California Southern I Governor's Newsletter January 2021

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Michael E. Lazarus, MBBCh, FACP, ACP Governor

Michael E. Lazarus, MBBCh, FACP, ACP Governor

 


Governor's Message

I never for one moment contemplated that my first newsletter as your Governor would come under these most challenging and sad circumstances. It was with great optimism that I took over from my illustrious predecessor, Dr. Mark Noah, and very soon found myself in the midst of a once in a century global pandemic. All the planning and excitement of hosting the National ACP meeting for the first time ever, was put on hold. California led the way early on with its wide-ranging and rapid lockdown and thereby prevented the type of patient surges that had brought New York City and Bergamo hospitals to the brink of collapse earlier in the year. Unfortunately, the optimism that we would be spared a similar level of intensity were short lived, and we now find ourselves in a similarly precarious position with the explosion of cases in our Los Angeles hospitals. Every aspect of our health system has been impacted, from emergency services, inpatient and ICU care to the reduced income which our primary care and sub-specialty physicians have endured during the many months of the shutdown. While some of our larger health systems have been able to weather the storm up until now, many of the few remaining private and solo practitioner practices have had to close their doors.

Despite these challenges our chapter has continued to thrive. Our membership continues to grow, and we continue to be a resource for up-to-date and practical pandemic related information. Our educational and advocacy efforts have continued unabated in innovative formats. With help from our friends in Southern California Chapter Regions II and III, we organized a successful virtual meeting in the fall. Just before our regional get together we were thrilled to hear that our very own former Governor, Phyllis Guze, MD, MACP, had been selected as recipient of the 2020 Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell Award for Outstanding Contributions to Advancing the Careers of Women in Medicine, recognizing her for her tireless mentoring of women medical students, residents, and physicians throughout her career. In honor of the Blackwell sisters, pioneers in medicine who paved the way for women interested in pursuing professional careers, this award is bestowed upon an ACP member for distinguished contributions to advancing the careers of women in medicine. Another one of our former Governors, Soma Wali, MD, MACP, was also recognized with an honorary Fellowship in the Royal College of Physicians. She received this accolade based on the endorsement of her colleagues, both internationally and nationally, who recognized her numerous and valuable contributions to the profession of medicine. I also want to recognize the incredible dedication and organization of our Executive Director, Gus Chavez, who has kept me focused and on track this past year.

2020 has been a memorable year. We will soon see the end of the pandemic as the incredibly swiftly developed vaccine reaches more and more people and we get to the levels of immunity that will bring us all back together again. On this optimistic note, I wish you all a happy, healthy and fulfilling 2021.

Michael E. Lazarus, MBBCh, FACP
Governor, ACP Southern California Region I

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ACP IM 2020 Virtual Regional Meeting

The 2020 ACP Southern California Chapters I, II & III regional meeting took place virtually on Saturday, October 12th. The meeting featured a great selection of speakers on a variety of interesting topics and was attended by nearly 600 people. There were 384 posters submitted by medical students, residents/fellows and early career physicians from throughout Southern California.

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Governors Charles J. Hamori, MD, FACP (Region III), Daniel I. Kim, MD, MBA, FACP (Region II) and Michael E. Lazarus, MBBCh, FACP
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Edward Ha, MD, MEHP, FACP
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Drs. Jonathan Grein and Oren Friedman
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Joel Diamant, MD, FACP

The following residents/fellows and medical students had winning posters from ACP S. California Region I:

Clinical Vignettes – Residents

1st Place: Brittney Phan, MD (UCLA)
2nd Place: Tiffany Maggi-Maidinetti, MD (Olive View-UCLA)
3rd Place: Annie Chen, MD (Olive View-UCLA)

Research/Innovations – Residents

3rd Place: Kevin Yoon, MD (Harbor UCLA)

Clinical Vignettes – Medical Students

1st Place: Tina Huang (UCLA)
2nd Place: Adam Kowala (USC)
3rd Place: Sarah Rotondo-Trivette (USC)

Research/Innovations – Medical Students

1st Place: Amanda Nguyen (UCLA)
2nd Place: May Kyaw (UCLA)

Residents and medical students who won first place received a cash award and their posters will be submitted for presentation at the 2021 ACP national meeting. Second and third place winners also received a cash award.

The Cedars Sinai Medical Center team was the winner of the 2020 Southern California Chapters' Doctor's Dilemma® (“Jeopardy”) competition. The team consisted of Drs. Claire Enriquez, Joshua Rushakoff and Gayatri Setia. Many thanks to Drs. Jarod DuVall, Miguel Angel Pena Ruiz, Ali Motabar and Jason Bahk for their hard work in making the competition a great success!

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Doctor's Dilemma Winners from Cedars Sinai Medical Center

A special thank you goes out to Drs. Magdalena Ptaszny and Vineet Gupta for their stellar effort in organizing this year's competition. In addition, much appreciation and gratitude to the following abstract reviewers/judges: Drs. Joe Abdelmalek, Spencer Adams, Mary Ann Ally, Samuel Baz, Ani Bussel, Tom Carter, Alanna Chau, Thomas Chen, Diana Childers, Debby Craig, Sean Delshad, Julie Dominguez, Reece Doughty, Amanda Ewing, Mohammed Farkhondehpour, Suzanne Fidler, Alexander Friedman, Kumar Gandhi, Roger Garrison, Masoumeh Ghaffari, Nima Golzy, Robert Goodman, Rajesh “Robby” Gulati, Kathie Huang, Andrew Hwang, Sonali Iyer, Anand Jagannath, Ramzy Jandali, Simerjot Jassal, Maralee Kanin, Daniel Kim, Karen Kim, Scott Kubomoto, Aneesh Kuruvilla, Brian Kwan, Sonny Lee, Lawrence Loo, Jane Ma, Jonathan Mcintyre, Carmen Mendez, Nathaniel Meyer, Eivaz Mohammadi, Hoveda Mufti, Amar Nawathe, Laura Nicholson, Rajan Patel, Antonio Pessegueiro, Seth Polintano, Alina Popa, Remus Popa, Janet Pregler, Lakshmi Puvvula, Maryam Rahimi, Samia Faiz Rasiq, Michael Rotblatt, Paul Salama, Reid Sasaki, Matthew Scrader, Guilliane Servano, Biraj Shah, Sural Shah, John J. Sim, Alan Sit, Camille Soroudi, Laxmi Suthar, Vinhfield Ta, Vajeeha Tabassum, Ekamol Tantisattamo, Joey Tu, Michael Ulrich, Rahul Vasavada, Nhan Vuong, William Winter, Pam Yamanishi, Brian Yu, Stanislav Zayets, Sherry Zhang, and Li Zhou.

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Governor Michael Lazarus, MBBCh, FACP and Maggie Ptaszny, MD, FACP
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Mark S. Noah, MD, FACP, Michael E. Lazarus, MBBCh, FACP and Soma Wali, MD, MACP

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Chapter Laureate

Dr. Jason Bahk was the recipient of this year's Chapter Laureate Award. This prestigious award is awarded to the ACP member who has demonstrated by their example and conduct an abiding commitment to excellence in medical care, education, or research, and in service to their community. Congratulations to Dr. Bahk!

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Jason E. Bahk, MD, FACP

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BOR Action on Fall 2020 BOG Resolutions Now Available

A summary of Board of Regents (BOR) actions on resolutions debated at the fall 2020 Board of Governors (BOG) virtual meeting is now available. Resolutions initiated by ACP members and endorsed by a chapter council and the BOG become ACP policy when adopted by the BOR.

If you have an idea you'd like to suggest to ACP, consider submitting a resolution to your local ACP chapter via email to SoCalACP@gmail.com.

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New ACP Fellows

We are happy to announce that the following people have been advanced to ACP Fellowship in our chapter within the last 6 months:

Harsha Aramada, MD, FACP
Tracy E. Bercu, MD, FACP
Russell G. Buhr, MD, PhD, FACP
Bahman Chavoshan, MD, FACP
Grant Chu, MD, FACP
Laura Frischer Ryan, MD, FACP
Nancy E. Gin, MD, FACP
Anush Hasratyan, MD, FACP
Priya Jayachandran, MD, FACP
Gurcharan S. Khera, MBBS, FACP
Kiem D. Liem, MD, FACP
Richard A. Prudencio, MD, FACP
Peter M. Rosenberg, MD, FACP
Faysal G. Saab, MD, FACP
Sonia Preet Sethi, MBBS,MD ,FACP
Soham Shah, MD, FACP
Michael Yang, MD, FACP

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2020 Chapter Excellence Bronze Award

I am pleased to announce that our chapter is in receipt of the 2020 Chapter Excellence Bronze Award! The award recognizes chapters which successfully meet the standards for managing a chapter. These include activities such as being involved in advocacy activities, communicating with members, having a chapter/regional scientific meeting along with a planning committee, having a sound financial structure in place, recruiting and advancing members and having an awards committee that identifies candidates for local or national awards.

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Please enjoy the following poem written by one of our members, Adrian Mayo, MD, which appears in the November 2020 issue of ACP Hospitalist:

First Day on Service:

Hello, 
We talked on the phone earlier. 
I’m your new doctor, taking over for Dr. Lowe.
Don’t worry, I’m only mostly scared, 
Both for me and for you.
I’ll do my best to be there for you,
But I’ll think too much before and after any consoling touch. 
I’ll try and comfort you with my words, 
Without really knowing what will happen next. 
I’ll smile at you, remembering only halfway through you can’t see it, 
I hope my eyes seen through the peep holes of a welder’s mask say enough 
You’re going to be alright,  
I think. 

 

Day 8 of symptoms, 4 liters of oxygen, 
It’s the uncertainty that will really get us both.  
I know your husband is in the ICU,  
I heard they’ve managed not to intubate him yet. 
And yes, don’t worry, I will call your daughter, 
and share this uncertainty with her too. 
From what I’ve heard, you’re taking it better than she is. 
Hopefully the esoteric explanations will help her, 
That would make one of us.  
As I know this is hard.  
I won’t tell her that I recently lost my grandmother,  
No visitors allowed.  
Only essential personnel around, 
Just like both her parents. 

 

Dr. Mayo is a hospitalist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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