2023 Department of Medicine Fellowship Match List!

Announcing Fellowship Match & Future Positions! – Internal Medicine Residency Program

Senior Residents
Graduating Class of 2024

Gabrielle Barbera, Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship, Rutgers R. W. Johnson Medical School - Newark, NJ
Danielle Bellavance, Chief Medical Resident, Boston Medical Center/VA - Boston, MA
Shreya Bhatia, Geriatric Medicine Fellowship, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA
Abbi Cerezo, Hospitalist, University of Utah - Salt Lake City, UT
Samantha Chua, Gastroenterology Fellowship, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA
Alejandro De La Hoz Gomez, Infectious Diseases Fellowship, Massachusetts General Hospital - Boston, MA
Harshitha Dudipala, Hematology & Oncology Fellowship, University of California San Diego - San Diego, CA
Benjamin Eromosele, Chief Medical Resident, Boston Medical Center/VA - Boston, MA
Adriana Flores, Pulmonary & Critical Care Fellowship, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA
Taylor Francoeur, Hematology & Oncology Fellowship, University of Massachusetts - Worcester, MA
Rohan Ganti, Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship, Rutgers, R. W. Johnson Medical School - Newark, NJ
Philip Hewes, Hospice & Palliative Medicine Fellowship, University of Massachusetts - Worcester, MA
Garen Kroshian, Cardiovascular Disease, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA
Alan Manivannan, Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Fellowship, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA
Zachary Milstone, PRIMER Research Chief Resident, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA
Connor O’Neill-Dee, Nephrology Fellowship, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA
Sahaj Patel, Hospice & Palliative Medicine Fellowship, Weill Cornell Medicine-Cornell University - New York, NY
Scott Place, Chief Medical Resident, Boston Medical Center/VA - Boston, MA
Max Rosenthaler, Chief Medical Resident, Boston Medical Center/VA - Boston, MA
Caroline Ross, Chief Medical Resident, Boston Medical Center/VA - Boston, MA
Sabetta Singh, Chief Medical Resident, Boston Medical Center/VA - Boston, MA
Quinn Solfisburg, Hematology & Oncology Fellowship, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA
Natalie Sun, Gastroenterology Fellowship, SUNY Downstate - Brooklyn, NY
Abigail Tami, Gastroenterology Fellowship, Geisinger Health System - Danville, PA
Carly Taylor, Hospitalist, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA
Tracey Yee, Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship, University of Vermont - Burlington, VT
Marcel Yibirin Wakim, Chief Medical Resident, Boston Medical Center/VA - Boston, MA

Chief Medical Resident
Graduating Class 2023

Laura Burns, Hematology & Oncology Fellowship, MD Anderson Cancer Center - Houston, TX
Sophie Claudel, Nephrology Fellowship, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA
Chad Hinkle, Infectious Disease Fellowship, University of Chicago - Chicago, IL
Juan Rodriguez, Pulmonary & Critical Care Fellowship, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA
Esther Saul, Pulmonary & Critical Care Fellowship, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA
Ayelet Shapira-Daniels, Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA
Karina Verma, Hematology & Oncology Fellowship, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA
Alex Yeo, Pulmonary & Critical Care Fellowship, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA

Alumni

Jinal Gandhi, Hematology & Oncology Fellowship, Montefiore Medical Center-Einstein - Bronx, NY
Daniel Gonzalez Izundegui, Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship, University of Texas Southwestern-Dallas - Dallas, TX
Claude Hardy, Addiction Medicine Fellowship, Massachusetts General Hospital - Boston, MA
Abdulaziz Malik, Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Fellowship, Tufts Medical Center - Boston, MA
Emily Mann, Hematology & Oncology Fellowship, Boston Medical Center - Boston, MA
Kaitlin McCarter, Rheumatology Fellowship, Brigham & Women’s Hospital - Boston, MA
Kristina Moller, Hospice & Palliative Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center - Boston, MA
Sofia Shaikh, Gastroenterology Fellowship, University of Rochester - Rochester, NY
Jasmine Vakhshoorzadeh, Pulmonary & Critical Care Fellowship, University of Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh, PA

Save the Date: DoM DEIA Week | March 18-22

The DoM will hold its first annual Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Week the week of March 18, 2024. In the DoM, we are dedicated to fostering a workplace that values and celebrates diversity, promotes equity, ensures inclusion, and prioritizes accessibility. We firmly believe that our collective differences make us stronger, and we are committed to creating an environment where all individuals, regardless of their background, feel valued, respected, and empowered.

Please join us in celebrating and educating our community about a wide range of identities and backgrounds that make individuals in our department unique.

Center of Excellence in Sickle Cell Disease Announces First FDA-Approved Gene Therapies for SCD

DECEMBER 8, 2023 (Boston) – Boston Medical Center (BMC), a national leader in the treatment of sickle cell disease for more than 50 years, announced today that it will offer the first-ever gene therapies for sickle cell disease, including one that uses a type of novel genome editing technology. The new therapies leverage the latest advances in medical science to alleviate the severe painful vaso-occlusive crises (VOCs) associated with sickle cell disease, in a long-awaited step toward equity for a disproportionally impacted Black patient population.

The announcement comes as the FDA today granted approval of a new gene editing therapy, jointly developed by Boston-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics of Switzerland, along with approval of a separate gene therapy developed by bluebird bio of Somerville, Mass., for sickle cell disease. BMC is the only hospital in New England to offer the therapies to eligible adults with sickle cell disease.

“Boston Medical Center has a longstanding commitment to providing advanced clinical care to those with sickle cell disease,” said Dr. Jean-Antoine Ribeil, MD, PhD, Clinical Director of the Center of Excellence in Sickle Cell Disease at Boston Medical Center and an internationally renowned hematologist who has dedicated his career to the development of gene therapies for patients with sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia. “The new gene therapies can be life changing for eligible patients who are impacted by sickle cell disease and the extreme pain that it causes, with previously limited treatment options.”

Sickle cell disease is a debilitating and chronic disease that afflicts more than 100,000 Americans and predominantly impacts people of African descent, representing 1 out of every 365 births. The disease is caused by a gene mutation that makes blood cells misshapen which can lead to strokes, organ damage and episodes of agonizing pain. Those with sickle cell disease often rely on regular blood transfusions to ease pain and reduce risk of additional complications.

The new Vertex Pharmaceuticals treatment is the first therapy to treat a genetic disease with the CRISPR gene-editing technique. Vertex began clinical trials on the therapy in the United States in 2018. The SCD clinical trial enrolled a patient population that was predominantly of African ancestry. The FDA reviewed the safety and effectiveness of the treatment in that trial before today’s approval.

Bluebird bio’s new therapy, also approved by the FDA following clinical trials, is a one-time gene therapy that has the potential to resolve vaso-occlusive events and is custom-designed to treat the underlying cause of sickle cell disease.

Both treatments will be offered to select, eligible adult sickle cell patients at BMC as part of its Center of Excellence in Sickle Cell Disease, which is the largest center of its kind in New England, serving approximately 600 adult and pediatric patients annually. The introduction of these therapies gives those with sickle cell disease more options to try to achieve a life without chronic pain.

The BMC Center of Excellence in Sickle Cell Disease has long taken an innovative and multidisciplinary approach to caring for patients suffering from this debilitating disease. The Center pairs hematologists with specialists, such as pulmonologists, nephrologists, and primary care doctors who understand the needs and many complications of patients with sickle cell disease. The addition of cutting-edge gene therapy to its suite of services reflects BMC’s ongoing commitment to this population and to being a leader in offering advanced, equitable care to its patients.

For more information on BMC’s Center of Excellence in Sickle Cell Disease visit their website or connect on Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn.

Original Article

Dr. Naomi Hamburg Receives The Hans Klaus Breddin Vas International Honorary Award

Join us in congratulating Dr. Hamburg!

DoM in the Media: First Referral Guide Issued for Axial Spondyloarthritis

SAN DIEGO — The Spondyloarthritis Research and Treatment Network (SPARTAN) has created the first referral recommendations for axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA).

The draft recommendations use a points scoring system, with the goal that at least 1 in 3 patients referred would be diagnosed with axSpA, an inflammatory arthritis that affects the central skeleton and shares a genetic overlap with skin psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease, and inflammatory eye disease.

Patients with axSpA can wait 10 years after symptom onset to be diagnosed with the condition. There are currently no guidelines to advise clinicians on when to refer to a rheumatologist, and with the rheumatology workforce shortage, "it is impossible for rheumatologists to evaluate the 20% of adults in the US who have chronic back pain," said Maureen Dubreuil, MD, a rheumatologist at Boston University. She presented the work at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) 2023 Annual Meeting.

Continue reading here.

DoM Faculty Promotions!

Clinical Associate Professor

Gopala Yadavalli, MD, Infectious Diseases, is a clinician-educator focused on the care of inpatients. He splits his clinical time at Boston Medical Center (BMC) between attending on inpatient infectious diseases ward and consult services. Shortly after joining the faculty in 2011, Dr. Yadavalli co-created BMC’s inpatient infectious diseases ward team (MP ID) and the current version of the inpatient “Advanced Acting Internship” teams. The department’s current vice chair for education and former director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program, he has recruited and mentored faculty to co-create and implement numerous educational innovations, including eight individualized career pathways to augment traditional internal medicine training. He served as founding program director of the Ravin Davidoff Executive Fellowship in Health Equity, has served on the Council of the Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine and chaired the Wellness Committee for the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine.

Associate Professor

Finn Hawkins MBBCh, Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep & Critical Care Medicine, is a Principal Investigator (P.I.) in the Center for Regenerative Medicine and The Pulmonary Center. His research focus is studying human lung development and disease using human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Dr. Hawkins is currently using iPSC technology to study airway biology with a focus on Cystic Fibrosis.

Professor

Vipul C. Chitalia M.D., Ph.D., Nephrology, is a faculty member with a focuses on the role of post-translational modifications of proteins, especially polyubiquitnation of the key mediators of vascular pathologies in diseases such as cancer and renal failure. While these diseases are discrete, several fundamental biological processes remain similar. Through a highly collaborative network, our laboratory harnesses the power of various cellular and molecular biological tools, relevant animal models (zebrafish and mice), computational methods and machine-learning techniques and strives to validate these findings and hypotheses in humanized models or human samples from large data bases, which highlights the translational nature of our approach.

DoM’s Mark Logue, PhD: They Served Their Country. Now, They’re Serving Their Fellow Veterans

James Whitworth traces the path to his military service in simple terms: “I heard the call, and I answered,” says the Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine assistant professor of psychiatry. It was just after the attacks on September 11, 2001, Whitworth recalls, and he enlisted in the Army “to serve in the global war on terror.”

Whitworth deployed to Iraq, part of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, along with nearly two million of his compatriots, all told. Just 21 years old and thrust into an unknown landscape with daily threats to his life, Whitworth says he exercised at his base to cope with the stressful situation.

It was certainly a DIY gym setup: rusty weights and heavy tires in a military tent.

“Anything and everything just to stay fit,” Whitworth says. “It was a source of de-stressing; a coping strategy to deal with the rigors of combat. And it just kind of stuck with me, it was like a kernel on the back of my head—I always knew that exercise was a helpful tool for dealing with stress.”

After Whitworth was honorably discharged, this kernel grew into full-fledged research questions for his graduate and then doctoral research. But that research took on new urgency when Whitworth’s close friend, a “battle buddy,” died by suicide, he says.

“It surprised a lot of us. And it really shook things up for me. I wanted to do something, anything,” he says. So, Whitworth refocused his exploration from the human-performance side of exercise, to its potential protective qualities against mental illness, stress, and trauma—particularly post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

Mark Logue was a sophomore at the University of Oregon, preparing for his final exams, when he received his call to service—quite literally.

“The phone rang, and they told me to pack my bags,” he recalls. “‘Your unit has been activated and you’re going to Operation Desert Storm,’” an official told him.

As a young person in the late 1980s, Logue registered for the US Army Reserve as a way to cover the cost of college and gain some worthwhile experience at basic training. It seemed like a fairly good deal: the reserves hadn’t been activated in nearly 20 years, since the Vietnam War. That changed in 1990, however, when reservists were ordered to active duty to serve in the Gulf War.

Logue, who worked in the reserves as a medical supply specialist, was sent to Stuttgart, Germany, to help expand a medical facility for combat soldiers wounded in the Gulf. Luckily, he says, the large-scale casualties his unit prepared for never materialized and, soon enough, Logue returned home, where his studies resumed. He remained in the US Army Reserve until 1997, when he was honorably discharged.

Trained as a mathematician and statistician, Logue charted a course for a career in genetics during his doctoral program. He found he could apply his mathematical and programming skills to address real health problems, a deeply gratifying experience.

Logue, currently an associate professor of psychiatry and biomedical genetics at BU’s medical school and of biostatistics at the University’s School of Public Health, was working on genetic studies of anxiety disorders and dementia when he was approached by Mark W. Miller, a researcher in the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Center for PTSD. Miller, a professor of psychiatry at BU’s medical school, had asked for Logue’s help in analyzing a set of genetic data from veterans.

He agreed. “I am a veteran and I’m always up for finding out new and interesting things,” Logue says.

Now, Logue and Whitworth both also work at the VA Medical Center in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood. They’re each seeking answers about PTSD by asking vastly different questions.

What Is PTSD?

Stress responses to traumatic situations are completely normal—a person’s natural flight, fight, or freeze response helps them respond to danger appropriately. For some, however, particularly combat veterans or people who’ve experienced physical or sexual assault, these natural physiological responses linger long after the danger is gone. This is PTSD.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a condition that “impairs your functioning globally,” Whitworth says. People with PTSD may experience flashbacks or distressing thoughts, avoid people or places that remind them of the traumatic event, experience physical sensations like a higher heart rate or sweating, can have trouble sleeping, and more. It’s an embodied experience.

“This is not just a disorder that makes you sad, depressed, anxious. It impacts your behaviors, your ability to participate in your role in society,” Whitworth says. “And this translates to avoidance and isolation. And so people wind up staying away from a lot of the activities they used to enjoy; maybe they don’t feel safe going to a gym or a park.”

People with PTSD may also avoid exercise because the physiological sensations—elevated heart rate, breathing heavily, sweating—feel similar to a stress response, and they fear it will trigger a panic attack, or worse, Whitworth says.

But his research indicates that this avoidance is often the exact opposite of what will ultimately help.

How Can Exercise Help with PTSD Symptoms?

In a widely cited 2019 trial, Whitworth and his colleagues found evidence that resistance training (such as weight lifting) could have significant beneficial impacts on sleep quality and anxiety for people with PTSD. In subsequent studies, he’s found that improved cardiorespiratory fitness in post-9/11 veterans was associated with lower PTSD severity, and that as little as three weeks of high-intensity resistance exercise is a feasible intervention for symptoms in people with PTSD who aren’t otherwise seeking treatment for it.

“When we get people who have PTSD exercising, they feel better, there’s an impact and it reduces symptoms,” he says. “Is it a cure? A panacea? Absolutely not. But it is a coping strategy. It’s something that might be useful in augmenting other evidence-based practices, such as psychotherapy or medications.”

Whitworth and other physiologists and psychologists are still working to understand why exercise seems to be an effective therapeutic tool, but he says one potential factor could be the same one that makes people avoid exercise: it simulates a stress response—but in a safe and controlled environment. This kind of repeated exposure to those unpleasant sensations may work to normalize them, Whitworth reasons.

Another possible explanation is that exercise, and strength training in particular, builds senses of confidence, self-efficacy, and empowerment, Whitworth says. “Once you complete a challenging workout, or complete a heavy lift, you might think, ‘Well, I mastered this’ or ‘This one wasn’t so bad, maybe I can take on [a lift] that’s a little bigger.’ And that may augment your response to other similar or related stressors.”

Finally, Whitworth is interested in exploring the physiological adaptation that accompanies exercise. Perhaps a more efficient endocrine system—one of many side effects of going from “an untrained state to a trained state,” Whitworth says—helps people metabolize stress better.

Is There a Genetic Component to PTSD?

While Whitworth is interested in gym reps and sets, Logue deals in datasets: huge swaths of genetic data that might hold clues to the deep-rooted foundations of PTSD. He runs computational tests on millions of genetic variants across hundreds or thousands of genomes to find the variants that are statistically associated with a specific disease.

Once Logue identifies those statistically likely variants, other clinical researchers can use that information to identify better, more targeted strategies for the care and treatment of a particular disease.

It’s a technique that’s resulted in a number of important discoveries. Researchers have discovered genetic variations that contribute to the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disorders, obesity, Crohn’s disease, and prostate cancer.

Logue is part of a consortium of researchers pooling their datasets to search for clusters of genetic variants—small abnormalities in the DNA sequences that make up a gene—that are consistently present among people with PTSD.

Roughly a decade ago, Logue and his colleagues at the National Center for PTSD published the first ever genome-wide association study of PTSD; Logue was the lead author on its results, published in Molecular Psychiatry, an offshoot of Nature. They found a variant in a gene—the retinoid-related orphan receptor alpha, or RORa—that was associated with PTSD. Logue has copublished other papers since then, examining a possible connection between people with PTSD and the sizes of their hippocampus and amygdala, for example.

The genetic differences Logue and other researchers identified may not immediately lead to a cure, but they are an important starting point for clinicians—and could serve as markers on a genetic risk assessment for PTSD, Logue suggests.

Honorably Discharged, but Still Serving

For Logue and Whitworth, this work lives beyond the papers and the publications. It’s more like a calling, and one that could have a real impact for their fellow veterans and service members.

“It’s a personal connection,” Whitworth says. His work, which, like any, can be tedious at times, is made more profound because of that connection. “What gets me up in the morning for this sort of research, it’s not looking at the statistics and seeing significant p-values. It’s getting to talk to other veterans and knowing that the research that I’m doing is for them.”

That connection is true for many people who work at the VA, Whitworth says: “There’s this intrinsic desire to serve those who have served. And that’s powerful.”

It’s certainly true for Logue.

“Working at the VA spurs me on,” Logue says. “To get to my office [at the VA], I walk through the lobby with patients and ride with them in the elevator—these are veterans getting their care there. And then I go upstairs and analyze veteran data, and I’m hoping that the things we do actually help veterans and can lead to treatments; maybe not today, maybe not next week, but eventually.”

Original Article by Molly Callahan

Dr. Gopal Yadavalli Receives Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Yadavalli on being a 2024 recipient of the Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award!

37th Annual Evans Days Symposium Highlights Extensive, Important Research

Tablet in hand, David Salant, MD, the Robert Dawson Evans Distinguished Professor of Medicine, paused briefly in his judging of the 160 poster presentations at the annual Department of Medicine Evans Days, to answer a question on what had changed over the 37-year history of the two-day symposium.

“The volume and quality of the science,” Salant explained succinctly.

Held Oct. 19-20 this year, Evans Days highlights research carried out by trainees and faculty in the Department of Medicine and their collaborators across the Medical and Charles River campuses and are supported by the Evans Endowment. The Endowment was established in 1912 by Marie Antoinette Evans with funding provided to what was then known as the Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital, now Boston Medical Center (BMC). Intended to foster both research and teaching, the Evans Endowment supports both clinical and translational research and training and academic programs at the school and BMC.

In addition to more than 150 posters and oral presentations, Evans Days hosts and features presentations by two eminent visiting professors, as well as ongoing research undertaken in Affinity Research Collaboratives (ARC). The ARCs are the building blocks of the Evans Center for Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research (ECIBR), founded in 2009 with Evans Endowment support to facilitate interdisciplinary approaches across the University. “Each ARC consists of investigators representing different disciplines bound by a common interest and focused on translational research,” said Katya Ravid, DSc, the Barbara E. Corkey Professor of Medicine and ECIBR founding director. To this end, during the 2023 Evans Days, participants heard from Jay Mizgerd, ScD, the Jerome S. Brody Professor of Medicine; Matthew Kulke, MD, the Zoltan Kohn Professor of Medicine; and Vijaya B. Kolachalama, PhD, associate professor of medicine, who presented reports focused on new discovery in their respective ARCs.

Newly featured this year was the David L. Coleman, MD, Junior Faculty Prize for outstanding research, citizenship and mentorship by an assistant professor. Assistant Professor of Medicine Anica Law, MD, MS, was named the inaugural recipient. Her presentation, attended by former Chair of Medicine Coleman, followed the ARC presentations and focused on the outcomes of critically ill patients who require long-term life support.

The 2023 Evans Days visiting professors, Barbara Kahn, MD, George R. Minot Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Gbenga Ogedegbe, MD, MPH, the Dr. Adolph & Margaret Berger Professor of Population Health at New York University Grossman School of Medicine, addressed students, faculty and staff as the Wilkins Visiting Professor and the Ingelfinger Visiting Professor, respectively.

“I’m really impressed with the research you have going on here,” said Kahn in remarks prefacing her lecture in Keefer Auditorium Thursday, Oct. 19. “The posters were great; the short presentations were terrific; the collaboration, the energy, the enthusiasm, the cutting-edge nature of things — congratulations! It’s really been exciting to see.”

Kahn is regarded as one of the leaders in the field of glucose transport and is internationally known for her work on obesity and type 2 diabetes, uncovering the molecular mechanisms underlying fat storage cells, insulin and inter-tissue communication. She said she hoped to leverage the findings outlined in her lecture on signaling lipids that have an anti-inflammatory and anti-diabetic effects to protect against or prevent type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Before her lecture, Kahn sat down with Anthony Hollenberg, MD, the John Wade Professor and chair of medicine, for an informal question-and-answer session exploring her career. Asked what gives her the greatest joy in her work, Kahn, who has trained more than 100 principal investigators and whom Hollenberg called “a builder of scientists,” said her greatest joy was in training the next generation of scientists, especially physician-scientists.

“It’s a major concern, I think, that physician-scientists are a dying breed,” Kahn said. “It gives me great gratification to take someone who has limited experience and help them not just with research skills but how do you choose a good question, how do you choose something that is going to be worth working on.” She also highlighted the immense importance of collaborative, interdisciplinary science.

Ingelfinger Visiting Professor Ogedegbe is a renowned expert on health disparities, with research focused on evidence-based interventions to reduce cardiovascular risk in minority populations. During his lecture on Friday, Oct. 20, in Keefer Auditorium, he shared how to use research to address health inequities in hypertension.

“Researchers and policy makers don’t talk to each other,” he said. “We focus on our grants. We focus on our papers. We focus on advancing our careers. The policy makers do what they do best – create policy that lacks evidence. Until we bridge that, we won’t be able to narrow the gap that we are seeing today.”

Ogedegbe proposed that programs to achieve health equity need to mitigate the adverse effects of social determinants of health like economic stability, access to quality education and health care, the communities where they live and work, and family and community interactions. He said researchers need to partner with Black communities to support strategies that support adoption of lifestyle changes. Providers need to work with payors to create community clinics, and researchers need to produce policy and data to drive action by stakeholders and policy makers.

It is also worth noting that the 2022 Wilkins Visiting Professor was the 2023 Nobel Prize winner Drew Weissman, MD, PhD (CAMED’87, GRS’87, Hon.’23).

For a list of the 2023 awards and poster winners click here. See more on Facebook.

Original Article