Our annual Alumni Research Day allows us to focus on the department’s academic achievements and reconnect with our alumni.
This year’s presentations were given by graduating chiefs, NIH-NIDCD funded R25 residents and medical students, and other trainees completing highly impactful research projects across our department.
The research presentations from the graduating chiefs James Campbell, MD, Nicholas Clark, MD, Sam Altonji, MD, and Hunter Elms, MD consisted of topics related to social determinants of health, evaluation of care practices and outcomes, and consideration of language patterns letters of recommendations for residency applicants.
R25-funded resident Sarah Kim, MD, PhD presented research on post-COVID19 olfactory loss. R25 medical student presentations from Joshua Wright, MBBS, Avivah J. Wang, BS, and Katherine Gonzalez, BS, included topics on airway stenosis, vestibular schwannoma, and squamous cell carcinoma therapy.
Jack Finlay, an MD/PhD student who completed PhD dissertation work in the lab of Dr. Brad Goldstein, shared his findings on new models of olfactory neuroblastoma, a collaborative project recently published in Cancer Cell.
The annual William Hudson Lecture was delivered by Jeffrey, Bumpous, MD, the Interim Dean and Vice President of Academic Medical Affairs, and J. Samuel Bumgardner professor at the University of Louisville School of Medicine titled “Otolaryngology-HNS Training and Assessment: What Will the Future Hold?”.
We were honored to have our alumnus, Brian Perry, MD, who is now an assistant professor of Otolaryngology, Adult and Pediatric Otology/Neurotology at the University of Texas Health. San Antonio shared a presentation about his time during Duke ENT residence, his mentorship experience, and what drove him to come back to academic medicine after years in private practice in his presentation “Duke ENT Residency Training, 30 years later”.
A special moment was set aside to honor and remember Samuel R. Fisher, MD. His two children joined in to present loupes to junior residents, helping them excel in training and offsetting the high cost of necessary equipment. The tradition of gifting loupes is supported by the Samuel R. Fisher, MD, Memorial Fund for Resident Education. The fund honors Dr. Fisher’s legacy while enabling us to provide the best opportunities for our residents on their journey to become exceptional surgeons. Dr. Fisher had a lifelong passion for teaching and delivering the highest quality of care to his patients at Duke, where he practiced and trained new surgeons for more than 40 years.
We concluded our Research Symposium with a Faculty Talk from Nosayaba Osazuwa-Peters, BDS, PhD, MPH, CHES, who presented on “Over a Decade of Framing Head and Neck Cancer Inequities and Outcomes: Still Scratching the Surface”.
Thank you to everyone who presented, attended, and organized this event. The full program can be found here.