Thanksgiving is celebrated on the 4th Thursday of November. This holiday is typically associated with the Plymouth settlers in the colony of Massachusetts, commonly known as the Pilgrims, who in 1621 held a harvest festival celebrating a successful growing season. However, the first recorded Thanksgiving services were actually recorded in what is now the Commonwealth of Virginia as early as 1607. Thanksgiving became a national holiday via a proclamation by President George Washington in 1789 but it was President Lincoln in 1863 who officially proclaimed it a national holiday as a means to heal the national populace during the Civil War.
The food typically served on Thanksgiving has not changed much since 1621: turkey, potatoes, green beans, stuffing, cranberries, and pumpkin pie. Our family tradition is a turkey cooked on a Weber grill, mashed potatoes, cranberries (both a home-made relish and the out-of-the-can Ocean Spray cranberry jelly), Kathy’s family-favorite dressing, and of course, a pumpkin and apple pie for dessert.
While Thanksgiving is most often observed as a day of celebration and thanks, indigenous peoples observe this holiday as a day national day of mourning. Given what we have all experienced with COVID over the past year, it is probably appropriate to celebrate the development of vaccines that provided so many of us the ability to care for patients and begin to once again enjoy activities that we took for granted just 2 years ago, but also mourn the loss of over 757, 000 Americans who so far have died as a result of this pandemic.
I am immensely thankful for the selfless dedication and hard work of all the Duke Division of Urology faculty, residents and fellows, advanced practice providers, medical assistants, nurses, our administrative staff, research staff and all of our alumni. I want to wish you all a safe, warm, healthy, and thoroughly enjoyable Thanksgiving!
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DUKE MEDICAL STUDENTS LEAD INAUGURAL UROLOGY OLYMPICS
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Last month, medical students Hayley Premo (class of 2023) and Madison Kirschak (class of 2022) were course directors who conceived, planned, and executed the first ever Urology Olympics for first year medical students. They enlisted the help of visiting medical student Morgan Sturgis (Rush Medical College, class of 2022), Kosta Morris (Duke medical student, class of 2022) and urology residents Gabrielle McNary MD and Leonid Aksenov MD. Twenty first year students had a great hands-on experience learning suturing, knot tying, catheter placement, cystoscopy, and ureteroscopy. Ms. Kirschak and Ms. Premo identified and addressed a critical need for hands-on training for their more junior medical students as evidenced by the fact that the sign up for the course filled in under 15 minutes!
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Karen Baker MD, Director of Medical Student Urology Education, guides a student through flexible cystoscopy of a pumpkin.
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DUKE RESIDENTS CONTINUE RECORD OF EXCELLENCE ON AMERICAN BOARD OF UROLOGY QUALIFYING EXAM
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We recently learned that once again all of our graduating chief residents passed the Qualifying Examination for the American Board of Urology (aka, the "written boards") given in July 2021. The mean score of our residents was well above the national average. Even more remarkable, this represents a string of over ten years that all of our graduates have passed the exam on the first try - a rare feat for any program and a mark of the exceptional quality of the Duke Urology training program.
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The following Duke Urology faculty members were recognized for their scholarship and contributions to the School of Medicine by being promoted in academic rank:
Brant Inman MD MS - Professor
Michael Lipkin MD MBA - Associate Professor with Tenure
J. Todd Purves MD PhD - Associate Professor with Tenure
Jonathan Routh MD MPH - Associate Professor with Tenure
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L-R: Gary Faerber, Todd Purves, Jonathan Routh, and Glenn Preminger
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L-R: Glenn Preminger, Mike Lipkin, Brant Inman, and Gary Faerber
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Brant Inman MD MS stepped down as representative for the NCCN Bladder/Penile Cancer Panel after 10 years of service. Michael Abern MD will assume his position on this prestigious panel.
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Drew Peterson, MD, was approved by the Residency Review Committee for Urology to act as Residency Program Director for Duke Urology. The residency program recently received routine full accreditation with 100% passage for the Qualifying and Certifying American Board of Urology Examinations.
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J. Todd Purves MD PhD as awarded funding from Allergan to participate in a Phase 4 study of Gelnique® transdermal form of oxybutynin in children.
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Thomas J. Polascik, MD, received a 5 year $500,000 grant from the Vranos Family Foundation to support his research in focal therapy of urologic cancers.
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Thomas J. Polascik MD has led efforts of the Duke Prostate Cancer Screening Program along with others in Urology, Duke Primary Care, Medical Oncology, Radiology and the Duke Cancer Institute. This work was selected as a Best Poster at this year’s Society of Urologic Oncology annual meeting.
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Gabrielle McNary MD’s research project: “UUI-IR: distinguishing a subtype of urgency urinary incontinence based on molecular profiling” was awarded Best Overall Paper at the American Urogynecology Program in Phoenix last month. She is working under the tutelage of Nazema Siddiqui MD, Cindy Amundsen MD, and Susan Murphy MD in the Department of OB-GYN.
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Maryellen Kelly DNP was named a co-investigator for the POSITRON-C (Defining the Safety and Efficacy of POSterior Tibial NeRve StimulatiON in Children) Pediatric Trials Network study. She and Jonathan Routh MD MPH helped design this multi-site study to investigate the Urgent PC PTNS device in children with overactive bladder symptoms – a non-invasive therapy that has been offered to children at Duke Pediatric Urology in an off-label manner for many years.
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Hsin-Hsiao Scott Wang MD MPH MBAn (’17), Assistant Professor at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard University was awarded the 2021 Societies for Pediatric Urology Research Grant for his project on machine-learning-based personalized management for children with urinary tract infections.
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DUKE UROLOGY CME:
MARCH 31-APRIL 3, 2022 – 54TH ANNUAL DUKE UROLOGIC ASSEMBLY – Grand Floridian Inn & Resort, Walt Disney World Resort, Orlando, Florida https://surgery.duke.edu/education-and-training/advanced-education/center-surgical-education-and-innovation/courses/urology/duke-urologic-assembly
May 20, 2022 DUKE FRIDAY VISITING PROFESSOR – DAVID F. PAULSON LECTURE - KIRSTEN GREENE MD – Chair, Dept. of Urology, University of Virginia
Please note: We are changing our Duke Tuesday Visiting Professor Lectureships to Duke Fridays taking place once a year in May or June, beginning in 2022. We invite urologists from our region to attend in person morning lectures by Dr. Greene and Duke faculty on urologic oncology topics. More information will be forthcoming.
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