Knowledge of a headline-making drug with a unique inspiration helped fellows from HCA Florida Aventura Hospital emerge victorious in the 23rd annual CHEST Challenge Championship.

A closely contested evening of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine trivia, held Tuesday, October 8, during CHEST 2024 in Boston, came down to the Jeopardy!-style Final Challenge wager. HCA Florida led teams from New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital and Allegheny Health Network—though not by a guaranteed margin—before the final answer was read:

This drug, inspired by the venom of the Gila monster, was shown in a June 2024 New England Journal of Medicine study to reduce the apnea-hypopnea index in persons with moderate to severe OSA and obesity.

All three teams provided the correct question of “What is tirzepatide?” and the HCA Florida trio of Manjot Malhi, MD; Rafael Miret, DO; and Tanner Norris, MD, wagered just enough to stay in front and take home the $5,000 prize for first place. The NewYork-Presbyterian team of Farwa Ilyas, MD; Benjamin Berson, MD; and Nourhan Kika, MD, won $3,000 for second place, and the Allegheny team of Tanya C. Marshall, MD; Sujith Modugula, DO; and Dhaval Patel, MD, earned $1,000 for third place.

The championship event tested not only the fellows’ pulmonary and critical care acumen but also their collaboration and communication skills.

“I felt we connected well, and each of us brought our own unique strengths to the challenge,” Dr. Malhi said.

“I think our teamwork and preparation led us to succeed,” Dr. Miret concurred. “Keeping our calm when we were down at one point, slowly coming back, and playing it safe when we were ahead served us well.”

The festivities started in the usual fashion, with a lighthearted video highlighting the CHEST Challenge participants and their fellowship program directors. CHEST Challenge Founder and Master of Ceremonies, William F. Kelly, MD, FCCP, called the contest the “finest, funnest, and fastest” education event that CHEST hosts all year.

The two rounds of trivia lived up to that billing, with both straightforward and tongue-in-cheek category names, including Systemic Diseases, These Wheeze, CHEST Pearls, Heating Up!, Second Chances, 1,000 Words, Up Down Equal, Med Wreck, Pop Phys, and Once Upon a Hill.

An engaged audience was ready to chime in whenever all of the teams were stumped, and the crowd’s energetic support throughout the contest made it even more meaningful for the participants, Dr. Norris said.

“I want to thank everyone who was there cheering us on in person and back home watching the live stream,” he said. “Receiving your support has, above all, been the most rewarding part of the whole experience. Apart from the months of preparation and many practice sessions we did, having all our coworkers, friends, and families in the crowd cheering us on made all the difference.”

Live challenge minigames were hidden throughout the board. HCA Florida uncovered an asthma-themed matching game, which required the fellows to push game pieces through a colorful tunnel representing an obstructed airway, matching five pairs of related terms within 60 seconds. Members of the NewYork-Presbyterian team had to draw and guess five words, including inhaler and spirometry, as part of a Pictionary-style game. At one point, all three teams participated in a number guessing game based on The Price Is Right.

A bit of the host city’s history was incorporated into the game when HCA Florida revealed a Paul Revere-inspired live challenge. Using one lantern to indicate false and two lanterns to indicate true, the team had to evaluate the accuracy of statements made in recordings by CHEST experts.

Each team’s program director also joined the fray for a special live challenge. Tiffany DuMont, DO, of Allegheny; Mauricio Danckers, MD, FCCP, of HCA Florida; and Anthony Saleh, MD, of NewYork-Presbyterian, each donned personal protective equipment before fishing in a tub full of a mucus-like substance for balls that represented how much their fellows could win by answering their challenge question correctly. The program directors had a variety of tools at their disposal, including a toilet plunger and lobster-shaped grabbers, but, ultimately, they relied on their hands to retrieve the prizes.

Another special guest, Gabriel Bosslet, MD, FCCP, Chair of the CHEST 2024 Scientific Program Committee, channeled the spirit of Boston’s Fenway Park, hitting soft baseballs into the audience to randomly pick the winners of autographed vintage baseball cards featuring three Boston Red Sox Hall of Famers—Wade Boggs, Jim Rice, and Carlton Fisk.

Despite the high stakes, it was an enjoyable competition that became more fun as it went along, the winning team members said. The HCA Florida fellows celebrated their victory with a round of karaoke, featuring the Queen song “We Are the Champions.”

“Overall, it was a very rewarding experience that really began the moment we found out we would be in the CHEST Challenge back in spring and continued for months as we studied, filmed the preview videos, did practice Jeopardy! sessions, and, of course, finally had the big day of the CHEST Challenge itself,” Dr. Norris said. “If I had to sum up the whole experience, I’d say it was nerve-wracking but exhilarating.”