FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, June 8, 2017
Contact:  Sheanna Spence, Assistant Director, Alumni Affairs and Community Relations, 304-691-1639

Faculty, fellow present quality improvement posters at AAMC national meeting

ROSEMONT, Ill. – Physicians from the Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine showcased their quality improvement and patient safety projects this week at the 2017 Association of American Medical Colleges’ (AAMC) annual Integrating Quality Meeting.

Ashley Zawodniak, D.O., assistant professor of internal medicine, and James B. Becker, M.D., vice dean for governmental relations, health care policy & external affairs, presented on “Improving Resident Attitudes and Practice Behaviors When Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain Management.” The project evaluates residents' comfort level managing chronic non-malignant pain with opioids and their awareness of substance abuse/misuse behaviors. Other team members include:  Jo Ann Raines, MA, senior program coordinator for graduate medical education; Paulette S. Wehner, M.D., vice dean for graduate medical education; Clare Bajamundi, M.D., psychiatry resident; and Brian Gallagher, JD, RPh, director of pharmacy services. 

Pulmonary Fellow Haris Kalatoudis, M.D., also presented his poster entitled “Application of Guideline-Based Venous Thromboembolism Risk Stratification in the Evaluation of Patients with Suspected Pulmonary Embolism:  A Review of Emergency Department Compliance in a Rural and University-Based Community Hospital.” This study looked at how patients are managed after they present to the emergency department at a rural and university hospital with clinical suspicion for pulmonary embolism.  His team members include researcher Emily Kalatoudis and Fuad M. Zeid, M.D., pulmonologist and associate professor of internal medicine.

“We are excited that, for the third year in a row, the graduate medical education programs at Marshall will be represented at this prestigious conference on quality and patient safety,” Wehner said. “It is a tremendous opportunity for our fellows and faculty to be able to display their hard work in improving patient safety efforts in Huntington, West Virginia.”

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Date Posted: Thursday, June 8, 2017