June 03, 2016
Hello,
Thanks to all of those who gave our graduates a great commencement last week. And a special thank you to our guest speaker, Dr. Eliseo Perez-Stable, who gave a wonderful talk.
For this week’s issue of Study Break, I’d like to focus on the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging. Each of our clinical departments are invited to give an update at our monthly clinical chair meetings, and the information this month is provided by Dr. Susan John, John S. Dunn Distinguished Chair, and Chief of Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging at Memorial Hermann Hospital-Texas Medical Center.
Dean Stoll: How many faculty, residents, and fellows comprise the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Imaging?
Dr. John: There are 56 clinical faculty, 10 basic science, 52 residents, 10 fellows, with subspecialties including thoracic imaging, emergency radiology, body imaging, neuroimaging, pediatric imaging, nuclear medicine, vascular interventional radiology, breast imaging, and musculoskeletal radiology.
Dean Stoll: Where do your faculty, residents, and fellows provide clinical services?
Dr. John: Our service locations include hospitals, Memorial Hermann Hospital-Texas Medical Center, Harris Health LBJ, Memorial Hermann TIRR, and Shriners Children’s Hospital; Memorial Hermann Imaging Centers at Memorial Hermann Plaza, Bellaire, Bayshore, and Upper Kirby; and teleradiology contracts at Premise Health, Bellaire Family Practice Group, E-Plus, and Women’s Hospital.
Dean Stoll: What is the leadership structure of diagnostic and interventional imaging?
Dr. John: I have a strong and diverse leadership team. Dr. Clark West is the Vice-chair of Clinical Operations and Informatics; Dr. Sandra Oldham is Vice-chair of Education; Dr. Eduardo Matta is Vice-chair of Quality; and Dr. Ponnada Narayana is Vice-chair of Research. Our medical directors are: Dr. Alan Cohen, Memorial Hermann Hospital-Texas Medical Center; Dr. Joseph Hasapes, LBJ; Dr. Susanna Spence, Clinical Director, Quality and Patient Experience; Dr. Marcelle Mallery, Upper Kirby; Dr. Paul Horwitz, Bellaire/Bayshore; Dr. Venkateswar Surabhi, TIRR; and Dr. Nicholas Beckmann, Musculoskeletal, LBJ. Section Chiefs include Dr. John, Pediatric Imaging; Dr. Roy Riascos, Neuroradiology; Dr. West, Emergency Radiology; Dr. Manickam Kumaravel, Musculoskeletal; Dr. Isis Gayed, Nuclear Medicine; Dr. Matta, Body Imaging; Dr. Cohen, Vascular Interventional; Dr. Heather He, Breast Imaging; and Dr. Oldham, Cardiothoracic Imaging. Dr. Narayana is the Chief of the MRI Research section. Charles Beasley, Ph.D., leads our Medical Physics section. Yasin Jabir is Director of our departmental informatics team.
Dean Stoll: What about the residency program?
Dr. John: Currently we have 52 diagnostic radiology residents – 13/year. We are proud of our residents, who have a 100 percent American Board of Radiology pass rate and who continually work to help us improve our clinical services and educational programs. We have applications in process for new Interventional Radiology and Medical Physics residency programs. Dr. Oldham is the Diagnostic Radiology program director, and Dr. Emma Ferguson is the assistant program director. We have introduced a new quality course for PGY2 residents with hands-on quality projects that have included lead time reduction for MR with general anesthesia at LBJ, increased adoption of structured reporting at Memorial Hermann Hospital-TMC, and decreased turnaround times for stroke MRI from the Emergency Department at Memorial Hermann Hospital-TMC.
Dean Stoll: Where does your specialty fit in the new curriculum?
Dr. John: We have radiologic anatomy correlation in the first year and a core radiology course in the second year. General and subspecialty imaging electives are available in the fourth year, and we are working to integrate subspecialty imaging into the new curriculum.
Dean Stoll: Any highlights you would like to share?
Dr. John: We have several wows on the quality and safety front to share – we decreased the average MICU turnaround – order to exam start, from 47 minutes to 9 minutes through a series of interventions. We decreased the percentage of unnecessary Harris Health knee MRIs from approximately 27 percent to 8.5 percent by instituting an evidence-based algorithm and including Baylor and McGovern orthopedics, physical therapy, radiology, and primary care. In collaboration with Pediatric Surgery and Pediatric Emergency Medicine, we have decreased the use of CT for appendicitis and chest CT for children with trauma. DII radiologists are leading efforts to standardize and improve imaging quality throughout the Memorial Hermann System, with special projects involving musculoskeletal MRI, pediatric ultrasound, and trauma imaging. We are continuing to increase our subspecialty depth and have appointed key contacts is many subspecialty areas, such as fetal MRI, stroke imaging, tumor imaging in brain, liver, and prostate, vascular malformation treatment, US guided MSK procedures, and many others. Our depth of sub-specialization allows us to provide high quality, personalized imaging and therapies to the most complex patients around the clock and to collaborate in research being conducted at McGovern Medical School. Our MRI scientists continue to advance MRI techniques and processing, engaging in exciting research with other McGovern investigators in areas such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, psychiatric disease, and space medicine.
I want to thank Dr. John for helping us get to know her department better.
Have a great weekend,
Barbara
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