Dear Colleagues,

Autumn is in full bloom in New Haven! October has been filled with beautiful warm sunny days and cool nights. It’s just over the past week or so that we have had a peak of what’s to come as we have seen a few frost-laden mornings. The snow can’t be far away!

Despite the chill in the air, our accomplished Yale GIM faculty are busy as ever. From examining the impact of long COVID, to expanding teaching on end-of-life care, to understanding the impact of climate change on rates of overdose deaths, to the intersection of medicine and religion, to the many other critical topics highlighted below - Yale GIM faculty continue to advance science and patient care in many different ways. Our faculty also continue to accumulate numerous honors for their roles as clinicians, educators, researchers as noted below. Congratulations to all!

Advocacy for improved access to high quality healthcare for all is also a fundamental pillar that drives Yale GIM. I see this regularly in our NHPCC practice as our faculty and trainees regularly push beyond diagnosis and treatment to assure that our patients have access to needed services. Beyond this, several of our faculty have taken advocacy to the programmatic and national levels and have had an enormous impact in doing so. No one exemplifies this more that Katherine McKenzie founding director of our Yale Center for Asylum Medicine (YCAM). Kate built YCAM from the ground up to provide forensic evaluations and other services for asylum seekers in New Haven. She has expanded her effort to the national stage through her publications in NEJM, JAMA, and Annals of Internal Medicine and as the founding director of the Society of Asylum Medicine.

Last evening, Kate was honored by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), an organization dedicated to protecting human rights across boarders globally, at their annual gala in New York City. Founded in 1986, PHR shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines for their work to ban and clear anit-personnel mines. In recognizing Kate, PHR noted, “As a leading medical expert, Dr. McKenzie has served as a frontline defender for asylum seekers and has trained hundreds of clinicians in the practice of asylum medicine. Dr. McKenzie is an exemplar of commitment and unwavering resolve to protecting human rights and the rights of asylum seekers and immigrants.”

Exemplar indeed! Clearly, we need Kate’s leadership now more than ever. It was a wonderful evening during which Chelsea Clinton was also honored for her role as vice chair of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, as was the Panzi Hospital Survivors of Sexual Violence Unit in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kate was joined at the gala by her family along with some of her Yale colleagues including myself, Seonaid Hay, and Susan Kashaf. It was a spectacular celebration of Kate's remarkable leadership on the world stage. BRAVO Kate!

Benjamin Mba, MBBS, was awarded the CT ACP Chapter Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award.

Naseema Merchant, FACP, FHM, MBBS, received the George Thornton MD Teaching Award. This award recognizes a physician with a career distinguished by involvement and excellence in medical education. Typically, this individual is involved with medical students and/or internal medicine residents but a history of peer-teaching with involvement in continuing medical education would be considered. The awardee must be an active member, Fellow, of Master of the American College of Physicians in CT.

Alexis Loss, PA-C, physician assistant has joined YIMA.

Message from Benjamin Mba, MBSS

The following meetings took place in October. In case you missed them, meetings that have been recorded can be viewed as indicated below.

Yale General Internal Medicine Grand Rounds - Please go to: https://medicine.yale.edu/intmed/genmed/news/grand-rounds/

Note: The logins for the Grand Rounds have been upgraded to ensure better security for Yale networks.

1. Yale employees can use their CAS login.

2. Other emails from approved domains should log in using the non-Yale email button. You will be prompted to set up a username and password.

3. Personal emails will no longer be allowed access to videos.

Yale General Internal Medicine Noon Meetings - can be viewed here.

Web Profile Photoshoots: The Office of Communications offers a web profile photo portrait once every five years. To schedule an appointment, please select a date from the calendar. Photoshoots take place at 333 Cedar Street, Room 211A. If you do not have the time, then you can submit your own web profile picture by selecting the following link: Submit Your Own Web Profile Photo.

Video Biography: A video biography on Yalemedicine.org gives physicians the opportunity to showcase your medical specialist. To schedule an interview with Kimberly Conner, please use this link. Interviews take place at 333 Cedar Street, Room L207A.

Kristen Joy Cushing Memorial Scholarship Fund. This scholarship was created in memory of Cushing, who passed away in October 2021.

Donations in memory of Laura Whitman can be made to the Closer to Free Fund for Smilow Hospital.

GIM Newsletters from May 2023 to June 2025 can be found here.