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

It has been a spectacular fall in Birmingham and a wonderful period for our residency. Ryan Kraemar, M.D., has assumed the reins of Residency Program Director with a warm smile and the ease of a natural. Ryan has built a great team with Karla Williams, M.D., and Starr Steinhilber, M.D., MPH, joining Jason Morris, M.D., as Associate Program Directors. Lisa Willett, M.D., remains in the wings this year as Co-Program Director before stepping into a new role as the Department's Vice Chair for Education and Faculty Development next summer.

I am thrilled to report that after a ten-year absence, Lisa Willett, M.D. and Raegan Durant, M.D., have established a collaboration between Cooper Green Mercy Health Services and the Tinsley Harrison Internal Medicine Residency Program, enabling residents to see patients enrolled in the primary care clinic at Cooper Green for their acute issues and intermittent needs related to chronic disease. This is a tremendous opportunity to provide care to the underserved population in Birmingham who so desperately need us!

Our faculty continue to make exciting discoveries across the department. In July, one of our junior faculty and a former trainee, Derek Russell, M.D., first-authored a paper in JAMA showing that the standard practice of fluid bolus infusion during tracheal intubation did not benefit patients. On the COVID front, James Kobie, Ph.D., published a study in the journal PLOS Pathogens highlighting the discovery of a neutralizing monoclonal antibody that could act as a potent universal coronavirus therapy.

Innovative patient care is also on the rise. The UAB Medicine Cardiogenomics Clinic led by Pankaj Arora, M.D., is working to change the trajectory of hereditary cardiovascular conditions. And thanks to Efstathia Andrikopoulou, M.D., MBA, and Julian Booker, M.D., MSHA, MBA, MSHQS, UAB has partnered with a data intelligence firm to develop an algorithm that provides clinical decision support to identify patients at risk for heart valve disease, potentially alleviating persistent health disparities.

And we celebrated medicine-pediatrics resident Alana Nichols, J.D., M.D., who was named a Birmingham Business Journal Top 40 Under 40 honoree for 2022. Nichols’ co-developed a program that teaches analytical test taking skills that help students from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine succeed on standardized tests.

To cap it all off, this fall we welcome two new leaders to the Department. Nicole Lohr, M.D., Ph.D. joined us November 15, 2022, as the Director of the Division of Cardiovascular Disease — the first woman to lead our division and one of the first in the country. She will also serve as Co-Director of the UAB Medicine Cardiovascular Institute and Director of the UAB Comprehensive Cardiovascular Center. Dr. Lohr served as Director of Cardiovascular Clinical Trials at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) and Division Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center. Esteemed at MCW as an exceptional teacher and mentor, Dr. Lohr’s passion for developing trainees at every level is infectious. She also serves as Chair-elect of the American College of Cardiology Board of Governors.

Ken Boockvar, M.D., M.S., joined us December 1, 2022, as the Director of the Division of Gerontology, Geriatrics, and Palliative Care. He will also direct the UAB Integrative Center for Aging Research. Dr. Boockvar was the Anna A. Greenwall Professor of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Boockvar is a terrific mentor and a physician-investigator and teacher whose research has led to discoveries about how to improve transitions of care and the use of medicines in frail older people.

The things we do together continue to amaze me, and I sincerely hope you are thriving wherever you practice medicine. We look forward to travel becoming easier and visits becoming more possible so you can drop in and see us soon. We would love to welcome you back any time.

Until next issue,
Seth