New faculty spotlight: Justin Birge, M.D.

Justin Birge, M.D., is a new faculty member at UNMC.

• Name: Justin Birge, M.D.
• Hometown: Omaha
• Title and department at UNMC: Assistant professor, UNMC Department of Internal Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine

Research/professional interests:
Professional interests include utilization of electronic workflows and data analytics to improve patient care, provider efficiency, interdisciplinary communication, and impact on medical education. Research interests include assessments of electronic workflows and impact of clinically oriented enhancements on efficiency, compliance, illness severity, and inter-user reliability. Ultimately seeking to improve the user experience while accurately informing discrete data for individual/system analytics by harmonizing bedside electronic data review, documentation, order entry, and charge capture. Working in an environment like UNMC is an exciting and motivating privilege.

How I fell in love with medicine:
Medicine is an unusual combination of intellectual curiosity, data analysis, and art. Many occupations offer similar rigor of cognition and scientific thinking. Very few combine the element of advanced critical thinking with cultivation of (often complex) relationships and communication between both patients and peers. The flexibility and scope of medicine also accommodates leadership, mentoring, and system design. Hospital medicine combines these in a way I have always appreciated and loved, even on the worst of days.

Degrees:

• M.D., Creighton University, 2008
• Residency, Abbott Northwestern Hospital, Minneapolis
• M.S., Creighton University, 2003

Memberships:

• Society of Hospital Medicine
• American College of Physicians
• American Medical Informatics Association

Three things people may not know about me:

• My personal interests include music, history and athletics.
  My interests also include food and beer.

• My spouse (neonatologist Nicole Birge, M.D.) and two energetic, curious children under 10 provide countless hours of joy — both absolute and occasionally puzzling.