I would like to nominate Lilian Bizzocchi as resident of the month.  She has been doing an absolutely fantastic job on the floors. She is incredibly dedicated to her patients and has gone above and beyond to make sure each patient gets the best care possible. "Impossible" does not appear to be a part of her vocabulary. She will jump any hurdles and go to any length to get the patients the studies that they need. We have a particularly difficult/complicated who is being followed by at least three subspecialty teams and has required an extensive workup; she has managed to coordinate the subspecialty teams as well as diagnostic suites in order to get the patient's workup done. There have many more examples of this through this time.  Her fund of knowledge is exceptional and she is able to seamlessly integrate it into a concise plan of care for the patient. She has been a role model for the junior members of the team.  In short she's highly efficient, extremely detail oriented and has shown superb leadership skills.  She is an outstanding physician with a wonderful outlook for life, a great team player who undoubtedly  has a bright future ahead of her.

I will like to nominate Priyanka Mathias for her outstanding job as an smr in September. In addition to several follow-ups that I assigned to her, where she did a phenomenal job, she made two life saving decisions on young patients this month, and went out of her way to get diagnostic/imaging studies done for these patients to expedite triage. One patient in particular was a young guy with massive pneumonedistinum, where she convinced ED and radiology teams to get esophagogram done in a timely manner. Second lady was admitted with severe TTP and Priyanka coordinated with critical care, hematology and primary medicine team to ensure patient gets started on plasmapharesis on the day of admission. I think these are perfect examples of how an SMR should function.- and the educational value this rotation can bring in with resident autonomy.

I would nominate Teferi for ROM. His management of the team was excellent and his clinical judgment was superb. He portrayed excellent leadership and Interpersonal skills with the team and support staff.

 

I would like to nominate Dr. Kavisha Patel for resident of the month. Last week she accomplished a nearly insurmountable task with her patient. She gained his trust. Sounds silly, but this particular patient has a long standing history of mistrusting anything at all to do with the medical community. Kavisha took the time to learn about this patient and actively listen to what he had to say. He has been in this hospital since June 6^th and asked if he can go out for some fresh air. Not only did Kavisha take him outside, but she was able to gain his trust. He trusted her enough to tell her what he was hoping for, and that was to go home. She was also able to have an in-depth conversation with him about his disease, how it will impact his future and his prognosis. By the end of this conversation he expressed his desire to die peacefully & naturally, and most of all not being attached to machines to maintain his life. He was also eager to return home and was willing to have hospice involved in his care. I’m very happy to tell you that Mr. PB is being d/c’d today with home hospice and when I spoke to him this morning he was so appreciative of the care he received from Dr. Patel. Speaking with Kavisha I told her this was her “ah ha” moment since it made her remember why she wanted to be a physician. Personally, I always believed Kavisha to be a wonderful physician, but she has now entered the realm of being a “Shining Star”. The time, effort and insightfulness she put into this case should be commended & recognized.

I nominate Kavisha Patel. The housestaff working in the CCU when Dr Patel was there were all terrific, and, frankly, they all deserve special mention. However, Dr. Patel, in addition to doing great work taking care of cardiac patients and gently teaching her July interns how to work in a CCU, she went above and beyond with a patient who is dying of ischemic cardiomyopathy. He felt claustrophobic inside, and she stayed late repeatedly in order to be able to take him outside on the 4D patio—these breaks kept his claustrophobia under control, providing a real comfort for this patient at end of his life.

We would like to nominate Max Jang for Resident of the Month.  Overall he is a great member of our housestaff  (in regards to his performance as a resident)  but in addition to this Max has gone above an beyond this year to do everything he can to help the program. Max has made it his mission to help out by making himself our unofficial department photographer. He's come in post night shifts to take pictures of the MFPC, Dr. Schubart's retirement party he's done the same for some other projects in the clinic as well as many other occasions. During our picnic he was going around snapping pictures instead of relaxing and eating. We strongly believe that his effort should be recognized and rewarded.

Hey Dr. G, I would like to nominate Ephraim Leiderman for Resident of the month. He is simply amazing. He has an incredible thirst of knowledge, super motivated, always eager to know everything about all the patients in the team. He has a special ability to keep the patients 100% involved during his superb presentations. He presents the cases from the top of his head and always has appropriate plans. He is performing at a resident level. Ephraim is definitely chief material.

Neal Rakesh...I worked with Neal on Orange for 2 weeks and then for 2 weeks on ACS.
He questioned everything and also brought fresh insights to established "truths" in the context of our rounds. He is thinking, thoughtful, constantly questioning--and most importantly always seeking evidenced/plausibility based explanations that could be translated into clinical practice. But his consummate intellectual curiosity was/is matched by his solicitude toward and advocacy for his patients. He had great rapport with patients and families. Like all of our great Jacobi house staff, he spared no effort to gather the necessary data (history, phone calls, physical exam, chart review) and to execute plans to aid our patients.
It is always hard to name just one resident of the month...but he was my resident of the month these last 2 rotations!!

I would like to nominate Jesus Gonzalez Lugo.

 

Palliative Care is consulted on one of his patients and we had a family meeting this week. It was evident from the patient’s mother and patient herself, the time that Dr. Gonzalez has spent educating and providing support. It is a difficult clinical scenario which has been fraught with uncertainty about prognosis and scant viable treatment options. The family was well informed and even remarked in the meeting how they at times did have confusion surrounding her care, but with the information and explanations provided by Dr. Gonzalez they now had a better understanding.

 

Also, in my discussions with Dr. Gonzalez about the case his empathy and dedication towards providing comprehensive care for his patient shines through; going beyond just the medical and pharmacologic treatments but also supporting her emotionally throughout her illness and being a strong advocate for her.

 

His actions in this case epitomizes for me what being a truly good physician entails; as even when we cannot cure we always can care, and make sure patients and their families are supported during their illness.

Dr. Teferi is such a quiet resident and I hadn't had the pleasure of working with him on any rotations, but when he was day float, we all noted that he presented cases very thoroughly, with well organized plans. He was calling families, pharmacies, NH, PMDs. His orders were always complete. He always made sure all things were wrapped up for all his admissions before he left for the day. His notes are very well written - the history, physical, assessment and plan - you can clearly see his thought process and he always includes all the information hes gathered from outside sources.. Even the spelling and spacing is perfect in his notes. I was impressed to see such great work and dedication to patient care. He is going to be a great doctor to his patients wherever he decides to go - the fellowship or hospitalist route!

I would like to nominate Jeremy Miles for resident of the month. 

He is organized, hard-working and efficient. With patient's and families, he is very caring and understanding even in the most difficult situations. He is truly a super-intern and he is going to be an amazing resident soon!