UP FRONT
ASH Directions
Recognizing Champions of Waste Reduction
ASH recognized three Choosing Wisely®
Champions during the 2018 annual meet-
ing in San Diego.
Choosing Wisely, an initiative of the
American Board of Internal Medicine
(ABIM) Foundation, encourages clinicians
to reduce overuse of tests, procedures, and
treatments that may not benefit patients.
The program recognizes clinicians who
have implemented successful projects to
improve quality at their institutions and
advance the goals of the campaign.
The 2018 ASH Choosing Wisely
Champions are:
Adam F. Binder, MD, Thomas Jefferson
University Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center,
Philadelphia
While he was an attending physician at the
Montefiore Medical Center in New York,
Dr. Binder and his colleagues developed
an algorithm to guide antibiotic prescrip-
tion use related to febrile neutropenia.
Ming Lim, MD, Medical University of
South Carolina, Charleston
Dr. Lim and colleagues implemented a
hospital-wide protocol that coordinated
testing and treatment of patients suspect-
ed to have heparin-induced thrombocyto-
penia, which led to a 70 percent reduction
in the use of direct thrombin inhibitors.
Prakash Vishnu, MD, Mayo Clinic,
Jacksonville, Florida
Dr. Vishnu and his team investigated
And the 2019 ASH Scholar Awards Go To…
One of ASH’s most prestigious award programs, the ASH Scholar Awards, financially support fellows and junior faculty as they
transition from training programs to careers as independent hematology investigators. Each Scholar Award provides $100,000 for
fellows and $150,000 for junior faculty over a two- to three-year period. The program funds hematologists in the U.S. and Canada
who conduct basic, translational, or clinical research that furthers the understanding and treatment of blood disorders.
“The Scholar Award recipients … were chosen because ASH has confidence that their research is critical to hematology,” said
ASH President Alexis A. Thompson, MD, MPH, of the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “They join an im-
pressive community of former ASH Scholar Awards recipients who have gone on to publish thousands of papers, hold patents, and
receive more than $1 billion in grants from various funding institutions.”
The 2019 Scholar Awards recipients are:
Basic/Translational Research Fellows
• Tessa Barrett, PhD, New York
University School of Medicine
• Sheng Cai, MD, PhD, Memorial Sloan
Kettering Cancer Center
• M. Ryan Corces, PhD,
Stanford University
• Nirav Dhanesha, PhD, University of
Iowa
• Benjamin Durham, MD, Memorial
Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
• Craig Forester, MD, PhD, University
of California, San Francisco
• Christian Hurtz, PhD,
University of Pennsylvania
• Victoria Mascetti, PhD,
Stanford University
• Sol Schulman, MD, PhD, Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center
• Elisa ten Hacken, PhD, Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute
• Ze Zheng, PhD, Columbia University
Basic/Translational Research Junior Faculty
• Joseph Aslan, PhD, Oregon Health &
Science University
• Sergei Doulatov, PhD,
University of Washington
• Ann-Kathrin Eisfeld, MD, The Ohio
State University
• Jonathan Hoggatt, PhD, Massachusetts
General Hospital
• Meixiao Long, MD, PhD, The Ohio
State University
• Silvia Marino, PhD, Indiana University
• Julia Maxson, PhD, Oregon Health &
Science University
• Ryan Morin, PhD, Simon Fraser
University
• Esther Obeng, MD, PhD, St. Jude
Children’s Research Hospital
• Russell Ryan, MD, University of
Michigan
• Sarah Sartain, MD, Baylor College of
Medicine
• Ji Zhang, PhD, Indiana University
Clinical Fellows
• Pavan Bachireddy, MD, Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute
• Kelly Bolton, MD, PhD, Memorial
Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Clinical Junior Faculty
• Inhye Ahn, MD, National Institutes of
Health
• Nicholas Short, MD, MD Anderson
Cancer Center
• Moritz Stolla, MD, Bloodworks
Northwest
• Anthony Sung, MD, Duke University
Joanne Levy, MD, Memorial Award for
Outstanding Achievement
Marco Ruella, MD, of the University
of Pennsylvania, received the 2018
Joanne Levy, MD, Memorial Award for
Outstanding Achievement. This award is
made possible by the family of past ASH
Scholar Award recipient and distinguished
Society member Joanne Levy, MD, who
passed away in 2004. It is presented to the
current ASH Scholar with the highest-
scoring abstract for the ASH annual
meeting, as determined by the appointed
abstract reviewers.
ASH Seeks Next Congressional Fellow
ASH is now accepting applications
for the ASH Congressional Fellowship
Program. This yearlong opportunity will
place a hematologist in a Congressional
office to help shape health care and
hematology policy. The Program is
8
ASH Clinical News
available for an ASH member starting in
September 2019. For requirements, more
information or to apply, visit hematology.
org/congressionalfellowship.
The deadline to apply is January 31,
2019.
In 2017, ASH selected Catherine Zander,
PhD, as the first participant of the
program. Read about Dr. Zander’s
experiences in “Notes From the Hill” by
visiting ashclinicalnews.org/notes-from-
the-hill.
the theory that transfusing one unit of
red blood cells instead of two would be
appropriate for hemodynamically stable
hospitalized adults undergoing myeloabla-
tive chemotherapy and autologous hema-
topoietic stem cell rescue. Overall, there
was no difference in time to engraftment
between those who received additional red
blood cells and those who did not.
Visit hematology.org/choosingwisely to
learn more about the initiative.
First Six ASH Clinical
Practice Guidelines on
VTE Available Now
ASH has long recognized the need for a
comprehensive set of guidelines on the
treatment of venous thromboembolism
(VTE). Through a partnership with the
McMaster University GRADE Centre,
ASH brought together more than 100
experts, including hematologists, other
specialists, guideline development experts,
and patient representatives to synthesize
the research and develop over 250 recom-
mendations for this common, potentially
fatal condition.
The first six chapters of the ASH Clinical
Practice Guidelines on VTE have been
published in Blood Advances and cover
multiple aspects of VTE management,
including:
• Anticoagulation therapy
• Diagnosis
• Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia
• VTE in pediatrics
• VTE in pregnancy
• prophylaxis for medical patients
Four more chapters are in development:
• VTE associated with cancer
• VTE prophylaxis for surgical patients
• VTE in the setting of thrombophilia
treatment
In addition, ASH has developed a number
of tools and resources to enable clinicians
to easily access the recommendations and
the key takeaways, including mobile apps,
webinars, teaching slides, and interviews
with experts. Visit hematology.org/VTE to
learn more, and access the full guidelines
at bloodadvances.org/VTE. ●
January 2019