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!
Faculty Contribute to AAMC Toolkit for Students
A shout-out to Dr. Karina Clemmons, Assistant Dean for Medical Education and Associate Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics, and Dr. Jasna Vuk, Associate Professor in the UAMS Educational and Student Success Center, for their excellent work on a comprehensive new resource for students that is being disseminated nationally on the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) website. The new Presentation Skills Toolkit will help students create and deliver effective formal presentations, informative posters and abstracts, and clear patient presentations, and prepare them to confidently lead small groups.
Dr. Clemmons and Dr. Vuk were members of the working group of the AAMC Undergraduate Medical Education Section of the Group on Educational Affairs that developed the toolkit over the past year. Learning to communicate effectively in patient settings, in the classroom and among colleagues is an essential aspect of becoming a good physician, and I encourage our students to take advantage of this new resource. And the next time you are working with Dr. Clemmons or Dr. Vuk, be sure to give them a tip of the hat!
CF Team Presents at National Conference
The Pediatric Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Care Team at Arkansas Children’s was well represented at the recent North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference in Phoenix. Dr. Ariel Berlinski, Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the CF Care Center, co-authored four abstracts that were presented at the meeting. Dr. Kanjanamala Agoramurthi, a senior pediatric pulmonology fellow, gave an invited podium presentation on her study of the performance of a breath-enhanced nebulizer after repeated cycles of thermal and chemical disinfection. The study was completed in the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute’s Pediatric Aerosol Research Laboratory, which Dr. Berlinski directs. The CF team also was invited to present its quality-improvement initiative focused on reducing acid suppressor therapy in children with cystic fibrosis, which was done in conjunction with a national collaborative sponsored by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
National Family Medicine Resident Honor
Dr. Amrutha Denduluri, a third-year resident in the UAMS Little Rock Family Medicine Residency Program, has won the 2024 Faculty for Tomorrow Resident Scholarship from the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM). In recognition of her outstanding potential as a future family medicine educator, she will receive free registration for the STFM Annual Conference in Los Angeles in May and participate in a special workshop with targeted discussions on academic career advice and how to learn change as a physician.
International IR Training Support
Dr. Bob Dixon, Professor of Radiology, and PGY-6 Interventional Radiology (IR) resident Dr. Andrew Buchan recently traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, with RAD-AID International to support the IR program at the University of Nairobi/Kenyatta National Hospital. Dr. Dixon has been working with the University of Nairobi since 2018 and helped start its IR fellowship, the only IR training fellowship in Kenya and one of only a few such programs in Africa. Dr. Dixon and Dr. Buchan also attended the Society of African Interventional Radiology and Endovascular Therapy Meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, where Dr. Dixon delivered talks on complex inferior vena cava retrieval and renal cell carcinoma management. Dr. Dixon and Dr. Buchan hope to establish a formal RAD-AID chapter at UAMS and continue supporting the University of Nairobi as well as other sites.