The seven CHEST Networks will highlight the accomplishments of early career members during CHEST 2024 by handing out the inaugural Network Rising Star Awards. These awards recognize individual contributions in the areas of clinical care, education, research, and/or other scholarly activity and someone who has shown growth and potential within a particular Network and CHEST.

Each Network will celebrate its respective awardee during the concurrent Network Open Forums, Tuesday, October 8, from 11:15 am to 12:15 pm ET in the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center.

Hear from one of the Rising Stars their own words, below, and click here to read Q&As with the six other recipients.

---

2024 Sleep Medicine Network Rising Star

Kara Dupuy-McCauley, MD, FCCP

Consultant, Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine
Mayo Clinic

---

What have been your main focuses in the field? Which contributions or accomplishments are you most proud of?

Lately I have been focusing more on education and clinical care. I practice mostly clinical medicine currently and I love to be able to use that knowledge to provide education to our own residents and fellows at my institution as well as at national meetings. I have been selected as teacher of the year for two of the four years that I have been on staff and that is such an amazing recognition. It’s wonderful to know that our residents and fellows appreciate the time that I spend with them. I am also very proud of my involvement in CHEST. That is where I started to learn about education on a national level. I submitted my first session proposal to CHEST several years ago and since that time I’ve submitted many more sessions and given many presentations.

What sparked your interest in the field? What excites you most about the future of this area and your involvement in it?

I first became interested in the field of sleep medicine before I started medical school. My family friend (and later mentor), Dr. Lyle Victor, is a pulmonologist and sleep specialist in Michigan, where I’m from, and he invited me to shadow him in sleep clinic as one of my first exposures to the medical world. I went through phases of being interested in other areas of medicine but eventually settled on pulmonary and sleep. It’s always good to have a mentor who is excited about their career to bring you into a field. One of the reasons I love and am excited about sleep medicine is all of the innovation in the field. There is more and more attention being brought to sleep disorders and it’s exciting to see so much new technology being developed. And I love that I feel pretty useful most days because so many people have sleep disorders. It feels like an exciting but also practical field to be working in.

What have the Networks and CHEST meant to you?

The CHEST Networks have been absolutely invaluable to me. I first got involved in the Sleep Network in 2019 when I was a sleep fellow and I have been on the Network ever since (and I just learned I’m the incoming Vice Chair of the Respiratory Sleep Disorders section of the Sleep Network!). When I first joined I knew nothing about making session submissions or anything else and through the Network I have learned so much, met so many mentors and friends, and I’ve grown both personally and professionally. I just feel endlessly grateful to have been given the opportunity to be involved in such a nurturing community and I love being involved in education on a national level.