce that we had a record number of posters accepted to NYACP. The acceptance rate for Stony Brook Medicine was 67% with an overall acceptance rate of 46%. Really proud of everyone who submitted posters!
The following individuals have posters accepted:

The Department of Medicine Celebratory Grand Rounds was held on June 28, 2017. The 2017 recipients of Faculty Awards Program are as follows:

From left to right: Kaveh Sedigh, Teacher Educator Award (Medical Student category); Bettina Fries, Basic Science Research Award; Hal Skopicki, Clinical Research Award; Michelle Bloom, Mentoring Award; Alpa Desai, Teacher Educator Award (Fellow category); David Goodrich, Master Clinician Award; Susan Lee, Outstanding Service Award; Stephanie Jones, Teacher Educator Award (Resident category); Vincent Yang, Simons Chair of Medicine

The 14th Annual Peter Cohn, MD, Lecture took place on May 24, 2017. This year’s speaker was Dr. William Lawson, Professor of Medicine and Vice Chair of Quality, Compliance and Patient Safety. The title of the talk was “Pipe Dreams of a Cardiologist”. Dr. Ken Kaushansky gave introductory remarks on both the Lectureship and the speaker. A commemorative plaque was presented to Dr. Lawson by Drs. Cohen and Javed Butler, Professor and Chief of Cardiology Division, and Co-Director of Stony Brook Heart Institute.

On May 3, 2017, three Stony Brook Internal Medicine and 14 medical students volunteered for “Doctors Back to School” Day, a community outreach event organized by Dr. Cordia Beverly and Ms. Yvonne Spreckles. Primary Care Internal Medicine Residents, Drs. Olga Kaplun, Sean Hsu and Zachary Fleischner, spoke to nearly 500 students from Brentwood and Longwood High Schools to inspire them to pursue careers in medicine. The event was part of the American Medical Association’s nationwide efforts to increase underrepresented minority physicians in training and eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities.

Dr. Sean Hsu (3rd from the right)

Dr. Olga Kaplun teaching a Longwood High School student about auscultation

Dr. Olga Kaplun (2nd from the right)

After 48 years of illustrious career as a cardiologist, 36 of which devoted to Stony Brook, Dr. Peter F. Cohn retired in January of this year as Professor of Medicine. A dinner was held in his honor on May 19, 2017, at the Melville Marriott Hotel and was attended by Peter’s family, friends, current and past Stony Brook faculty, as well as former fellows trained under him, including Professors Marvin Konstam of Tuft University and Marc Pfeffer of the Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. Peter was the inaugural Chief of Cardiology at Stony Brook in 1981 when he moved from the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital of Harvard Medical School. He is known internationally for his pioneering work on silent myocardial ischemia. Under his leadership, Stony Brook Cardiology program grew tremendously both in terms of size as well as the services provided. A few years ago, friends of Peter also donated an endowment to initiate an annual Peter Cohn Distinguished Lectureship series. This year’s lecture will be delivered by Dr. William Lawson, Professor of Cardiology and Vice Chair of Medicine for Quality, titled “Pipe Dreams of Cardiologists”, on Wednesday May 24th.

From left to right: Dr. V. Yang; Dr. P. Cohn; Ms. Cohn; and Dr. J. Butler

Dr. Rachel Wong and her team won National ACP Champion Awards for their wonderful accomplishments in the Quality Improvements arena. We are very proud of their accomplishments:

Several residents and faculty members are named as ACP QI Champions this year:
2017 - 18 ACP QI Champions
Atrial Fibrillation - Bibi Zainul MD (faculty), Alley Fernan, RN (nursing)
Diabetes - Wendy Podany MD (resident)
Chronic Pain - Astha Muttreja MD (resident), Stephanie Jones MD (faculty), Alley Fernan RN (nursing), Rachel Wong MD (faculty)

From left to right: Rachel Wong, MD (faculty), Bibi Zainul, MD (faculty), Wendy Podany, MD (PGY2),
Astha Muttreja, MD (PGY2), Alley Fernan, RN

The Stony Brook QI Pain Champion team also won the 2017 John Palmiero ACP QI Team Champion Award for excellence in QI with their work on Chronic Pain Management. This is a remarkable achievement. The winning team members are:
William Carroll MD (resident), Alley Fernan RN (nurse), Rachel Wong MD (faculty)

From left to right on the left photo: Salem Wubu from the ACP accepting, Rachel Wong, MD and Alley Fernan, RN
On the right photo: Will Carroll, MD (PGY3) with the award

Dr. Rachel Wong’s efforts in Quality Improvement have led to national recognition of the excellent work she is leading with her team at Stony Brook. Congratulations to Dr. Wong and her colleagues!