Department of Emergency Medicine

NEWS AND EVENTS

JUNE 2008

We have just received notice that Dr. Rajesh Geria has been awarded an educational minigrant.
Details of this grant follow:

The Academic Information Technology Advisory Committee (AcITAC),
also know as the IST Governance Education Services Committee, is
pleased to confirm that Dr. Rajesh Geria will be receiving a grant award during the
2008 cycle for hisr proposal Introduction to Ultrasound Guided
Vascular Access: Visual and Hands-On Learning Using an Interactive
Instructional DVD and Vascular Simulator Model. This year's
program is supported by the Foundation of UMDNJ.

This is our second grant. We have submitted 3 grants and been awarded 2! This is great success and shows we are on the way to establishing our academic credentials.

Congratulations to Dr. Geria!!

Rajesh Geria , MD presented “Credentialing in Emergency Ultrasound” at the NJ ACEP Conference, May 2008.

Jonathan McCoy, MD had the following publications/poster presentations at the National SAEM meeting in Washington DC :

Jonathan McCoy, R. Dellinger, Ryan Arnold, Lynn Ferchau, Vincent Lotano, Priscilla Peters, Steven Hollenberg, Joseph Parrillo, Stephen Trzeciak. Continuous Cardiac Index Monitoring in Critically Ill Patients: Comparison of a Pulmonary Artery Catheter versus a Calibrated Minimally-Invasive Technique. ACAD EMERG MED. May 2008, vol. 15, No. 5, Suppl. 1: S30

Stephen Trzeciak; Jonathan V. McCoy; R. Phillip Dellinger; Ryan C. Arnold; Michael Rizzuto; Nicole L. Abate; Nathan I. Shapiro; Joseph E. Parrillo; Steven M. Hollenberg, on behalf of the Microcirculatory Alterations in Resuscitation and Shock (MARS) investigators. Early Increases in Microcirculatory Perfusion are Associated with Reduced Multi-Organ Failure at 24 hours in Patients with Sepsis Full citation pending press.

Renee Riggs DO presented the following poster at the National SAEM meeting in Washington DC :

Riggs RL, Fiesseler F, Shih R, Allegra J Steroids Do Not Improve IHSC Migraine Symptomatology: An Emergency Department Randomized Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Trial."

Amy Church MD served as an Examiner for the oral boards American Board of Emergency Medicine 5/2-5/6 and was asked to server for another term in the same capacity.

Boris Veysman, MD had his article "Impatients" published on the web in OnlineEarly Articles section of Academic Emergency Medicine Journal.

Gina Lamandre PA has accepted a position as Instructor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and will start September 2008. Please welcome her to our Department.

MAY 2008

We are proud to present the final topic in our 2007-2008 Grand Rounds series, "Community-Acquired MRSA" on May 19, 2008 8:00-9:30am in CAB 1302 New Brunswick.

Presenters will be:
Ted Louie, MD, noted specialist in Allergy, Immunology and Infectious Diseases, and Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine, UMDNJ
Mark Merlin, DO, FACEP, Medical Director for Emergency Medical Services at RWJUH, and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, UMDNJ-RWJMS

Our Grand Rounds presentations are now approved for 1.0 hour in Category 1 Continuing Medical Education credit for physicians.

For more information contact Diane Wormann at 5-8783 / wormandi@umdnj.edu

Rajesh Geria , MD presented “Ultrasonography Vascular Access" for medical students at 2008 New York Regional Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) Conference April 30, 2008.

Anthony Yang, MD presented a research abstract at the plenary oral research session of the New York regional SAEM Conference April 30, 2008. The abstract was titled "Emergency Medicine productivity: A comparison of 8-hour versus 12-hour shifts. Drs. Peter Pryor assisted in the research.

Boris Veysman, MD had a letter accepted for publication:
Veysman, B. My Two Cents on Radiation. Academic Emergency Medicine Journal. 2008. (In Press).

Mark Merlin, DO presented Grand Rounds to the UMDNJ-RWJMS Department of Surgery on April, 23, 2008: “Pre-hospital Literature Update”

Mark Merlin, DO presented “Evidence Based Cardiac Arrest” at the April 4, 2008-American Association of Critical Care Nursing.

Mark Merlin DO had a the following publication: Merlin MA, Reedman L. Rapidly Deteriorating Pneumococcal Sepsis and Systemic Purpura Fulminans in a Young Woman with No Predisposing Factors. Resident and Staff Physician. 2008; 54:33-37.

Tracey Piparo PA-C Instructor was named to the Biltmore Who's Who among Professionals.

Grant Wei, MD will be starting in the Department as Assistant Professor in September, 2008.

APRIL 2008

Anne Marie Lozano was inducted into the Nursing Honor Society Sigma Theta Tau on April 13, 2008. She was recognized as an honor student while pursuing her Master's  degree in nursing. Congratulations!

The Department has Physician Assistant (PA) full time positions available.The PA will be responsible for the delivery of clinical services in the
ED, teaching of physician assistants, medical students and
residents rotating through the ED under the direction of an
attending physician. Specific responsibilities will also include
working collaboratively with Departments and Divisions within the
Medical School on collaborative research projects, as well as
Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital leadership on quality
assurance programs involving emergency medicine services.
To qualify, you should be eligible for appointment at the rank of
Instructor and must have a degree as a Physician Assistant. . Please send nominations and/or application,including a brief statement of the attributes and qualities of the individual, and curriculum vitae to: Robert M. Eisenstein, M.D, Vice Chair, Department of Emergency Medicine, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School , Email: eisensrm@umdnj.edu, Call: 732-235-8717, or Fax: 732-235-7379. UMDNJ is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

MARCH 2008

Dr. Boris Veyman had a letter accepted for publication by the Academy of Emergency Medicine" Veysman, B. Reflections: Impatients. Acad. Emer. Med. 2008 (In Press). Conrgratulations.

We are pleased to announce that the Department of Emergency Medicine now has a PhD statistician available to us on a part-time basis. Dr. Junfeng (Jeff) Liu will be coming to all of our research meetings as well as having regular office hours from 1pm-5pm on Mondays. For anyone who needs help analyzing data sets or questions, please let me know the time/date that you would like to meet with him. This is open to anyone in the Department who is conducting a project with the UMDNJ-RWJMS Department of Emergency Medicine.

Dr Liu completed his PhD in Statistics from the University of Connecticut in 2003 and is an Assistant Professor, Department of Biostatistics. He is well published and we are excited to have him as part of our research team!

Dr. Rajesh Geria presented 3 lectures on emergency ultrasound, including an accepted abstract, at the 4th International Congress on Ultrasound in Porto Alegre Brazil March 3-9, 2008.

Dr. Mark Merlin presented Grand Rounds at Stonybrook Medical Center March 4. 2008.

FEBRUARY 2008

The Department of Emergency Medicine is pleased to announce their Inaugural Grand Rounds.

Please join us next Monday March 3, 2008 from 8 am - 10 am in CAB 1302 for a multi-disciplinary, inter- departmental presentation on:

The Management of Calcium Channel Blocker Toxicity

Rajesh Geria, MD, RDMS
Assistant Professor, Director of Emergency Ultrasound
Department of Emergency Medicine

Diane Calello, MD
Assistant Professor, Chief Section of Toxicology
Department of Pediatrics
Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine

Gatum Gadey, MD
Department of Medicine

We will serve light refreshments and hope that you can join us.
For further information please contact Diane Wormann at 5-8783

It gives us great pleasure to announce that Peter Pryor, MD MPH has accepted the position Director of Disaster Preparedness/Associate EMS Director for Denver Healthcare/Denver General. This is one of the top EMS positions in the country. He will be a faculty member in this residency that is considered to be one of the top five in the country. This maintains our record of fellows obtaining top EMS positions in the United States. Congratulations Dr. Pryor!

We are pleased to announce that Drs. Rajesh Geria, Mark Merlin's abstract “ULTRASOUND UTILIZATION FOR DIFFICULT INTRAVENOUS CANNULATION BY GROUND ADVANCED LIFE SUPPORT (ALS) UNITS” was approved for oral presentation at the 4th World Congress on Ultrasound to be held in Porto Alegre Brazil in March 2008. Congratulations to our research team.

JANUARY 2008

Drs. Mark Merlin and Peter Pryor presented the abstract to their publication "A Quick and Easy Determination of External Blood Loss Using the MAR Method" at the National Association of EMS Physicians (NAEMSP) conference January 10-12, 2008. This is the first formula ever in the literature for determining external blood loss in trauma patients.

Dr Rajesh Geria continues to work on a national level via ACEP as alternate councillor of the EUS section. He is currently collaborating with other experts to make a model curriculum for integration of ultrasound education into medical student curriculum. Putting these efforts into effect locally, Dr Geria will be dedicating one full day of the Emergency Medicine clerkship rotation and the Emergency Ultrasound elective to emergency ultrasound scan lectures and practice.

We are excited to inform you that Andreia Marques-Baptista, M.D. has accepted the position for the 2008-2009 EMS/Disaster Medicine Fellowship. She comes to our program from St Lukes Roosevelt/Columbia University where she will be completing her Emergency Medicine Residency in June. Prior to that Dr Marques-Baptista completed the accelerated BA-M.D. program at Rutgers University/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. During that time period she was elected into Phi Beta Kappa and received the Robert Wood Johnson Alumni Research Award. She is certified in ACLS/BLS/PALS/ATLS and as a Sexual Assault Forensics Examiner . Dr Marques-Baptista has an extensive research background at RWJMS in the Depts of Surgery and Ob/GYN. She is published and is currently working with our EM Research group with two projects. Congratulations Andreia!

Drs. Peter Pryor and Boris Veysman received notification from the American Board of Emergency Medicine that they have successfully completed the written examination of the Board examinaton. Congratulations to Drs. Pryor and Veysman!

DECEMBER 2007

We are very pleased to announce that Drs. Jonathan McCoy and Chirag Shah have just been informed that they have been accepted as Diplomates of the American Board of Emergency Medicine after successful completion of their oral examinations. Congratulations Drs. McCoy and Shah!

NOVEMBER 2007

The Department of Emergency Medicine is thrilled to announce that on November 3 at the New Jersey Department of Health Awards Dinner at Sheraton Atlantic City Dr. Mark Merlin received the NJ Department of Health "EMS Physician of the Year Award".
This award is given to one physician each year in New Jersey who contributes to Emergency Medical Services. Dr. Merlin received the award from the following:
David Gruber-Senior Asst Commissioner of Health
Dr Joseph Truncarico-Asst Commissioner of Health
Karen Halupke R.N. M Ed-Director NJ Office of Emergency Medical Services
Dr Jennifer Waxler, Chairperson, NJ EMS Council, Department of Health

Congratulations to Dr. Merlin! We are proud to have you on our team!

Ann Marie Lozano, RN, BSN, CCRC will join our team on November 26 as our Nurse Clinician. Ms. Lozano will be in charge of managing and improving patient satisfaction in the Emergency Department.

OCTOBER 2007

We are very excited to announce that the Department of Emergency Medicine- New Brunswick Campus has been awarded its first extramural grant!
Dr. Mark Merlin has been awarded a $124,997 grant by the American Heart Association to investigate" Correlation of Advanced Life Support Written Scores with Skills Performance a 0.3 and 6 month intervals". This is a one year grant that will begin January1, 2008.

Congratulations to Dr. Merlin and his team of investigators: Dr. Pryor, Bryan Fishcberg, Ron Cody!

At the annual American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) in Seattle WA this month Rajesh Geria, MD, RDMS was elected as Alternate Councilor for the Emergency Ultrasound section of ACEP. This section, which has over 500 members and is ACEP's fifth largest section, is responsible for input into national policy, billing and accreditation issues regarding EDUS. Congratulations to Dr. Geria!

Mark Merlin DO has had two abstracts accepted for poster presentations at the upcoming National Association of EMS Phyisicians Meeting in January 2008. His presentations will be on: "Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus Prevalence on the Stethoscopes of EMS Professionals" and "A Quick and Easy Method for Determination of Pre-hospital Blood Loss using the MAR Method"
Congratulations to Dr. Merlin!

SEPTEMBER 2007

We have been approved to offer an Emergency Ultrasound Elective. Please check our Residency, Training and Education page for further updates.

We are pleased to announce that Anthony Yang, MD and Jonathan McCoy MD have joined our Department as attending physicians.

Nicole Garetano PA-C has also joined our Department as an Instructor.

Diane Wormann is our new Administrative Assistant for our Education Program.

JULY 2007

Jennifer Curry, Office Manager, has passed an exam from the The Board of Medical Specialty Coding. She is now an Advanced Coding Specialist - Emergency Medicine. We congratulate Jennifer on her accomplishment.

Mark Merlin DO was re-elected to another 2 year term as Chair of New Jersey Governors Advisory Council for all New Jersey Paramedic units effective 7/1/2007.

We also want to extend a welcome to the following individuals who have recently joined our Department:

Boris Veysman, MD joined our faculty as Assistant Professor on July 1, 2007

Peter Pryor, MD joined us our second EMS/Disaster Medicine Fellow on July 1, 2007

Carol Harnett, PA joined us as an Instructor on July 15, 2007.

June 2007

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Raffi Kapitanyan has been notified that he has successfully completed his examinations and is now a Diplomate of the American Board Emergency Medicine.  Congratulations Dr. Kapitanyan!

May 2007

Dr. Mark Merlin presented a lecture on Emergency Department Care of Stroke on May 15 th , 2007 at the annual RWJUH Stroke Conference Day.

He was interviewed by the New Jersey Video Network News Video (May 7, 2007) on volunteering in New Jersey .

Dr. Merlin was the keynote speaker at the Emergency Medicine Conference at Hackensack University Hospital on May 23 rd , 2007. He addressed the conferees on EMS on New Jersey .

He gave a lecture at the Leading Edge Paramedic Conference on May 23 rd at RWJUH on the topic of Pediatric Toxicology.

Dr. Merlin also presented at the American College of Cardiology State conference on May 30. 2007, where he spoke about the state of Emergency Medical Services in New Jersey.

Dr. Rajesh Geria served as a guest speaker at the New Jersey ACEP meeting on May 8 th where he spoke on “Credentialing in Emergency Ultrasound”.

Dr Geria was a senior instructor for an ultrasound guided vascular access course at the New Jersey ACEP on May 8 th , 2007

Dr. Geria also presented medical grand rounds at RWJUH-Hamilton "Beyond the FAST exam: Role of Bedside US in rapid assessment of the emergency department patient " on May 23, 2007.

Tracey Piparo, PA-C was recertified as PA by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants.

 We are pleased to announce that Dr. Jonathan McCoy has accepted the position of Clinical Assistant Professor. He will join us in September.

Carol Harnett, PA will begin as an Instructor on July 15, 2007.

April 2007

Mark Merlin, DO had an article published: Nichols J, Irwin R, Merlin MA. A Fatal Fire Investigation: The Medical Perspective, Fire Engineering. March 2007:123-134

Rajesh Geria, MD, RDMS presented Grand Rounds to the Department of Medicine on April 11, 2007. His topic was the “ Role of Bedside Ultrasound in the Critically Ill Patient”.

Renee Riggs, DO had an article published in the Journal of Emergency Medicine, April 2007 edition. "Do Patients with Recurrent Headaches Attempt Abortive Therapy Before their Emergency Department Visit?"

Robert VanVolkenburgh, MD, FACEP obtained fellowship status from the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Anthony Yang, MD will be joining our faculty as Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine later this summer.

March 2007

Mark Merlin, DO presented three lectures at New Jersey Emergency Nurses Conference in Atlantic City on March 15 & 16 , 2007. The lectures were “Hypertensive Urgencies and Emergencies”, “Evidence Based Cardiac Arrest”, “ Top Thirty Things That Kill Fast”.

Robert Levy MD and Mark Merlin DO completed both the Advanced Hazardous Materials Life Support course and the Instructor course. This is the premiere course in chemical spills, and toxic exposures in the country. It is sponsored by the American Academy of Clinical Toxicologists. 

Mark Merlin, DO had two chapters published in: Emergency Care in the Streets 6th Edition, 2007. Jones and Bartlett Publishing. Abdominal and Pelvic Trauma , Ch. 24Burns Ch.20 Robert Levy MD was a co-author on the abdominal trauma chapter.

Rajesh Geria MD, had an article on Emergency Ultrasound in RWJUMG Medical Rounds. He was also featured in a profile article.

We are pleased to announce our new EMS Medicine Student rotation. Please go to our Residency, Training and Education Section for further information about this exciting new opportunity.

February 2007

Our ultrasound machine is operational and we have begun providing this new state of the art emergency department care to our patients. Please see our November update for more details on this program.

Dr. Mark Merlin has been named Director of the RWJUH/Rutgers EMT Training Program. This new RWJUH program conducted its first class on January 15, 2007.  

Dr. Boris Veysman will be joining our faculty in July 2007 as an Assistant Professor. Dr. Veysman is a graduate of Yale School of Medicine and is currently completing his residency at New York University/Bellevue Hospital Center. He has published several articles on various emergency medicine and other related topics.

We are pleased to announce that Peter Pryor, MD MPH will be joining us in July 2007 as our second EMD/Disaster Medicine Fellow. Dr. Pryor is currently Chief Resident at Lincoln Medical Center and received both his MD and MPH from Tulane University.

December 2006 

Congratulations to Drs. Chirag Shah, Robert Levy and Raffi Kapitanyan who just received notice that they passed the written portion of their boards in Emergency Medicine. The next step is for them to take the oral boards in 2007.

Congratulations to Drs. Rajesh Geria and Andrew O'Connor who were notified in December that they had successfully completed their examinations and are now Diplomates of the American Board Emergency Medicine.  Congratulations too to Dr. Robert Eisenstein who was also notified that he passed his recertification exam and thus continues his Diplomate Status.

Dr. Robert Levy, Instructor, who is our first EMS Fellowship Trainee has been offered a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Stony Brook Medical University and also as Assistant EMS director for Stony Brook. Dr. Levy will commence his new duties on July 1, 2007. We wish him well in his new endeavors and are excited that his time at UMDNJ-RWJMS allowed him to obtain this position.

November 2006:
Emergency Department Ultrasound Program makes its debut!

We are pleased to announce that the Department of Emergency Medicine and Robert Wood Johnson University hospital are introducing a new emergency department based ultrasound program. We are in the process of acquiring a portable machine with superb image quality, building a Quality Assurance system and training our faculty. Our goal is to create one of the best Emergency Ultrasound programs in the nation so that our institution can deliver cutting edge care to our patients.

By way of background some key points in the development of emergency ultrasound include:

• The American College of Emergency Physicians created guidelines for training and credentialing in 2001.
• The American Medical Association and the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine have since supported these guidelines and the use of bedside ultrasound by our specialty.
• The Residency Review Committee has made it mandatory for Emergency Medicine residency programs to provide training in ultrasound to their residents.

As emergency physicians we routinely deal with life threatening conditions. Our patients often come to us with vague clinical presentations and labile vital signs with the potential to quickly deteriorate. Focused bedside ultrasound is being used by trained emergency physicians at top universities across the country to provide real time anatomic information regarding the patient's clinical complaint /scenario. It is focused in that it only looks to answer a specific clinical question (ex – AAA or not? Pericardial Effusion or not?) This allows for rapid evaluation and treatment providing optimal care without moving the patient from the safety of resuscitation area. Ultrasound is also being used to assist in procedural guidance, most commonly peripheral and central venous access.

If you wish to learn more about our program please contact Dr. Geria at geriarn@umdnj.edu

Rajesh Geria MD, RDMS
Assistant Professor
Director Emergency Ultrasound Program