2022 Allan Drash Clinical Fellowship Awardees
Berna Eroğlu Filibeli
Berna Eroğlu Filibeli, MD was born in Tokat, Turkey on April 26th, 1985. Since childhood, her ideal was to become a pediatrician. She completed primary and secondary education in Izmir. After graduating from the Faculty of Medicine at Celal Bayar University in 2010, she completed her residency training in Pediatrics at Dokuz Eylul University in 2015. Completed her mandatory service for two years in the newborn intensive care unit at Buca Children’s and Ob&Gyn State Hospital, and she received her subspecialty training in pediatric endocrinology and diabetes at the Tepecik Training and Research Hospital in 2021. She has still been working at the same hospital as a pediatric endocrinologist. She is a part of the diabetes team that manages and takes care of around 300 children with diabetes and organizes a camp for diabetic children annually.
Dr. Eroglu-Filibeli is a member of ISPAD and the Turkish Society of Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes. She participated in national and international congresses and made many posters and oral presentations. The research papers she participated in were published in international peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Eroglu-Filibeli values the opportunity to use diabetes technologies like insulin pumps and CGMS at this ISPAD center to care for diabetic children and adolescents. With the ISPAD Allan Drash Fellowship, she aims to expand her clinical experience in diabetes management and participate in studies in this field.
Elif Eviz
Dr. Elif Eviz was born in Batman, Turkey. After completing her primary and high school education in Batman, she graduated from Dokuz Eylul University School of Medicine in 2012. She started her psychiatry residency at Bakırköy Mazhar Osman Psychiatric and Neurological Diseases Training and Research Hospital in 2013. After one and a half years of training, she became a pediatrician. She completed her pediatric residency at the University of Health Sciences Bakırköy Dr. Sadi Konuk Training and Research Hospital in 2018. During her pediatric residency, she voluntarily treated refugee children. She did her compulsory service at Siirt State Hospital for one year as a pediatrician. She has been training as a fellow in the department of pediatric endocrinology and diabetes at Koç University Faculty of Medicine since 2020.
Koç University's diabetes team cares for more than 1,000 children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes. Of these, 50% use continuous glucose monitoring systems, and 25% use insulin pumps. Their team is one of the leading groups in Turkey that uses new technologies. They organize monthly education programs for teachers and school nurses, two camps for diabetic children and their families, and seminars for pediatric diabetes team members every year.
Dr Eviz is a member of ISPAD, ESPE, and the Turkish Society of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes. She was chosen for the Winter School of ESPE in 2022. She has attended National and International conferences and presented many posters and oral presentations. During her Allan Drash fellowship, she aims to improve her knowledge and skills in new technologies and develop insights in managing diabetes in clinical practice to improve the lives of diabetic children in her country.
Emine Ayça Cimbek
Emine Ayça Cimbek graduated from Istanbul University Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine in 2006. In 2011, she completed her residency training in Pediatrics at Ankara Training and Research Hospital and her subspeciality in Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes at Selçuk University Faculty of Medicine, Division of Pediatric Endocrinology in 2016. She completed her compulsory service between 2016 and 2018 at Van Training and Research Hospital, one of the biggest hospitals in the east Anatolian region of Turkey, serving patients from all over the region, particularly seven cities with a total population of approximately three million. Within this period, for 6 months, she served as the only pediatric endocrinologist in the area. She has been a consultant and faculty member since 2018 at Karadeniz Technical University Faculty of Medicine, Trabzon, Turkey. She’s one of the members of a pediatric diabetes team that takes care of hundreds of children and adolescents with diabetes from several cities in the northeast region of Anatolia. She is very interested in improving her institute’s multidisciplinary pediatric diabetes program.
She has been an ESPE member since 2020, an ISPAD member since 2022, and a member of the Turkish Society of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes. In addition, she was selected to attend the ESPE Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism School 2019, Vienna, where she had an excellent opportunity to meet with mentors and colleagues from all over Europe. She has attended many national and international conferences and presented posters and oral presentations. She has published research papers in peer-reviewed, internationally-ranked journals as a leading author and co-author.
During her ISPAD Allan Drash fellowship, she aims to increase her knowledge about setting up and running a multidisciplinary diabetes team, see the most up-to-date approaches in diabetes management, and improve her skills in new diabetes technologies. She is passionate about working in this field and aims to gather deeper insights into diabetes research. In this way, she hopes to improve the standards of care and the quality of life for children and adolescents with diabetes in Turkey and anywhere. Lastly, she appreciates the support and opportunities ISPAD offers to healthcare providers to advance the field of pediatric diabetes worldwide.
Erdal Kurnaz
Erdal Kurnaz, was born in Malatya, Turkey. He graduated from Atatürk University Faculty of Medicine in 2004. Following his residency in pediatrics, he completed his subspecialty in pediatric endocrinology and diabetes at the University of Health Sciences, Dr. Sami Ulus Gynecology, Child Health and Diseases Training, and Research Hospital in 2017. He completed his compulsory service between 2017 and 2020 at the Clinics of Pediatric Endocrinology, Erzurum Regional Training and Research Hospital, Turkey. Then he returned to the University of Health Sciences Sami Ulus Gynecology, Child Health and Diseases Training and Research Hospital. In December 2021, he became an associate professor of pediatric endocrinology.
Dr. Erdal Kurnaz has been working as a consultant in the Pediatric Endocrinology Clinic at the University of Health Sciences Sami Ulus Gynecology, Child Health and Diseases Training and Research Hospital since 2020. He is a member of a pediatric diabetes team in his hospital, one of the most important figures in diabetology in Turkey. The team takes care of around 800 children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes.
Dr. Kurnaz successfully managed the treatment of diabetic ketoacidosis patients in the intensive care unit both during and after his fellowship. He participated in the training of patients with diabetes after ketoacidosis and followed up with outpatients with diabetes. He also works with the diabetes educator, nurse, and dietician when required to improve metabolic control during patients’ three-monthly outpatient visits. He also contacts psychologists and social workers when required. He attends bedside visits for in-patients with diabetes and discusses patient management and treatment plans with all members of the medical staff.
Dr. Kurnaz is a member of ISPAD, ESPE, and the Turkish Society of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes. He has attended many national and international conferences, presented many posters, and did oral presentations. He attended the Boston Children's Hospital Observership Program for one month in November 2019. He also attended ESPE Summer School in 2019 and ESPE Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism School in 2021. He published around 40 papers in international and national peer-reviewed journals. During his fellowship at Barbara Davis Center, he aims to improve his skills in new technologies in Diabetes to improve diabetic children’s lives in his country.
Hiba Elshafie
Hiba Amer MohyiEldin Elshafie graduated from Ahfad University for Women's School of Medicine. Dr.Hiba received her MD in Pediatrics and child health from the Sudan Medical Specialization Board (SMSB), where she also completed her Pediatric endocrinology and diabetes fellowship.
She is an assistant professor of pediatrics and child health at Ahfad University. Dr.Hiba oversees pediatric diabetes and obesity clinics at Sudan Childhood Diabetes Center, the main pediatric diabetes center in Sudan. She also runs diabetes and endocrine clinics at Mohammed Alamin Hamid Pediatric Hospital, the second pediatric endocrine and Diabetes clinic in the country.
Dr. Hiba is also a member of several international and national societies, such as the Sudan Childhood Diabetes Association (SCDA), the Arab Society for Pediatric Endocrinology And Diabetes(ASPED), and the International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes(ISPAD). She participated in many activities at the Sudan Childhood Diabetes Association (SCDA), including training workshops and state visits to raise awareness and train the staff regarding pediatric diabetes.
Marzhan Rakhimzhanova
Marzhan Rakhimzhanova finished her MD at Semey State Medical University in Kazakhstan in 2010. During 2010-2011, she studied and interned at the pediatric faculty of Astana Medical University in Kazakhstan and had an interest in endocrinology and diabetology since then. She has been awarded the “Bolashak” International Scholarship for her master’s degree and finished her Master of Science in Public Health (MSPH) at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine in 2017. She is a member of ISPAD, ESPE. She was awarded the European Society for Pediatric Endocrinology Clinical Fellowship Grant in 2019 and attended Schneider Children’s Medical Center, Institute of Endocrinology and Diabetes, Petah Tikva, Israel. Additionally, she attended Balcan School of Pediatric Clinical Endocrinology, ESPE Caucasus & Central Asia School.
Since 2018, she has worked as a Pediatric Endocrinologist at the University Medical Center and the National Research Center for Maternal and Child Health. She has been fully working on inpatient and outpatient care at the emergency unit, general pediatrics, endocrinology, and diabetes clinics (diagnosing and managing DM type 1, 2, and monogenic forms of diabetes as neonatal DM and T1DM in infancy). The University Medical Center is located in the capital city, Nur-Sultan, and is one of the largest referral centers in Kazakhstan.
Currently, she is the lead of the Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetology Program at University Medical Center, Nur-Sultan. She is interested in applying her experience in the fellowship to improve diabetes education and start a multidisciplinary team-based clinic.
Lastly, Dr. Marzhan Rakhimzhanova is very grateful to ISPAD for awarding her the Allan Drash fellowship. She appreciates the continuous opportunities given to advance the field of pediatric diabetes and endocrinology worldwide.
Moomin Hussain Bhat
Moomin Hussain Bhat is a medicine consultant in the Department of Health, Jammu and Kashmir, India. Moomin did his MBBS from Acharya Shri Chander College of Medical Sciences. He received training in Medicine from the Sheri-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Srinagar. After that, he was selected for a residency program in Endocrinology in 2015 for a period of three years at SKIMS. During his fellowship, he has been involved in the management of a wide variety of children and adolescents with endocrine disorders, including type 1 diabetes mellitus, pubertal disorder, GHD, thyroid disorders, metabolic bone disease, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, and obesity. While receiving training at SKIMS, which caters to about 600 young diabetics, he developed a special interest in the management of pediatric diabetes, particularly type 1 diabetes.
Moomin has been an ISPAD member since 2019. He presented his abstract at the 45th Annual Conference of ISPAD, held in Boston, USA. He also attended the ISPAD Science School, held virtually in May 2021. Moomin has multiple national and international publications in the endocrinology field. He has attended national and international conferences and presented many posters and oral presentations. Now, he is a consultant in Medicine at the Department of Health, Jammu & Kashmir, India.
Moomin is very grateful about being awarded the ISPAD Allen Drash Fellowship. He expresses his greatest gratitude to ISPAD, which always supports and offers opportunities for researchers from all over the world.
Muzna Arif
Dr Muzna Arif is currently working as an Instructor in Pediatric Endocrinology in the Division of Endocrinology and Diabetes, Department of Pediatric and Child Health, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan, one of the prestigious institutions in her country and the first one to start a Fellowship training in Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes in the country. She completed her MBBS and Pediatric postgraduate training and a fellowship in Pediatric Endocrinology and diabetes from Aga Khan University in December 2021.
She has been an ISPAD member since January 2022 and has been selected for the ISPAD-ASPED Diabetes Academy held in October 2022 at AbuDhabi.She is also an active member of ESPE, ASPED and APPES. She also presented her research abstracts on monogenic diabetes at the 46th ISPAD Conference. She has attended several national and international conferences and won awards for oral and poster presentations in Paediatric Endocrinology. Dr. Muzna has been awarded a travel grant from the European Society of Pediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) for presenting her research work on “Developing a Newborn Screening Program for Congenital Hypothyroidism through Dried Blood Spot in Low middle-income country(LMIC): Experience from a tertiary care center” at the ESPE conference in Rome in September 2022. Dr Muzna attended the ESPE winter school in 2022 and was selected for the ESPE Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism(DOM) school in Italy in September 2022. She is also involved in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching at her institution.
Working at one of the largest tertiary care referral centers in her country for Pediatric Diabetes and endocrinology and managing over 400 children with Type 1 diabetes, she developed a particular interest in Pediatric Diabetes, especially the monogenic forms and neonatal diabetes mellitus. She has developed Patient education material for Type 1 diabetes children at her institution.
Dr. Muzna is honored to be awarded the Allan Drash Fellowship 2022. She aims to enhance her clinical acumen and experience and gain new insights into the management of Pediatric type 1, 2, and rarer forms of genetic diabetes, novel therapies used for their treatment, and modern diagnostic and therapeutic facilities.
As she belongs to a resource-limited country, the gained clinical experience will benefit her patients and improve clinical care. She plans to initiate a diabetes technology clinic at her center. This fellowship will be the first step for her toward establishing a patient-friendly comprehensive diabetes care center at her hospital, which will provide evidence-based practice and make research collaborations in diabetes.
Prusha Mohammed Salih
Prusha Shwan Mohammed Salih, MD, and MSc, is a medical doctor and nutritionist from Kurdistan of Iraq. She graduated from the College of Medicine with an MBChB degree at the University of Sulaimani, Kurdistan of Iraq, in 2015. Then after, she worked as a junior medical doctor at Sulaimani teaching hospitals, including internal medicine, general surgery, pediatrics, obstetrics, and gynecology hospitals. She was able to run for the medical doctor position at the international airport of Sulaimani, Iraq, in 2018.
Then, due to her skillfulness and her attempt to gain knowledge abroad, she was awarded by the Swedish Institute Si organization a Fully Funded Global Leaders Scholarship to study a master of interest in Swedenin 2018; she chose Nutrition because she believes that a healthy diet and lifestyle are the core prevention points. She completed her master’s degree in Nutrition Science in June 2019 at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. Later, she was awarded another grant for 6 months for clinical training at Rudbeck laboratories at Uppsala University Hospital under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Per Hellstrom.
Since 2020, she has worked as a medical doctor, nutritionist, and weight management specialist at the Diabetes and Endocrinology Center in Sulaimani, Kurdistan, Iraq. She receives patients with all sorts of endocrinology conditions, including type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes, as well as cases of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. She also dedicates herself to joining a pediatric team at another Hospital for Pediatrics to serve children with diabetes, obesity, hormonal, and metabolic disorders.
She aims to progress more in the field of diabetes and endocrinology, and she attempts to establish a research department at her current center of diabetes. she has current research plans, including several studies on the relation of post-COVID infection and diabetes. She is also curious about gut microbiota in diabetes, obesity, and other noncommunicable diseases. Prusha’s main future goal is to serve in areas that gain her more knowledge and capabilities to manage patients with all sorts of diabetes and, most importantly, to make type 1 diabetes or insulin-dependent patients live happy and healthy and enjoy their lives as everyone else.
Sara Gafar
Sara Mohammed Ahmed Gaffar is a pediatric endocrinologist at Gaafar Bin Ouf Children’s Hospital, Khartoum, Sudan. Sara graduated from the Alneelin University School of Medicine in 2007. In 2017, she received an MD degree in pediatric and child health from the Sudan Medical Specialization Board. Sara completed membership of the Royal College of Pediatric and Child Health in 2018. She also enrolled in a pediatric endocrine fellowship in Sudan for two years and graduated in 2022 with a prize for the best academic performance over the two years.
Sara is now practicing pediatric endocrinology at Gaafar Bin Ouf Children’s Hospital, the biggest tertiary hospital in Sudan. The team receives children from all over Sudan. She also works at the Sudan Childhood Diabetes Center, the biggest center for childhood diabetes in Sudan, which provides free medical services to more than 30 diabetic children and adults per day.
Sara is a member of ISPAD, ESPE, and ASPED. She has attended many pediatric and endocrine conferences locally and globally.