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!

White Coats & Welcomes
It was an honor to welcome the Class of 2026 and watch as they donned the symbol of the highest ideals of the medical profession at the White Coat Ceremony last Friday evening. The ceremony was in person after two years of virtual ceremonies during the pandemic. And in a historic first, some of our new freshmen joined us from the stage at Fayetteville’s Butterfield Trail Village while others completed this rite of passage at Robinson Center in Little Rock.

Kudos to Dr. Sara Tariq, Associate Dean for Students, and the entire Academic Affairs team for their spectacular work on this very special event. Thanks as well to Dr. Linda Worley, Associate Dean, and our UAMS Northwest faculty; and to Dr. Becky Latch, Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Education in the Department of Pediatrics, for her inspiring keynote address.

Each year during the ceremony, the Honors Council presents White Coat Awards to students from the upper classes who were chosen by their peers for exemplifying the qualities of integrity and professionalism during the previous year. Congratulations to sophomore Smit Patel, junior Chase Brazeal and senior Kaitlin Rose.

Pease join me in welcoming our new Freshman Class!

Third NEJM Article of the Year
Congratulations to Dr. Katherine Irby, Associate Professor in the Critical Care Medicine Section of the Department of Pediatrics, on her third publication in the New England Journal of Medicine in the past year (and fourth during her career). Her latest NEJM article, coauthored as a member of the multi-center Overcoming COVID-19 Investigators group, is “Maternal Vaccination and Risk of Hospitalization for Covid-19 among Infants.” She coauthored two additional articles with the group that were published this summer, a study in Clinical Infectious Diseases that found a decreased likelihood of multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) in vaccinated children, and a study in Pediatrics regarding health impairments in children and adolescents after hospitalization for acute COVID-19 or MIS-C.

Pediatric Critical Care Papers
Dr. Peter Mourani, Professor of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine and President of the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute, has had several recent publications including an article in Nature Communications that showed a more robust adaptive immune response to SARS-Co-V-2 in upper airway gene expression in children compared with older adults. Dr. Mourani also coauthored papers in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, on sodium bicarbonate use during pediatric cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and an assessment of patient health-related quality of life and functional outcomes in pediatric acute respiratory distress syndrome. He also coauthored a study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases on the association between host respiratory transcriptome signature and poor outcome in children with influenza-Staphylococcus aureus pneumonia.

Symposium Highlights Undergraduate Research
A shout-out to the UAMS Graduate School, the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Arkansas INBRE (IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence) for their great work hosting the ninth Arkansas Undergraduate Summer Research Symposium. Almost 100 college students from Arkansas and nine other states presented their research during the July 27 event, which was back and better than ever after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. Special thanks to Biochemistry and Molecular Biology faculty members Dr. Grover P. Miller, who oversaw planning of the event, and Dr. Eric Enemark, who delivered the keynote talk and emphasized the importance of his own summer undergraduate research in understanding his calling in research. Read more about the symposium and some of the excellent research presented by students in the UAMS Newsroom.

Lung Cancer Prevention
Lung cancer takes the lives of more Arkansans than the next four common cancers combined. And while lung cancer screening is safe and effective, it is underutilized. The American Cancer Society hosted the National Lung Cancer Roundtable workshop in Washington, D.C., to explore opportunities to prevent cancer deaths. Dr. Matthew Steliga, Professor of Surgery, was among the invited leaders from multiple disciplines across the U.S. to participate in a working group focused on addressing barriers to lung cancer screening and accelerating the uptake of screening on a national level. The UAMS lung screening program has gained significant recognition regionally and nationally, particularly for efforts spearheaded by Patricia Franklin, APRN, and Claudia Barone, EdD, APRN, to integrate tobacco cessation into the clinical screening workflow.

Big Data Insights into Antibiotic Resistance
Congratulations to Dr. Se-Ran Jun, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics, postdoctoral fellow Dr. Zulema Udaondo and colleagues on their new article in Microbial Genomics. Dr. Udaondo is first author and Dr. Jun is senior author on the study, which provides novel insights into how resistance to daptomycin – an antibiotic used to treat serious bacterial infections – disseminates, revealing a new therapeutic target. Through big data analysis, the team was the first to identify the putative implication of composite transposons (transposable DNA sequences) in the molecular mechanism of dissemination of daptomycin resistance.

Conference Talk Lauded
Division of Pediatric Hospital Medicine faculty members Dr. Rebecca Cantu, Dr. Brittany Slagle and Dr. Sara Sanders presented an excellent talk on the utility of procalcitonin level tests for the detection of serious bacterial infection during the Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM) National Conference in July. Their presentation was one of the most attended during the conference and was so well received that the colleagues were invited to recap their talk on a national PHM podcast. Well done!

UAMS Northwest Team Research
UAMS Northwest third-year Internal Medicine resident Dr. Alex Belote is first author on a paper showing that subcutaneous monoclonal antibiotic treatment was equally efficient in preventing COVID hospitalizations as the more resource-intensive and time-consuming intravenous administration, in an analysis of patients in Northwest Arkansas. In addition to its clinical significance, the paper highlights the strong collaboration and partnership with Washington Regional Medical Center, which is home to senior author Dr. James Newton. UAMS Northwest medical students Megan Clark, Spencer Parnell and Caroline Geels are among the coauthors. All three students are beginning their second year at UAMS Northwest, and Spencer is participating in the accelerated three-year MD track. Great job!

The Path to Pathology
At UAMS, Dr. Matthew Quick, Professor of Pathology, is greatly respected and appreciated by medical students for his award-winning initiatives to expand pathology education and the exploration of pathology as a career path. Programs such as the pathology interest group, a summer pathology preceptorship and the integration of autopsy pathology into first-year gross anatomy have led to a dramatic increase in UAMS graduates choosing pathology. Dr. Quick recently shared his expertise with members of the Royal College of Pathologists in Australia, co-presenting a talk on “Helping Medical Students and Junior Doctors Discover Their Path.”

Award-Winning Research
Congratulations to second-year Internal Medicine resident Dr. Vignesh Chidambaram on receiving the first place Early Career Research Award at the American Society for Preventive Cardiology Congress on CVD Prevention. Dr. Chidambaram works in the laboratory of Dr. J.L. Mehta, Stebbins Chair in Cardiology and Distinguished Professor of Internal Medicine, Physiology and Cell Biology and Pharmacology and Toxicology. Dr. Chidambaram’s research, which indicates that elevated HDL levels may decrease susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection, was highlighted in an article in Cardiology Today.

Terrific Teamwork
I would like to share a note I received from Dr. Mollie Meek, Professor of Radiology, about the collegiality and teamwork of Associate Professor Dr. Shannon Dare and others on the Anesthesiology team on a recent day in Interventional Radiology when two medically complicated patients in a row needed procedures that could not be delayed.

“On a regular day, working in IR can be a challenge due to the physical space and equipment,” Dr. Meek wrote. “We are very appreciative of the continued dedication from all of the anesthesia team members in caring for our challenging patients. Dr. Dare and her team took excellent care of the patients, and we were able to complete the procedures safely. Dr. Dare exemplifies UAMS’s core values and we are lucky to have her as part of our faculty.”

Top Docs
Congratulations to all of the fantastic College of Medicine physicians who were named on the 2022 Top Docs list by Little Rock Soirée this month. Nearly 140 of our faculty practicing at UAMS Medical Center, Arkansas Children’s Hospital and the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System are on Soiree’s list (and presented alphabetically on the UAMS website.) We are equally proud of our faculty who were named to the 2022 Castle Connolly Top Doctors in Arkansas list, which will be published in the Arkansas Times in October. These UAMS physicians also are currently listed on the UAMS website. Kudos to all of you for providing world-class care while teaching and training the next generation of physicians and scientists for Arkansas and beyond.

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!

Mentor Spotlight Podcast
Bravo to medical students Manasa Veluvolu, Weijia Shi, Hannah Hubbard and Jasmin Cotoco, the team behind the excellent new Mentor Spotlight Podcast. The students recently released the first episode, an interview with Dr. Hakan Paydak, Professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, who is widely recognized for his outstanding teaching and mentoring as well as his expertise and leadership in cardiac electrophysiology. Sharanda Williams, M.A., Assistant Dean for Student Affairs and Diversity, and Web Manager Chris Lesher also helped get the project off the ground. The podcast was created to connect medical students with potential mentors and to share insights from faculty across the COM on career paths and more. Dr. Paydak’s interview was a great way to start!

National Service in Pathology
A shout-out to Dr. Eric Yee, Associate Professor of Pathology and Director of the Anatomic Pathology Laboratories, on two recent national appointments. He has been named Chair of the Case of the Month Section of the Education Committee for the Rodger C. Haggitt Gastrointestinal Pathology Society, and Co-Chair of the Gastrointestinal and Liver Pathology Subcommittee for the Chinese American Pathologists Association. Dr. Yee also serves as an Assistant Editor for the American Journal of Clinical Pathology.

Congratulations to Dr. Felicia Allard, Associate Professor of Pathology and Director of the Cytopathology Fellowship, on her appointment to the Journal Watch Section of the Education Committee for the Rodger C. Haggitt Gastrointestinal Pathology Society. Dr. Allard’s other national roles include serving on the Education Committee of the Pancreatobiliary Pathology Society and as an Assistant Editor for GI pathology for the American Journal of Clinical Pathology. 

Spine Surgery Expertise
Dr. Noojan Kazemi, Associate Professor and Director of Spine and Peripheral Nerve Education in the Department of Neurosurgery, recently shared his expertise in minimally invasive developments in lumbar spine surgery with an international audience. Dr. Kazemi was the presenter for an online program hosted by Izmir Katip Celebi University in Izmir, Turkey, and endorsed by the Turkish Neurosurgical Society. Dr. Kazemi has published extensively on topics including spinal tumors, minimally-invasive surgery and craniocervical distraction injuries. He also has authored several book chapters in major neurosurgery textbooks.  

Residency Celebrations & Honors
It has been a pleasure to share highlights from graduation and year-end ceremonies from across the college this summer. This week, we are featuring the Department of Anesthesiology, which presented awards to residents for excellence in several areas, along with recognitions for outstanding teaching by faculty at UAMS and Arkansas Children’s. Program Directors and Coordinators can continue to share reports of ceremonies and honorees for upcoming editions of Accolades. Use this template for your overview and send it to COMInternalCommunications@uams.edu.

Surgery & the Pandemic
A new paper by Drs. Lori Wong, Moriah Hollaway, Hanna Jensen and colleagues shows how the initial triaging system UAMS used during the early months of the pandemic to postpone or cancel elective surgeries when possible worked well. The study, published in Surgery in Practice and Science, found there were minimal urgent admissions or Emergency Department visits due to canceled surgical cases. Dr. Wong worked on the project while completing her Clinical Informatics Fellowship in the Department of Biomedical Informatics. Dr. Hollaway, now a Surgery resident, was working toward her MD/MPH degree and received a U.S. Public Health Service award for the project. Dr. Jensen, Assistant Professor of Surgery and Radiology, was senior author and is leading the team’s follow-up study analyzing similar outcomes in later stages of the pandemic. Kudos to the team for this important work – and to Team UAMS for ensuring the very best surgical care throughout this challenging time.

Robotic Surgery Leadership
UAMS’ leadership in robotic surgery has led to designation as one of a select number of da Vinci Observation Epicenters for Colorectal Surgery. UAMS will host surgeons from across the country to demonstrate colorectal surgery with the da Vinci Surgical System, which is used by more than 1,500 hospitals nationwide. Dr. Conan Mustain, Associate Professor of Surgery, hosted the first visiting surgeon last Friday. The colorectal surgeon is head of the UAMS Robotics Steering Committee and one of 16 certified robotic surgeons at UAMS across nine specialties – Colorectal, General Surgery, Surgical Oncology, Thoracic Surgery, Otolaryngology, Urology, Urologic Oncology, Gynecology and Gynecological Oncology. Read more in the UAMS Newsroom.

Giving Matters
Dr. William C. “Bill” Culp, who retired from UAMS in 2020, devoted his expertise, energy and resources to finding new treatments for stroke and advancing the field of interventional radiology during his two decades on the faculty. The retired Professor of Radiology, Surgery and Neurology also served as Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Radiology. A $500,000 gift commitment from this visionary and forward-thinking scientist, clinician and educator will be used to establish the Dr. William Culp Endowed Professorship in Interventional Radiology. We are grateful to Dr. Culp, whose gift will support this important area of research for decades to come. Read more in the UAMS Newsroom. 

Putting Patients First
Sometimes, “putting patients first” goes beyond providing exceptional care at the bedside. Dr. André Wineland, Associate Professor in Pediatric Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, turned a tragedy into a statewide training opportunity. A young patient with a tracheostomy died earlier this year after it accidently fell out and was not replaced in time. To prevent something like this from happening again, Dr. Wineland and his team organized the first annual Statewide Pediatric Tracheostomy Training Course.

Almost 50 people devoted their entire day on July 22 to learn how to better care for children with tracheostomies. Participants included therapists, nurses and administrators of day cares and schools. Parents of children with tracheostomies also participated, providing their unique perspective on caring for a child with a tracheostomy. The mother of the little girl who inspired Dr. Wineland shares why the initiative is so important in this video from Arkansas Children’s.

Kudos, Dr. Wineland. Creating a one-of-a-kind conference that will benefit countless lives is the epitome of putting patients first.

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!

New Endowed Chair
It was a pleasure to celebrate the investiture of Dr. J. Paul Mounsey, Professor and Director of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, in the Don and Carolyn Kirkpatrick Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine last week. This is a well-deserved honor for Dr. Mounsey, who has made strides in growing our cardiovascular programs since his recruitment to UAMS in 2019. Dr. Mounsey is a nationally recognized expert in managing complex heart rhythm disturbances. Under his leadership, our goal is to provide comprehensive cardiovascular care for Arkansans, to eventually include heart and lung transplants. We are grateful to the Kirkpatrick family for their generous gift to establish this chair. Read more about the investiture in the UAMS Newsroom.

National Psychiatry Honor
Congratulations to Dr. Veronica Raney, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Medical Director of the Child Study Center at Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Interim Division Director for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, on being selected for the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry’s 2022 Psychodynamic Faculty Initiative (PsyFI). The initiative’s goals are to provide recognition and a faculty development opportunity for AACAP members who are planning to teach psychodynamic theory and therapy in child and adolescent psychiatry fellowships. As part of the award, Dr. Raney will work with a mentor to create a project designed to enhance the psychodynamic training experience at UAMS by addressing a problem or specific need within the Department of Psychiatry. She will present her project at the AACAP annual meeting in 2023.

National Workshop Spotlights our Dashboards
Dr. Beatrice Boateng, Associate Dean for Analytics and Strategy, presented an excellent workshop, “What’s your data telling you? Dashboards for Strategic Faculty Development and Vitality,” at the recent AAMC Group on Faculty Affairs Professional Development Virtual Conference. Dr. Boateng demonstrated the faculty dashboards that have been developed for the College of Medicine and discussed how they can be used for prescriptive and predictive analytics to improve faculty vitality. Other authors on the workshop included Dr. Erick Messias, former Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs; Emily Freeman, MA, Director of the UAMS Center for Faculty Excellence; Dr. Renee Bornemeier, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs; and me. You can view Dr. Boateng’s workshop slides here.

Opioid Treatment in the ED
A shout-out to the Department of Emergency Medicine for the lifesaving innovations put in place for patients with opioid use disorder who come to the Emergency Department. The initiative is led by Dr. Mike Wilson, and Dr. Wes Watkins did a great job sharing information about the program in a KARK-4 news segment last week. At UAMS, treatment for opioid addiction can start right in the Emergency Department. UAMS is the first ED in Arkansas with a grant-funded program to provide free, take-home doses of naloxone, the life-saving drug that counteracts the effects of an overdose, in case of future overdose. It is also the first ED to provide buprenorphine to help patients going through symptoms of withdrawal, and any attending physician in the ED can now prescribe it.

Accelerating Precision Cancer Medicine
Congratulations to Dr. Donald Johann, Professor of Biomedical Informatics, who is an author on an article in the high-impact journal Genome Biology on ways to improve Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) assays that use fixed tissue. Precision medicine approaches are revolutionizing the practice of clinical oncology. However, formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE), a routine pathology practice, brings challenges for the molecular extraction of relevant biomolecules and the quality of the molecular profiling assays that are essential to precision oncology. To investigate the effect of FFPE on clinical specimens undergoing NGS analysis, the research team designed a comprehensive study querying crucial components and provided salient recommendations.

Healthcare Ethics for the Pandemic & Beyond
The recently published second edition of Guidance for Healthcare Ethics Committees, co-edited by Dr. Micah Hester, was shaped in part by the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Hester, Chair of the Department of Medical Humanities & Bioethics at UAMS, and Dr. Toby Schonfeld, Executive Director of the National Center for Ethics in Health Care, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, also addressed significant changes in health care since the first edition of their book was published in 2012. Read more about this insightful work in the UAMS Newsroom.

Improving Bladder Cancer Treatment
Congratulations to Dr. A. Murat Aydin, Assistant Professor of Urology, on his newly published article in Urologic Oncology, a leading journal in the field and the official journal of the Society of Urologic Oncology. Dr. Aydin, a researcher in the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, is first author and corresponding author on “Comparative analysis of three vs. four cycles of neoadjuvant gemcitabine and cisplatin for muscle invasive bladder cancer.” The study showed that continuation of treatment with a fourth cycle prior to radical cystectomy benefits patients and may further improve survival outcomes.

Laser-Based Cancer & Disease Detection
A research team led by Dr. Vladimir Zharov, Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and Director of the Arkansas Nanomedicine Center, has published the latest advances in its ability to detect cancer and other medical conditions using a non-invasive, portable blood sensor. The article, “Towards Rainbow Portable Cytophone with Laser Diodes for Global Disease Diagnostics,” was published in Scientific Reports, a Nature Portfolio journal. Read more in the UAMS Newsroom.

International Expertise
Dr. J.L. Mehta, Distinguished Professor of Internal Medicine, Physiology and Cell Biology and Pharmacology and Toxicology, will lend his expertise as a member of the Board of the Giovanni Lorenzini Medical Foundation in New York. Dr. Mehta was unanimously appointed to the U.S. board by the Board of the Fondazione Giovanni Lorenzi Medical Science Foundation in Milan, Italy. Through a global network of experts and extensive pool of research and development projects, the Lorenzini Foundation translates the latest findings in translational and evidence-based science and medicine. Congratulations also to Dr. Mehta and colleagues on the publication of two recent articles. He is the senior author on “HDL cholesterol levels and susceptibility to COVID-19” in eBioMedicine, published by The Lancet; and “Vegetarianism, microbiota, and cardiovascular health: looking back, and forward,” in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. Internal Medicine residents Dr. Vignesh Chidambaram and Dr. Amudha Kumar are co-first authors on both papers.

Team Effort Pays Off
The UAMS Little Rock Family Medicine Residency Program had all 17 of its poster submissions accepted for the FMX conference in Washington, D.C., in September. FMX (Family Medicine Experience) is the premier annual event for the American Academy of Family Physicians. The 100% acceptance rate was a team effort led by Program Director Dr. Shashank Kraleti, with participation by seven faculty members, four residents and three medical students. Not coincidentally, one of the accepted posters is on the theme of using a team model to transform daily work into posters and presentations. Other poster topics include implementing interdisciplinary didactics, developing a research curriculum, designing an integrated behavioral health experience, and creating a competency-based review document as part of resident evaluation.

Residency Celebrations & Honors
I have enjoyed highlighting the year-end celebrations of departments across the college this summer. This week, I am pleased to share highlights from the Department of Surgery, which honored exemplary residents, along with Department of Surgery faculty who made an exceptional impact on students and residents this past year, and winning presenters from the recent Surgery Research Day. Program Directors and Coordinators can continue to share reports of graduation/year-end ceremonies and department honorees for upcoming editions of Accolades. Use this template for your overview and send it to COMInternalCommunications@uams.edu.

Putting Patients First
I recently received a wonderful note about an exceptional team player, Dr. Ryan Strebeck, Chief Resident in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Tonia Cox, RNC-NIC, was working in the Institute for Digital Health and Innovation Call Center late one night when a new mother, recently discharged and distraught over a glitch in obtaining important medications from her pharmacy, telephoned. Dr. Strebeck stepped in to assist Tonia and the patient and was exceptionally helpful. “It takes teamwork to solve problems at UAMS, and Dr. Strebeck deserves recognition for his role in this situation,” Tonia wrote. “Labor and Delivery is a busy place to work; I appreciate the time he took to facilitate thorough patient care and follow up post-discharge.” I couldn’t agree more. Kudos to both of these outstanding colleagues.

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!

Genetics Research Excellence
Congratulations to Drs. Reine Protacio, Tresor Mukiza, Mari Davidson and Wayne Wahls in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The significance of their recent Genetics paper on the plasticity of meiotic recombination – a component of evolution of species – was just highlighted in the prestigious journal Nature Reviews Genetics. Their work was featured with top billing on the home page of the journal and will appear in the August print issue. The discoveries were also the topic of an invited perspective article in Frontiers in Genetics. Department Chair Dr. Kevin Raney notes that this is the tenth time that a scientific publication from Dr. Wahls’ laboratory has been discussed in a commentary, editorial, highlight or editors’ choice of top papers published during the year. As Dr. Raney said, this remarkable achievement “reflects the sustained high quality of fundamental, basic science research conducted by a group of talented UAMS scientists.” Read more here. Well done!

International Leadership in ENT
Dr. Susan Emmett, Associate Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and Director of the UAMS Center for Hearing Health Equity, delivered the keynote lecture at the recent virtual AG Bell Global Listening and Spoken Language Symposium. Attendees from over 50 countries listened to her talk, “The Road to Hearing Health Equity.” Her work also was highlighted at the World Health Organization launch of the WHO-International Telecommunications Union Global Standards for Accessibility of Telehealth Services in June. She was an invited speaker and the only academic researcher featured alongside international leaders in government and industry.    

Congratulations also to Professor Dr. Gresham Richter on being voted President-Elect of the American Broncho-Esophological Association, and on the publication of his latest paper, “Characterizing Pediatric Bilateral Vocal Fold Dysfunction: Analysis with the Pediatric Health Information System Database,” in The Laryngoscope.

The Nonfatal Injury Burden of Mass Shootings
For every death in civilian public mass shootings across the nation, another 5.8 individuals are injured. Assistant Professor Dr. Amanda Young and Associate Professor Dr. Carly Eastin in the Department of Emergency Medicine are coauthors on an important multicenter study, recently published in JAMA Network Open, into the burden of non-fatal injuries in mass shootings. The study documented the substantial morbidity associated with mass shootings, including injury characteristics, outcomes and impacts on health care services. The results reveal the importance of including data on nonfatal injuries to inform public policy and help prevent and reduce the harm caused by mass shooting events.

COVID-19 & Heart Failure
Congratulations to Dr. Husam Salah, Chief Resident in the Division of General Internal Medicine, on the publication of his paper in Nature Communications on the increased risk of heart failure among individuals previously hospitalized for COVID-19. Dr. Salah was first author on “Post-recovery COVID-19 and incident heart failure in the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) study.” The work also was noted in a news article on COVID-19 in the state in today’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

National Pathology Leadership
Dr. Susanne Jeffus, Associate Professor of Pathology, has been elected to serve on the Council of the Program Directors Section of the national Association of Pathology chairs. The section provides a forum for the exchange of information and ideas and makes recommendations on governing content and management of pathology residency training programs. Dr. Jeffus served as Associate Program Director at UAMS from 2014-2019 and has been the Residency Program Director since then. Under her leadership, 100% of residents have given the program a positive evaluation on the ACGME survey for two consecutive years.

Using AI to Predict the Need for Brain Surgery

A shout-out to Assistant Professor Dr. Viktoras Palys‘ research group in the Department of Neurosurgery for their publication in Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery. Their article, with intern Dr. Thomas Harkey as first author and additional residents and students as coauthors, represents three years of neuroimaging data collection and exploration of automated volumetry software for the brain and skull. Dr. Palys’ team is striving to reduce the barrier to entry for research and clinical groups, including neurosurgeons and neuroradiologists, to incorporate these artificial intelligence tools into clinical workflow. A future extension of the group’s research is to utilize AI to prognosticate the utility of decompressive craniectomy in ischemic strokes with large vessel occlusion. In their efforts to improve outcomes in the Stroke Belt, these physicians have been awarded two grants from the Fund to Cure Stroke Grant at UAMS. 

Promising AI Scholar
Catherine “Cat” Shoults, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Biomedical Informatics, already has drawn international attention for her promising work in artificial intelligence. She recently was accepted into the Technische Universität Dresden (TU Dresden) Institute for Artificial Intelligence Summer Scholar Program. We were saddened when the prestigious program was canceled for this year due to illness of a key organizer – but Cat nonetheless deserves a shout-out. Professor Dr. Jonathan Bona, who teaches information modeling at UAMS and is a previous TU Dresden Scholar, facilitated the opportunity, along with the College of Medicine Artificial Intelligence Creativity Hub led by Distinguished Professor and Biomedical Informatics Chair Dr. Fred Prior. At UAMS, Ms. Shoults is part of the Biomedical Ontologies Arkansas group chaired by Dr. Bona and Dr. Mathias Brochhausen, Professor and Vice Chair for Academic Programs. Her dissertation work focuses on data mining adverse events in Reddit to complement FDA drug safety reporting.

Highly Cited Work
A 2019 paper by Dr. Giulia Baldini, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Dr. Kevin Phelan, Professor of Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences, continues to provide obesity researchers with important insights and context. Their review article, “The melanocortin pathway and control of appetite-progress and therapeutic  implications,” was one of the most highly cited articles in the Journal of Endocrinology in 2021 and is now being showcased in the journal’s Impact Factor Collection. Congratulations, Dr. Baldini and Dr. Phelan!

Residency Celebrations & Honors
A few weeks ago, I noted that celebration was in the air across the College of Medicine as our departments and residency and fellowship programs honored graduating housestaff and outstanding educators. I am pleased to share some of the lists of honorees we have received. Congratulations to the exemplary graduates and faculty in Emergency Medicine, Family and Preventive Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Orthopaedic Surgery and Pathology!

I look forward to highlighting additional year-end celebrations and awards in upcoming Accolades. Program Directors and Coordinators can share information about ceremonies and honorees using this template and sending it to COMInternalCommunications@uams.edu.

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!

Residency Celebrations & Honors
June is a time for celebration across the College of Medicine and UAMS as our residency and fellowship programs honor exemplary graduating housestaff and the outstanding educators who made a difference during their training. I want to take a moment to congratulate the 189 housestaff who are graduating from College of Medicine programs this month. Congratulations as well to the 50-some Family Medicine residents and Sports Medicine fellows graduating at the UAMS Regional Centers.

This year also marks the graduation of the inaugural classes of Family Medicine and Internal Medicine residents in the Baptist Health-UAMS Medical Education Program. Special thanks to Dr. Julea Garner, Program Director for the Family Medicine Residency, Dr. Paula Podrazik, Program Director for the Internal Medicine program, their faculty and staff team members, and Dr. Stan Kellar, Melissa Yandell and all of our partners at Baptist Health.

Finally, I invite our Program Directors and Coordinators to share information about your graduation celebrations and program honorees, so we can highlight them in Accolades. Here is a template you can use to tell us about your graduation ceremonies and awards. Please send your report to COMInternalCommunications@uams.edu. We will share the reports we receive in upcoming editions of Accolades.

Surgical Safety Education Accreditation
Congratulations to Dr. Karen Dickinson, Assistant Professor and Director of Interprofessional Simulation and Clinical Skills Training in the Department of Surgery, and her team on achieving accreditation for UAMS as a Focused Education Institute by the American College of Surgeons (ACS). The program evaluates and ensures the highest standards for simulation-based surgical education and training to promote patient safety. As an accredited institute, UAMS will join other top surgical programs and multidisciplinary professionals around the country in a safety-focused educational consortium. Under Dr. Dickinson’s leadership, UAMS recently had an outstanding site visit by the ACS Accredited Education Institutes team. Well done!

Shark Tank Winner
Congratulations to Dr. Gary Lewis, Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology, on his winning innovation pitch in the “Shark Tank” competition during the recent American Brachytherapy Society annual meeting. Dr. Lewis’ proposal would use virtual reality to improve the patient experience during gynecologic brachytherapy. For patients with advanced cervical cancer, the brachytherapy treatment may be essential, but it can cause significant anxiety and discomfort. During the competition, Dr. Lewis explained how virtual reality technology could be used to soothe patients and reduce the need for potentially addictive opioid pain medication. The Shark Tank competition highlighted ideas for transforming the practice of brachytherapy by the year 2030. Great job, Dr. Lewis!

Radiation Oncology National Honor
Dr. Fen Xia, Professor and Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology, has been selected to receive the prestigious Fellow designation from the American Society for Radiation Oncology (FASTRO). The honor recognizes Dr. Xia’s service to ASTRO and contributions to the field of radiation oncology. Dr. Xia, who was recruited to UAMS in 2016, is an internationally known physician-scientist specializing in treatment of central nervous system tumors. Her research focuses on DNA damage response and repair and the impact of these processes on genomic stability, aging, carcinogenesis, tumor response and normal tissue injury in cancer treatment. Dr. Xia will be recognized at a convocation ceremony during ASTRO’s annual meeting in October.   

“Girlology” Empowers Arkansas Girls
A shout-out to the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which recently held the first “Girlology” seminar in Central Arkansas and is gearing up for a second session. The physician-led program provides puberty education for girls ages 8-14, with the goal of providing young girls and their parents/caregivers a medically accurate educational experience to empower them to make good health choices. OB/GYN Chair Dr. Nirvana Manning, Dr. Laura Hollenbach, Associate Professor and Director of Pediatrics/Adolescent Gynecology, and Assistant Professor Dr. Kathryn Stambough conducted the well-attended and very well-received seminar. Based on the national Girlology program, the UAMS initiative is funded in part by a Chancellor’s Circle Grant. The next large-group Girlology event will be held at UAMS on August 7. Learn more and register here. 

Summer Lecture Tour
Dr. David Ussery, Professor of Biomedical Informatics, has had a busy summer so far with activities including a series of lectures on genomic epidemiology. On Monday, he gave a talk for Arkansas high school students as part of the Summer Health Professions Education Camp held at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia. Yesterday, he led a virtual round table discussion for a biodefense meeting in Washington, D.C. The discussion focused on using single-molecule sequencing for pathogens in wastewater to detect viral outbreaks, including monitoring for polio and monkeypox, both of which have been in the news recently. Today, he is giving a plenary talk at the biodefense meeting on what can be learned from more than 11 million COVID-19 genome sequences. Dr. Ussery also gave an introductory talk on genomic epidemiology at the recent Arkansas Summer Research Institute.

State Lab Accredited
Dr. Theodore Brown, Associate Professor of Pathology and Director of Autopsy at UAMS, also serves as Chief Medical Examiner for the state of Arkansas. Under his leadership, the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory has attained full accreditation by the National Association of Medical Examiners. The rigorous accreditation process ensures the highest caliber of medicolegal death investigations for our state. This accomplishment and Dr. Brown’s leadership role is yet another example of the ways our faculty serve Arkansans beyond the core areas of education, research and clinical care. Kudos, Dr. Brown.

Great Job, Geriatrics Fellows
Graduating Geriatrics fellows Drs. Bader Alkharisi, Anil Anandam, Sakiru Isa and Onna Lau presented well-received posters at the recent American Geriatrics Society meeting. The project titles were: “From tardive dyskinesia to Parkinsonism: an avoidable journey;” “The importance of dopamine deficiency evaluation in Alzheimer disease related dementias;” and “When treatment of hypertension becomes burdensome.” The fellows also presented a grand rounds on their quality improvement project, “Delirium Knowledge in Patients and Caregivers in a Geriatric Clinic,” which was mentored by Dr. Gohar Azhar. They were mentored for their abstracts and other Geriatrics grand rounds over the year by Dr. Jeanne Wei, Dr. Azhar, Amanda Pangle and Fellowship Program Director Dr. Priya Mendiratta, with assistance from Program Coordinator Joni Pharis. The fellows also contributed several novel innovations for the program during the year. Geriatrics faculty Dr. Kalpana Padala and Dr. Danish Hasan also presented at the AGS meeting.

Top Downloaded Paper
An article by Dr. Teresita Bellido, Professor and Chair of the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology, and Dr. Jesús Delgado-Calle, Assistant Professor, was recently recognized as one of the 10 most downloaded articles in JBMR-Plus, a journal of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research. The article, “Ex Vivo Organ Cultures as Models to Study Bone Biology,” describes the protocols optimized in their laboratories to establish bone organ cultures that enable the study of bone cells in their natural 3D environment. Dr. Bellido and Dr. Delgado-Calle also presented examples of how this technical approach can be used to study osteocyte biology, drug responses in bone, cancer-induced bone disease, and cross-talk between bone and other organs.

National Podcast
Dr. Jason Mizell, Professor of Surgery and Director of the nationally recognized Business of Medicine course, was featured this week in two episodes of the “Behind the Knife” podcast. The series is the premier podcast for comprehensive surgical education for health care providers and learners in all stages of their career. Dr. Mizell discussed financial principles for surgeons in the episodes – the 10^th podcast featuring Dr. Mizell and the innovative course he established at UAMS eight years ago. Congratulations!

Accolades will be on hiatus for the next couple of weeks, returning July 20. Meanwhile, I hope everyone has a happy and safe Fourth of July holiday!

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!

Study Published in NEJM
Congratulations to Dr. Jeannette Lee, Professor of Biostatistics, and colleagues on the publication of results of the groundbreaking ANCHOR study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Lee was the lead statistician and the Department of Biostatistics was the statistical center for the multi-center phase 3 clinical trial focusing on anal cancer prevention in persons with HIV. The study, led by Dr. Joel Palefsky at the University of California San Francisco, showed that treatment of precancerous lesions reduced the progression to anal cancer. The success rate of the therapy was so high that the trial was halted early. Read more about the study in this June 15 news release from the National Cancer Institute and about Dr. Lee and her team’s role in this UAMS story from last November.

Improving Access to Hearing Care
A landmark study led by Dr. Susan Emmett, Associate Professor, and Dr. Samantha Kleindienst Robler, Assistant Professor, of the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, shows the power of telemedicine for increasing access to hearing care for rural children. The study was published June 15 in The Lancet Global Health. Dr. Emmett and Dr. Robler are Director and Associate Director, respectively, of the new UAMS Center for Hearing Health Equity. The randomized controlled trial was conducted in 15 rural Alaskan communities with funding support from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). As Dr. Emmett explains in this UAMS news story, the study has important implications for addressing disparities relating to hearing and other preventable health conditions in rural states such as Arkansas. Excellent work!

Preparing Seniors for Residency
A shout-out to Dr. Karina Clemmons, Assistant Dean for Medical Education, for her innovative work to enhance the Residency Preparation course for seniors. Dr. Clemmons, an Associate Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics, developed the course improvements as a participant in the prestigious Harvard Macy Institute for Educators in Health Professions this past year. One of the creative additions to the revamped course is a series of podcasts with faculty and residents discussing topics such as how to prepare for residency interviews, evidence-based education, and communication and leadership skills. The course, co-directed by Dr. Nicholas Gowen, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, continues to feature mock residency interviews and clinical skills simulations to help graduating seniors transition to residency.

Spina Bifida Advocacy
The Spinal Cord Disorders Multidisciplinary Team is doing excellent work in Arkansas, nationally and internationally on behalf of patients with Spina Bifida. Dr. Eylem Öcal, Associate Professor of Neurosurgery, attended the recent 75^th World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) and side events in Geneva, Switzerland, as a member of the Global Alliance for Prevention of Spina Bifida. After the conference, she met with Turkey’s Deputy Minister of Health to discuss the importance of prenatal care and folic acid fortification in staple foods to prevent Spina Bifida and other birth defects. Meanwhile, team coordinators Becky Watkins-Bregy, RN, and Allison Curtis, RN, attended the Spina Bifida Association Clinical Care Meeting in Boston and accepted recognition of Arkansas Children’s as an official clinical partner. They represented ACH and the team’s Medical Director, Dr. Laura Hobart-Porter, Associate Professor of Pediatric Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, who was unable to attend. Kudos to all for their outstanding work.

Academic Senate Service
Congratulations to the College of Medicine faculty who have been elected to the UAMS Academic Senate, and kudos to those who are continuing or have just completed terms. Dr. Tiffany Huitt, Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences, has been re-elected to the leadership and will serve as President-Elect starting July 1. She is currently serving as Past-President in the three-year leadership cycle and is also a past representative of the College of Health Professions. Dr. Brad Martin of the College of Pharmacy will serve as President starting July 1.The new College of Medicine representatives to the Academic Senate are Dr. Steve Cherney, Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Dr. Ronald Sanders Jr., Professor of Pediatrics/Critical Care, and Dr. Ben Stronach, Associate Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, who will serve two-year terms.

Dr. Priya Mendiratta, Professor of Geriatrics, will serve as Past-President in 2022-2023. A two-term COM representative, she stepped in to serve as President a year early and worked closely with former Dean Dr. Chris Westfall on a number of issues during the pandemic. Dr. David Ussery, Professor of Biomedical Informatics, will continue to serve as a Member-at-Large for the upcoming year. Dr. Richard Turnage, Professor of Surgery and Vice Chancellor for Regional Programs, completed his term as a COM representative.

Mediating Bone Loss
Dr. Stavros Manolagas, Distinguished Professor in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, and colleagues in the Center for Osteoporosis and Metabolic Bone Diseases and the departments of Internal Medicine, Orthopaedic Surgery and Biomedical Informatics collaborated on a newly published study in Scientific Reports. Former postdoctoral fellow Dr. Filipa Ponte was first author and Dr. Manolagas served as senior author on “Mmp13 deletion in mesenchymal cells increases bone mass and may attenuate the cortical bone loss caused by estrogen deficiency.” Other contributors were Drs. Ha-Neui Kim, Srividhya Iyer, Li Han, Erin Mannen, Horacio Gomez-Acevedo, Intawat Nookaew and Maria Almeida, and Aaron Warren.

Championing Biostatistics
The Department of Biostatistics and the Central Arkansas Chapter of the American Statistical Association (ASA) were highlighted in the ASA’s Summer 2022 Chapter Chatter newsletter for their participation in the Central Arkansas Regional Science and Engineering Fair this spring. Dr. Ruofei Du, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics, organized the activity and penned the article for the newsletter. The Central Arkansas Chapter sponsored awards for exceptional application of statistical and data science techniques for analyzing, tabulating and/or visualizing data. Kudos to the Biostatistics team and the many faculty members across the college and UAMS who take the time to engage young Arkansans in research and STEM activities!

Red Sash & Gold Sash Honorees
Finally this week, congratulations to this year’s Red Sash and Gold Sash recipients. Red Sash honorees were recognized by members of the Class of 2022 for outstanding teaching during their four years of medical school. Gold Sash recipients received the highest number of votes by members of all four classes for their excellent teaching. Throughout my first year at UAMS, I have been amazed by the dedication of our faculty to our educational mission. It is an honor to serve alongside such skilled and passionate educators.