Hematology/Oncology continues to be a rapidly evolving field of internal medicine. This evolution is seen by our fellows throughout their clinical training – in many cases, therapies that we provide today did not exist, or were only in early studies, when our current 3rd year fellows began their fellowship training in 2017. It is certainly an exciting time to become a hematology/oncology physician, and our UVA team is engaged in many projects that are helping drive improved outcomes for our patients.
Our fellows are an integral part of the quickly changing therapeutic landscape in hematology/oncology. Along with multiple faculty mentors, our fellows were a part of 7 poster or oral presentations at the American Society of Hematology national meeting in December 2019. The UVA Cancer Center continues to generously support our fellows with research funding through the Farrow Endowed Research Fund, and we also will soon have a new opportunity to fund fellow investigation through the Weiss Endowed Fund, given by our former division chief Geoff Weiss MD and his family.
In addition to academic endeavors, our fellows continue to drive change within our program. Pooja Mehra led an effort through the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Quality Training Program to adjust our call structure as a way to reduce burnout among fellows. With Trish Millard MD as the champion, we continued to grow our resiliency curriculum to hopefully teach fellows healthy strategies to managing the inherent stress in our discipline. Lastly, we modified and re-developed a clinical research program with the help of Amy Bouton, PhD, the UVA Cancer Center Associate Director for Education and Michael Devitt MD.
Lastly, we graduated four fellows in 2019 – Abeer Alfaraj MD, Puja Arora MD, Carolyn Carrera MD, and Lindsey Hathaway MD; a few days later we welcomed three new fellows – Christian Barlow MD, David Riley MD, and Lindsey Shantzer MD. We continue to have a highly sought after fellowship – over 350 applicants applied for our 3 positions during the 2019 – 2020 application cycle, and we look forward to welcoming 3 new fellows into our program in July 2020.
Filed Under: DOM in the News, Education, News and Notes
Tags: DOM, Education, Hematology, medicine matters, oncology