May 2025

Effective October 1, 2025, Margaret L. (Molly) McNairy, MD, MSC will be the Chief of the Divisions of General Medicine & Geriatrics and Hospital Medicine at WashU Medicine. Dr. McNairy currently serves as Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Center of Global Health at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. She also serves as Chief of the Section of Hospital Medicine at Weill Cornell and New York Presbyterian Hospital and leads the Global Health Research Fellowship. Dr. McNairy received her M.D. from Harvard Medical School and as a Fulbright Scholar, earned a Master of Science degree from the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Welcome, Dr. McNairy! 

On April 30th - May 1st, the Division of General Medicine & Geriatrics was excited to host Darilyn Moyer, MD, MACP, FRCP, FIDSA, FAMWA, FEFIM for this year's Robert J. Glaser Visiting Professor Grand Rounds. On May 1st, Dr. Moyer gave the Internal Medicine Grand Rounds titled, "PC as the Foundation for Healthcare" followed by meeting with Division Chiefs, current Internal Medicine residents, current and incoming Internal Medicine chief residents, and physicians from other divisions. Thank you again Dr. Moyer for your time at WashU Medicine!

The Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation has opened this year’s call for applications. This program seeks early-career faculty with 3 to 8 years of experience and the potential to be leaders in medical or nursing education and offers salary support, funds to support a scholarly project in education, and participation in national faculty development activities with a community of health professions education scholars. They are seeking applicants with projects related to the learning environment. Each medical school may nominate one applicant each year. Information about the Macy Faculty Scholars program and guidelines for applications is available here: https://macyfoundation.org/macy-scholars/apply.

Wash U has an internal deadline of June 2 for submission of applications for consideration to be the School of Medicine’s nominee this year. Requirements for the internal submission are available on InfoReady at this link (https://washuresearch.infoready4.com/#freeformCompetitionDetail/1977320).

If you have questions about the program, our two members of the Macy Faculty Scholars community, Drs. Doug Larsen and Eve Colson, would be happy to talk with you.

The Science for Health Systems Conference (S4HS), happening Oct. 29–31, 2025 at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education & Conference Center at Washington University in St. Louis is an groundbreaking event bringing together researchers, policymakers, and implementers from multiple disciplines and regions of the world to share health system research methods and findings to maximize health impact. This inaugural conference is being organized in partnership with the School of Medicine, the new School of Public Health and the Quality Evidence for Health System Transformation (QuEST) Network.

Registration is now open – [register here] – with special rates available for students, early-career participants and researchers for low-or middle-income countries. We are also accepting abstracts focused on health system reform and redesign. Submissions are welcome until May 1st– [submit your abstract here]. For those interested in deepening their understanding of health system quality measurement and analysis, we encourage participation in the Skill Lab, a pre-conference session designed to build practical skills and foster connections – [learn more here].

If you would like to have more information about the S4HS Conference or are interested in partnering with us for this important event, please don’t hesitate to contact Laura Espinoza-Pajuelo at espinozapajuelo@wustl.edu. For questions related to registration or abstracts submissions, please reach out to Sue Bevan at sbevan@scienceforhealthsystems.org.

Exciting Opportunity for Faculty: Engage a Skilled Research Assistant from the MS in Applied Health Behavior Research Program!

Are you looking to advance your research projects with the help of a talented and dedicated research assistant? Students starting the MS in Applied Health Behavior Research program in the Summer and Fall 2025 semesters are looking for an opportunity to collaborate with faculty members to contribute to impactful and innovative projects. 

By engaging a research assistant, you can:

Enhance Your Research Capabilities: Benefit from the fresh perspectives, rigorous training, and methodological expertise of our students.

Foster Collaboration: Build meaningful collaborations and mentor the next generation of health behavior researchers.

Advance Your Projects: Get support on data collection, analysis, literature reviews, and other key research activities.

For more information about the AHBR program and the specialized training our students receive, visit our website: ahbr.wustl.edu. Don't miss this chance to elevate your research and work with passionate and driven individuals. If you are interested or want to learn more, please send your name, job title, and department to Callista Poiter at c.poiter@wustl.edu.

Congratulations to Abby Spencer, MD, MS, FACP on being awarded with American Medical Women's Association (AMWA) fellowship recognition. The American Medical Women's Association Fellowship Program serves to recognize and honor distinguished members of AMWA who have accomplished outstanding achievements in science, medicine or academia. She was also appointed as co-chair of the National AMWA education committee and serves on the AMWA Board of Directors. She is starting her 3-year term as the Vice-Chair of the ACGME Internal Medicine Review Committee and joined its executive committee. Dr. Spencer is also named the 2025-2026 Chair of  the SGIM/ACLGIM Leadership Development Program (LEAD) for junior faculty and will welcome their newest cohort of emerging leaders this week to the year-long program.  The ACLGIM LEAD program is specifically tailored for those who are at the junior to mid-career stage in their academic faculty roles and are ready to elevate their leadership capabilities. If interested in applying for the program, learn more here.

Congratulations to Drs. Rakhee Bhayani, Abby Spencer, and Janice Hanson for being recognized by Dr. Fraser at the DOM Awards Dinner early this month. Also, Drs. Spencer and Hanson kicked off their initial interprofessional faculty development curriculum planning session for their Moore/ACP/ABIM Pursuing Trust Grant to Enhance Delivery of Equitable Assessment and Feedback in the clinical learning environment in Internal Medicine.

Kruk

Margaret Kruk, MD, MPH has received an award from The Gates Foundation. The $1.2 million award recognizes Dr. Kruk's contribution to her research titled "Diagnosing primary care quality for better performance in Panjab & beyond" that looks to enhance understanding of patient experiences and the quality of primary healthcare, and to increase visibility for improvement actions. Congratulations, Dr. Kruk!

McQueen

Amy McQueen, PhD has a journal article published in Society of Behavioral Medicine titled "The U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory on Alcohol and Cancer Risk 2025: What Does it Mean?". The article discusses alcohol use linked with increased risk of seven types of cancers: mouth, throat, larynx, esophageal, liver, breast, and colorectal. Congratulations, Dr. McQueen!

Lin

Sunny Lin, PhD has had several articles published with the first being in the American Medical Association titled "Year 1 of Medicare's Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health Model". The article discusses ACO REACH starting in January 2023 as a Medicare program that was meant to provide additional incentives  to providers serving people from marginalized communities. We examined who first year ACO REACH participants were. We found that ACO REACH participants were more likely to serve urban areas with lower Social Vulnerability Index than Medicare beneficiaries more broadly suggesting that ACO REACH is not yet reaching its intended population. Dr. Lin's next article was published in the Journal of Healthcare Provision and Public Health titled "Outcomes Evidence Must Keep Up with the Implementation of the 4Ms Framework to Ensure Age-Friendly Health System Transformation" that discusses The Age-Friendly Health System is a national effort to redesign care delivery to be more friendly and effective for older adults. More evidence is needed in order to assess the effectiveness and equity impact of Age-Friendly Health System principles. In this piece, we outline strategies for researchers and implementers to generate and disseminate high-quality evidence on AFHS. Finally, she has an article published in Pediatric Blood & Cancer with co-author Bryan Sisk titled "Patient Portal Use Among Patients with Vascular Anomalies and Their Caregivers" that this study examined electronic health record audit-log data for 315 patients with vascular anomalies and found that only half accessed the online patient portal, with usage significantly lower among those from socioeconomically disadvantaged areas. Congratulations, Dr. Lin!

Ciesielski

Thomas Ciesielski, MD has an article published in Medical Clinics of North America titled "Accreditation and Health Policy and Their Impacts on Quality". The article is a brief overview of the history of hospital accreditation, health policy, and how they interact to impact healthcare quality and cost. Congratulations, Dr. Ciesielski!

DuBois

“Responsible Sharing of Qualitative Research Data: Insights from a Pioneering Project in the United States,” written by James DuBois’ Qualitative Data Sharing (QDS) team, was recently published in the International Journal of Qualitative Research. Sharing qualitative data promotes open science, reduces research costs, and improves transparency. Despite mandates from institutions like the NIH, researchers have concerns about QDS due to its sensitive nature. In the article, the team details how they worked to identify and reduce barriers to QDS. As part of their project, they developed guidelines and tools for data de-identification, depositing, and sharing. They also developed and tested the Qualitative Data Sharing (QuaDS) Software to support qualitative data de-identification. In the article, the authors describe the process of recruiting, enrolling, and assisting 28 researchers to use the guidelines and software to prepare and de-identify data for deposit in a repository. The team ultimately demonstrated that QDS is feasible, but the article highlights the need for clear guidelines, support, and improved processes. Congratulations, Dr. DuBois and the QDS team!

Mozersky

Jessica Mozersky, PhD research work is published in the latest issue of WashU's The Source. The article titled "Most people say they want to know their risk for Alzheimer's dementia, fewer follow through" discusses choices people make when given the opportunity to learn their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease dementia. Congratulations, Dr. Mozersky!

Geriatrics faculty and fellows of GMG Division

On May 7th-10th, Geriatrics faculty and fellows attended the annual meeting of the American Geriatrics Society in Chicago, IL. 

Happy Spring! Students from all master-level programs in the GMG department were invited by the AHBR Graduate Assistant, Callista Poiter, to meet up and dye eggs using a nostalgic technique of applying gel food coloring to whipped cream on a plate and rolling the egg through the dye during AHBR's Spring Social.