COVID Specific Research Forum Interview with Dr. Limkakeng and Dr. Lin

Dr. Alexander T. Limkakeng, Jr., MD, MHSc, FACEP
is a Professor of Emergency Medicine and the Vice Chief of Research and Director of the Acute Care Research Team for the Duke University Division of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Limkakeng has served as the Course Director of the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) Research Forum from 2016-2018 and chair of the ACEP Research Committee. As a researcher, Dr. Limkakeng has led multiple clinical trials and interdepartmental sponsored projects and is author on over 70 peer-reviewed manuscripts. These include studies in emergency conditions such as COVID-19, traumatic brain injury, hypertension, heart failure, thrombosis, stroke, envenomation, and septic shock. He has led Duke’s involvement in NIH-funded research networks for emergency critical care (PETAL) and emergency cardiac and neurologic care (SIREN) and on industry-funded work that led to FDA approval for multiple high-sensitivity cardiac troponin assays. He now serves as Co-PI for the Duke U24 Hub in the NIH Early Phase Pain Investigation Clinical Network (EPPIC-Net).

Michelle Lin, MD, MPH, MS, FACEP
is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Population Health Science and Policy and Core Faculty within the Institute for Health Equity Research at Mount Sinai Health System in New York having completed a fellowship in Health Policy Research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a Masters in Clinical Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Lin’s goal is to improve acute care outcomes, equity, and patient-centeredness. Dr. Lin’s projects aim to develop and implement patient-reported outcomes for ED asthma care, evaluate the impact of alternative payment models for emergency care, and identify drivers of variation in ED outcomes. She has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and Emergency Medicine Foundation and has received several national awards including the inaugural EMRA 45 under 45 in 2019 and the SAEM Young Investigator Award in 2021. Dr. Lin is the Chair of the Clinical Emergency Data Registry Committee and Co-Chair of the Quality Measure Development Workgroup within the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Dr. Kumar
Thank you for agreeing to talk with us on behalf of the Research, Scholarly Activity, and Innovations Section. We are very excited to have you talk with us about the COVID Specific research forum.

Dr. Limkakeng and Dr. Lin
Thank you for the opportunity.

Dr. Kumar
This was the first year we had two research forums: ACEP RF Oct 25th- 28th and the COVID 19 RF on the 4th of August, why did you choose to have a separate one?

Dr. Limkakeng
This effort stemmed out of a joint collaboration between ACEP and a CDC grant. The goal was to showcase the cutting-edge research and the ever-evolving dynamics of COVID 19.

Dr. Lin
This was a collaborative effort and the timing was perfect since they were able to piggy back off the focused abstract submitted for ACEP meeting. There was an expedited review process with the help of the peer reviewers and the quality of the abstracts were exceptional.

Dr. Limkakeng
Getting the speakers together at short notice was a challenge but thanks to the cooperation of the speakers and everyone making special efforts to accommodate this program we were able to have a full agenda. We were fortunate that Jane Scott, ScD, MSN (Director, Office of Research Training and Career Development, Division of Cardiovascular Sciences, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health) and Joneigh Khaldun, MD, MPH, FACEP (then Chief Medical Executive for the State of Michigan and Chief Deputy Director for Health in the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services) were able to make time to deliver the key note and the other speakers including Drs. Alexandra Weissman, Basmah Safdar, Frederick Korley, Jeannette Wolfe, Jeffrey Siegelman, Jeremy Brown, Joseph Bledsoe, Kusum Mathews, Lauren Wesafer, Mark Rosenberg, Marna Greenberg, Peter Hou, Rob Rodriguez, and Tracy Madsen, were able to be present. Special shout to Loren and Marla without whose help and support this program would not have been possible.

Dr. Lin
There was light shed on the public health response and lessons learnt including importance of communication, resilience and innovation using large data from multiple sources. This was a unique event and several topics not discussed elsewhere were brought to the forefront here like disaster preparedness, resourcefulness of EM physicians etc. The presentations covered several COVID related topics from Diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccination, epidemiology to health disparities and wellness.  

Dr. Kumar
With the COVID Specific research forum having been conducted successfully this year will we be able to get access to the abstracts

Dr. Limkakeng
Yes, recordings of the forum are available for all to see in ACEP’s Online Learning Collaborative under the Research Forum track. The abstracts were released in the Annals supplement in 2021.

Dr. Kumar
Will this be an annual event?

Dr. Limkakeng
We may not have a COVID specific Research forum every year but, I do feel that a focused Research forum on the most relevant topic could be a thought. Again, as this was part of a grant we will be working on getting an extension for future events.

Dr. Kumar
How could members of the RSI be involved with such events in the future?

Dr. Lin
They could reach out to Loren Rives and she could connect the member to the appropriate team.

Dr. Kuma
Thank you for your time and congratulations again on a very successful unique research forum.

(Dr. Vijaya Arun Kumar Interviewed Dr. Alexander Limkakeng and Dr. Michele Lin virtually following ACEP 2021)