department of medicine

Message from Joel Richter, MD, FACP, MACG

Professor of Medicine

The Richard L. Evans Chair, Department of Medicine

As I look back over the last five years as Chairman of the Department of Medicine, I am confident that the Department is doing as well as can be expected during these fiscally trying times. We have an excellent faculty who continue to excel in all three domains of academia – clinical care, education and research.

The last year saw 22 faculty members join the Department of Medicine, giving us 104 full-time faculty, and 18 emeritus or part-time faculty. We recruited Dr. Phil Cohen from the University of Pennsylvania , who is our new Section Chief of Rheumatology, as well as Dr. Kevin Williams from Thomas Jefferson Medical School, who is our new Section Chief of Endocrinology. Additionally, Dr. Jose Missri was recruited as Section Chief of Cardiology, replacing Dr. Alfred Bove, who stepped down from his role as Section Chief in order to fulfill the position of President of the American College of Cardiology. In the last year, our Section of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine was recognized once again by US News and World Report, as well as a JCHAO Center of Excellence designated for Lung Volume Reduction Surgery. Although a small DOM faculty, 23 physicians (21% of faculty), were recognized as “Best Doctors in America” for 2007-2008 and six were recognized at Philadelphia Magazine Top Doctors for 2009 (Drs. Criner, Lorber, Mangan, Munoz, Richter, and Tedaldi). In the same magazine, Dr. Victor Kim was recognized as a Rising Star.

The Department of Medicine continues to expand our facilities so that we can see our patients in the most state-of-the-art environment. The Medical Office Building serves as a multi-specialty clinic for patients from Nephrology, Kidney Transplantation, Family Practice, Endocrinology, and Rheumatology. The Temple Heart Center will move into spacious up-to-date facilities for their outpatient practice on the 1st floor of the Ambulatory Care Center.

A common theme in the Department of Medicine’s faculty is their passion and excellence in teaching. Many are active in all aspects of medical school teaching. The house staff consistently recognize nearly all the faculty each year with at least one outstanding teaching designation.

The “crown jewel” of the Department is our Medicine Residency Program, comprised of 108 categorical residents. The group has great diversity, consisting of 64 men and 48 women. Our first time pass rate for the ABIM is 95% over the past 3 years and 100% overall. Approximately 70% of the house staff enter subspecialty fellowships, while the remainder begin careers in general internal medicine or hospital medicine. Under the leadership of Dr. Darilyn Moyer, in the recent successful ACGME RRC review of the Internal Medicine residency and fellowship programs, the residency program received continued accreditation for four years, and five year accreditation was received for several of our subspecialty fellowships, including Infectious Disease, Cardiology, Gastroenterology, Hematology/Oncology and Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.

In 2008, the Temple Department of Medicine ranked 79th in NIH funding for medicine departments. Overall research dollars increased by 19%: 10% in NIH grants, 14% in other grants monies, and 51% in pharmaceutical grants. New NIH grants include a K08 Clinical Investigator Award to Dr. Wissam Chatila and an R03 Small Research Grant to Dr. Steven Kelsen, as well as a K08 and R01 Research Grant for Drs. Caricchio and Cohen, who have recently joined us from the University of Pennsylvania. The Department faculty members have been active in research publications. As a group, they published 310 articles, chapters or editorials, up 5% from the previous year.

The Department is beginning our fifth year of a program to promote clinical/basic research by junior faculty members – the Temple Department of Medicine Faculty Development Research Award. This program provides the awardees with 50% protected time for research over two years and $150,000 salary support. To date, 10 grants have been awarded amounting to nearly $1 million thorough philanthropic monies supported by the Evans Family Foundation, AstraZeneca Pharmaceutical and Novartis Pharmaceutical. Faculty members from Cardiology, General Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology, Nephrology, Pulmonary and Rheumatology have been recipients of these grants.

Looking ahead, there is a great deal of excitement about the coming years. A major emphasis will be the recruitment of NIH scientists to help fill the laboratories in the new Medical Education and Research Building which opened in June 2009. Areas of research focus in the Department of Medicine will center around cardiovascular diseases, pulmonary diseases and inflammation, GI motility disorders, thrombosis, autoimmune diseases, obesity, and health services research in underserved minorities. We need to recruit at least 15 to 20 basic and clinical scientists if the Department of Medicine is to show substantial improvement in our NIH rankings. Likewise, our Department of Medicine is relatively small, and we must grow substantially in number to meet the increasing educational needs and clinical requirements to improve our payor mix. To accomplish this, we may need to recruit 25 to 35 physicians over the next five years and grow our clinical enterprise, both on the main campus and also at Jeanes Hospital and selective outlying practice sites in the region. These are exciting times for the Department of Medicine, and we’re certainly in an invigorating growth spurt. In the upcoming years, we have many challenges, but I am optimistic that working together we will continue to grow and improve Temple University and its Department of Medicine.

Sincerely,

Joel Richter, MD, FACP, MACG

Professor of Medicine

The Richard L. Evans Chair, Department of Medicine