Quarterly News -- Fall
Mark Cullen, MD reports to you the quarterly news for Fall.
Mark Cullen, MD
Summer has already come and gone, but to this newcomer DGIM is changing faster than the weather!
On the practice side, both outpatient and inpatient services are expanding, and continue to evolve in mission and direction. Change at SMG has been particularly noteworthy. Baldeep “Deep” Singh, our new Director, arrived in July and hit the ground running, actively scrutinizing the issues believed to have limited patient and faculty satisfaction in the past. Faculty capacity, long rate-limiting, will have grown by almost 3 FTE’s by January 2010. Perhaps it’s too early for a verdict on the ultimate success, but the early reviews augur an even more accelerated rate of change in the months ahead including: a closer relationship with IMC, improved teaching, patient flow and physical plant, and the addition of new services to make the clinics the most attractive place to receive and practice primary care IM in the region. On the Hospital side, the fledgling program in Palliative Care at Stanford has expanded, with guidance from our colleagues at the VA, from a one faculty practice to two, and will shortly be establishing its first outpatient consultation service in the Cancer Center.
As the IM training program forges into the “post-Skeff” era, I am pleased to report that the Division now not only has Kelly all to itself—the newest denizen of our third floor headquarters at MSOB-- but we have been invited to continue in our pivotal role in housestaff education. Neera Ahuja, now at Stanford, and Paul Helgerson at the PAVA, will serve as Associate Chiefs. Going forward, new emphasis will be placed on the ambulatory aspect, and the leaders of IMC (Peter Pompei) and SMG are working with the new IM training Program Directors even as I write to fashion more and better outpatient teaching opportunities in our clinics. At the same time, many in the Division, including Lars Osterberg, Ian Tong and myself, have become active in an initiative out of the Global Health Office to offer didactic and practical training in addressing health disparities, here on the Peninsula and abroad.
On the research side there’s been great progress, too. No sooner did he start at DGIM than Eran Bendavid scored a K-award, funding his work modeling the most effective strategies for control of HIV in low resource settings. This allows him the time he needs to advance this critical health-disparities research while also liberating him to collaborate with and help mentor others in DGIM. Likewise the Quantitative Services Unit (QSU), under Manisha Desai’s leadership, is off to a vigorous start, with numerous investigators crawling out from the Department of Medicine woodwork to seek not only advice but collaboration. With her colleague Jane Paik’s arrival in September we are well on our way to having the world-class capability in data management and analysis envisioned when the Chairman of the Department first articulated his ambition for DGIM in the new regime several years ago. I am hoping that by next edition I can report on new developments in the effort to develop a Center for Quality and Effective Care, and to expand our research based at the VA—stay tuned!
Finally, I would be remiss not to mention the extraordinary progress in our Divisional infrastructure. Under Morisa Guy’s guidance and Margaret Wei’s watchful eye we have survived a very tough year economically; Laura Mulcrevy in a few short months has whipped through the backlog in promotions and appointments; Ryan Oden (newlywed!) and Max Koknar, our administrative associates, have made the place run like clockwork; and last but not least, without the awesome effort by our Division Coordinator Joce Rodriguez you wouldn’t be reading this on our fantastic new website, nor seeing the new face of the Division at its monthly conferences, hint, hint.