News

When Lauren Prochaska, BSN, RN, took on the role of nurse manager for Duke’s 1L clinic one year ago, she faced the formidable task of overseeing all the clinic’s daily operations. Since then she’s had to keep those duties up while thinking outside the box to make sure patients received safe, effective, and compassionate care during an emerging epidemic.

Jessica Carlson grew up with a “super mom” who was always present with affection, support, and a willingness to take her daughter to tennis meets every weekend in blazing summer heat. Seeing her mother get diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, as well as her perseverance despite the debilitating effects of the disease, inspired Carlson to pursue a career in neurology.

In addition to the development and administration of a potential therapy and following participants over time, every clinical trial also has a complex set of budgeting and financial concerns. Jillian Deignan, our finance practice manager, makes sure these issues are handled accurately, promptly, and completely for our Department. In this week's "spotlight" interview, Deignan talks to us about how her current job compares to her previous work in the Department of Pediatrics, and the highs and lows of her work.

This week, both Duke University and the School of Medicine took steps to acknowledge and address systemic racism, both within their institutions and across the nation, with particular emphasis on the effects racism has on Black communities and individuals. On Tuesday, June 16, Duke University held "Living While Black," an all-day symposium bringing together distinguished Black faculty, students and staff.

James Camp, MSN, likes to think of himself as the Moriarty of Duke University Hospital’s neuro Intensive Care Unit (ICU), where he works behind the scenes, plotting ways to improve safety, innovation, and daily operations across the unit. For this week’s spotlight interview, the nurse manager talks to us about how he works to handle the information deluge of the COVID-19 pandemic, his joys of patient care and maintaining spreadsheets, and what he wishes more patients knew about visiting the neuro ICU.

As the COVID-19 epidemic is making neurological emergencies harder to treat--and potentially more dangerous for the patient--neurology providers at Duke’s three hospitals are rising to the challenge with robots, iPads, and an unprecedented level of collaboration.

The patient in Durham Regional Hospital was unresponsive to questions. The ambulance had brought him into the emergency room with meningitis, or inflammation around the brain--as well as symptoms that could have been caused by COVID-19.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Lacy Rardin, MSW, LCSWA, helped families with movement or memory disorders cope with their diagnosis, find support, and navigate life with their conditions in our Morreene Road Clinic. Now, she’s providing the same resources and help to those patients virtually via telephone or video calls.

[Update: The initial round of lunches from NaanStop has since inspired a series of more than 20 lunch donations for the Neuro ICU team, courtesy of the Duke Neurology Department.]

Duke University Hospital’s Neuro Intensive Care Unit received a welcome surprise this Friday--35 box lunches of northern Indian cuisine, donated courtesy of NaanStop, a nearby Indian restaurant.

Before the COVID-19 epidemic, Viviana Cantillana managed the laboratory of Daniel Laskowitz, MD, MHS, in its home in the Bryan Research Building. Now, with her lab microscope in her living room, she’s performing stereology analysis on more than 200 samples of mouse brains from her own home. Cantillana talks to use about her work and how it has changed since the outbreak, how things have changed since she started at Duke nearly 20 years ago, and how she enjoys her spare time in isolation.

Morgan Carter, the Neurology Department’s clinical operations manager, works to make every visit to one of our providers as smooth, quick, and complete as possible, whether that means implementing an initiative to increase access, connecting a patient with multiple providers, connecting with our outpatient clinics, or all of the above.