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(photography courtesy of Brian Kaldorf)

This year’s graduation party was held in the venerable Riverwatch Restaurant on the scenic Pittsburgh Boardwalk on June 1st, 2007 in the setting of one of those rare warm and sunny spring evenings in Pittsburgh. Faculty, fellows, spouses, friends and workmates initially gathered for drinks and choice hors d’oeuvres followed by a sumptuous three course dinner.

The cheerful company was brought to order by Dr. Mitchell Fink who congratulated the graduating fellows and announced that he was presiding over his last graduation as Chairman of the Department. He briefly outlined the growth of the department under his stewardship to the entity that it now is and very sincerely thanked all the members of the Critical Care Medicine Department for their hard work and effort over the years. He then introduced the acting Chairperson Dr. Ann Thompson to preside over the rest of the evening.

Dr. Thompson, in turn, congratulated all the graduates and their families and went on to point out the phenomenal development of the ‘first purely critical care medicine academic department in the country’ and how essential it has become to the running of the UPMC Hospitals. She wished all in the outgoing group well in their future endeavors and urged them to continue their good work leading to even more esteem and positive recognition for the department.

Next came the highlight of the evening which was the awarding of fellowship certificates to the graduating fellows of the different fellowship programs in this multidisciplinary department. First was The Fellowship in Pediatric Cardiovascular Critical Care which graduated Yuliya Domnina and Michael Tsifansky. Then it was the turn of the Pediatric Critical Care Fellowship which graduated Queenie D’Costa, Alia Dennis, Heather Schlott, and Lillian Su. This was followed by the Emergency Medicine Critical Care Fellowship which graduated Scott Crane. Anesthesia Critical Care Medicine then graduated Janice Chisholm who also received the best medical student teacher of the year award. The Surgical Critical Care Program graduated Yvonne Daly and last but not least the Internal Medicine Critical Care Medicine Program graduated the most candidates with Todd Henderson being awarded the ‘Fellow of the Year’ plaque.

Dr. Paul Rogers then took the opportunity to express gratitude to David Muigai who is the 2006-7 Chief Fellow (adult), Lisa Fabiszewski and Eileen McKenna for their hard work and effort in helping run the day-to-day activities of the program.
At this point it was time for Dr. Muigai to hand over the Chief Fellow’s job to Wissam Mansour while also offering a few remarks expressing gratitude and handing out tokens of appreciation on behalf of the fellows to Dr. Paul Rogers, Lisa Fabiszewski, Eileen McKenna and Jim Rieker. He was himself the recipient of a token of gratitude from the other fellows. Bob Clark then presented Lillian Su with the chief fellow plaque as a token of appreciation of her work this past year. The pediatric fellows then gave gifts to their fellowship director, Bob Clark, and their program coordinator, Tara Redwing.

Thus the day’s activities concluded. For the graduates, the evening air was filled with mixed emotions ranging from bitter sweetness at leaving colleagues and friends to expectancy at the new opportunities and challenges that lay ahead. Whatever the case, no one could deny that the CCM Program had left an indelible mark in their medical career.

Lillian Su, Ruby Aneja, Robert Clark	Robert Clark, Ruby Aneja, Raj Aneja
Ericka Fink, Robert Clark, Pat Kochanek	Lina Munoz, Ricardo Munoz
Alia Marie Dennis, Lillian Su	Pat , Eileen McKenna, Lisa Fabiszewski
Jim Rieker, David Muigai	John Hotchkiss, David Muigai
Paul Rogers, Todd Henderson, Lisa Fabiszewski	David Muigai, Paul Rogers
Ivonne Daly and Sam Tisherman	Ann Thompson and Mitchell Fink
Janice Chisholm, Rachel Moodey, Younghoon Kwon, Wissam Mansour, Patrick DiGiacomo, Scott Crane, Subbarao Elapavaluru, Syed Mahmood, Todd Henderson, Osama Aziz	Nick Azarov, Alan Heffner, Marcus Lien, Adrian Salmon, David Muigai, Asjad Khan, Ajoy Kapoor, Michael, Jack Somal