SOUTH FLORIDA EM RESIDENCY PROGRAM UPDATES
Florida Atlantic University By Dr. Elizabeth Calhoun, PGY-2
Greetings from Florida Atlantic University! This has been quite an interesting season. Our small, lively group has managed to turn even WebEx residency conferences into interactive didactic sessions. Our ED volumes sank transiently due to the pandemic, but are now leveling out to a high-acuity-normal. We will greatly miss our program’s first graduation class, wishing the best for Drs. Damien Carracedo, Matt Wallace, Sean Argo, Daniel Parks, Jeff Klein and Ben Mazer. With most of our graduates continuing to practice in Florida, we are glad they are able to stay in the sunshine. We are excited to welcome our new interns: Drs. Tony Bruno, Tim Buckley, Collin Hickey, Daniella Lamour, Chris Williams and Miheal Plantak. We wish everyone a safe summer as we return to our new normal. ■
Kendall Regional Medical Center By Ibrahim Hasan, MD, Kristina Drake, MD & Sara Zagroba, MD, PGY-3s Emergency Medicine Residency Co-Chiefs Kendall’s EM residents would like to welcome our new intern class to the family! As of this summer, we now have all three years of residency classes on board. We have a great new class and are excited to get to know them better. This has been an exciting year for Kendall Regional Emergency Medicine. Our residents recently participated in the ACEP national SIM Wars competition in Denver, CO, where we took second place. This was under the guidance and training of our Simulation Director and Associate Program Director, Dr. Antionette Golden. The team trained hard throughout the year, coming in early mornings before conferences and shifts to run practice cases.
More exciting news is that Kendall Regional Emergency Medicine will be welcoming its first round of fellows for our new ultrasound fellowship! This fellowship will be under the guidance of Dr. Moises Moreno, our ultrasound director, as well as Drs. Emilio Volz and Nicole Aviles, who are ultrasound fellows. This tremendous milestone could not have been done without the hard work and dedication of our program leadership and staff. We are tempted to say that our program has one of the best ultrasound curriculums in the country! Residents become experts in bedside ultrasound under the guidance of these great teachers and mentors, and now to add two fellows. ■
Mount Sinai Medical Center By Stephanie Fernandez, MD, PGY-3 Greetings from Mount Sinai! First we’d like to extend a warm welcome to our new intern class, Drs. Matthew Apicella, Alyssa Eily, Ilya Luschitsky, Brijesh Patel, Dominique Pinzon, Daniel Puebla and Christopher Wong—we are excited to see such promising talent! Our residents continue to thrive in the “new normal” following COVID-19. Residents are engaging in weekly online didactics. Drs. Stephanie Fernandez and Fenil Patel presented posters in the virtual 30
AAEM conference. We also look forward to hosting our colleagues in South Florida residencies during our annual Ultrasound Workshop in July. As the academic year concludes, we extend a bittersweet farewell not only to our PGY-3 class, but to our core faculty member, Dr. Laurie Boge. We are lucky to have worked with such an outstanding clinician and value her dedication, guidance and friendship. Lastly, in light of recent sobering EMpulse Summer 2020
events, our program has taken the time to reflect and open a dialogue regarding disparities within the medical field as well as society as a whole. We aim to look inward to confront our inherent biases and strive to support justice and equality for our colleagues and our patients. From Mount Sinai, we wish you all a safe and successful new academic year. ■
