2024
Sophia S. Sheikh M.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, Medical Director, Florida/USVI Poison Information Center – Jacksonville
Dr. Sheikh is a UF Jacksonville EM residency alumni who completed her fellowship in Medical Toxicology at Emory University. We were then fortunate enough to have her join our faculty back in 2012. She was promoted to Associate Professor in 2021 and is additionally the Medical Director for the Florida/USVI Poison Information Center-Jacksonville. Beyond her clinical and teaching responsibilities in the ED, she reviews clinical protocols for poisoning, provides bedside and phone consultation, and teaches about management of toxic exposures. She provides Institutional Service on committees such as UFHJ Pharmacy and Thereutics Committee, the UFHJ Pain and Opioid Stewardship Taskforce (POST), and the Department of Emergency Medicine Faculty Development Committee. She is a Duval County Medical Society delegate to the Florida Medical Association and she has served for the last 10 years as an American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) Fatality Reviewer providing QI for the nation’s poison center protocols and recommendations. Dr. Sheikh was awarded nearly $2 million dollars in funding as PI/CO-PI for clinical research including a two-year KL2-type research training award. In addition, she developed a patient safety program, called the Pain Assessment and Management Initiative (PAMI) aimed at improving pain management through education and research which has been trademarked with several tools and resources copyrighted. She won the 2019 University of Florida Innovation of the Year, Tech-Licensing Favorites Award for this work and the PAMI e-learning modules have been used by >22,000 users from 171 countries outside the United States. To sum up her 35 page CV and immense footprint in scholarly work, Dr. Sheikh is the PI/Co-I on 16 funded projects, has authored 3 chapters, over 50 peer reviewed manuscripts along with numerous published abstracts, has given oral presentations at dozens of international meetings as well as over 30 national meetings, and is a reviewer for 5 journals and serves as a NIH Study Section Early Career Reviewer. Not only is she an extraordinary clinician and researcher, but she values being a mentor for other women faculty and residents alike. At this time she is a formal assigned mentor for 5 EM residents (3 of which are women) as well as 2 female EM faculty. Dr. Sheikh has served as an example of a female physician clinician-scientist who has successfully navigated research and promotion pathways while also raising a family. She is an inspiring example of literally doing it all. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Sophia Sheikh for her WIMS Mid-Career Female Faculty Award.
2023
Petra Duran-Gehring, MD
Associate Professor & Medical Director, Emergency Medicine Ultrasound
2023 Awardee – Women in Medicine and Science Mid-Career Faculty Award
- Local atcheevements: Creation of an ultrasound-guided IV placement program for our EMTs. She improved IV placement in many of our chronically ill patients, solving delays in care, waiting for a physician placed IV. Dr. Duran proved that not only could she teach the EMTs to place USGIVs, but that they could do it just as well as physicians! She published her 97% EMT success rate for USGIVs and demonstrated that this program reduced the number of non-critical central lines by >50% in the ED. Now it is unusual for a physician to place a central line for mere IV access. This change in culture in the ED started a chain reaction throughout the hospital and her EMT led IV program has now grown to be the USGIV team for the entire institution, reducing central line days by 39%, central line associated blood stream infections by 50% and saving the institution around $600,000 annually. Her EMT IV team provides 24 hour a day coverage and places >6,000 ultrasound guided peripheral IVs and midlines annually
- AWARDS: 2022 ACEP National Emergency Medicine Faculty Teaching Award and Exemplary Teaching award from the UF-College of Medicine seven times since 2008
- EM Ultrasound fellowship director, SAEM Academy of Women in Academic EM Mid-Career Faculty Award in 2021
- Dr. Duran-Gehring’s mentorship style was summed up by a recent graduate, “[Dr. Duran takes you under her wing, cultivates your skills and knowledge, instills excitement and energy, and prepares you to tackle the world head on ” while another notes “she always goes out of her way to teach residents, to be an open ear, to provide guidance.”
2022
Amie Hoefnagel, MD
Associate Professor & Associate Program Director, Anesthesiology Residency; Medical Director, Quality Improvement
2022 Awardee – Women in Medicine and Science Mid-Career Faculty Award
“Dr. Hoefnagel has demonstrated excellence in clinical skills at the local and national levels. Her area of expertise is in neuroanesthesia, but is also recognized as the go-to person for all types of high risk cases. She has been honored twice for her superb clinical care at A Night for Heroes at the University of Florida College of Medicine – Jacksonville.”
“She has worked for her profession on multiple levels. She has served on multiple committees at the department, institution, and national levels. She won the departmental service award in 2016. She serves as department champion on the institutional Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Committee. She is highly involved in the SNAAC serving on multiple committees.”
“She specifically seeks out trainees to work with her on her scholarly projects, allowing for multiple women trainees and junior faculty to also become published.”
“She is an example to all women academic physicians both for her excellence and for her dedication to sponsoring other women.”