Calendar year 2023 is off to a great start! There have already been some major milestones achieved.
Dr. Diana Florescu has been selected as the 17th UNMC Scientist Laureate award winner – the highest recognition for an investigator on the UNMC campus. Dr. Florescu has excelled in clinical research related to infections in transplantation as well as vaccine development for viral infections including COVID. She has developed an amazing research team who continues to move forward with important clinical trials. While the campus will celebrate this research award along with others in March, the Infectious Diseases (ID) division had a recent fantastic celebration of Dr. Florescu and her team. The ID division has much to be proud about in that Dr. Florescu is the third Scientist Laureate from the division (Dr. Andre Kalil and Dr. Sue Swindells are past recipients). Another member of their division will be recognized at this year’s UNMC research awards – Dr. James Lawler for Research Leadership. Furthermore, Dr. Benjamin Teply from the Oncology and Hematology division and Dr. Derrick Samuelson of the Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine division will be recognized as UNMC New Investigators.
Another milestone for the department has been achieved in that Dr. Jennifer Parker accepted the role of Division Chief of General Internal Medicine, officially replacing Dr. Thomas Tape who retired in the fall of 2021. Dr. Parker has done an excellent job as the Acting Division Chief since that time. After a national search, it became clear she is the ideal person to continue to lead the division forward. I am extremely pleased to have Dr. Parker in this role. Her many talents as a clinician-educator are an asset to both the division and department. She is also committed to further developing the scholarship of her talented faculty.
In this newsletter you will see that several faculty have been making national news. Importantly, Dr. Ted Mikuls in Rheumatology recently published a state-of-the art review on gout in the New England Journal of Medicine. Congratulations to Dr. Mikuls on this important work!
Please check out the Research, Education, Faculty Development, and Diversity/Equity/Inclusion sections of the newsletter to learn more about activities and recognitions in these various areas.
I want to give a special “shout out” to Dr. Oakley, our Ambulatory Chief Resident, and the residency program for raising $6,300 to help patients at Midtown Clinic in their holiday fundraiser. Stay tuned for their plans for a raffle later this spring to provide additional important support.
You may not know that we have a faculty member who will soon be publishing a novel. Learn more about Dr. Lydia Kang’s work.
For faculty, you can soon expect to get your Redcap Survey to assist with Academic Variable Compensation and based on the calendar year 2022 (for those here through the entire year) as well as access to your annual evaluation in the ADIS system. I encourage you to use these tools to reflect on where you are and where you want to go in your career. Through the process, you will have an opportunity for a one-on-one meeting with your division chief to review your thoughts. Know that I will eventually have access to the ADIS evaluations and will read them all; it provides me an opportunity to learn about your many activities. I will also offer some comments as well. The faculty development team will be offering you a presentation on how to think about using your ADIS evaluation. Stay tuned for the date for that.
As we move forward through January and the new year, I leave you with words from Rainer Maria Rilke, an Austrian poet and novelist … “And now we welcome the new year; full of things that have never been.”
Thanks for all that each of you does and take good care of yourselves!