News Housestaff Recognition

September 2023 Kudos and Awards

By •
Kudos and Awards graphic

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. 

Ferris
Ferris

September 2023 Inpatient Resident of the Month
Chloe Ferris 

Chloe has been a wonderful senior on firm this month. She has identified a great balance between allowing her interns autonomy to make decisions on their own while also stepping in and providing support when needed. She is always looking to help the interns and make sure the day runs smoothly. She always has a positive attitude and has made firm a more enjoyable rotation for the interns and medical student. & she does all of this while also providing excellent patient care. Thanks Chloe!! 

Max Yano
Yano

September 2023 Co-Inpatient Intern of the Month
Max Yano

Max displayed many strengths as a budding physician over the course of the rotation. He is a humble individual with patience and humility. He has sound clinical judgment, though is not afraid to ask questions or actively identify areas for improvement. But most of all he exhibited astounding bedside manner, consistently, within all encounters. Whether it was delivering a new cancer diagnosis and providing a roadmap for treatment options going forward, helping a wife understand her husband’s complex care plan, or calming an agitated patient with dementia that repeated the same questions/threats daily, Max did it with impressive empathy, confidence, and patience; while always kneeling or sitting to be at the patient’s level.

Yawar Ali
Ali

September 2023 Co-Inpatient Intern of the Month
Yawar Ali

As a new senior at the VA, Yawar was the dream intern! He was diligent, proactive, efficient, and worked tirelessly for his patients. I had to put in extra work to learn his side of the list, as he would regularly carry out all planned medical care, react appropriately to updates and new labs, and arrange complex disposition against multiple barriers without once requiring my assistance. His medical knowledge is excellent and he would always seek out literature for things that were unfamiliar – I learned a great deal working with him! His attitude was relentlessly positive even on busy days, and his bedside manner was outstanding. On his off-days I would repeatedly have to explain to his disappointed patients that Dr. Ali wasn’t there that day!

On his last day, flying solo, a stable patient from my side of the list that was planned for discharge experienced a large GI bleed with hemodynamic instability. Yawar notified me and jumped into action without hesitation – when I responded to him with a list of next steps, he confirmed that they were all completed, and had even already secured the patient an ICU bed.

Overall, Yawar deserves recognition for his clinical excellence, especially so early into his intern year!

McFarlin
McFarlin

September 2023 Outpatient Resident of the Month
James McFarlin 

This resident deserves recognition for his patient care in the PCMC. He knows his patients well and has established great relationships with many of them, which has really moved the needle in their care in a positive direction. He also handles stressful situations calmly and professionally and looks to improve the system. 

(And a bonus Kudos from the MICU nurses):  I just wanted to give a huge shout out to the night resident that was on last weekend- James McFarlin. Both Saturday and Sunday night he rounded on his patients, checked in with nurses to see who had what patient and asked if there was anything we needed for his patients. This does not happen as often as it should on nights. I feel like it says a lot about who is as a physician.

Emily Tranchina
Tranchina

September 2023 Outpatient Intern of the Month
Emily Tranchina 

Whether on Night Float or at the COH, Emily brings a positive attitude that is uplifting to fellow interns and residents. She always seems to have words of encouragement for teammates. Additionally, she deeply cares for her patients and exemplifies this through her commitment to empathetic listening and thoroughness.

Kudos

Nathan Neilson
Nathan Neilson
Nathan basically made me unnecessary as an attending on Firm. He presided over a great team, teaching medical students and interns and providing excellent patient care. In particular, he seized the autonomy granted to him and independently progressed care plans. He would make a great Hospitalist right now with nearly a full year of training to go.
Hirva Joshi
Hirva Joshi
Hirva is the most organized senior on medicine firm. She is extremely thorough with all of her patients and spends a great deal of time communicating the plan with them. She is always on top of things and is a great teacher to her interns and medical students. And her hand-offs are concise and perfectly written.
Rebecca Cunningham 
Rebecca Cunningham
Rebecca is a compassionate, diligent, and hardworking physician. She cares deeply about her patients and went the extra mile for every single one of them, even following up with them after they had been discharged to make sure appointments were scheduled and that they picked up their medications. She advocates for her patients, pushing for thorough workups when patients’ concerns had previously been dismissed, and she researches any topic with which she is not familiar so she can provide up-to-date care and recommendations. She is going to make an excellent oncologist!
Michael Conroy
Michael Conroy
Michael established excellent rapport with a patient with terminal heart failure who carried some initial mistrust about his care. The patient expressed how much he trusted Michael with his medical decisions. Michael also provided compassion during difficult goals of care conversations.
Tri Pham
Tri Pham
Tri was an excellent intern who already had the efficiency of a more senior resident. There were several instances where he followed up on tasks or check in on already discharged patients.
Nathan Adams
Nathan Adams
Nathan was a superb senior resident on Med Firm. His diagnostic and management plans were on target. He spent time teaching the interns and student. He is very compassionate, communicates well with his patients and advocates for them. His leadership of the team was excellent.
Geneva Cunningham
Geneva Cunningham
Dr. Cunningham demonstrated outstanding dedication to comprehensive inpatient care of her patients, from beginning to end, with thorough interviews (including code status and discussion of allergies), building rapport with patients on a daily basis, taking a personal interest in their well being while in the hospital, understanding their preferences for discharge planning, and writing customized & encouraging discharge instructions.
Dan Ladin
Dan Ladin
Dr. Ladin came on service for 1 day to cover for our resident who was at a fellowship interview. I just wanted to highlight how Dr Ladin led the team of residents & students to promptly evaluate and respond to a (front fill) patient whose pH turned out to be ~7.1 (!), all of this while the day had barely started.
Jerod Sears
Jerod Sears
Dr. Sears consistently thoughtfully managed a high census of patients. He achieved the difficult task of empowering our medical interns to own the daily care of the patients while remaining cognizant of the details. I could tell that he thought about the plan independently, being able to reason about his plan whenever I pressed him further on it. I particularly noticed that he and the team performed with the same quality regardless of how hectic the day became with ACTS and admissions.
Karina Shah 
Karina Shah
Dr. Shah (anesthesiology) presents the history and care plan for patients she has picked up that morning (front fills) as if she had known them for a week: clearly, concisely, and thoughtfully.
Irene Cofie
Irene Cofie
Kudos from the PCMC nurses: Dr. Cofie’s patient said that she was the kindest doctor he has seen here and that he really felt heard for his concerns today. Very good experience for the patient!
Akash Mitra
Akash Mitra
Akash has been an excellent senior on cardiology firm. He displays the perfect balance of autonomy and support for interns. He has been professional in all patient interactions and dealings with support staff to help provide exceptional care for patients.
Sheun Aluko
Sheun Aluko
Kudos from Kirsten Jones: For the last four years, I have been emailing the residents with full mailboxes to clean them out and normally I get a response with an excuse or explanation as to why it is full, but Shay responded in less than two hours thanking me and let me know he cleaned it out.

It doesn’t seem like a lot, but for him to take responsibility and take care of it right away is exceptional.
Beth Bryant 
Beth Bryant
Beth was an incredible senior at the VA. She provided a great balance of autonomy and supervision, creating space for everyone on the team to talk through their reasoning or voice questions. More over, during difficult patient encounters, she lead with grace and ensured there were opportunities for the team to debrief. She excelled in providing and modeling compassionate patient care while also ensuring her team felt supported.
Camilo Mejia
Camilo Mejia
Camilo was our senior during the CCU in September. Camilo was a great senior — he was highly knowledgeable, communicated effectively, and prioritized patient care. Further, he set us up for success by pointing us towards useful resources, implementing lytes/I’s & O’s rounds to our schedules, and optimizing our Epic workflow. He modeled everything an exemplary senior should be. Thanks for always having our backs and keeping us entertained with updates on your homegrown kombucha and cats!
Antara Dattagupta, Jacob Edmisson
Antara Dattagupta (left) and Jacob Edmisson
On behalf of Han Li: Just wanted to thank you for correctly identifying sepsis and appropriately ordering the new formulation of cefepime in the ACT medication bag to a patient you saw on 9/8. He received antibiotics in a record-setting 14 minutes, which was thanks to your correct assessment and appropriate ordering. He improved and did not need to transfer to the ICU. The blood cultures you obtained grew out Enterobacter which was susceptible to cefepime. Thank you for paying attention to recent updates and your great clinical care!

Karl Wallenkampf, Nick Bacon
Karl Wallenkampf (left) and Nick Bacon
Karl and Nick were fantastic to work with on my last nights block. On some very busy nights they made the work feel very manageable. We collaborated well during ACTs and they always had helpful advice for treating the patients I was admitting.
Christopher Douglas (psychiatry), 
Francisco Novoa
Christopher Douglas (left) and  Francisco Novoa
Kudos from Med 1 Nursing leadership: The Blue team got a whopper of a transfer from the ICU around 6 pm. She was admitted for an aortic dissection, and had a very complicated ICU stay including multiple intubations and extubations and difficulty maintianing sedation at a safe level.

From the time this patient arrived, they were on the floor trying to get things under control without oversedating the patient. Dr. Douglas was literally back to the room every 15 minutes or so to check on the patient, the nurses and the sitter. He told us what he was thinking and asked for our thoughts. I am writing this at 10:30 pm and he just left the room again, and Dr. Novoa just came by again too. The amount of care and dedication they had for this patient is remarkable. It was great working with them because we were actually a team. So hats off to MD Douglas and MD Novoa!