May 2023 Kudos and Awards - John T. Milliken Department of Medicine

Thank you, residents and interns, for all you do for one another and for your patients. Though often under-appreciated, your work does not go unnoticed.

Help us highlight the kindness, clinical judgement, resourcefulness, and work ethic.

Nominate a resident/intern for Housestaff of the month or just share something good.

May 2023 Inpatient Resident of the Month
Elissa Arnold

“I rounded with Elissa last week in the MICU. She is a superstar. When she is there it’s like having another fellow on the team. She knows exactly what’s going on with every patient and can break away to put out fires without needing much (or any) supervision. Her hard work is much appreciated by me and the patients.”

“Elissa is an absolutely amazing senior who gives her interns the perfect amount of autonomy while still being there for them every step of the way. Her knowledge is unparalleled. She also taught me how to have goals of care conversations in the most empathetic and effective way. She took extra time to teach us, review plans before rounds to ensure we wouldn’t struggle later, and taught us POCUS and procedural skills in a way that made them easy. She is so fun to be around and made my micu rotation a wonderful learning experience.”

May 2023 Inpatient Intern of the Month
Geoff Ginter

“He did a great job managing a challenging list of patients on cardiology firm. He demonstrated empathy, compassion, and diligence in patient care. One notable patient had significant coronary disease and a new diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma; Geoff demonstrated exceptional compassion when delivering the news to the patient and family. His dedication made a significant impact on the family – they described him as their “rock” during turbulent times.”

“He takes the initiative to follow his patient longitudinally to identify areas for improvement. The hallmark of a good physician.”

“He has wonderful bedside manner, often addressing patient’s underlying concerns rather than just the medical issue. Even on overwhelming days, he remains calm and faces the endless challenges with humility.”

May 2023 Co-Outpatient Resident of the Month
Jesse Young

“Outstanding judgment and follow through on a challenging ACT that occurred in the COH and for being a kind, compassionate, well thought out clinician even with the most challenging patients.”

“I see him often in the PCMC and he always has a smile on his face. We have seen some physically and socially complex patients and he never lets this get him down; he continues to have a positive attitude every day. In my opinion, his continuous optimism has a meaningful impact on the staff, residents, and attendings in the clinic when he is there. It is always a joy to discuss patients with him.”

May 2023 Co-Outpatient Resident of the Month
Ali Hixon

“She did life saving measures on an unfortunate person found down in the tunnel of Forest Park while biking home on a Monday. This is a tease – for the complete story, reach out to Ali. It is quite extraordinary.”

Kudos

Harrison Lancaster

Sami Zarro

Sami was an outstanding team leader on Med 1 firm. She was an excellent mentor to interns and students and consistently modeled outstanding communication skills with patients and other care team members. There was a particularly busy call day where it was truly “all hands on deck” and Sami was they key to keeping up team morale and stepped in to do whatever work needed to be done to provide excellent care and provide support to the interns.

From a BJH patient eval: “Thank you for taking the time to listen. Your patience, care, and concern are admirable and I truly appreciate you and your team.”

Greg Fox

Gregg Fox — From a BJH patient eval: “every visit to my room was filled with great information and so much knowledge. He is an incredible doctor and I am so fortunate to have been under his care. Thank you!”

“Such a down to earth and friendly doctor. He always leans down to my level to talk and is so patient. Thank you!”

Erin Dyer

Erin embodies the ideal senior resident. She let her interns take responsibility for their patients while being careful to speak up when necessary to help optimize their care. She demonstrated how to lead a team and how to navigate tough conversations when necessary. She supported both phases of medical students and helped set them up for success when presenting patients or practicing less routine parts of the physical exam. Finally, she created a welcoming team environment; everyone really enjoyed working with her!

Kylie Clevinger

Kylie Cleavenger — She is a supportive, generous, and thoughtful co-intern. When working together on the same, she always made time to discuss patients with me, review their EKGs and teles, and brainstorm plans with me. She also is just a joyful person to be around, and I really appreciated her can-do, upbeat attitude (and her excellent playlists)!

Alex Scherer

Alex was an excellent senior on a very challenging month on firm. He consistently went above and beyond to advocate for both our patients and for us as interns. He would stay late to help us sign-out or coordinate care for our patients and would ensure that all of our patients would have good dispo and follow-up plans. We were really lucky to have him as our senior this month!

Austin Niu

This is the first time I was able to work with Austin. I was blown away by his poise, knowledge, patient communication, and teamwork. Particularly during the two weeks I worked with him when he spent 10 of 14 days at our team cap and 3 of 3 call days admitting up to the max 20 patient touches. Despite a very busy service, he supported the interns and medical student in their learning and responsibilities. He shared advanced (at least for me) cardiology knowledge that we could readily apply to our learning about our cardiology firm patients. I am particularly impressed at Austin’s ability to manage the team (teaching and clinical responsibilities), remain poised, see where the team needed his efforts and take action, and remain a joy to be around both for patients and our team despite such pressures. Thank you, Austin! Keep being you!

Lekha Pandya

MOD at the VA was impressed enough by Lekha’s running of a rapid response that he emailed the VA chief resident: “I had the pleasure of running a rapid response with a Dr. Pandya last night. She was great. Good communication, good medicine. All around awesome.”

Shreyas Venkataraman

I had the pleasure of working with Dr. V. for victory this past two weeks. He is a wonderful educator, and displays great clinical diagnostic reasoning. He will be a great asset for Cardiology. Please don’t remind him of how British he is (inside joke). He is a star, lucky to have him here with us.

Alvin George

Samrah Razi

Samrah is a JOY to have as an intern. My favorite thing about her is that she has such an endless curiosity and love for medicine, and she finds things to learn from every single patient – even those not on her team. She has a solid knowledge base, but always prioritized her own reading. She navigated extremely nuanced and difficult goals of care conversations admirably, and built strong relationships with multiple patients and their families. She always sought feedback, and then worked on those things diligently. She is an excellent team player and always builds up her teammates. She will be an EXCELLENT senior, and an excellent PCCM fellow!

Arjun Tambe

Arjun was a great JAR-JAR partner in the MICU. He was always extremely prepared, offered to help with any procedure, and navigated some complex family situations.

LeJIT Teaching Award from the Medicine Clerkship

In recognition of completing just-in-time assessments (aka “JITs”), providing meaningful, timely feedback to students, and creating a positive learning environment that fosters feedback and growth.

Congratulations,
Elisa De Togni &
Neha Akkad!