WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – R. Duncan Hite, M.D., director of medical intensive care at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, has been named the new chief of the Section on Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy and Immunologic Diseases at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Now a professor of internal medicine, Hite joined the faculty in 1994 as an assistant professor.
“I look forward to working closely with Dr. Hite and his colleagues as he leads the section’s growth and the expansion of critical care facilities at the medical center in partnership with the hospital,” said Thomas D. DuBose Jr., M.D., Tinsley R. Harrison Professor of Medicine and chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at the medical school.
Prior to joining the faculty, Hite was awarded the Doctor of Medicine degree by the University of Texas Medical School at Houston and was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Southern Methodist University, Dallas. Hite was trained in internal medicine at the University of Virginia and in pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Hite is board-certified in critical care medicine and in pulmonary disease as well as internal medicine.
Hite’s current extramural support from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) is to investigate potential targets for new therapy inacute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). He is the principal investigator for the Wake Forest clinical center of the prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored ARDS Network, one of only 12 centers in the United States. Hite has also served the NIH as a reviewer for scientific study sections and as a Data Safety Monitoring Board member.
Hite is also currently, or has served as, an investigator in several other NIH-sponsored and industry-sponsored studies in the field of critical care. He has contributed numerous original articles to highly refereed journals and has written scholarly reviews or book chapters for several texts.
In addition to his primary appointment in internal medicine and the section on pulmonary medicine, Hite is cross-appointed in the Section on Molecular Medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine. At the medical center, Hite has served as director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit for several years and has been the co-chair of the Critical Care Service Line for the past two years. His critical care activities include several patient-centered projects focused on reducing infections and optimizing outcomes in the intensive care units at North Carolina Baptist Hospital.
Hite is an active member of several professional societies and is currently the medical school’s institutional representative to the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation. He is a member of the American Federation for Medical Research, the American College of Chest Physicians, the American Thoracic Society, and is a fellow in the American College of Physicians. Hite received the Bryant Kendrick Award from the Hospice and Palliative Care Center of Winston-Salem in 2009 and the Humanitarian Recognition Award from the Chest Foundation in 2006 for his work as a board member with the State Employee’s Credit Union Family House in Winston-Salem.
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