The annual U.S. News & World Report physician expert opinion survey is now under way. Votes cast in the survey are used to calculate a hospital’s reputation/expert opinion score for each specialty, which influences a hospital’s overall ranking on the annual Best Hospitals list.
For your patients, these rankings can help build confidence in their choice of care provider. Your vote also helps ensure that the exceptional care provided at UVA Health – and the many dedicated people who deliver it – receive the recognition they deserve.
Why UVA Health?
UVA has been the No. 1 hospital in Virginia for five consecutive years, with two UVA adult specialties ranked among the top 50 in the nation in 2020-2021. The publication also ranked five UVA Children’s specialties among the top 50 nationally in its 2020-2021 Best Children’s Hospitals guide.
As an academic medical center, UVA Health not only provides your patients with advanced clinical care, but also strives to advance the field of medicine through ongoing research. Some of the key discoveries made at UVA Health this year are outlined below.
- HIV Drugs Prevent Diabetes, Macular Degeneration
NRTIs used to treat HIV may prevent both diabetes and dry macular degeneration, UVA’s Jayakrishna Ambati, MD, has found. Ambati validated surprising bench discoveries by analyzing insurance databases to assess disease risk in patients – a powerful approach that provides important insights without the need for costly trials. “This finding provides real hope in developing the first treatment for this blinding disease,” Ambati said. - Imaging Insights Into Autism Spectrum Disorders
Kevin Pelphrey, PhD, one of the nation’s top autism researchers, used advanced imaging to assess cortical activation in the brains of children with and without autism-spectrum disorders during face-to-face interpersonal interactions. The work identified important neural biomarkers that can be used as outcome predictors or treatment response indicators in future studies. - Artificial Pancreas Replaces Routine Finger Sticks
An artificial pancreas system based on technology from the UVA Center for Diabetes Technology won approval from the Food and Drug Administration first for adults and then for children age 6 and older. The device automatically monitors and regulates blood glucose for appropriate type 1 patients. “We are excited that our decade-long research, which recently culminated in a large-scale clinical trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has been successfully translated to the clinical practice,” said Boris Kovatchev, PhD, director of the UVA center. - BIG Discovery Reveals Unknown Harms of TBI
John Lukens, PhD, of the UVA Department of Neuroscience and Center for Brain Immunology and Glia (BIG), revealed dire, unknown effects of even mild traumatic brain injury. His groundbreaking work shows that mild concussions cause severe and long-lasting impairments in the brain’s ability to cleanse itself of toxins, potentially seeding it for Alzheimer’s disease, dementia and other neurodegenerative problems. - Neurosurgery Without Scalpels
UVA neurosurgeon Jeff Elias, MD, continued his pioneering work in the field of focused ultrasound with a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrating benefits of the scalpel-free surgery for patients with Parkinson’s symptoms that are more severe on one side of the body. Assessed on a scale of 1-44, study participants who received the high-intensity soundwaves saw an improvement of 10 points, while those who received placebo saw a difference of less than two. Elias’ prior work already paved the way for the FDA to approve the technology for the treatment of essential tremor and Parkinson’s tremor. - Surprise Discovery About Dying Cells Could Lead to New Treatments
Kodi S. Ravichandran, PhD, has recast our understanding of cell death, revealing that apoptotic cells are not inert but instead actively signal for their removal. The signals initiate specific gene programs in healthy nearby cells, including inflammation suppression and wound healing. He was able to leverage the discovery to disease severity of lung-graft rejection and inflammatory arthritis in mouse models. It was Ravichandran’s 12th paper in Nature. - Immune Profiling Predicts C. Difficile Outcomes
William A. Petri Jr., MD, PhD, continued his international leadership in the field of enteric infections by demonstrating the importance of the gut microbiome and bone marrow in determining susceptibility to amebiasis, a parasitic intestinal infection. He also developed a method to use immune profiling to predict C. difficile outcomes, setting the stage for precision medicine for the most common health care-associated infection in the U.S.
Cast Your Vote
The survey is only available for a brief time; it closes Friday, March 26. Here’s what you need to know:
How to vote?
Access the survey on Doximity. After logging in, eligible physicians will be prompted to participate in the survey. The survey only takes a few minutes to complete. You will be asked to provide the name of a hospital(s) in your specialty that provide the best care for complex or difficult cases, without considering location or expense.
Who can vote?
The survey is available to eligible members with a claimed Doximity profile as of November 1, 2020 and who are board-certified in one of the following specialties: cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, ear, nose and throat, gastroenterology and GI surgery, geriatrics, gynecology, nephrology, neurology, neuroradiology, neurosurgery, ophthalmology, orthopedics, psychiatry, pulmonology, radiology, rehabilitation, rheumatology, thoracic surgery, urology, and vascular surgery. View specific eligibility criteria for each specialty.