Doctor Wins Donnall Prize

For Linking Fainting, Clots

COOPERSTOWN – Dr. Umair Iqbal, in his second year of training at Bassett Hospital, has won the 2017 E. Donnall Thomas Award for research linking fainting spells to blood clots in the lungs.

“More than 40 percent of patients who are evaluated in the emergency room with fainting are discharged with an unknown cause,” said Iqbal, whose research project competed with nine others for the award. “Syncope (passing out) is sometimes the first symptom of acute pulmonary embolism, and this diagnosis should be immediately considered in all of these patients.”

Iqbal worked on the study project with Bassett mentors Dr. Edward Bischof, program director, internal medicine, and Dr. Ahmad Chaudhary, attending physician.

The honoree earned his medical degree from Dow Medical College in Pakistan. After completing his residency at Bassett, he plans to pursue a gastroenterology fellowship.

The E. Donnall Thomas Award, named for the Bassestt researcher who won the Nobel Prize for pioneering bone-marrow transplantation locally in 1956.