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!
Paving the Way for More Primary Care Physicians for Arkansas
UAMS’ extensive efforts to recruit and retain medical students from rural or underserved communities – with the goal of generating much-needed primary care physicians in those areas and across the state – received a boost with a recent $17.6 million grant renewal from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The four-year Medical Student Education (MSE) program award will continue and expand efforts that were initiated as part of $19.6 million in HRSA grant funding for 2019-2023.
I join with Dr. Richard Turnage, Vice Chancellor for UAMS Regional Campuses, Professor of Surgery and the Principal Investigator on the grant, in thanking the many faculty and staff members who have contributed to these initiatives. Special thanks to Dr. Marcia Byers, Senior Director of UAMS Regional Campuses and an Assistant Professor in the COM Department of Family and Preventive Medicine; Robin Howell, Senior Program Manager; and Amber Fluharty, Director of Operations, for their excellent work on the renewal. Read more in the UAMS Newsroom.
National Honor for Family Medicine Residency Director
Congratulations to Dr. Lauren Gibson-Oliver, Assistant Professor and Program Director for the UAMS Little Rock Family Medicine Residency Program, on being selected for the 2024 Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) New Faculty Scholars Award. The honor is part of a program to develop future leaders in academic family medicine through mentorship, networking opportunities and financial support to attend and present at the STFM Annual Spring Conference. In a congratulatory letter, the STFM noted Dr. Gibson-Oliver’s “outstanding leadership potential.” She is only the second Arkansan to receive the STFM honor in the program’s 35-year history. In 2016, the award went to Dr. Shashank Kraleti, who is now the Garnett Chair of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine and Director of the Primary Care and Population Health Service Line.
Improving Arthroplasty Across the U.S.
A shout-out to Dr. Jeffrey Stambough, Associate Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, for his work to improve orthopaedic care across the country as a member of the American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR) Steering Committee. The AJRR, which operates under the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), recently published its 2023 Annual Report on hip and knee arthroplasty procedural trends and patient outcomes. The AJRR is the preeminent registry of its kind, with the 10th anniversary edition representing more than 3.1 million primary and revision hip and knee arthroplasty procedures performed between 2012 and 2022.
Geriatrics Team Shines at Conference
Department of Geriatrics faculty and team members represented UAMS well at the recent annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America in Tampa, Florida, delivering 11 presentations. These included three posters co-authored by second-year medical students Mohib Hafeez, Milenko Petrovic, Esther Park and Blake Eddington; and three postdoctoral fellows: Dr. Ambika Verma, who received an award for her presentation, Dr. Pankaj Patyal and Dr. Shakshi Sharma. Assistant Director of Programs Amanda Pangle, Dr. Gohar Azhar, Dr. Xiaomin Zhang and Geriatrics Chair and Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging Director Dr. Jeanne Wei also were coauthors.
Young Research Colleague Published in Nature
Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI) Chair Dr. Fred Prior and colleagues in DBMI, Neurology and Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences were understandably proud when they learned that Nature Scientific Reports had accepted an article first-authored by a junior research colleague, Anu Iyer. Ms. Iyer worked on “A machine learning method to process voice samples for identification of Parkinson’s disease” under the mentorship of Dr. Prior and other UAMS researchers while she was still a student at Little Rock Central High School. She is now a freshman at Georgia Institute of Technology. Other UAMS coauthors and research team members include Aaron Kemp, Dr. Yasir Rahmatallah, Lakshmi Pillai, Aliya Glover, Dr. Linda Larson-Prior and Dr. Tuhin Virmani. Read the Nature Scientific Reports article here. You can also learn more about her work at UAMS in this 2022 feature on the DBMI website.
“Double Vision” is Good – at National Conference
Faculty and residents in the Department of Ophthalmology and UAMS Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute presented 12 papers and other publications at the recent American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) meeting in San Francisco. UAMS was also represented at the conference by ophthalmic professionals Megan Brown, Erin Clemons and Shakellia Hawkins. Megan and Erin competed as the “Double Vision Team” in the “Who Wants to Be a Super Tech?” competition, earning first place in their round and second place overall. Congratulations!
Crossing the Finish Line
Finally this week, congratulations to Brendon Hogge, a second-year medical student at the UAMS Northwest Regional Campus, on competing in the Ironman World Championship in France this fall. While medical school is grueling academically, the Ironman competition challenges the physical ability and stamina of competitors with a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run. Read about Brendon’s path to the championship in this UAMS web story. Well done!