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!
Matched!
Let’s have a round of applause for members of the Class of 2023 on their matches to outstanding residency programs here and around the country. This class had a medical school experience like none before them. They started with us in the fall of 2019, and by the end of their freshman year, the entire world had changed with the emergence of COVID-19. But these students persevered. They pivoted to new ways of learning (with the help of many College of Medicine faculty and staff) and overcame numerous obstacles. Because of their hard work and dedication, they will be strong assets to the programs they are joining. Click here to see where our graduating seniors will be heading this summer. Congratulations to all.
Top 20 Anesthesiology Chairs
Dr. Jill Mhyre, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology, has been elected to the Morton Society, a select group of leaders considered as the top 20 Anesthesiology department chairs in the country. Morton Society members nominate and vote to accept new members, and Dr. Mhyre was one of two chairs selected to join the group. The society serves as a network focused on innovative solutions to align and advance the academic missions of clinical service, education and research in Anesthesiology departments nationwide.
Healthcare Communication Leader
Dr. Laura Sisterhen, a Professor in the Section of General Pediatrics, has become a faculty member of the Academy of Communication in Healthcare (ACH) following completion of the ACH faculty-in-training program. The professional development program is highly selective with a small number of health care leaders accepted each year. Its goal is to improve health care through better communication. Participants work to enhance, and then teach, skills in group facilitation, coaching and workshop content and development, along with interpersonal skills relating to leadership, diversity, teamwork and conflict engagement. At Arkansas Children’s, Dr. Sisterhen serves as Medical Director for the General Pediatrics Clinic and for Quality Improvement for Primary Care. (By the way, Dr. Calvin Chou, Senior Faculty Advisor for External Education with the Academy of Communication in Healthcare, will be speaking at UAMS on April 12.)
Arkansas Dentistry Leadership
Dr. Laurence Howe, Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatric and Special Needs Dentistry, has been elected to a three-year term as Secretary/Treasurer of the Arkansas State Dental Association (ASDA). Dr. Howe is a Life Member of the American Dental Association and has been an active member of the ASDA for over 35 years. At Arkansas Children’s, he provides prosthetic treatment for cleft palate and craniomaxillofacial patients.
Surgery Residents Present Trauma Projects
General Surgery residents Drs. Andrew Smedley, Joe DeLoach, and Garrett Klutts recently presented trauma research projects at the Southeastern Surgical Congress in Savannah, Georgia – and all three of the projects have been accepted for publication in The American Surgeon. Dr. Smedley’s podium presentation was on the availability of blood products in trauma centers in the Arkansas Trauma System. Dr. DeLoach’s podium presentation was on the accuracy of initial imaging to predict pneumothoraces (collapsed lungs) in trauma patients. Dr. Klutts’ quickshot presentation used geospatial analysis to evaluate prehospital triage of potentially preventable trauma deaths. Dr. Kyle Kalkwarf, Assistant Professor of Surgery and UAMS Trauma Medical Director, mentored the residents and was the senior author of the projects.
Orthopaedic Conference Speakers
Dr. Lowry Barnes, Professor and Chair of Orthopaedic Surgery, and Dr. Jeffrey Stambough, Assistant Professor, shared their expertise with over 1,000 participants as invited speakers for the Combined Hip and Knee Society Specialty Day during the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgery Annual Meeting in Las Vegas on March 7. Dr. Barnes discussed the use of medial pivot as part of the program section on total knee arthroplasty. Dr. Stambough presented on the use of cemented vs. cementless stems during a section on revision knee implants.
Patent for Clot Detection
Congratulations to Dr. Vladimir Zharov, Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, and Dr. Ekaterina Galanzha, Associate Professor, on their latest U.S. Divisional Patent for “Device and method for in vivo detection of clots within circulatory vessels. This is their fourth patent for early noninvasive detection of clots followed by well-timed treatment to prevent lung emboli, stroke, and possible heart attacks. Major collaborators in this research were Dr. James Suen (Otolaryngology), Drs. Laura Hutchins and Issam Makhoul (Internal Medicine), and Eric Siegel, M.S., (Biostatistics).
Bioinformatics Conference
A shout-out to the many faculty and staff who contributed to the Arkansas Bioinformatics Consortium Annual Meeting on March 13-14. The conference centered on the interrelated areas of bioinformatics, big data, artificial intelligence and public health. Keynote speakers included Dr. Joseph Sanford and Dr. Kevin Sexton, and faculty from multiple departments presented talks or posters. Two of the three Student Poster Awards were presented to individuals associated with UAMS. First place went to Michael Rutherford, a doctoral student and Instructor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI), who collaborated with DBMI and Myeloma Center colleagues on “Toward Automation of Diagnosis for Multiple Myeloma using Natural Language Processing.” Third Place was awarded to Anu Iyer – a senior at Little Rock Central High School – who worked closely with Dr. Fred Prior and others in DBMI along with the Department of Neurology’s Dr. Tuhin Virmani on “A Novel Multimodal Machine Learning Method to Detect Parkinson’s Disease and Assess Severity.”
Students Help Make ‘Girlology’ a Success
The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology did a great job this month hosting its second “Girlology” workshop – and 16 medical student volunteers helped make it possible. The 2½-hour course provided information on topics relating to puberty for girls ages 8-14 and their parents or other caregivers – 236 attendees in all. OB/GYN Chair Dr. Nirvana Manning and faculty members Dr. Laura Hollenbach and Dr. Kate Stambough led the event, which you can read about in the UAMS Newsroom. The medical student volunteers, all female, didn’t just help ensure a smooth-running event – they also served as role models for the young girls in attendance. Maybe we will see some of them in medical school one day.
I join with Dr. Manning, Dr. Hollenbach and Dr. Stambough in thanking student leaders Sally Barnes and Bailey Sutliff and fellow volunteers Anna Benafield, Savannah Busch, Mallory Caldwell, Carolina Coleman, Lindsey Herberger, Sarah Jong, Savana Kuhn, Jade Matthews, Sophie Meyers, Laura Miron, Anna Claire Pilkington, Alleigh Stahman, Kristen Stringfellow and Blaire Taggart.