Author Archives: Kim Morris

The percentages of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the state who are Black and Latino remains near pandemic highs, a CBS17.com data analysis found. The overall daily hospitalization totals have plummeted over the past few months to their lowest levels in more than a year. But of those who are being...

The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) recently awarded five research grants to address vaccine hesitancy, uptake, and implementation among populations who experience health disparities. A total of $14.5 million has been committed over five years for these five grants, subject to available funds. Over $3.67 million has...

The government may no longer require North Carolinians to wear masks in public, but putting them on could help prevent thousands of coronavirus cases and deaths by the end of the year, reports the Greensboro News & Record. Research from three state universities have created a computer model that predicts...

WRAL reports another COVID strain could soon become more prevalent in the United States. The Delta variant, first identified in India in October 2020, is now listed as a “Variant of Concern” by the World Health Organization. David Wohl, MD, professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases, is...

The UNC Office of Academic Excellence is a group of faculty and staff who support students academically through the pre-clinical and clinical years, providing coaching, clinical skills training, and test-taking guidance. The OAE recently announced new faculty members who will join the OAE to provide student support across the state....

A new study published in Nature Communications demonstrates that a consortium of bacteria designed to complement missing or underrepresented functions in the imbalanced microbiome of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients, prevented and treated chronic immune-mediated colitis in humanized mouse models. The study’s senior author, Balfour Sartor, MD, Midget Distinguished Professor...

What will happen with COVID-19 through 2022, and what does this mean for programs like Social Security and Medicare? A new report from the National Academy of Social Insurance provides a framework to connect the various factors affecting the pandemic’s trajectory and the outcomes that are impacting, and will continue...

Deepa Kirk, MD, associate professor of medicine in the division of endocrinology and metabolism, explained autoimmune disease to Cosmopolitan magazine. “An autoimmune disease is any condition that causes your own immune system, which is designed to fend off foreign bodies, mistakenly attacks parts of your own body, said Kirk, medical...

Deb Bynum, MD, MMEL, FACP, has been awarded the Mary and Thomas Hudson Distinguished Professorship in the Division of Geriatric Medicine. On Thursday, June 3, residents held a surprise party to celebrate her. “Being a distinguished professor is a wonderful honor, and today we honor you Dr. Bynum, as maybe...

The Academy of Educators, housed within the Office of Faculty Affairs and Leadership Development, has announced the 2021-22 FLAGship (Faculty/Fellow Leadership and Growth) Program cohort. Five of the new members are from the department of medicine. Launched in 2019 as the Mentored Member Program, the newly rebranded AOE FLAGship (Faculty/Fellow...

Emily Ray, MD, MPH, has received a three-year Conquer Cancer Career Development Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology for a study that will evaluate and validate the use of a prognostic calculator for 30-day mortality in patients with metastatic breast cancer. The project aims to improve outcomes for...

About the same number of young Black men and women reach voting age in North Carolina every year, but there’s a huge gender gap each time ballots are counted. In 2020, when Donald Trump won the state by 74,500 votes, Black women cast 622,000 ballots but Black men cast only...