18th annual IM Resident Research Day celebrates resident accomplishments virtually

For more than a decade, the J. Willis Hurst Internal Medicine Residency Program has successfully hosted the annual IM Resident Research Day to showcase residents’ research achievements and celebrate the collaboration between residents and dedicated faculty. This year’s virtual event took place Tuesday, April 20 and featured resident oral abstract awardees at Grand Rounds.

The Resident Research Day Grand Rounds started with the inspirational keynote speech, “Clinical Research: My Path to Endless Possibilities,” from Zanthia Wiley, MD, assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases.

Following Wiley’s speech, this year’s oral abstract winners presented their research projects. Layal Sayegh, MD discussed her project, “Alcohol impairs alveolar macrophages responses to Mycobacterium tuberculosis.” Krysta Frye, MD presented “Improving Nephrology Care at Grady Health System Using a Novel E-Consult Service.” Pranav Santapuram, MD delivered his presentation, “Evaluating Outcomes for Autologous Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation for Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma in the CAR-T Era.” Finally, Nishant Vatsa, MD, Ryan Cousins, MD, and Lawson McDonald, MD presented “Fulminant Myocarditis – An Aggressive Presentation in an Athlete.”

There were 56 poster entries for Resident Research Day, including 37 clinical vignettes and 19 original research projects. The following winners were selected through a blinded, peer review process:

Original Research Poster

First Place: Ryan Cousins, MD
Second Place: Caroline Coleman, MD
Third Place: Alex Galloway, MD
Honorable Mention: Frances Lee, MD

Clinical Vignette Poster

First Place: Margaret To, MD
Second Place: Agreen Hadadi, MD, Adithya Yadalam, MD, and Anthony Zhuang, MD
Honorable Mentions: John Davis, MD, Nikita Desai, MD, Nicole Treadway, MD, and Sarah Wondmeneh, MD

In place of our traditional in-person poster session, we invite our faculty and residents to review the residents’ posters through the links below:

View winning posters.

View all posters organized by resident’s last name.

View posters sorted by division based on faculty involved with the project. 

Thank you to the following faculty and chief resident judges who provided our peer review process for oral and poster presentation selections:

• Amalia Aldredge, MD
• Jonathon Cohen, MD
• Nancy Collop, MD
• Raymund Dantes, MD
• Lorenzo Di Francesco, MD
• Matthew Dudgeon, MD
• Reena Hemrajani, MD
• Dawn Howard, MD
• Patricia Hwang, MD
• Jeffrey Lennox, MD
• Jennifer Lom, MD
• Gina Lundberg, MD
• Christopher Massad, MD
• Elizabeth McCord, MD
• Mohamad Moussa, MD
• Viniya Patidar, MD
• Varun Phadke, MD
• Charles Searles, Jr., MD
• Hasan Shabbir, MD
• Shanthi Srinivasan, MD
• Maha Sulieman, MD
• Mehul Tejani, MD
• Hima Veeramachaneni, MD
• Pamela Vhora-Khullar, MD
• Eli Wilber, MD
• Patrick Zakka, MD

We extend our thanks to each of our dedicated faculty who have generously mentored our residents in research and career development. Resident Research Day is a celebration of your shared accomplishments and the invaluable support each of you invests in our trainees.