Mississippi Governor's Newsletter January 2020

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Samuel C. Thigpen, MD, FACP, ACP Governor

S. Calvin Thigpen, MD, FACP, ACP Governor

 


Happy New Year!

2019 was a fantastic year for our chapter in many respects and a year of change as well. We had award winners, a member elected to a national council, new Fellows elected into the College, a new Master recognized at Convocation, a chapter meeting in our state capital, a newly elected Governor-Elect designee, a new Executive Director take office, a Fellow in our chapter on the Board of Regents, a tremendous upswing in the financial state of the chapter, a 2nd Evergreen Award, and the beginning of another social media account to network further with each other. In this newsletter you can read about each of those items and more, and we can look forward to what will surely be an exciting 2020!

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Successful Chapter Meeting in the State Capital

In early June, our chapter joined with the Alabama chapter for the fourth year in a row to hold our chapter meeting in Jackson at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) for the first time. The meeting was a tremendous success, with more Mississippi chapter registrants than we have had over the past two decades, thanks to the leadership of our Program Chair, Dr. Wes Aldred; our Development Committee Chair and now Governor-Elect Designee, Dr. Otis Gowdy; and our Abstract Competition Coordinator, Dr. Jessie Lavender. We heard from Board of Regents member Tom Cooney of Portland, Oregon, and also from Board of Regents member and Council of Early Career Physicians Chair Dick Wardrop, who joined our chapter in April of 2019 when he assumed the role of Vice Chair of Education and Faculty Development in the UMMC Department of Medicine.

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Dr. Wardrop presenting on professional satisfaction

Also at the chapter meeting we recognized our Laureate Winner for 2019, Dr. Kimberly Harkins, of Madison. Dr. Harkins, an Associate Program Director of the UMMC Internal Medicine Residency and a hypertension specialist, has mentored hundreds of students and residents and had an impact on thousands of Mississippians through her patient care and her role as an educator. During her career, she has served as the UMMC Internal Residency Program Director, been recognized as the Teacher of the Year by the UMMC residents, and been a member of the Governor's Advisory Council for 15 years and chapter Treasurer since 2017. The presentation of Dr. Harkins as the award winner was preceded by an entertaining and touching talk by guest speaker and syndicated cartoonist, Marshall Ramsey.

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Dr. Harkins with her family

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New Fellows and a New Master in the College

Congratulations to each of our Fellows elected prior to the 2019 Convocation and also to those who are eligible to be recognized at the 2020 Convocation thus far. Those include each of the following members:

2018-2019

Wes Aldred
Pradeep Bathina
Wisit Cheungpasitporn
Benjamin Gatewood
Kimberly Harkins
Rebecca Lauderdale
Brandon Lennep
Day Lennep
Seger Morris
Bhagy Navalkele

2019-2020

Javed Butler
Amanda Clark
Teri Dyess
Cedric Edwards
Brett Jeter
David McClendon
Naseem Qureshi
Muhammad Waqas

And congratulations again to Dr. Dan Jones, former Vice-Chancellor Health Affairs at UMMC and former Chancellor of the University of Mississippi for becoming a new Master at IM 2019 in Philadelphia.

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Medical Student Selected to Council of Student Members

UMMC student Meredith Cobb was selected in December to the national ACP Council of Student Members. Meredith, who has been very active in the community and with her research, is currently working on her combined MD, PhD degree and is also the current Associated Student Body Secretary at UMMC. During Meredith's time on the council, she will represent students from across the country not only on the council but also on one of ACP's national committees. Please join me in congratulating Meredith!

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Meredith Cobb, National CSM representative

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Mississippi Chapter Wins Evergreen Award!

For the second time in the last six years the Mississippi Chapter was the recipient of an Evergreen Award at IM 2019 in Philadelphia. The chapter's award-winning submission was our ACP Subspecialty Fellows Council, which has now been in place for nine years and has bolstered the engagement of subspecialty fellows and early career subspecialists during that time. A tremendous amount of appreciation is due to our former Executive Director, Nancy Youngblood, and our two most recent council presidents prior to the award, Dr. Derek Hansen and Dr. Wes Aldred, as they each contributed greatly to the submission. The Subspecialty Fellows Council continues to operate and is currently led by Dr. Brandon Lennep.

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Governor-Elect Designee Elected

As many of you have seen, Dr. Otis Gowdy of Meridian was elected to be our next chapter governor beginning with the IM 2021 business meeting in Orlando, Florida, in just over 15 months. Dr. Gowdy is a nephrologist and a longstanding Member and now Fellow in the College; he has chaired our chapter's Development Committee for the last two years, leading us to raise the most funds we have raised for the meeting in nearly a decade. Dr. Gowdy is very excited about the opportunity to lead the chapter and engage Members statewide.

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Dr. Otis Gowdy, Governor-Elect Designee, MS Chapter

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New Executive Director Begins

It is with great excitement that we welcomed Sarah Wardrop as our new Executive Director on November 1, 2019. Sarah, who brings previous experience to the role, assumed the position from Nancy Youngblood, who served our chapter for 13 years, touched the lives of thousands of Mississippi physicians and physicians-in-training, and brought national recognition to the chapter. Since starting as Executive Director, Sarah has helped develop a new chapter communications plan and established our new Instagram feed, which you can find under the handle acp_ms on the app.

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Sarah Wardrop, Executive Director

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Nancy Youngblood at Abstract Day

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Abstract Day a Huge Success

On October 30th, the chapter held its annual ACP Abstract Day at UMMC's student union. William Curry, MD, MACP, Governor of the Alabama Chapter, delivered our keynote address just prior to the recognition of our Abstract Day winners, who were selected from 92 submissions. The winners will each represent our chapter in the abstract competition at IM 2020 in Los Angeles, CA. They are as follows:

Basic Science Research - Bijalben Patel, medical student - Soluble guanylate cyclase activators attenuate hypertension in a rat model of preeclampsia by improving endothelial function

Clinical Research - Elliott Varney, PGY-1, preliminary medicine year for radiology - Comparative effectiveness of noninvasive tests for staging chronic liver disease

Quality Improvement - Amor Royer, PGY-2, categorical internal medicine - Screen a little, stay a lot: A retrospective analysis of MRSA screening of inpatients

Clinical Vignette - Peyton Treutel, PGY-1, categorical internal medicine - Extraosseous manifestation of multiple myeloma: An unusual presentation

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Amor Royer and Peyton Treutel

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Social Media Presence

As mentioned above, we have expanded our social media presence, allowing us to engage with each other more readily and with the news from national ACP. If you are on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, you can find us, follow us, share, and retweet. You will notice that we now have a monthly update posted the 2nd week of each month to keep everyone informed about what is happening in the chapter. Our handles are as follows:

Twitter: ms_acp
Facebook: MS ACP
Instagram: acp_ms

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Share Your Stories!

Last but certainly not least, please be sure to share with us your stories of the great things you are doing and that are happening around you so we can make them known to everyone else in the chapter. A big goal of ours is for the chapter to be your professional home, and there is nothing that will make that a reality better than our networking.

Also, stay tuned in the coming months for stories from members of our Governor's Advisory Council on the upcoming chapter meeting, our state advocacy, our early career physicians, and our new Wellness Committee, among other items.

I hope that 2020 brings everyone much joy, as well as personal and professional growth. I look forward to seeing all that it brings for our chapter.

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