Gulf Coast Division GME Research Day 2026
The 6th Annual Gulf Coast Division Research Symposium was hosted on April 8th, 2026, at HCA Houston Healthcare Kingwood and on WebEx. It combines GME programs from cities in the Gulf Coast Region of Texas: Kingwood, Houston, Clear Lake, and Corpus Christi. The symposium is specialty agnostic, providing an opportunity for residents and fellows to network with others in healthcare outside of their area of expertise.
We extend our sincere appreciation to our distinguished keynote speaker, Dr. O. Daniel Odutola, for his insightful and engaging presentation on the responsible use of AI in research. His expertise and perspective were a highlight of the symposium.
In 2026, we received 102 poster submissions and of those, 9 projects made it to the oral stage. The results of the 2026 symposium are below.
Poster Awards
- 1st Place: Madison Taylor, MD — Allergic Contact Dermatitis to Medihoney Gel after Mastectomy: Role of Alkyl Glucoside Sensitization in Chronic Wounds
- 2nd Place: Puneeth Shridhar, MBBS — Pre-existing Bifascicular Block with Wide QRS and/or Prolonged PR in Patients undergoing TAVR: Case Series and Review
- 3rd Place: Christine Castillo, DO — Bridging the Gap: A Review of Gender Disparity in General Surgery
Oral Presentation Awards
- 1st Place: Suhas Tatapudi, DO — After Hours, Faster Reperfusion: A Multidisciplinary Quality Improvement Initiative to Reduce STEMI Door-to-Balloon Time
- 2nd Place: Yves Najm Mrad, MD — Automated AI Echocardiography: Agreement with Experts and Workflow Impact Across EF, GLS, and Volumes
- 3rd Place: Christine Castillo, DO — Bridging the Gap: A Review of Gender Disparity in General Surgery
Research Residents and Faculty of the Year
Clear Lake
- Resident: Yves Najm Mrad, MD
- Faculty: Maher Dahdel, MD
Kingwood
- Resident: Supritha Chintamaneni, MD
- Faculty: Sivatej Sarva, MD, PhD
Corpus Christi
- Resident: Ali Asghar, DO
- Faculty: Abhay Vakil, MD
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Dry Gangrene Following AV Fistula Ligation for Vascular Access-Induced Steal Syndrome: A Case Report
Marium Batool Abbas, Umema Ifran, and Marelle Montanez
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Early Detection and Interventions for Delirium
Angel Ryals, Aneesha Shaju, Veronica Phung, and Ijeoma Arubaleze
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Emergent TANDEMHEART-Extracorporal Membrane Oxygenation for Refractory Ischemic Ventricular Arrhythmia
Mukhtar Al-Saadi, Aswin Srinivasan, Mohammed Rajab, Alexander Rhodes, Negar Niknam, and Pranav Loyalka
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Environmental Footprint of Aortic Valve Replacement: A Comparative Life-Cycle Analysis of Surgical and Transcatheter Procedures
Yves Najm Mrad, Ahmad Al-Taweel, and Bahaeddin Shabaneh
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Euglycemic diabetic ketoacidosis (euDKA) is a rare but serious, potentially fatal complication of SGLT2 inhibitors
Praise Ohabor, Alexis Lopez Cruz, and Zuhair Ali
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Fournier Gangrene Incidentally Found and Caused by Actinomyces Odontolyticus, A Rare Finding
Munanchu Poudel, Manzoor Bevinal, and Brandi Addison
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Hidden in the Hilum: A Rare Case of Mediastinal Mucormycosis in a Patient with Uncontrolled Diabetes Mellitus
Neethu George, Anusha Putta, and Harikaran Ragireddy
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High Suspicion of Congenital Long QT Syndrome Diagnosis in a Polypharmacy patient
Alexis Lopez Cruz, Grant Haden, Julianna Vecchio, Hasnan M. Ijaz, and Thomas Alexander
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Improving False Code Blue Rates in the Hospital
Edrianna Mae Ablola, Muhammad Siddiqi, Veronica Phung, and Sivatej Sarva
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Improving Sepsis Order Set Utilization Through Targeted Resident Education: A Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Quality Improvement Project
Sarah Sheikh, Puneeth Shridhar, Bushra Bangash, Valerie Chukelu, Tonya Meirhofer, Arunima Jose, Zainab Shakir, Shane Jenks, Augusto Sepulveda, Trung Nguyen, and Rajeev Raghavan
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Invasive Aspergillosis in an Immunocompetent Patient
Grant Haden, Alexis Lopez Cruz, Julianna Vecchio, Munanchui Poudel, Sahista Kapadia, and Zuhair Ali
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Isolated Clonidine Ingestions in Pediatric Patients
Spencer Greene, Caleb King, and Sharan Campleman
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Left Out of Place: Surgical Revision of Anomalous Left Main Coronary Artery
Guntash Khasria, Salman Islam, Amar Kalidas, Zuhair Ali, and Okechukwu Mgbemena
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Medical Toxicology: a Safety Net for Snakebite Victims
Braden Capt, George Warpinski, Sharan Campleman, Anne-Michelle Ruha, and Spencer Greene
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Minimizing Unnecessary TTEs for PFO Evaluation in Stroke Patients
Jeffrey Lesser, Salman Islam, Aneesha Shaju, Aarohi Parikh, Jonathan Nguyen, and Marelle Montanez
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Multimodal AI for ED Chest Pain Triage: Prediction Performance and Operational Impact
Yves Najm Mrad and Molham Aldeiri
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Neurologic Complications in Adult VA-ECMO: Incidence, Phenotypes, and Mortality from Contemporary ELSO Registry Analyses and Meta-analytic Evidence
Yves Najm Mrad and Snehalkumar Patel
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Non-Ischemic Cardiomyopathy in a Patient on Enzalutamide Therapy: A Case Report
Mohamed Mubder, Luay Alalawi, Heriberto Cantu, Hasnan Ijaz, and Thomas Alexander
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Not Just Cholecystitis: Cancer with Cholecystitis
Saira Ahmed, Joseph Daodu, Anila Punjwani, Shane Sweeney, Pierre Khoury, John Hardaway, and Mike K. Liang
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Oral N-Acetylcysteine in Hepatitis C - Induced Acute Liver Injury: A Case Report
Mohammed Irfan Khan, Shuchita Jhaveri, Renu Thomas, Kevin Garnepudi, Galvin Dhaliwal, Ahmed Ouni, Shane P. Sweeney, and Julian Nguyen
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Patients Requiring Mechanical Ventilation Reported to the North American Snakebite Registry
Joshua Unger and Spencer Greene
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Pauci-Immune Glomerulonephritis: An Uncommon Cause of Early Post-Transplant Kidney Allograft Dysfunction
Sherif Elbaz Younis, Andy Bryan Castaneda, Jose Valdes, and Sridhar Allam
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Predictors of Successful Weaning from Venoarterial Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation: Systematic Review and Random-Effects Meta-analysis
Yves Najm Mrad and Snehalkumar Patel
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Pre-existing Bifascicular Block with Wide QRS and/or Prolonged PR in Patients undergoing TAVR: Case Series and Review
Puneeth Shridhar, Dhavalkumar Patel, Saumya Sharma, Pranav Loyalka, Michael Daniel, and Justin Saunders
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QI: Improving GDMT Among Discharge Patients with Heart Failure
Daniel Avila Castillo, Amar Kalidas, Parshvi Patel, and Khaled Khalaf
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Rapid Diagnosis of Hemorrhagic Shock Due to Upper GI Bleeding with Point-of-care Ultrasound in the Emergency Department
Tamari Ronen and Derrick Huang
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Redo-TAVR vs TAVR Explant vs Redo-SAVR: Comparative Outcomes in Failed Transcatheter Bioprostheses
Yves Najm Mrad, Ahmad Al-Taweel, and Bahaeddin Shabaneh
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Reducing Healthcare Spending with Pharmacist Driven ICG Allocation
Rachel W. Wong, Calvin Le, Vanessa Sifuentes, Faith Rutherford, Grace DesRochers, Zuhair Ali, and Mike K. Liang
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Reducing Pressure on Pressure Ulcers; A Study to Educate and Improve Skin Ulcers in the Hospital
Jakob Schnell, Victoria Suh, and Peng Tang
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Reperfusion Roadblock: Spinal Injury after Cervical Laminectomy in Ossification of the Posterior Longitudinal Ligament
Suhas Tatapudi, Shiv Desai, Kaku Barkoh, and Sivatej Sarva
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Retrospective Analysis of High Flow Nasal Cannula Use in the Emergency Department: Association with Intensive Care Unit Admissions and Emergency Department Throughput
Raj Patel, Jesus Tamayo, James Duong, Nathaniel Banet, Hengameh Pajer, Anita Datta, and Jake Valentine
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Right Upper Quadrant Pain with Perihepatitis
Morgan D. Homan, Jake Valentine, and Edwin R. Malone II
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Seconds Matter: Rapid POCUS Diagnosis of Ruptured Type B Aortic Dissection with Left Hemothorax
Jeby Kalathoor and Derrick Huang
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Septic Shock and Cardiac Arrest Secondary to Delayed Traumatic Jejunal Transection
Esra Shurbjy and Rasheed Lawal
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Severe Hypertriglyceridemia as a Potential Precipitant of Acute Ischemic Stoke: A Case Report
anusha putta, Anush Agarwal, and Hafez Golzarian
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Severe Hypertriglyceridemia (HTG) in pregnancy, especially with nephrotic syndrome
Alexis Lopez Cruz, Praise Ohabor, and Zuhair Ali
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Stroke to Spread: Pachymeningeal Carcinomatosis in a 40-year-old with Metastatic Breast Cancer Confirmed via Dural Biopsy
Aneesha Shaju, Thomas K. Hoang, Grace DesRochers, and Woondong Jeong
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Successful Retrieval of Embolized Ventricular Septal Occluder Device
Aswin Srinivasan, Mukhtar Al-Saadi, Negar Niknam, Alexander Rhodes, and Pranav Loyalka
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Sweet Drop to Lung Pop: Sertraline-Induced Pneumothorax in AEP
Jeanette Adereti, Laaraeb Nadeem, Azad Patel, Ariana Azimi-Shooshtari, and Ramesh Babu Kesavan
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The Great Imitator: A Subtle Case of Syphilis in the Emergency Department Amid Rising National Incidence
Jyotirmaya Jain, Michael Flanders, and Manzoor Bevinal
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The Many Faces of Lupus: Rhabdomyolysis And Cannabis Hyperemesis Syndrome in a Diagnostic Maze Ending in SLE
Sravani Karuchola, Kumail Razvi, and Faizan A. Khan
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Toxicity Following Antiemetic Ingestions Reported to the Toxicology Investigators Consortium Core Registry
Jacob Fisher, Spencer Greene, and Sharan Campleman
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Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement for Moderate Aortic Stenosis in Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction: A Randomized Comparison with Guideline-Directed Medical Therapy
Yves Najm Mrad, Ahmad Al-Taweel, and Bahaeddin Shabaneh
