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Division of Infectious Diseases

New Staff Spotlight

Please join us in welcoming Phil Chung, an Infectious Diseases pharmacist, to the Division of Infectious Diseases. Phil will serve as a pharmacist supporting the Community Outreach Pharmacy Coordinator for the Nebraska Antimicrobial Stewardship Assessment and Promotion Program (ASAP).

Tell us about your background:

Phil is originally from Hong Kong and en route to us here in Omaha he has live in several locations around the country including Brooklyn, NY; Lexington, KY; Cleveland, OH and most recently, Bronx, NY.

Why UNMC?

I was attracted to UNMC by the progressive nature of pharmacy practice in this institution.  Secondly, my current position as a community outreach Antimicrobial Stewardship pharmacist for long-term care facilities and critical access hospitals is an exciting opportunity and relatively new avenue for ASP.

What about ID makes you excited?

There is a third party (the bug) in ID that needs to kept in considerations.  Because of that, sometimes a little more thinking is required.

Tell us something interesting about yourself UNRELATED to medicine:

I have 2 cats. They are both great but both have issues (one with hairball issue and the other is overweight).

See more about the UNMC ID and ASP programs at: https://www.unmc.edu/intmed/divisions/id/index.html and http://www.nebraskamed.com/careers/education-programs/asp

SO Much to Celebrate!! Presentations, St. Patrick’s Day and MATCH DAY!!!

Today is a HUGE day! It is MATCH day and we are celebrating the many successes of our students. We may or may not also partake in some GREEN-inspired treats for St. Patrick’s Day as we celebrate!
Here at UNMC we have a Comprehensive HIV Medicine Track as one of the competitive Enhanced Medical Education Tracks (EMET) offered through the College of Medicine. Students apply for these tracks during their first year of medical school and, if accepted, are given the opportunity to perform in-depth study of an interdisciplinary field of medicine that enhances the required curriculum without extending the time needed to graduate from medical school.
Yesterday we had THREE fourth year student present their capstone projects (see below) and we are very proud of them. What an amazing week that is full of excitement and celebrations! Congratulations to Sarah Lee, Jordan Broekhuis and Andrew Braith on your presentations and we wish you nothing but the best today!
Learn more about EMET tracks at: https://www.unmc.edu/com/curriculum/special-programs/emet.html

Dr. Vanschooneveld on “Why I Love ID”

WHY I LOVE ID: 

“I love ID for four reasons.  First, is I actually can cure people of their disease.  Second, I get to solve puzzles that others can’t.  Third, in my roles in antibiotic stewardship and infection control I get to improve patient care and prevent infection in whole groups of people.  Finally, I love the opportunity to teach trainees and other clinicians about how to manage various infections.”

– Trevor Vanschooneveld, MD, FACP

 

See more about Dr. Vanschooneveld and the UNMC Infectious Disease Division at https://www.unmc.edu/intmed/divisions/id/index.html

UNMC ID had a strong presence at CROI – Read on for details!!

The UNMC HIV team traveled to Seattle to attend CROI (Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections) last month and came back inspired and eager to continue our clinical and research endeavors here in Omaha.

Dr. Susan Buchbinder, chair of the Scientific Program Committee opened the conference with a warm welcome to all conference attendees hailing from over 90 different countries. The opening and plenary lectures were all dynamic and topics ranged from the work done in HIV prevention using nonhuman primate models by Jeffrey Lifson to the innovative efforts to eliminate new HIV infections in New York City by the inimitable Dr. Demetre Daskalakis. The oral presentations can be found here.

We learned that the number of new HIV infections in the United States is finally beginning to decline thanks in large part to treatment as prevention and PrEP and heard about many new and investigational therapies.  Research presentations covered a wide range of topics and UNMC’s HIV team presented a number of studies in the areas of pharmacology, PrEP, comorbidities, and TB.

  • Jordan Broekhuis, a 4th year medical student and participant in the HIV Enhanced Medical Education Track at UNMC presented his findings from a survey study of pharmacists in Nebraska and Iowa in which he found that although respondents had limited knowledge and experience with PrEP, most indicated willingness to provide PrEP through collaborative practice agreements after additional training.  See photo above.
  • Anthony Podany, Pharm.D. and Assistant Professor in the College of Pharmacy presented data from a PK study of plasma and intracellular tenofovir levels in patients switched from TDF to TAF.
  • Sara H. Bares, MD and Assistant Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases presented findings from a pooled study of 3 ACTG trials in which her team found that women gain more weight than men following the initiation of ART.
  • Kim Scarsi, Pharm.D. and Associate Professor in the College of Pharmacy was a coauthor and mentor on the first two studies listed above and also presented a poster on her work on an in vitro-in silico study of reduced dose efavirenz interaction with levonorgesterol.
  • Susan Swindells, MBBS, Professor of Medicine and Medical Director of the UNMC HIV Clinic, was a coauthor and mentor for the first two studies listed above and also presented two studies she has contributed to as a leader in the ACTG’s Tuberculosis Transformative Science Group. The first poster related to HIV testing uptake among household contacts of MDR-TB index cases in 8 countries and the second poster reported on the early bactericidal effect of INH during the first 14 days of TB therapy.

 

We are glad to be back home in Omaha but inspired to continue our research endeavors both locally and in collaboration with many of the people we connected with at CROI 2017.

Written by Dr. Sara Bares.

New Staff Spotlight

Please join us in welcoming Jolene Tijerina to the Division of Infectious Diseases. Jolene will serve as a Nurse Practitioner supporting the Oncology Infectious Diseases section. Previously, Jolene served as a Clinical Research Coordinator with the Division of Oncology and Hematology.

Tell us about your background:

I worked here doing non-therapeutic research prior to going back and getting my BSN at Creighton through their accelerated program.  Worked at Children’s for 2 years on their IMC (step down from PICU) floor with kiddos with lung transplants, vent requirements, ICP etc. Then came back here in 2011 where I was a clinical research nurse coordinator in oncology working with lung, brain, melanoma, and sarcoma patients while on clinical trials.

Why UNMC?

UNMC has such a great reputation as being a stellar institute and I love that it is a learning/teaching hospital that actually puts a lot of emphasis on that aspect.  I have worked here on and off for over 10 years with a short break at Children’s after I graduated with my BSN but always wanted to come back here.

What about ID makes you excited?

ID – what’s there not to get excited about?!?!  It seems to be changing daily.  I was in oncology research prior to starting here in oncology ID so it is somewhat of a learning curve as I mainly worked in solid tumor (lung, melanoma, brain, sarcoma) prior to being a NP.  I love learning new things and if I could be a professional student I probably would but I have bills to pay.  So ID gives me that and I am always learning something new every day.

Tell us something interesting about yourself UNRELATED to medicine:

I grew up in a military family.  My dad served in the Navy on submarines for 20 years so have lived on both coasts and I am somewhat of an adrenalin junky.  Love to zipline and skydive and hope to go parasailing this summer!

See more about the UNMC ID Division at: https://www.unmc.edu/intmed/divisions/id/index.html

Fostering Interest in ID among Students – For Students and By Students

The UNMC Infectious Diseases Interest Group (IDIG) is a student organization that focuses on educating health profession students about the field of infectious diseases. The IDIG also seeks to garner interest in and promote investigation of a career in infectious disease. In the past year, the IDIG at UNMC has hosted several lunch meetings, including a tour of the Nebraska Medicine biocontainment unit, a panel of infectious disease specialists, and a viewing of “Monsters Inside Me” followed by a discussion of relevant parasitology with infectious disease specialists.
 
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Thursday, March 2nd they had a lunch meeting with a panel of trainees interested in pursuing ID. The goal of this meeting was to provide an opportunity for current medical students to hear about how they chose their residency speciality (IM or peds) and what the residency application process looks like. The panelists also discussed how medical students can increase their exposure to the field of infectious diseases during M3 and M4 clerkships.  It went very well and we had a great turn out (about 35 students attended the meeting)! At our meeting we had Logan Jones, an M4 interested in infectious diseases, Dr. Denisa Majorant, an ID fellow, Dr. Richard Hankins, an internal medicine resident, and Dr. Gwenn Skar, a third year peds ID fellow, on our panel. They offered insight into the residency process, the ID fellowship, and a career in infectious diseases. 

UPCOMING EVENTS:
Thursday, April 6th they will have an interdisciplinary lunch meeting with different members of the infectious disease team (both ID specialized pediatrics and internal medicine physicians, PAs, nurses, pharmacists, etc.) discussing their roles in infectious disease cases. Our goal for this lunch meeting is to help students from all disciplines across campus see how interprofessionalism and teamwork functions in the ID setting. They also hope our PA, nursing, and pharmacy guests will educate students about their path to ID for students who may be interested in careers in ID.

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