North Florida Emergency Medicine

By Manna Varghese, MD, PGY-2

North Florida EM has had a busy, yet exciting summer. The previous PGY-3 class had their graduation ceremony in June. It was incredible to hear stories of how these physicians had grown over the past few years in residency. We are so proud of how far they have come and are excited to see them continue to excel as fellows and attendings in their respective jobs. A few weeks later, we welcomed our new intern class for orientation and then their first day of residency! Throughout the entire month of July, interns participated in EM intern bootcamp, learning the basics of EM ultrasound, common procedures and basic foundations. Our residents and faculty had to rise to the challenge of the spike in COVID cases we experienced this summer. We saw record-breaking volumes of patients across all of our sites, including the main ED and our freestanding EDs. While this was a difficult time for many of us, it has been incredible to watch each person step up and tackle the challenge head-on. Our faculty has also provided incredible support for residents during this time, ensuring that each resident’s concerns are heard and everyone continues to have an excellent learning experience.

UF Jacksonville

By Chris Phillips, MD, PGY-2

We were incredibly saddened to hear that Dr. Leon Haley, our dean and CEO, passed away after a tragic accident in South Florida. He was an incredible leader and a beloved son, father, friend and colleague. Dr. Haley will be sorely missed as not only the leader of our organization but also as a tremendous friend and mentor to our specialty.

This latest COVID surge has not been easy on anyone and I’m so proud of everything we’re doing as a department to address the rising tide of patients. As with the rest of Florida, our ICUs are at capacity. In order to create more ICU beds and help with ED boarding, we turned our observation area into an ICU led by critical care trained EM physicians. Everyone is doing an amazing job in extremely challenging circumstances. In particular, our interns have hit the ground running and have done a fantastic job of transitioning from medical students to resident physicians. They are an amazing, fun and hardworking class who are already making our program better. Our department was happy to welcome back medical students on away rotations this year. We had a lot of excellent students who we hope to work with next year! We wish you all the best of luck during interview and match season. In order to help medical students learn more about the program here at UF Jax, we have continued our successful online lecture series, EM Sneak Peak, that was started last year. It’s a way to get to know the residents, ask questions about the program, and learn about awesome EM topics including beach medicine, sports medicine, women in EM, EM critical care and POCUS.

Our residents recently attended a conference day at Jacksonville Beach with our beach/surf medicine expert, Dr. Andrew Schmidt. We learned about drowning, diving emergencies, marine envenomations, and had the chance to practice hands-on scenarios, including in-water rescue training with the lifeguards. Our residents also

Despite the difficulties of the past few months, our program has emphasized resident wellness. The PGY-2 class had their wellness retreat for four days at the Margaritaville Resort in Orlando. We also had our program’s annual summer Wellness Day at Ginnie Springs at the end of August. Both of these events were great chances to rest and recharge while spending time with our co-residents. We’re looking forward to the last few months of the year and are hopeful that we will be able to continue gathering in-person for didactics and other events outside of work as COVID cases start to downtrend and vaccination rates increase. ■

participated in the yearly Difficult Airway Course, which allowed us to reinforce our airway management skills. We are lucky to have some of our faculty as directors for this nationally-recognized program!

Our department had many achievements over this past quarter. First, we’d like to congratulate Dr. Joy Turner, PGY 2, who won the resident Haiku competition at the Clinical Decision Making in Emergency Medicine conference. We’ve also had many faculty achievements, including Dr. Kelly Gray being appointed to Governor DeSantis’ Commission on Mental Health and Substance Abuse. In our research department, Dr. Lauren Black received the prestigious NIH K23 award on her first submission! In addition, Dr. Faheem Guirgis was appointed to co-director of the UF KL2 CTSI Program. We’re proud of everything we have accomplished so far this year and look forward to seeing what the rest of this year has in store for us! ■