CPR Teaching Initiative Earns Prestigious Award
Dr. Steve Schexnayder, Professor and Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, was part of a team receiving a special honor at the American Heart Association’s recent Resuscitation Science Symposium in Chicago. The Ian G. Jacobs Award for International Group Collaboration to Advance Resuscitation Science recognizes international collaborations that have resulted in major contributions to fundamental or clinical science related to cardiac arrest or traumatic injury. The team’s long-running “Kids Save Lives” project has promoted CPR training in schools around the world, and the group recently published a scientific statement on the value of teaching CPR in schools. Commissioned by the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation, the statement was published in the journal Resuscitation.
In Arkansas, Dr. Schexnayder led an effort to begin teaching CPR at Little Rock Central High School in 2013, using UAMS medical students as instructors to teach about 600 teens each year. The program continues today as part of the required health class curriculum. Several former medical students who were part of those initial efforts are now on our faculty, including Dr. Daniel Bingham and Dr. David Fitzgerald in Anesthesiology and Dr. Garrett Williams in Pediatrics. Congratulations to Dr. Schexnayder, and kudos to all who have participated in this initiative.
Journal Guest Editor
Dr. Jill Mhyre, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology, served as the Guest Editor for a special themed issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia this month focusing on quality and safety in obstetric anesthesia. Dr. Mhyre, who is the section editor for the topic on the journal’s editorial board, also recorded podcasts to accompany the issue and will lead a webinar on quality and safety in obstetric anesthesia in January. Interestingly, the cover of the issue features a reinterpretation of a masterpiece by Gustav Klimt, “Hope II,” that evokes the risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth while also signifying the efforts of health care providers to keep women safe.
Multiple System Atrophy Center of Excellence
A shout-out to Dr. Tuhin Virmani, Associate Professor of Neurology and Director of the Movement Disorders Program, Neurology Chair Dr. Rohit Dhall, and colleagues on being selected as a 2025 Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) Center of Excellence by Mission MSA. The renewal of the designation for UAMS reflects the ongoing dedication to providing the best possible multidisciplinary care, support services and clinical trials opportunities for individuals and families affected by MSA. Along with Dr. Virmani and Dr. Dhall, the Movement Disorders team includes Dr. Hillary Williams, Dr. Aditya Boddu and APRNs Rachel Sloan and Tim Paslay.
International Otology Teaching
Dr. John Dornhoffer, Professor and Chair of the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, is sharing his expertise at several presentations, panel discussions and other sessions at the 8th Munich Hearing Implant Symposium in Germany this week. Dr. Dornhoffer is internationally renowned for his expertise in cochlear implantation and other areas of otology. In addition to presenting at events conducted in English, he will be teaching a number of lab sessions in German.
Novel Method for Identifying Infection
Robert Brand and Caroline Geels, seniors at the UAMS Northwest Regional Campus, collaborated with the University of Arkansas Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington Regional Medical Center and others on a small trial for a novel spectroscopy method to determine whether synovial (joint) fluid is infected. The team’s encouraging preliminary findings into the use of diffuse reflectance spectroscopy were recently published in the Journal of Biophotonics. Dr. Hanna Jensen, Assistant Professor of Surgery, also was on the research team and mentored Robert and Caroline.