At the beginning of the year I mentioned that I would be watching numbers in The Loop, and not only has our Fully Vaccinated Employees number grown well past an amazing 15,200, but the number of inpatients with COVID-19 has been hovering in the single digits and even briefly turning zero for most of the last week. No other evidence of vaccine effectiveness should be needed. It is breathtaking to reflect on this achievement of science and determination, from fundamental research to clinical trials to deployment. These vaccines if widely distributed should end this pandemic. As we gradually return to a semblance of normalcy in our personal and professional lives, we have to relearn how to respond to invitations that come with more than a Zoom link as in-person meetings begin again.
Some of these recent invitations are opportunities to celebrate our residency and fellowship graduates. Tonight, we will formally bid farewell to another class of Medicine and Medicine-Psychiatry graduates and we are glad we have a couple more weeks of rotations with some of them. Though some faculty and our graduates will gather in person, other well-wishers can tune in tonight at 6:00 to a livestream of the event. The lifting of restrictions meant that last week, our Gastroenterology fellows and faculty could gather off-campus in person, and the week before our Nephrology division celebrated its fellowship graduates as a group as well. Many of our residents will be remaining in Iowa for subspecialty fellowships, others are headed elsewhere, and still others will launch their careers in practice. The same holds true for fellowship grads; having leveraged the diverse opportunities presented here, coupled with outstanding training, they are leaving to launch the next phase of their professional journey. Wherever they go next, they will carry a piece of us with them, knowing that they can come back home anytime. We will always roll out the warmest of welcomes when they do.
We will also say farewell tonight to another class of Chief Residents. It seems like just yesterday they were introducing themselves to us, though of course we had known and appreciated their talents and their energy long before they became Chiefs. Although they took office during a brief respite in COVID-19 cases in mid-summer, by the fall their leadership skills were put to the test as they strove to keep our normal operations on course, recruiting our incoming class of interns, in addition to supporting our resident teams caring for those in the ILI Clinic and in the MICU. Throughout this year, these four provided the reassurance, the guidance, the good humor, and the compassion that our residents and interns desperately needed at various points. Amanda, Matt, Roger, and Nick, we cannot thank you enough. You leave enormous shoes to fill, but we know Desmond, Sydney, Derek, and Yana will prove up to the task.
A strength of our Chief Residency is that during the transition from year to year, each class hands over the keys, leaving things better than when they found them. A similar commitment towards the future imbues everything we do in Internal Medicine. An example can be found in our faculty’s willingness to participate in the PREP@Iowa program. Minority students considering graduate school can take a post-bac year and work in one of four dozen labs throughout the Carver College of Medicine. They get a stipend and intensive preparation for a career in biomedical science. We have been fortunate to have two PREP scholars in the Abel Lab this year, Taha Gesalla and Luis Miguel Garcia Pena. Gesalla has been working with Dr. Helena Kenny and Garcia with Dr. Renata Pereira. Under their mentorship, they have each produced remarkable work, including significant contributions to accepted or submitted publications. Both of them are more than ready to take the next step toward becoming physician-scientists. I am grateful to Endocrinology Division Director Dr. Ayotunde Dokun for his leadership of the PREP program. It is a critical piece of a pipeline that will contribute importantly to the imperative to continue to increase diversity in the life sciences.
Hopefully years from now, we can celebrate the fruit of our labor as we see the small seeds sown now become mighty forests. That certainly must be a feeling shared among some of our senior members as we advance causes they set in motion. This time of year, the changing of one academic year into the next, is also many of our faculty members’ anniversaries of joining the department. And some of you, honestly, have had many anniversaries with this department and, we hope, many more. It’s a deep honor to be able to serve now alongside you and to help carry the torch that some of you have carried with care and grace for decades. Happy anniversary to some of this institution’s longest serving members and others also celebrating some milestone anniversaries:
 60 years Francois Abboud, MD Professor, Cardiovascular Medicine |  50 years Donald Heistad, MD Professor, Cardiovascular Medicine |
 35 years James Rossen, MD Professor, Cardiovascular Medicine |  35 years Frederick Johlin, MD Professor, Gastroenterology and Hepatology |
 30 years Thomas Gross, MD Professor, Pulmonary, Critical Care & Occupational Medicine |  25 years R. Todd Wiblin, MD, MS Clinical Professor, General Internal Medicine |
 20 years Kyle Brown, MD, MSc Professor, Gastroenterology and Hepatology |  20 years Theresa Brennan, MD Clinical Professor, Cardiovascular Medicine |
 15 years Isabella Grumbach, MD, PhD Professor, Cardiovascular Medicine |  15 years Ramzi EL Accaoui, MD Clinical Associate Professor, Cardiovascular Medicine |
 10 years Justin Smock, MD Clinical Associate Professor, General Internal Medicine |  10 years Varun Monga, MD Clinical Assistant Professor, Hematology, Oncology and Blood & Marrow Transplantation |
 10 years Milena Gebska, MD, PhD, MME Clinical Associate Professor, Cardiovascular Medicine |  10 years Brian Gehlbach, MD Clinical Professor, Pulmonary, Critical Care & Occupational Medicine |
 10 years Michael Eberlein, MD, PhD Clinical Professor, Pulmonary, Critical Care & Occupational Medicine |  10 years Hilary Mosher, MD Clinical Associate Professor, General Internal Medicine |
 5 years Troy Rhodes, MD, PhD Clinical Associate Professor, Cardiovascular Medicine |  5 years Aaron Scherer, PhD Assistant Professor, General Internal Medicine |
