CENTRAL FLORIDA

Orlando Health

By Gregory Black, MD, PGY-2, Brody Hingst, MD, PGY-2 & John Atiyeh, MD, PGY-3

Hello from Orlando! We hope that everyone is staying healthy and safe. As we begin our summer, we all take a collective sigh of frustration for what has been an incredibly difficult year thus far. We are facing the worst global pandemic of our lifetimes and continue to be diligent and cautious as COVID-19 still remains prevalent in our community. Additionally, we witnessed yet another heinous act of police brutality against our Black community followed by immediate nationwide outrage and protests calling for change to our broken system.

Orlando Health has always strived to be a loving and unified family. In the essence of these ideals, the EM residency organized a “Healthcare Workers for Black Lives” protest in the lobby of the hospital where

By Tyler Mills, MD, PGY-1

Hello again from all your EM friends at AdventHealth East Orlando. It has been an eventful academic year full of many exciting challenges and changes. We congratulate Drs. Molins, Gue and Tomecsek on their new positions, and we look forward to meeting our new assistant program director, whose move was delayed by the coronavirus— congratulations, Dr. Little! The 2019-2020 academic year will be a memorable one for EM programs everywhere, and our program is no exception. The interns showed continuous growth in their new roles and adapted well to the additional challenges of training during a pandemic. On the research front, interns made significant contributions as well. Dr. Duan has already completed his first project on palliative care we knelt in honor of George Floyd for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. We heard many wonderful speeches from our amazing colleagues about inequality in our country and how we can continue the fight for equality moving forward. We are so proud of our residents, Drs. Beaulah Castor, Innocent Akujuobi and Agi Gaetig, for organizing this and bringing us together with love and support. The conversation will continue moving forward at Orlando Health with focus groups and meeting spaces for how we can help fight inequality in our community. Please remember that we have a responsibility as leaders in our community to seek reform for the systemic racism that exists in every facet of our nation, including healthcare. And we have a responsibility to our patients to look inter

AdventHealth East Orlando

nally and identify our own internal consults in the ED and is waiting to publish. Dr. Ray seeks to maximize engagement and capitalize on the popularity of our “jeopardy board review.” He is awaiting approval to begin his project on “gamification” of EM education. We are eager to apply his findings so we can incorporate more competitive elements into the weekly conference. Second-years Dr. Muniz and Dr. Lawyer have joined forces to create tutorial videos for newcomers to the ED. The instructional videos—which include topics like documentation and order sets— will help interns and rotators hit the ground running. Senior resident Dr. Mays wrote a review article on frostbite and hypothermia and was paid for her work. biases and overcome them.

If you have not done so already, please find out who your local and national representatives are and message them about making change, and most importantly, VOTE. Primary elections are on August 18 and the Florida general election is November 3.

We want to close by saying thank you to all of our graduating thirdyear residents. Thank you so much for all of your teaching and wisdom. You guys are all awesome and we are going to miss you so much! And finally, we are so excited to welcome our entire new intern class! July 1 couldn’t come soon enough. Don’t forget to keep living like Sal! ■

for the new interns to start so we can get to know them, but we are sad that this time of year also means saying goodbye to our third year class. They survived three hurricane seasons and a global pandemic to get to this point. They graduated in style (via Zoom) with their legacy secure. They were a strong class academically and clinically across the board, but they were also well-liked. They were a nursing favorite and built close friendships with their intern class. We will miss seeing all their faces everyday, but find solace in the fact that most are staying nearby. Drs. Marin, Parrish and Kim will be staying in the Advent Family and accepted positions at nearby campuses. Dr. Ramadan, one of our chiefs, won’t be too far from home after he moves his young family to Jacksonville. ■

UCF/HCA at Ocala Regional

By Caroline Smith, MD, PGY-3, Emily Clark, MD, PGY-2 & Jean Laubinger, MD, PGY-2

UCF Ocala would like to congratulate the Class of 2020, our inaugural residency class. In the past three years, the program has grown from seven to 21 residents and has seen hospital expansion with a new emergency department at Ocala Regional, two new free-standing emergency departments, and a new designation as a comprehensive stroke center. We’re very thankful for the enthusiasm, work and dedication of the inaugural class in shaping the program into a great place to learn and work. Ocala has two new faculty members from the class: Lee Barker, DO and Samyr Elbadri, MD. Dr. Elbadri is staying

By Amber Mirajkar, MD, PGY-3

It is the end of another academic year and, and like so many other programs, we have seen our Emergency Department changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. As front line providers, the job proves especially arduous, but our residents have risen to the challenge. From systematic reviews of aerosolizing literature (which led to a publication), to the widespread use of respirators — Drs. Andrew Hanna and James Chiang have led the way for provider safety. Despite COVID-19, our research interests remain strong. A case of a rare, ruptured hepatic artery aneurysm was published in conjunction with the trauma surgery department by Drs. Amber Mirajkar, Ayanna Walker, Amanda Webb, and Sanjiv Gray. Drs. Alexandra Craen and Gideon Logan published a case of subarachnoid hemorrhage in a COVID-19 positive patient. Our Associate Program Director, Dr. Tracy MacIntosh, researched disparities in opioid pain management for our paon as core faculty and simulation director for the residency program. Michael Ferras, MD is starting his EMS fellowship at VCU in Richmond, VA. Joe Gibney, MD is working in Washington, D.C.; Jason Lippert, MD is working Nashville, TN; Nick McCauley, MD is working in Milwaukee, WI; and Vir Singh, MD is working in Brownsville, TX, where he will also serve as associate faculty for UT Rio Grande Valley. We are proud of the new graduates and wish them all the best in their careers (and in passing the boards).

We’re excited to start the new actients with long bone fractures. Even our alumni carry the research spirit, with Drs. Amanda Webb, Nick Kramer and Leoh Leon II affirming that an increase in delta lactate corresponds with increased mortality in septic patients. And, we have many more publications in the works. The end of the academic year is a bittersweet time. Our PGY-3s graduated on Thursday, June 11, and we already miss them dearly. We wish all of them all the best in the next stage of their lives. At graduation, we also recognized the amazing faculty that make our program wonderful with several awards. Dr. Nubaha Elahi received the Educational Excellence Award, and Dr. Ayanna Walker received the Clinical Excellence and Professionalism Award. Despite the loss of our PGY-3s, our family continues to grow with a fantastic new class of interns. Drs. Jeffrey Adams, Jonathan Littell, Jovans Lorquet, Martin Morales, Marvi Qureshi, Mihir

ademic year and welcome our new residents and faculty. This year, Caroline Smith, MD, Nicholas Titelbaum, MD, and Aaron Umansky, MD will serve as chief residents. Nathan George, MD will hold most of the power in the residency program in his role as scheduling chief. This year’s leadership plans to emphasize scholarly activities and resident wellness. We continued our intern boot camp this year with simulation and procedure workshops led by the second- and third-year residents. We’re excited for the program to continue

UCF/HCA of Greater Orlando

to grow along with our new class. ■

Tak and Adam Oswald started on July 1 with intern boot camp, and we cannot wait to welcome them to UCF and Osceola.

Our residency is also involved in pre-hospital medicine. PGY-2s and PGY-3s now act as medical control on shift, providing guidance and medication orders for Osceola, Kissimmee and St. Cloud EMS services. We are fortunate to work with Dr. Walker, one of the medical directors for Osceola County, and Dr. Banerjee, the medical director for Polk County. Furthermore, our SIM director, Dr. Nubaha Elahi, Dr. Walker and Dr. Keegan McNally, PGY-2 have started using virtual SIM to help teach our EMS crews. We are always working to build on our friendships with our paramedic colleagues.

We hope everyone stays safe in these uncertain times, and we are looking forward to a promising new academic year. ■