D epartment
of
M edicine
Con ne c ti ng T e c h n o lo g y , Ed uca t i o n a n d D i s cove ry w ith H um anis m in Me dicine
Vol. 7 Issue 4 Oct 2018
New Faculty Bringing Special Skills to the Care of Their Patients The Department of Medicine is fortunate to have two new faculty members bringing specialized skills to patient care: Dr. Muddassir Mehmood, specializing in advanced heart failure, and Dr. Francisco Soto, specializing in pulmonary hypertension (PH). During his cardiology fellowship, Dr. Mehmood became intrigued by the right side of the heart, the “forgotten ventricle,” believing there was much about heart failure and pulmonary hypertension that needed to be explored. “Once the right side of the heart fails, management becomes very challenging,” explains Dr. Mehmood. Since coming to UT, Dr. Mehmood has worked on developing a specialized interdisciplinary heart failure clinic. “Heart failure patients are unique,” he notes. “They require special attention, and successful treatment requires a partnership between the patient, family, and providers.” He envisions developing a team of health professionals to educate and empower patients to better manage their disease. “Heart failure is a chronic progressive disease,” he says. “Once traditional management options are maximized, we keep an eye out for early recognition of advanced stages of heart failure and discuss cardiac replacement therapies such a mechanical heart pump or transplant when appropriate.” Dr. Mehmood is energized by challenges and recognizes the importance of clinical discovery and teaching. He is actively involved in research and education and hopes to bring technologic innovations in heart failure to UT. Pulmonary, critical care, and sleep specialist Dr. Francisco Soto has been researching and treating PH for over 15 years. At one time, PH was an “orphan” disease; there were no treatment options for it. Now, patients who would have been doomed are able to live satisfying lives. New medications and modes of delivery can change a severely debilitated quality of life into a flourishing one. Dr. Soto became fascinated by the relationship between the heart and the lungs during his training, and learned to do cardiac procedures such
as right-heart catheterizations, cardiothoracic ultrasound evaluation, and echocardiography interpretation. He believes that “learning to speak cardiology” stimulates the academic conversation between pulmonologists and cardiologists, something that benefits the patients directly. “Advanced knowledge of the heart can also help pulmonologists treat pulmonary manifestations of heart disease and PH more successfully,” says Dr. Soto. For example, patients who are affected by both CHF and COPD can have symptoms that cannot be explained when considering the heart or lungs in isolation. The full scope of the patient’s problem only becomes evident when one understands the interaction between the compromised organs. One of Dr. Soto’s goals is to help develop a multidisciplinary PH clinic that becomes a referral center for the region and the neighboring states. Both Dr. Soto and Dr. Mehmood describe themselves as “big-picture thinkers” who thrive on interdisciplinary collaboration. They are committed to using a diverse array of resources to care for patients, including integrating palliative care early for optimum symptom management and care planning. Patients in East Tennessee who have cardiopulmonary disease will benefit from the care of these two talented and compassionate physicians.
Points of View
Rajiv Dhand, MD, Chair
clinical loads, which reduce time for participation in activities outside the clinical realm. In addition, interest has diminished in attending face-to-face meetings, and mandating such attendance would be contrary to the stated purpose of increasing engagement. Moreover, our department faculty are often off-site, so face-to-face meetings are not popular or practical. In the past, lack of interest in faculty development may have been due to the heavy emphasis on development of teaching skills – a legacy, perhaps, from institutions of higher learning that initiated such efforts. A practical and innovative solution could be using the Internet for communication and diversification of topics to make them more useful for faculty members in their continued on page 2
Faculty development is an essential component of an academic organization’s success. Because of this, there is an increasing interest in faculty development programs for health care institutions. Such programs provide a way for the faculty to further develop and nurture their skills. For several years, I have had to wrestle with finding a practical method of providing faculty development resources for our department. Our faculty face high 1