DOM faculty sought to present at TMC Internal Medicine Grand Rounds

An eager audience awaits Department of Medicine faculty willing to travel to midtown for the new TMC Internal Medicine Grand Rounds lectures hosted by Tucson Medical Center with University of Arizona internal medicine faculty.

The next such lecture takes place Friday, April 5, with the Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology’s Joshua Melson, MD, presenting on “Colorectal Cancer Screening.” Dr. Melson’s 1-hour lecture begins at 12:30 p.m. at TMC’s Marshall Auditorium in its Marshall Conference Center, 5301 E. Grant Road. A TMC website map shows conference center parking on the east side of the TMC campus off Craycroft Road.

“These lectures are a wonderful opportunity for our DOM faculty to share their expertise and passion with a receptive audience of clinicians and trainees in our community,” said Serena Scott, MD, MBA, DOM vice chair for faculty development at UArizona. 

For instance, Dr. Melson, who joined UArizona as a clinical professor of medicine in August 2022, is director of the UArizona Cancer Center’s High-Risk Clinic for Gastrointestinal Cancers. Previously, he served at Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center, where he was director of its High-Risk Program for GI Cancers and the Coleman Clinic for GI Cancers. His focus is on managing patients at elevated risk of cancer and using clinical expertise for prevention via colorectal cancer screening, surveillance, and endoscopic removal of precancerous lesions during colonoscopy. With research funding from the American Cancer Society and prominent foundations, Dr. Melson also serves on the editorial review board of the journal Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. For several years, he was on the American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy Technology Committee and the American Gastroenterological Association’s Center for GI Innovation & Technology Committee.

“It's a nice way to build a greater network and foster new relationships within the area we both serve,” Dr. Scott said.

TMC started its Internal Medicine Residency Training Program in July 2023, at which point Sujata Sarkar, MD, a UArizona-trained rheumatologist who’s worked at TMC since 2014 and is director of the new TMC residency program, partnered with Dr. Scott to initiate this new IM Grand Rounds series by DOM physicians.

“The big role is educational,” Dr. Sarkar said. “It’s great to have very high-level content and learning provided like this for our faculty as well as our residents and medical students. These are cutting-edge ideas from the field provided by your experts.”

She said Fariba Donovan, MD, PhD, an Infectious Diseases division associate professor and research scientist with the Valley Fever Center for Excellence at the College of Medicine – Tucson, gave the first TMC IM grand rounds lecture, “Updates in coccidioidomycosis,” on Dec. 15.

“Everybody was excited. There were a lot of new things we learned. She’s a very involved faculty member. Her lectures were full of high-energy and advanced content,” Dr. Sarkar said. “We just loved it.”

Around 50 people attended with many interesting questions, Dr. Donovan commented, thanking Dr. Sarkar for a wonderful reception. Participating clinicians earned AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ through the Tucson Hospitals Medical Education Program, accredited by the Arizona Medical Association.

“This is an excellent opportunity to extend our collaboration and interaction with the TMC team,” she said. “I would definitely like to continue these grand rounds. They serve as a means to raise Valley fever awareness and contribute to our community outreach mission.”

The next TMC IM Grand Rounds lecture after Dr. Melson’s will be June 14 with Julia Cremer, MD, a geriatrician with the Division of General Internal Medicine, Geriatrics & Palliative Medicine. After that, it’s expected to be HIV care specialist and principal investigator with the Arizona AIDS Education & Training Center Danielle Avila, MD, from Infectious Diseases again. But a date is yet to be set for her talk, which will likely be in late summer.

Dr. Sarkar said TMC would like to expand the lecture series to once a month and even weekly – balancing it with M&M assessments and resident QI reports, but is still building its audience.

“I would love to have more faculty from U of A. But we have to build up to it from our end,” she said. “We never used to have medicine grand rounds, at least since I’ve been here. Still, I’d like to increase the frequency to perhaps weekly.”

Those interested in presenting at TMC Internal Medicine Grand Rounds should reach out to their division chief and Dr. Scott.

“It’s good for us. It’s good for them. And it’s good for junior (and mid-career) faculty to be involved as presenters,” Dr. Donovan said. “I’m happy to do it again as needed.”

Event listing for April 5 lecture.