James Kruer, MD Internal Medicine Residency Program Director
I am pleased to announce that the Internal Medicine (IM) residency program has named our inaugural PGY-3 chief residents for the 2021 – 2022 academic year.
The PGY-3 chief program gives recognition to those who are willing to do something extra to improve our GME Internal Medicine residency program to make it better tomorrow than it is today.
The PGY-3 position is not recognized by the ABIM in terms of rotational credit for sitting for the boards. Work done as the PGY-3 Chief is in addition to regular rotation requirements and daily work, and where possible, we’ll give some administrative time to be successful. The position is unpaid monetarily but highly rewarding! The Chief resident will build their CV and mentoring development skills in the areas of medical knowledge, clinical skills, administration, research, teaching and service – to name a few!
Chiefs for 2021-2022 academic year are:
IM PGY-3 Chief of Research
The IM residency program and Dr. Louise Jones announce three exceptional candidates – Wesley Field, MD; Young Min Cho, MD; and Shivang Danak, MD. These lucky three will be mentored by Dr. Jones in research and in teaching research. They will also mentor a portion of our research projects in the IM residency and will help in teaching research topics during Research Week and throughout the year in areas like CoRE and other lectures.
IM PGY-3 Chief of Quality and Safety
William Russell, DO was selected to work with Dr. Kruer and Mr. Zach Dunkerly, GME director of patient safety and quality, to work on quality and safety for the residency. Some things that Dr. Russell will work on with Mr. Dunkerly is to improve and design teaching on safety, mentor residents in their QI projects, increase resident engagement in safety huddles, and potentially work to help design some simulations in safety huddle facilitation for residents.
IM PGY-3 Chief for Medical Education
Rob Oberman, DO will be working with Drs. Kruer, Newcomb and Fombi to assist in organizing and coordinating our medical student education as well as getting mentorship in teaching. Dr. Oberman will also be helping with designing experiences in teaching skills for the IM residents. With a steady flow of new students coming this year from MCG/UGA and PCOM (along with the myriad of other students from schools seeking to train at NGMC) we will be counting on Drs. Oberman and Fombi to help translate existing curriculum for medicals students into excellent training here on campus during their rotations with us.
IM PGY-3 Chief in Ambulatory Medicine
Amy Kaur (Kapoor), DO will be working with Drs. Kruer and Umana to assist the IM residency in all things related to ambulatory education. She will assist with the ambulatory block lectures, teaching population health and supporting residents in the many complexities around strengthening their understanding of how to be successful in ambulatory practice. Amy has a lot of enthusiasm for this area of medicine and has great thoughts in helping all residents feel successful in ambulatory practice no matter what their future chosen specialty.
IM PGY-3 Chief Critical Care
Martin Herrera, DO will be working with Dr. Kruer and the Critical Care team, including Dr. Raybon-Rojas and Kevin Charles along with other great attendings in the MICU, to improve the critical care didactics in the MICU rotation, design Canvas modules on critical care, and work on supporting resident needs in areas like procedures, simulation and research/publishing. He will also work collaboratively with our PGY-4 Chief Resident Dr. Rachana Mendpara in this area as well. Together, they will be helping to make a robust and exciting learning environment in the MICU.
IM PGY-3 Chief Pulmonary
Sameena Salcin, MD will be working with Drs. McDonald and Arfoosh to enhance the teaching and learning in the pulmonary rotations, which include the PGY-1 rotations at NGPG Gainesville and Pulmonary & Sleep Medicine in Braselton/Dacula/Winder. She has some great visions for designing Canvas modules as well as enhancing the learning of pulmonary concepts for those on pulmonary rotations.
IM PGY-3 Chiefs Cardiology
Similar to research and critical care, the cardiology team found more than one applicant to be visionary in terms of ideas for curriculum development and enhancement.
Alex Adams, DO and Tariq Odeh, MD are being named co-chiefs in cardiology. After interviewing with Drs. Adigopula and Ghasemzadeh, it was felt that having two chiefs would make the role more exciting and collaborative. Besides that, there is plenty of work to do to enhance the curriculum with training modules and lectures. The two chiefs will be working to help design EKG lectures to augment our rotational curriculum. They will divide and conquer to focus on separate areas of cardiology. Dr. Odeh will be focusing more on EP and noninvasive, and Dr. Adams will be working on heart failure and interventional cardiology areas to augment the resident curriculum and learning.
I hope you will join me in helping to provide support, mentorship and coaching for our PGY-3 chiefs in the Internal Medicine residency. These added experiences will ensure they are exceptional leaders upon graduation. Chief resident responsibilities are some of the most memorable and educational for those who do them.
Welcome to your new roles, team! To learn more, visit ngmcgme.org.