The Division of General Internal Medicine welcomed three new faculty members this fall: doctors Jing Luo, Hailey W. Bulls, and Jaime E. Sidani.
Jing Luo, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Medicine Jing Luo, MD, MPH, came to Pitt from Boston, where he was an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a physician and researcher at the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, located within the Department of Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He’s glad to have joined Pitt GIM because of the amazing people, outstanding resources, and our commitment to advancing his research career.
Dr. Luo has a MD from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, an MPH in Clinical Effectiveness from Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and a BS in Biology from Duke University. He completed a fellowship on medication use and outcomes at Brigham. He trained in primary care internal medicine at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
As a physician-scientist, Dr. Luo is active in clinical investigation, translational research, patient care, institutional service, and training students. His research is focused on prescription drug use and pricing and policy. He looks forward to collaborations with Drs. Walid Gellad and Bernie Good.
“For the foreseeable future, I’d like to focus on advancing access to diabetes medications, with a focus on insulin,” said Dr. Luo. “My work is increasingly extending globally given the epidemic of diabetes, obesity, and chronic diseases.”
Along with his wife and three children, he lives in Squirrel Hill, where he enjoys the family friendly neighborhood and the chance to sample food from around the world at its many restaurants. He is always looking for opportunities to play pickup basketball.
Hailey W. Bulls, PhD
New to the section of Palliative Care and Medical Ethics, Assistant Professor Hailey W. Bulls, PhD, joined us following her R25-funded postdoctoral fellowship in Behavioral Oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa Florida. Her pre-doctoral internship was at James A. Haley VA. She has a PhD and MA in Medical/Clinical Psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a BS in Psychology from the University of Florida.
Dr. Bulls’ clinic specialization is in cognitive-behavioral interventions for acute and chronic pain. She’s interested in mitigating the impact of opioid stigma on cancer patients with pain, identifying cancer patients at risk for pain and neuropathy early, and developing novel behavioral interventions.
“My research and clinical interests span pain, serious illness (like cancer), and opioids, and the opportunity to collaborate with accomplished researchers at Pitt in all of these areas was a big plus,” said Dr. Bulls. “I have had interesting, thought-provoking discussions with other researchers who care about patient’s health and well-being as much as I do, and that’s a fantastic environment to grow my research in.”
Dr. Bulls is eager to extend the work of her postdoc by interviewing cancer patients to understand their experiences with opioid stigma and designing a patient-level intervention to help mitigate the impact of that stigma. She will be working with the ICRE and her mentors, Drs. Jessica Merlin and Yael Schenker. With Dr. Brad Taylor in Anesthesiology, she will be building a quantitative sensory testing lab and using experimental pain measurement to better understand pain mechanisms and predict who will develop chronic pain and or/opioid misuse. She’s looking forward to meeting other cancer researchers in the Biobehavioral Oncology Program at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, especially those who work in the Clinical Care & Survivorship research group.
“When I interviewed I asked whether Pittsburgh was a northern or midwestern city, and eventually everyone settled on ‘both’—it seems to have a really pleasant, down-to-Earth vibe, but a lot of the amenities and accessibility of a northeastern city,” said Dr. Bulls. “I completed my graduate training in Birmingham, Alabama, which is often called ‘The Pittsburgh of the South,’ so I’ve felt right at home here.”
Now that she’s in Pittsburgh, Dr. Bulls will get to explore her new city, but she’ll still be cheering on the Florida Gators for football season.
Jaime E. Sidani, PhD, MPH, CHES
Jaime E. Sidani, PhD, MPH, CHES, was recently promoted to Assistant Professor of Medicine. She is the Assistant Director of the Center for Research on Media, Technology, and Health (MTH), where she has developed novel approaches in assessing and tracking health behaviors. Her background as a certified health education specialist provide valuable insight in media literacy and for research specializing in adolescents and young adults.
“My research follows the newest technology and media platforms to get ahead of potential long-term health outcomes,” said Dr. Sidani. “We’re starting to learn how emerging nicotine and tobacco products are discussed on social media, but this is just the beginning. With the Internet, everything changes so quickly and we don’t know what will be next.”
Dr. Sidani has a PhD in Health Education from the University of Toledo, an MPH in Health Education & Behavior from Northwest Ohio Consortium for Public Health, and a BA in Health & Society from the University of Rochester.
As the Assistant Director of MTH, Dr. Sidani is excited about the future of the Center as the research team applies its research on social media and mental health to interventions that will promote optimal social media use for health outcomes. She’s also planning to continue using innovative techniques to track health behaviors on social media platforms, including the latest trends in e-cigarette use.
Dr. Sidani is looking forward to working with her mentors, Drs. Esa Davis and Elizabeth Miller, as well as new collaborations with other tobacco researchers to test and implement programs designed to prevent youth use of emerging products such as waterpipes (hookah), e-cigarettes, and cigarillos. By joining DGIM as faculty, Dr. Sidani is eager to continue leading MTH researchers as they explore ways to explore the intersections between media, technology, and health, as well as mentor both undergraduate and graduate University of Pittsburgh students.
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All three faculty members began at DGIM this month and were welcomed at the first CRHC meeting of the fall semester.
August 29, 2019 • Michelle Woods