Newly Invested
Congratulations to Dr. Corey Montgomery, Associate Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, on his investiture in the Richard W. Nicholas, M.D., and Corey O. Montgomery, M.D., Chair in Orthopaedic Oncology last week. Dr. Montgomery, who specializes in malignant and benign tumors of the bone and soft tissues in both adults and children, is the only fellowship-trained orthopaedic oncologist practicing in Arkansas.
Dr. Montgomery’s co-namesake on the endowed chair, Dr. Richard Nicholas, is a Professor Emeritus who served on the faculty for over 30 years and was Chair of Orthopaedic Surgery in 2005-2013. Dr. Nicholas and Dr. Montgomery have been instrumental in building orthopaedic oncology services in Arkansas, and their dedication inspired the philanthropic contributions from patients, families, alumni, former trainees and colleagues that made the chair possible. Dr. Nicholas was invested as the inaugural holder in 2016. Learn more in this UAMS news story.
Arkansas Health Impact Honorees
The Arkansas Center for Health Improvement (ACHI) honored two longtime College of Medicine faculty members, Dr. G. Richard Smith and Dr. Linda McGhee, as the 2024 recipients of the Dr. Tom Bruce Arkansas Health Impact Award. The ACHI board recognized Dr. Smith for his transformative leadership in Psychiatry and in key roles including College of Medicine Dean and UAMS Executive Vice Chancellor in 2013-2015 and more recently as Interim Dean. He also served as the Founding Director of ACHI. Dr. McGhee, an Associate Professor of Family and Preventive Medicine, has served as an outstanding physician and impactful educator at the UAMS Family Medical Center and UAMS Northwest Campus in Fayetteville since 1978.
As many of you know, the namesake of the award, the late Dr. Tom Bruce, was Dean of the College of Medicine for more than a decade and a pioneer in community-based public health. Congratulations to Dr. Smith and Dr. McGhee on these well-earned honors. Read more in this ACHI news release.
Neurosurgery Editorial Board
Dr. Analiz Rodriguez, Associate Professor, Director of Neurosurgical Oncology and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Neurosurgery, has been elected to serve on the editorial board of the Journal of Neurosurgery. Standing members of the board for the journal of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) vote on new members, who serve for five years and advance through leadership positions culminating in Associate Editor in their final year. Dr. Rodriguez’s expertise in neurosurgical oncology and leadership on national initiatives to reduce disparities in cancer research will make her a strong asset on the board.
Opioid-Focused Smartphone App Earns Honors
A smartphone app developed at UAMS to reduce opioid misuse took home the Silver Award in the Apps & Software-Health/Fitness/Wellness Division at the Vega Digital Awards competition. The “OptiMAT” (Optimizing Medication Assisted Treatment) app was developed with support from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) by Department of Psychiatry faculty members Dr. Andrew James, Dr. Ronald Thompson and Dr. Mary Bollinger. The UAMS team collaborated with Enqbator, a digital solutions firm. OptiMAT’s features include daily monitoring of mood and craving, personalized feedback, and GPS-driven “just-in-time” intervention to prevent opioid relapse.
NICU Initiative Published in Pediatrics
A successful initiative at UAMS to reduce the amount of blood drawn from premature infants for lab tests was recently published in Pediatrics. First author Dr. Megha Sharma, Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics Division of Neonatology, led the project in the UAMS Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) as part of the Translational Research Institute’s Implementation Scholars Program. The work is crucial, because blood loss from repetitive lab tests has been shown to be a significant contributor to anemia in very low birth weight infants and can lead to a range of poor health outcomes. Read more in the UAMS Newsroom.
International Guidelines for Endocrinology
Dr. Spyridoula Maraka, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of the Endocrinology Fellowship, has been appointed as an Endocrine Society Guideline Methodologist. As a member of a panel of specially trained guidelines experts, Dr. Maraka will work to develop and co-author clinical practice guidelines for the field of endocrinology and metabolism during her three-year term. The Endocrine Society is the leading international medical organization in the field with more than 18,000 members from over 120 countries.
Award-Winning Posters
A shout-out to Internal Medicine residents Dr. Sahil Sabharwal (PGY-2 UAMS/Mercy) and Dr. Gomathy Nageswaran (PGY-2 UAMS Little Rock) for the Outstanding Poster Awards they received at the American College of Gastroenterology national meeting in Philadelphia in late October. Dr. Sabharwal was honored for one of four posters he presented, “A Rare Case of Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Tongue in Remission Re-Emerging as a Metastatic Colonic Polyp.” Dr. Nageswaran was honored for one of her four posters, “More than Just a Variceal Bleed: Multiple Portal Hypertensive Gastric Polyps in a Case of Advanced Cirrhosis.” UAMS was well represented at the meeting with several residents presenting their work. In September, we also shared the good news that Dr. Tyler Ratliff (PGY-2 UAMS/Washington Regional) was selected to receive the Presidential Poster Award at the meeting.
National Medical Examiners Leadership
Dr. Theodore (Ted) Brown, Associate Professor of Pathology and Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Arkansas, has been elected to the Executive Committee of the National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME). Dr. Brown has served on the Board of Directors of NAME for the past year and will begin serving on the seven-member Executive Committee in January. At UAMS, Dr. Brown also serves as Director of Autopsy.
Athlete and Scholar
And finally this week, congratulations to first-year UAMS Northwest Campus first-year medical student Lily DeSpain on a national recognition she earned outside of the academic arena as a collegiate student athlete. Lily was recently selected as one of the Top 30 NCAA Women of the Year honorees. Before her medical school days, Lily had a record-setting career as a swimmer for the Missouri State University Bears. The NCAA honor is all the more impressive considering there were 627 student athletes nominated by their institutions. You can read more about Lily in this article from Missouri State.