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Yale-PCCSM Fellows Have Productive and Successful Academic Year

September 06, 2022
by Jane E. Dee

Yale’s Pulmonary and Critical Care, Sleep Medicine, and Interventional Pulmonary fellowships had a busy, productive and very successful 2021-2022 academic year.

Carolyn D’Ambrosio, MD, MD, associate professor of medicine (pulmonary), and the vice chief for fellowship training, announced new leadership for two of the fellowships.

• Critical Care Fellowship is now its own ACGME Fellowship with Program Director Melissa Knauert, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine (pulmonary) as PD and Assistant Program Director Shyoko Honiden, MD, MS, associate professor term.

Lauren Tobias, MD, assistant professor (pulmonary) is the program director for the Sleep Medicine Fellowship, taking over for from Meir Kryger, MD, professor emeritus of medicine, who retired June 30, 2022.

Also, D’Ambrosio said that the focus on augmenting pulmonary education in the outpatient environment will continue using the ambulatory block format will continue for first-year fellows. In the second and third year of fellowship, outpatient care education will be individualized based on interests, areas of improvement, and career trajectory.

“The fellowship leadership will reach out to outpatient subspecialty providers to coordinate any upper-level fellow attending clinic with them, and this of course will also be coordinated with the research mentor,” she said. The educational sessions for outpatient pulmonary medicine will be included in the summer bootcamp as well as the weekly didactic/educational sessions for fellows.

Twelve fellows graduated on June 9th, 2022. D’Ambrosio mentioned that “The graduating fellows made a huge impact with their dedication and commitment,” D’Ambrosio said. “They were among those who carried the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic at its worst moment, and we will always appreciate their contributions and be grateful for their selfless efforts,” she said. The fellows also were successful academically. They published 21 papers, were invited to speak at numerous meetings, presented posters, and gave oral presentations at the American Thoracic Society Annual Conference in May as well as at other conferences. Several also contributed to book chapters and one earned an advanced degree.

Here’s a snapshot of their accomplishments:

Ethan Bernstein, MD, was named Fellow of the Year from June 2021. He published three papers and also presented posters and gave oral presentations at the ATS conference and the Society of Critical Care Medicine Annual Conference.

• Jan Fouad, MD, was an invited faculty and speaker, AABIP Conference, on the topic of Plastic Bronchitis.

Gayatri Gupta, Do, was among the authors of the paper, “Distinct Roles of Type I and Type III Interferons during a Native Murine β Coronavirus Lung Infection,” in the Journal of Virology.

John Houston, MD, won the Bear Cage Competition at the ATS annual conference. He also earned 2nd Place at the Yale Center for Bioinnovation and Technology Healthcare Hackathon Pitch Competition and was selected to be in Tsai City Center for Innovative Thinking Launchpad program for early-stage entrepreneurs. He served as a virtual panelist for a forum on healthcare digitalization and also at HICOOL Startup Ecosystem Global Summit. He was first author on a paper in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

• Lacey Harrington, MD’s, ATS poster presentation was titled, “Atrial Esophageal Fistula: A Rare and Lethal Complication Following Catheter Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation.”

Hayley Israel, MD, earned a Yale School of Medicine MHS - Med Ed Graduate. She was first author of posters presented at the 2022 Yale Medical Education Day and the ATS conference. Another paper she contributed to was accepted for presentation at the 2022 NEGEA virtual conference in May.

Snigdha Jain, MD, received a 2022 Emerging Generations Award from the American Society of Clinical Investigation. She also received two abstract scholarships from the American Thoracic Society International Conference for the Assembly on Behavioral Science and Health Services Research (2022) and the Assembly on Critical Care (2021). In 2022, she received the Parker B. Francis Foundation Fellowship Award. She was the first author on four publications.

Peter Kahn, MD, MPH, ThM, published two papers, one as the first author. He was invited to give a keynote presentation and three oral presentations in 2021. He also contributed to a poster presentation at The Liver Meeting in 2021.

Hannah Oakland, MD, published four papers and was the first author of three of them.

Stella Savarimuthu, MD, was the first author on five papers.

Gail Stanley, MD, MPH, co-authored a chapter for Clinics in Chest Medicine on MDRO infections in cystic fibrosis. She was awarded a fourth-year fellowship to study cystic fibrosis. She received an abstract award from the American Thoracic Society (ATS) for an oral presentation at the ATS workshop. She also gave a presentation on respiratory disease at the Young Investigators’ Forum.

Gabriella “Gabby” Wilson, MD, presented the American Thoracic Society (ATS) Poster, “Exploring the effect of anti-IL5 therapy on sputum eosinophils in children with asthma”

Selected Publications by Yale-PCCSM Fellows:

Haghighat, L., Israel, H., Jordan, E., Bernstein, E. L.., Varghese, M., Cherry, B. M., Van Tonder, R., Honiden, S., Liu, R., & Sankey, C. (2021). Development and Evaluation of Resident-Championed Point-of-Care Ultrasound Curriculum for Internal Medicine Residents. POCUS Journal, 6(2), 103–108.

Huston JC, Thom RP, Ravichandran CT, Mullett JE, Moran C, Waxler JL, Pober BR, McDougle CJ. Repetitive Thoughts and Repetitive Behaviors in Williams Syndrome. Journal Of Autism And Developmental Disorders 2022, 52(2): 852-862.

Jain S, Murphy TE, O'Leary JR, Leo-Summers L, Ferrante LE. Association Between Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Decline in Function, Cognition, and Mental Health After Critical Illness Among Older Adults : A Cohort Study. Ann Intern Med. 2022 Mar 8.

Jain S, Neaves S, Juengst SB. Breastmilk pumping experiences of physician mothers: quantitative and qualitative findings from a nationwide survey study. J Gen Intern Med. 2022 Jan 20.

Jain S, Walkey AJ, Law AC, Ferrante LE, Lindenauer PK, Krumholz HM. Association between Residential Segregation and Long-Term Acute Care Hospital Performance on Improvement in Function among Ventilated Patients. Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2021 Oct 13.

Jain S (co-first author), Janke A, Hwang U, Rosenberg M, Biese K, Schneider S, Goyal P, Venkatesh AK. Emergency department visits for emergent conditions among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2021 Jul;69(7):1713-1721.

John S Gottdiener, JS, Buzkova P, Kahn P, DeFilippi, C, Shah, S, Barasch, E, Kizer, JR, Psaty B, Gardin, JM. Relation of Cigarette Smoking and Heart Failure in Adults ≥65 Years of Age (From the Cardiovascular Health Study). Am J Cardiol. 2022 Apr 1;168:90-98.

Kahn, P, Worsham, C, Berland, G. Characterization of Prescription Patterns and Estimated Costs for Use of Oxygen Concentrators for Home Oxygen Therapy in the US. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4(10):e2129967.

Singh I, Oakland H, Elassal A, Heerdt PM. Defining end-systolic pressure for single-beat estimation of right ventricle-pulmonary artery coupling: simple… but not really. ERJ Open Res. 2021;7(3).

Oakland H, Joseph P, Naeije R, Elassal A, Cullinan M, Heerdt PM, Singh I. Arterial load and right ventricular-vascular coupling in pulmonary hypertension. J Appl Physiol (1985). 2021;131(1):424-33. 2021/07/18.

Sharma L, Peng X, Qing H, Hilliard BK, Kim J, Swaminathan A, Tian J, Israni-Winger K, Zhang C, Habet V, Wang L, Gupta G, Tian X, Ma Y, Shin HJ, Kim SH, Kang MJ, Ishibe S, Young LH, Kotenko S, Compton S, Wilen CB, Wang A, Dela Cruz CS. Distinct Roles of Type I and Type III Interferons during a Native Murine β Coronavirus Lung Infection. J Virol. 2022 Jan 26;96(2):e0124121.

Welcome Yale-PCCSM's new fellows:

1st Year Pulmonary, Critical Care Fellows

Ella Christophe

Shifa Gandhi

William Jackson

Madelyn Renzetti

Shruti Shankar

Elizabeth Tarras


Sleep Medicine Fellows:

Stephanie Hart

Kullatham “Gree” Kongpakpaisarn

Narat “Pat” Srivali

Alex Walker


Critical Care and IP Fellows:

Saad Saffo

Amanda Lindo

Marwah Ibrahem

Jeet Lund (IP)

You can support Yale-PCCSM’s fellowships with a donation to Yale New Haven Hospital’s Office of Development. Please include a memo on the check, or a note with the check, stating that your donation is for the Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Fellows Fund. USPS address: Yale New Haven Hospital, Office of Development, PO Box 419176, Boston, MA 02241-9176.

You can also give online at www.givetoynhh.org/donate. Please select the Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Fellows Fund from the drop-down menu.

The Section of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine is one of the eleven sections within YSM’s Department of Internal Medicine. To learn more about Yale-PCCSM, visit PCCSM’s website, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.