By the Numbers

Division Highlights

GENERAL INTERNAL MEDICINE

Alejandro D. Chediak, MD Interim Division Chief

Erin N. Marcus, M.D., M.P.H. shows her research poster to UM/JMH chief medical residents Andres Rodriguez, D.O.; Paul Montana, M.D.; Eduardo Saul, M.D. and Marina Byer, M.D. at the 2023 Academic Internal Medicine Week Meeting in Charlotte, N.C. Puppy Therapy Day for Residents

Clinical

As we emerged from the pandemic, our general internal medicine (GIM) team reimagined the delivery and provision of world-class primary care services. Division faculty and staff rapidly transitioned from a nearly entirely telehealth service to hybrid and conventional care models to ensure our patients received all the necessary preventive, acute and chronic care services they needed. Outpatient clinic plasticity assures that our patients receive high-quality, transformative medical care, whether they are near or far.

At the Desai Sethi Medical Center, the division pioneered a “clinic within a clinic” model, housing dedicated service lines for anticoagulation and travel. The arrangement streamlines the management of selected common medical needs.

Research

Dr. Olveen Carrasquillo was interviewed by several media outlets for his observations from the “All of Us” Research Program, where he refutes the longstanding Latino Epidemiological Paradox, which asserts that Latinos have equal if not better health outcomes (based on measures of population health, including cardiovascular disease). The work offers evidence that this generally accepted epidemiological observation may not be true. Given that Latino populations are not homogeneous, the team is now focusing on health data from Latino subgroups, as well as U.S. born Latinos.

Junior faculty also contributed to the division’s research successes. Dr. Sabrina Taldone and Dr. Kendra Van Kirk became members of the Academy of Medical Educational Scholars, receiving awards for their work titled “Assessing Value-Based Competencies in a General Medicine Residency” and “Utilizing Backward Design to Train-the-Trainer,” respectively.

Dr. Erin Marcus, professor of clinical medicine, presented on the use of Edwidge Danticat’s writing to foster empathy and improve understanding of Haitian immigrant patients among medicine interns. The work was presented at national meetings of the Society of General Internal Medicine and the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine in Orlando, Florida and Charlotte, North Carolina.

Education

Our faculty led seamless transitions from in-person to virtual learning and back, thus ensuring our graduate and undergraduate students received top-notch instruction in the best and safest learning environments available. Many also continued to enhance efforts to further diversify our student body and developed curricular innovations as part of the NextGen Curriculum, a novel educational paradigm that trains medical students to become the transformational leaders that will shape the future of medicine and champion discovery.

Highlights

Acknowledging her unwavering commitment and contributions to medical education, the Association of American Medical Colleges named Dr. Joan St. Onge as chair of the group on resident affairs. Dr. St Onge also served as co-chair of the division’s working group for the Florida Council of Medical School Deans.

In recognition of her work to reduce HIV/ AIDS disparities in Miami, Sonjia Kenya EdD, MS, MA of the Division of General Internal Medicine was honored with the 2022 Sapphire Award by the Florida Blue Foundation. The statewide award is granted to recipients who are making a meaningful impact in their communities in the area of health equity advancement.

Professors of Medicine Olveen Carrasquillo, M.D., M.P.H. Laurence Gardner, M.D. S. Barry Issenberg, M.D. Kenneth Goodman, PhD Professors of Clinical Medicine Panagiota Caralis, M.D., J.D. Daniel Lichtstein, M.D. Erin Marcus, M.D., M.P.H. Joan St. Onge, M.D. Ross Scalese, M.D. Associate Professors of Clinical Medicine Yvonne Diaz, M.D. Hilit Mechaber, M.D. Paul Mendez, M.D. Frederick Williams, M.D. Assistant Professors of Clinical Medicine Howard Anapol, M.D. Stephanie Clauss, M.D. Gregory Coleman, M.D. Janelle Cuervo, M.D. Janelis Gonzalez, M.D. Elizabeth Greig, M.D. Lilliam Guzman, M.D. Brian Hagenlocker, M.D. Melanie Helfman, M.D. Margarita Llinas, M.D. Cristina Pravia, M.D. Katelin Snow, M.D. Jacobo Wajner, M.D. Sabrina Taldone, M.D. Associate Professor, Educator Sonjia Kenya, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Professional Practice Gauri Agarwal, M.D. Assistant Professors of Professional Practice Analinnette Zito, M.D. Staff Physicians Alexandra Calandriello, M.D. Manuela Calvo, M.D. Grettel Garcia, M.D. Sudah Lolayekar, M.D. Elizabeth Parra-Garnica, M.D. Hiram Rodriguez, M.D.

Division Highlights

GERIATRICS AND PALLIATIVE MEDICINE

Marcio Rotta Soares, M.D. Division Chief

Clinical

The Geriatrics Outpatient Service continues to perform comprehensive geriatric assessments on older patients at the Downtown and Coral Gables ambulatory locations.

Our Palliative Medicine Service also continues to grow its outpatient network. With the addition of our new palliative care physician, Dr. Michael Huber, along with the presence of additional geographic locations, we are further expanding our high-quality symptom management and patient-centric palliative care. Our outpatient locations include Downtown Miami, South Miami, Coral Gables, Deerfield, and Plantation. Will also offer telemedicine consults.

The Inpatient Palliative Medicine Consult Service provides care to patients admitted to the University of Miami Hospital and Clinics. The consult service focuses on symptom management and transitions of care in patients with serious, complex and/or terminal illnesses.

Research (Geriatrics)

Our geriatricians’ research in the areas of frailty and COVID-19 has led to six recent publications in prestigious journals, including The Lancet Healthy Longevity, the Journal of General Internal Medicine, and others.

Dr. Jorge G. Ruiz and Dr. Christie Hogue, DDS, a previous graduate of our advanced fellowship program, have published a book titled Oral Health and Aging, with several of our faculty members and fellows acting as co-authors of multiple chapters.

Research (Palliative Medicine)

Palliative social worker Carina Oltmann, LCSW contributed two chapters to the second edition of the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Social Work. She authored a chapter on cognitive behavioral therapy as well as co-authored a chapter capturing the experiences and ethical challenges that palliative social workers have experienced around the world during the pandemic.

Education (Geriatrics)

Our Geriatric Medicine Fellowship Program remains the regional leader in advanced geriatric medicine training. Led by Dr. Iriana Hammel, who serves as program director, the fellowship program trains up to eight geriatricians a year.

The division also conducts weekly teaching conferences for our fellows and faculty as well as monthly meetings with faculty and staff. We also hold monthly international Frailty Seminars with renowned speakers and audience members from around the world.

Our geriatricians were also instrumental in garnering certification for the Miami Veterans Administration Medical Center as an age-friendly healthcare system by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. In June 2022, we also organized the Annual VISN 8 Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Centers (GRECC) Conference titled Healthy Aging During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Dr. Jorge G. Ruiz was elected Chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Committee for Geriatric Medicine. He was also promoted to Professor of Clinical Medicine.

Education (Palliative Medicine)

The Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program continues to grow and currently has four fellowship positions, one of which is a combined geriatric and palliative medicine fellowship.

Dr. Khawand-Azoulai spearheaded two QI projects. Once project focused on improving the proxy assignment process at Jackson Memorial Hospital and the other to improve the completion of Florida Department of Health do-not-resuscitate (DNR) forms for patients discharged from University of Miami Hospital and Clinics (UHealth Tower).

Dr. Khawand-Azoulai was selected as a member of the Florida Palliative Care Coalition and sits on the educational steering committee. She also was a part of the neurooncology fellowship program.

Highlights

Dr. Julia Sanchez leads a new opioid stewardship program. Created in 2021, the program consists of a multidisciplinary team who work collaboratively to oversee safe opioid prescribing, monitoring and education at UHealth.

Dr. Sanchez will continue to develop system-wide strategies for opioid stewardship by establishing prescribing guidelines, providing education, improving access and monitoring prescribing patterns and adverse events related to opioids.

Through this program we have completed many quality improvement projects including: prescription drug monitoring program integration with Epic; an electronic controlled

Professors of Medicine Stuti Dang, M.D., M.P.H. Silvina Levis-Dusseau, M.D. Research Professor Guy Howard, Ph.D. Associate Professor Jorge Ruiz, M.D. Research Associate Professor Carlos Perez-Stable, Ph.D. Assistant Professors Enrique Aguilar, M.D. Jenny Drice, M.D. Iriana Hammel, M.D. Mariana Khawand-Azoulai, M.D. Julia Sanchez, M.D. Luis Samos-Gutierrez, M.D. Marcio Soares, M.D. Khin Zaw, M.D.

substances agreement; an alternative to the current opioids pamphlet, which is included in AVS when ordering opioids at discharge. Additional quality improvements tactics include: naloxone co-prescribing for high-risk patients to improve outpatient access; addition of an indications box to long-acting opioids to comply with the ISMP Best Practices initiative; the removal of seven-day “auto stop” on inpatient orders for long-acting opioids and opioid prescribing protocols for patients with advanced renal disease.

Carina Oltmann, LCSW, who co-chairs the World Hospice and Palliative Care Social Work Network (WHPCSW), helped to launch an international effort to assist healthcare workers serving patients in Ukraine and surrounding countries.

Mariana KhawandAzoulai, M.D. (Hospice and Palliative Medicine fellowship associate director) and Khin Zaw, M.D. (Hospice and Palliative Medicine fellowship director) with fellows Yesica Campos, M.D.; Angela Boey, M.D.; Paul Eugene, M.D. and Ezekiel Ijiaopo, M.D.

Division Highlights

HEMATOLOGY

Mikkael Sekeres, M.D., M.S. Division Chief

Clinical

By restructuring the Division of Hematology into various sections – lymphoma, leukemia, general hematology – we have provided more specialized care while increasing patient satisfaction.

We created the Hematology Specialty Inpatient Services and have standardized the treatment of patients with hematologic conditions across the network. Additionally, Dr. Namrata Chandhok created a clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential clinic that has already served 50 patients.

The division’s phone lines have now been integrated into the NICE system to efficiently schedule patients with disease specialists in a specific hematology section. Meanwhile, as we prepare to open two new satellite offices in South Florida, our satellite offices continue to see an approximate 14% growth in outpatient visits a year.

Research

Faculty members from the Division of Hematology conduct innovative research that will become the standards of how we practice hematology in the future.

Dr Mikkael Sekeres and Dr. Justin Watts led an international study of more than 450 older adults with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) over the last year by using a novel combination of drugs that paves the way for combination therapy in this challenging patient population. The study was published in the journal Blood Advances.

Dr. Sekeres also led a study using machine learning/artificial intelligence (AI) programming to predict outcomes in MDS, which was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Dr. Justin Taylor led a study identifying why patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia may not respond to a common treatment for

Left to right: Justin Taylor, M.D.; Jonathan Schatz, M.D.; Mikkael Sekeres, M.D., M.S. and Juan Carlos Ramos, M.D. at the Dolphins Cancer Challenge. that disease, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Juan Alderuccio conducted an international analysis of a combination therapy in a rare subtype of lymphoma, extranodal marginal zone, which was published in Blood Advances.

Dr. Izidore Lossos identified a protein in lymphomas that is associated with earlystage disease and lack of spread, which was published in Blood Advances.

Dr. Craig Moskowitz led two studies of combination therapies that included immunotherapy for patients with Hodgkin lymphoma, both of which were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Dr. Justin Taylor was one of 17 earlycareer physician-scientists to receive a Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Scientist Development Award to advance research and support the transition to an independent clinical research career. He was recognized for his research, “Investigating Mechanisms of Resistance to Non- Covalent BTK Inhibition in Patients with B-Cell Malignancies,” which led to a senior author publication in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Jonathan Schatz was awarded a peer-reviewed extramural basic research grant by the Florida Department of Health Bankhead-Coley Cancer Center Program to study inhibition of the cell-cycle kinase GAK, a novel therapeutic target in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Dr. Juan Alderuccio was awarded a Clinical Investigator Career Development Award by the Lymphoma Research Foundation to establish an innovative trial implementing dual antibody treatment in relapsed/refractory follicular lymphoma (FL), with the goal of using loncastuximab tesirine in combination with rituximab to achieve complete metabolic response.

Dr. Alvaro Alencar was awarded a

Professors of Medicine Yeon Soong Ahn, M.D. (Emeritus) John Byrnes, M.D. Izidore Lossos, M.D. Craig Moskowitz, M.D. Stephen Nimer, M.D. Juan Carlos Ramos, M.D. Joseph Rosenblatt, M.D. Mikkael Sekeres, M.D., M.S. Gerald Soff, M.D. Research Professor Ramiro Verdun, Ph.D. Associate Professor Jack Temple, M.D. (Emeritus) Associate Professors of Clinical Medicine Juan Alderuccio, M.D. Alvaro Alencar, M.D. Jonathan Schatz, M.D. Justin Watts, M.D. Assistant Professors Ney Alves, M.D. Terrence Bradley, M.D. Diane Byrnes, M.D. Roberto Cano, M.D. Namrata Chandhok, M.D. Jonathan Cohen, M.D. Thomas Harrington, M.D. Georgios Pongas, M.D. Justin Taylor, M.D. Sangeetha Venugopal, M.D., M.S. Steven Weiss, M.D. Research Assistant Professors Xiaoyu Jiang, Ph.D. Jun Sun, Ph.D. Yu Zhang, M.D. Staff Physicians Diogenes Alayon, M.D. Mayda Arias, M.D. Douglas Faig, M.D. David Lessen, M.D. Jorge Antunez de Mayolo, M.D.

foundation grant by the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology Foundation, Special Projects Allocation to study health disparities in lymphoma.

Education

Division faculty teach at the medical school, post-graduate level as well as in the residency and fellowship programs. One weekly online hematology course, led by Dr. Gerald Soff, had an international audience of 14,637 visits in 2022, representing 4,746 unique individuals from 45 countries and averaging 40-50 presentation views per day. Hematology faculty organized international conferences in myelodysplastic syndromes and in hematologic malignancies, attracting more than 3,000 participants. Faculty members also hosted the firstever international working group in myelodysplastic syndromes in Miami.