An announcement from Drs. Avidan and Drewry:
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Uchenna Ofoma has graciously agreed to serve as Director of the Christian Hospital Intensive Care Unit, effective July 1, 2020.
Since January 2020, Dr. Ofoma has been the Assistant Director of the Christian ICU. In his new role as Director, he will partner with hospital and nursing leadership at Christian Hospital to ensure delivery of outstanding clinical care in the intensive care unit. He will oversee the clinical and administrative functions of the unit, including development of clinical guidelines, quality improvement initiatives, and physician onboarding, among other duties. He will promote the educational mission of our department among advanced practice providers and critical care fellows rotating at Christian Hospital. He will also work closely with APP leadership, Telemedicine ICU leadership, and fellow members of the Critical Care Collaborative Council to achieve quality goals and to develop and respond to unit-based outcome metrics.
Dr. Ofoma obtained his primary medical degree from the University of Nigeria, followed by a residency training in Emergency Medicine in Dublin, Ireland, under the auspices of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. After he moved to the United States, he completed his Internal Medicine residency at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY, and a Critical Care Medicine fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Dr. Ofoma also holds a Master of Science degree in Clinical Research and Public Health Sciences from Pennsylvania State University. His research is aimed at understanding hospital and health system-level variations in outcomes of critically ill patients and the effect of changes made at the organizational level. Specific areas of research interest include sepsis, cardiac arrest, and adult respiratory distress syndrome. Before joining WUSM in July of 2019, Dr. Ofoma worked at Geisinger Health System where he was a critical care physician and an Assistant Professor at Temple University and Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine.
Dr. Jim Close has served as the Christian ICU Director for the WUDA Division of Critical Care since our division began providing critical care services to Christian Hospital in March 2018 and had previous experience leading the Christian ICU team before joining our department. We would like to thank him for his extraordinary leadership of critical care services at Christian Hospital and his long-term dedication to the hospital and our community. His leadership and knowledge of community ICU operations have been invaluable to our department over the last two years. In addition to overseeing the transition of Christian ICU operations to our department, he has worked tirelessly to ensure optimal care of critically ill patients in the Christian ICU. His leadership during the current COVID-19 crisis has been especially appreciated. Although Dr. Close is stepping down as the Christian ICU Director, he will remain a valued faculty member in the Division of Critical Care, and we look forward to continuing to learn and benefit from his expertise.
Please join us in thanking Dr. Close and congratulating Dr. Ofoma. We are delighted that he has accepted this position and look forward to working with him in his new role.
Michael S. Avidan, MBBCh, FCASA
Dr. Seymour and Rose T. Brown Professor of Anesthesiology
Head of the Department of Anesthesiology
Anne M. Drewry, MD, MSCI
Associate Professor of Anesthesiology
Division Chief, Critical Care Medicine