Monthly Newsletter | July 2023

DHM CME Courses in Hawaii

DHM held its fifth "Point of Care Ultrasound for the Hospitalist" CME course on June 19-20 in Hawaii. This course had 55 registrants including two of our own faculty — Steve Ludwin and Bassem Ghali. Faculty for the course included current and recent-past DHM Faculty: Trevor Jensen, Ritu Bansal, Matt Yocum, James Anstey, Farhan Lalani, and Steph Conner — plus many from our partner institution Queens Hospital in Honolulu.

DHM held its second annual "Hospital Medicine – Evidence to Practice" CME course on June 21-23, which was organized by Brad Sharpe and featured lecturers from DHM and from Hawaii. Over 120 people attended this 3-day conference at the Royal Hawaiian Resort on Oahu, more than double last year! Presenters for the course included Brad Sharpe, Quinn Cheng, Kirsten Kangelaris, Brad Monash, and Margaret Fang.

We'll be running this conference again next June – stay tuned for details!

Meet DHM

Get to know our division by reading our faculty and staff interviews!

UCSF Health Addiction Consult Service

Please welcome addiction providers Dr. Bridget Foley, Nurse Practitioner Matt Tierney, and Dr. Taylor Nichols. These three providers will be staffing our new Addiction Consult Service, along with Drs. Janet Ho and Theora Cimino who will provide vacation coverage.

Timing: The UCSF Health Addiction Consult Service (ACS) is a Monday-Friday 8 am to 5 pm service.

How to Reach Them: The ACS is available on CareWeb and Voalte as "Consult Addiction Medicine 1st Call," and by pager at 443-6272. When requesting a consult, please both touch base with the consult provider verbally, and put in a consult order in APeX.

Scope of Consults: The service welcomes consults regarding the diagnosis and management of patients with unhealthy substance use or substance use disorders, including alcohol, opioid, stimulant, tobacco, or other substance use. Examples of appropriate questions include assessment of whether a patient has a substance use disorder, how to manage withdrawal, how to initiate pharmacotherapy, and how to link to outpatient care.

Who the Service is Available to: This UCSF Health consult service is available for all inpatients at Parnassus. We are focusing our initial outreach on Hospital Medicine, ID, General Surgery, and Cardiology given the heavy burden of substance use on these patient populations. 

Saj Patel will be the next co-chair of the UCSF Utilization Management Committee, taking over for Adrienne Green. 

Smitha Ganeshan will be the new Unit Based Leadership Team (UBLT) Director.

Himali Weerahandi received a grant through the California Collaborative for Pandemic Recovery & Readiness Research (CPR³) for her study "Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC) as Accelerated Disability and Need for Health Services in Older Adults with Baseline Impairments."

Himali also received an administrative supplement to expand her K23 work examining discharge practices from skilled nursing facility to home to include patients with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. 

As a SFMMS Board of Director along with the SFMMS president Dr. Heyman Oo, Yalda Shahram attended the Planned Parenthood event, Acts of Courage, on June 17 and met Nancy Pelosi. 

Registration for Tea House 2023-2024 is open.

DHM Social Activities

Staff's farewell gathering on June 8th to celebrate Natalia Loaiza!

DHM at Hospital Medicine CME courses in Hawaii from June 19-23! More pictures are available to view in Box.

Liz Dzeng published a comparative ethnographic study in JAMA Internal Medicine that describes how hospital cultures and institutional structures contribute to potentially non-beneficial high-intensity life-sustaining treatments near the end of life. Hospital policies, structures, protocols, and resources either encourage or thwart physician attempts to de-escalate non-beneficial life-sustaining treatments against the American default of aggressive end-of-life care.

Teddy Peng, Laura Derry, Vid Yogeswaran, and Nora Goldschlager were coauthors on a review of commotio cordis that was accepted in Sports Medicine which discusses Damar Hamlin's recent cardiac arrest, the importance of rapid recognition of commotio cordis, as well as efforts to reduce fatal outcomes from cardiac arrest in athletes.

Ethel Wu

"Patient and her husband really appreciate Ethel Wu's communication, great bedside manner, explaining everything so thoroughly and answering all their questions."

-Nurse Rounding Recognition - Professionalism, Respect, Integrity, Excellence 

Erin Yao-Cohen and Aline Zorian

"I want to thank Erin Yao-Cohen and Aline Zorian for their amazing care on a jeopardy Goldman service. It can be hard to come into an active patient list on jeopardy, but the thoroughness of the care, notes, and signout from both Erin and Aline made it so much easier and better for patients. You both are such amazing physicians!" 

-Smitha Ganeshan