Cedars Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine Fellowship program held its virtual graduation on June 18, 2020.  The class of fellows received more than they originally signed up for when they accepted the 36-month training fellowship, all of them were on the front lines managing patients with COVID-19.  The celebration was festive, the fellows and the doctors who work with them had a great deal to celebrate.  The doctor in charge of the fellowship program, Jeremy Falk issued awards.  The awards section kicked-off with the Will Rogers Institute Fellow award given to Dr. Joseph Palatinus. 

Dr. Joseph Palatinus obtained a dual MD and PhD at the Medical University of South Carolina. He went on to complete a combined residency and fellowship in internal medicine/cardiology at Beth Israel and Cedars-Sinai.  In 2018, he stayed on as an advanced cardiac research fellow during which time he joined our critical care fellowship program gaining training and expertise to manage complex ICU patients. His research interest has focused primarily on the molecular mechanisms of sudden cardiac death and how manipulation of these pathways may help prevent this devastating complication of cardiac disease. 

Dr Falk was joined by the Peter Chen, MD, Director of Pulmonary and Critical care Medicine in celebrating the work of Dr. Palatinus. Dr. Chen works closely with the Will Rogers Institute fellow each year.  In 2020, we celebrated our third year of having a fellow Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Nationally, Cedars-Sinai has been recognized for how it managed COVID-19 patients and is among dozens of hospitals and clinics around the world participating in an experimental antiviral drug positioned as a potential treatment for COVID-19, sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. In addition to the experimental drug therapy, some critically ill COVID-19 patients at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center received an experimental treatment of lab-grown human heart tissue, and showed significant improvement.  The therapeutic, known as CAP-1002, was previously used in clinical research focused on the treatment of heart failure, and it contains cells grown in the laboratory from heart tissue.  Previous studies provided strong evidence that the intravenously given cardiosphere-derived cells have intense benefits for the immune system and inflammation in a number of diseases.