Here are this week’s Accolades, a roundup of some of the honors and accomplishments of College of Medicine and UAMS faculty, staff, residents, fellows and students I’ve heard about recently!
Women’s Voices Summit
Dr. Nirvana Manning, Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Dr. Jessica Coker, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, joined with national and global leaders as speakers at the Women’s Voices Summit convened by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton last Friday. The international summit featured impactful discussions on a wide array of issues affecting women.
Dr. Manning, who also directs the Women and Infants Service Line at UAMS, shared insights on the maternal health crisis in Arkansas and the United States, which has the highest maternal mortality rate among high-resource countries. Dr. Coker, who serves as Medical Director of the Psychiatric Research Institute Women’s Inpatient Unit, participated in a session on “Women’s Voices on Health,” which focused on how women are leading efforts to address pressing health issues and create change for future generations. Summit participants from around the world benefited from Dr. Manning and Dr. Coker’s expertise. Thanks to both of these outstanding colleagues for representing UAMS so well.
Cancer Institute Auxiliary 2022 Honoree
Congratulations to Dr. Gwendolyn Bryant-Smith, Associate Professor and Chief of Breast Imaging in the Department of Radiology, who was recently honored as the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute Auxiliary’s 2022 Distinguished Honoree. Dr. Bryant-Smith provides outstanding leadership and inspired care for women from across Arkansas in numerous roles. In addition to leading the Division of Breast Imaging, these include Director of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Breast Center and Mobile Mammography Program, Breast Imaging Fellowship Director in the Department of Radiology, and Associate Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the Cancer Institute. As UAMS Chancellor Dr. Cam Patterson said at the reception in her honor, Dr. Bryant-Smith is a “visionary who pours her talent, heart and mind into everything she does.” Read more in the UAMS Newsroom.
Pathology Editorial Leadership
Dr. Sara Shalin, Professor of Pathology and Dermatology and Chair of the Department of Dermatology, has been named to the Editorial Board of Modern Pathology, one of the leading journals in the specialty. Dr. Shalin will lend her broad, nationally recognized expertise in pathology, including the pathology of inflammatory diseases of the skin and other cutaneous malignancies, melanoma pathogenesis and biology, and other areas of dermatopathology, to the journal during her three-year term. At UAMS, Dr. Shalin directs the Dermatopathology Fellowship Program and the M.D./Ph.D. dual-degree program.
Statistics Expertise for Editorial Board
Dr. Ruofei Du, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biostatistics, has been appointed as an Academic Editor on the Editorial Board of the journal PLOS One. Dr. Du’s research interests include methods for clustered data analysis, analysis of environmental mixture data, and statistical resampling methodology. He contributes to numerous research collaborations across UAMS colleges and beyond. Dr. Du is also the immediate Past President of the Central Arkansas Chapter of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and currently serves as a representative for the chapter to the ASA.
Reducing the Treatment Burden for CF Patients
Dr. Ariel Berlinski, Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Cystic Fibrosis Care Center at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, is a coauthor on a new paper in Lancet Respiratory Medicine. The article presents results of the SIMPLIFY study, which included two parallel trials conducted at 80 research centers across the country and aimed to reduce the treatment burden for people with cystic fibrosis (CF). Dr. Berlinski, who serves as Director of the Pediatric Aerosol Research Laboratory in the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute (ACRI) also was first author on a paper in Pharmaceuticals with coauthor Joshua Spiva, a senior at Ouachita Baptist University who participated in the ACRI Summer Science Program last summer. They presented the results of an in vitro study describing the characteristics of albuterol aerosols generated by a jet nebulizer and delivered through a heated flow nasal cannula system.
Nation’s First Adult Neurofibromatosis Clinic
UAMS and the Children’s Tumor Foundation (CTF) recently announced the opening of the nation’s first CTF-sponsored, fully multidisciplinary clinic dedicated to the care of adults with neurofibromatosis (NF). The clinic is in the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute. NF is a group of rare genetic disorders that cause tumors to grow on nerves throughout the body. While there is no cure, treatments can help manage the disease. The UAMS clinic is led by Dr. Erika Santos Horta, a neuro-oncologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology. The clinic was piloted in the fall of 2021 and is now fully operational, providing crucial continuity of care for patients with NF as they navigate adulthood. Kudos to Dr. Santos Horta and her team. Read more in the UAMS Newsroom.
International Teaching
Dr. Gregory Albert, Professor of Neurosurgery and Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Arkansas Children’s, and PGY-5 Neurosurgery resident Dr. Natalie Guley shared their expertise as lecturers for an international online neurosurgery course hosted by Izmir Katip Celebi University in Izmir, Turkey. Dr. Albert presented on stereoelectroencephalography related technologies in epilepsy surgery. Dr. Guley provided excellent perspective on Neurosurgery residency in the United States.
Arkansas INBRE in the Spotlight
The excellent work and ongoing success of the Arkansas INBRE program, led for over 20 years by the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology’s Dr. Lawrence Cornett, continues to draw well-earned national notice. Arkansas INBRE (IDeA Network for Biomedical Research Excellence) has built an extensive ecosystem for promoting biomedical research in Arkansas, particularly among undergraduate college students and faculty across the state, with the support of nearly $80 million in cumulative funding from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Most recently, the program received $614,117 in supplemental awards to its most recent $18.4 million grant renewal. That news reached and was circulated among the leadership of the Group on Research Advancement and Development (GRAND) at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Dr. Cornett served on the GRAND steering committee in 2011-2018, including a one-year term as Chair.
The three new grants and other active INBRE supplements support projects at UAMS, the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and the University of Central Arkansas. UAMS recipients include Dr. Donald Johann Jr. (Biomedical Informatics), Dr. Tiffany Weinkopff (Microbiology/Immunology), and Dr. Pearl McElfish (Community Health & Research, Northwest Campus). Read more in the UAMS Newsroom.
Inspired Giving
Generous donors are an important reason we are able to achieve our mission to train the next generation of physicians for Arkansas – and it is often the outstanding clinical care, teaching and service of our faculty that inspires philanthropists to contribute to our college. A donor who wished to remain anonymous recently gave $100,000 in honor of Dr. Robert Hopkins Jr., Professor and Director of the Division of General Internal Medicine. Dr. Hopkins has been a clinical and educational leader at UAMS for many years. Throughout the pandemic, he has provided crucial guidance for UAMS, our state and the entire country as Chair of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The gift will be used for the benefit of medical students and residents in the Department of Internal Medicine. Thank you, Dr. Hopkins, for your exceptional and inspiring service.
Doctors Dilemma Champs
And finally this week, bravo to Northwest Arkansas Internal Medicine residents Dr. Vivek Malhotra, Dr. Punith Thogaripally and Dr. Wade Arthur, on winning the “Doctors Dilemma” competition sponsored by the Arkansas Chapter of the American College of Physicians (ACP). The team beat out some stiff competition in the test of medical knowledge, earning $1,000 each to travel to the ACP National Meeting in San Diego next April, where they will compete against teams from around the country and world. We’ll be rooting for them!