Ever since Dr. Raghavan Murugan was a second year CCM fellow in our program at Pitt, he has participated in the Clinical Research Training Program conducted by the Pitt Department of General Internal Medicine. He completed the required 30 credits with his major in the Clinical Trials track in April 2008. Dr. Murugan's research involved a prospective observational study of inflammatory response in organ donors and its influence on organ transplantation and recipient survival. At the February 2008 SCCM Congress in Hawaii, he won an award in the CPR category for his abstract entitled "Preload Responsiveness is Associated with Increased IL - 6 and Lower Organ Yield from Cadaveric Donors." On April 7, 2008, he successfully defended his thesis. Dr. Murugan expresses his appreciation for excellent mentorship provided by Dr. John Kellum throughout the past three years.The first manuscript from his research is entitled "Increased Plasma IL -6 in Donors is Associated with Lower Recipient Hospital-free Survival after Cadaveric Organ Transplantation." This will be published in the June 2008 edition of Critical Care Medicine. He is currently working on a K grant application for submission in October 2008. We admire Dr. Murugan for his tenacity and ambition and congratulate him for his recently earned MS Degree.