The Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Annual Research Week Abstracts

June 7, 2018, was another warm sunny day in Southern California and a period of transition at the Kaiser Permanente (KP) Los Angeles Medical Center. Spring at KP marks the end of the academic year for our residency and fellowship programs, and those in their last year of training were eagerly looking forward to the next step in their careers and lives. Faculty physicians greeted the end of another academic year with mixed emotions: A sadness and fondness for the departing trainees coupled with excitement and anticipation for the incoming eager but inexperienced new batch of trainees. This first Thursday in June also marked the end of the annual KP Los Angeles Research Week. The 19th event of its kind.

The exact dates are vague, but many people refer to J Fenimore Cooper, MD, (a urologist) as the very first Los Angeles Medical Center research lead, dating to the 1960s. We often refer to the 1960s as the days of giants because these individuals stood tall from the norm, and they represented people who went against the grain and did not follow the path of least resistance. For the KP physicians of this era, research was truly a labor of love. “People doing research at KP at the time were often chastised by others, and their work was deemed inappropriate conduct for a KP physician,” said Sheldon Wolfe, MD, a neurologist. Wolfe assumed the first official research chair position in the 1970s. Nevertheless, this small army of scholars and trendsetters persisted and continued to grow.

It was not until the fall of 2001 that there was enough interest and support to hold the first research week. According to Michael Glowalla, MD, Research Chair at the time, it took the form of an informal luncheon to acknowledge the few researchers and house staff doing research on campus. As miniscule as it may have seemed at the time, it represented another meaningful step in the growth and acceptance of research at KP Los Angeles. Since then, the event has grown tremendously in the number of researchers, the magnitude and number of projects presented, and the number of people interested, attending, and supporting research. People like Dennis Kim, MD; Bruce Goldberg, MD; Albert Shen, MD; and Nilesh Patel, DM; come to mind, helping to lead and oversee the surging culture of research. Overall, the transformation of the annual event has paralleled the growth of the research infrastructure including the clinician researchers, dedicated research scientists, research funding, and the findings that affect our organization. The following pages include the abstracts from the 19th annual KP Los Angeles Research Week. We feel that some of this year’s work, like others in the past, will affect future care within KP and elsewhere. This annual event is just a small sample of the number, quality, and vastness of the research conducted in Los Angeles, Southern California, and KP nationally. The year 2018 also marked the first year that KP Fontana (nearly 30 research posters presented this year) had such an event, and KP San Diego will follow suit in 2019. Although 2018’s panel of judges included Edward Ellison, MD (Executive Medical Director of KP Southern California); Steven Jacobsen, MD (Director of Research and Evaluation); and Adam Sharp, MD (Research Scientist and Emergency Physician); previous judges have included Michael Kanter, MD (Chief Quality Officer of the KP Federation); and Marc Klau, MD (Vice Dean KP School of Medicine). Chairman and CEO of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals, Bernard J Tyson, made this comment: “Kaiser Permanente has one of the nation’s most-respected research institutions, and the research we develop improves the quality of care and health outcomes we deliver for our members and the communities we serve. The Los Angeles Medical Center Research Week is an exciting example of how we are working together—through research—to find new ways to impact and transform the future of health.”