By Benjamin Waldrum

Seth Berney, M.D., chief of the Division of Rheumatology in the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), was invested Sept. 25 as the inaugural professor of the Eleanor A. Lipsmeyer Professorship in Rheumatology.

Berney, who also is director of the UAMS rheumatology fellowship program, has more than 20 years of experience as a researcher and teacher, for which he has received numerous awards. Since joining UAMS in 2014, he has made it his goal to develop one of the premier rheumatology training programs in the country.

“Seth Berney embodies the full spectrum of our mission at UAMS as an accomplished teacher, researcher and clinician, and that makes him an ideal choice for this professorship,” said UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA. “It is vital that we continue the legacy of Dr. Lipsmeyer, who helped train countless rheumatologists in the state of Arkansas, and this professorship will ensure that we do just that.”

An endowed professorship is among the highest academic honors a university can bestow on a faculty member. A professorship is a $500,000 endowment established to support the educational, research and clinical activities of its holder, who will lead future innovations in medicine and health care. Those named to a professorship are among the most highly regarded scientists, physicians and professors in their fields of expertise.

“Our students and trainees, and ultimately the patients they will care for, as well as the patients who come here to UAMS, are all very fortunate to have Dr. Berney’s leadership in rheumatology,” said Christopher T. Westfall, M.D., dean of the College of Medicine. “This professorship will help to carry on the distinguished legacy of Dr. Lipsmeyer for generations to come.”

The newly established professorship honors Lipsmeyer, a physician and beloved faculty member and teacher in the Division of Rheumatology. Lipsmeyer received her medical degree from UAMS in 1962 and stayed for her residency in internal medicine. After completing her training at Yale University, she returned to UAMS in 1969, joining the faculty as assistant professor. Over the next five decades, she was promoted through the academic ranks, serving as professor until her retirement in 2015.

Lipsmeyer earned high praise from patients, being recognized repeatedly as one of Arkansas’ best rheumatologists, and was voted one of America’s Best Doctors. UAMS College of Medicine seniors awarded her the distinguished and highly coveted Red Sash Award for excellence in teaching 18 times.

Berney was presented with a commemorative medallion by Patterson and Westfall. He recognized Lipsmeyer, who was in attendance, and thanked those present.

“This award is a demonstration of the admiration and love that the UAMS community has for Dr. Lipsmeyer, and I am glad she attended this ceremony today,” Berney said. “I am honored and humbled by this endowed professorship. I will endeavor to maintain the educational, inspirational and clinical excellence that Dr. Lipsmeyer has represented.”

Under Berney, the fellowship training program has improved significantly, resulting in higher rheumatology in-service exam scores, and the Division of Rheumatology is increasing its research capabilities and attracting clinical therapeutic trials.

Berney received his medical degree from Temple University School of Medicine and completed his postgraduate training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and New York University. He joined the faculty at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-Shreveport in 1995 as assistant professor of medicine, and served successively as rheumatology fellowship director, internal medicine clerkship director, director of the student musculoskeletal “Core Concepts in the Clinical Sciences” course, chair of the institution’s promotion and tenure committee, chief of the Division of Rheumatology and director of the Center of Excellence for Arthritis and Rheumatology.

Berney has served as a national council member and Southern Region president for the American Federation for Medical Research, rheumatology section editor for the Year Book of Medicine, rheumatology section lecturer for the MedStudy Internal Medicine Board Review Course, and a member of the American College of Rheumatology Research Awards & Grants Study Section B. He serves on the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine education committee and faculty development subcommittee, and the American College of Rheumatology annual meeting committee.

Berney has received numerous teaching awards, including the American College of Rheumatology Clinician Scholar Educator Award and the Dr. Allen A. Copping Award for Excellence in Teaching Clinical Science. At Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-Shreveport, he received multiple Clarence H. Webb Awards for Outstanding Clinical Science Instructor, and several selections as the sophomore class Arnold P. Gold Foundation White Coat Ceremony Speaker and graduation marshal. He is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society and has been named to the Best Doctors in America every year since 2005.

By Amy Widner

Have the COBRE programs at UAMS and ACRI reached critical mass and can now benefit the entire campus research community?

Mark Smeltzer, Ph.D., certainly thinks so. There are now six active Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) at UAMS and the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute (ACRI). That translates to about $11.5 million a year in research funding.

Each COBRE is built around a theme. Junior investigators working on the theme benefit from funding, mentoring, technical support, technology and an environment that encourages collaboration. Participants are more likely to obtain independent federal funding, “graduating” from the COBRE and opening a spot for the next junior researcher to benefit. Over time, an institution develops clusters of expert faculty supported by the necessary technology to be leaders in their field.

But Smeltzer — who is director of one of the more longstanding COBRE programs at UAMS, the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis and Host Inflammatory Responses — thinks the centers can do even more.

“We can integrate the efforts of each program to enhance the overall research infrastructure on our campuses,” Smeltzer said. “We can be better than the sum of our parts, but to realize that potential will require us to be proactive in promoting communication and integration across individual COBRE programs as they grow and develop.”

As a step in that direction, the COBREs took center stage at the Showcase of Medical Discoveries in September. Organized by the office of Vice Chancellor for Research Lawrence Cornett, Ph.D., and supported by UAMS College of Medicine Dean Christopher T. Westfall, M.D., the showcase is an opportunity for faculty to share their work in a social setting.

Attendees packed into the 10th floor of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute for one of the most-well-attended showcases to date. They were met with posters and representatives for each COBRE and additional support programs.

The COBREs are:

• The Center for Translational Neuroscience; Edgar Garcia-Rill, Ph.D.; $22.5 million; third and final phase.
• The Center for Microbial Pathogenesis and Host Inflammatory Responses; Mark Smeltzer, Ph.D.; $21 million; Phase II.
• The Center for Studies of Host Response to Cancer Therapy; Martin Hauer-Jensen, M.D., Ph.D.; $10.5 million; Phase I.
• The Center for Childhood Obesity Prevention; Judith Weber, Ph.D.; $9.4 million; Phase I.
• The Center for Translational Pediatric Research; Alan Tackett, Ph.D.; $11.5 million; Phase I.
• The Center for Musculoskeletal Disease Research; Charles A. O’Brien, Ph.D.; $11.3 million; Phase I.

Each of the COBREs is associated with concentrations of technology known as “cores,” available to researchers whether they are associated with a COBRE or not. These include:

• Flow Cytometry Core
• DNA Sequencing Core
• Irradiation and Animal Core
• Genomics Core
• Experimental Pathology Core
• Tissue Biorepository and Procurement Service
• Brain Imaging Research Center
• Bioanalytical Core
• Digital Microscopy Core
• Ultrasound Imaging Core
• Proteomics Core
• Molecular Imaging Core
• Science Communications Core
• Genetic Models Core

“With the showcase, we hope to provide an opportunity for investigators associated with each program to become better acquainted with investigators associated with other programs and with the technical resources these collective programs have to offer,” Smeltzer said. “We hope this exposure extends beyond the programs themselves to include additional investigators at UAMS and ACRI.”

What’s more, the showcase highlighted efforts to provide resources of interest to all investigators. For example, Mary Aitken, M.D., M.P.H., and the Translational Research Institute are developing a Fundamentals in Research seminar beginning in December that will focus on issues like scientific career advancement, grant writing and management, and leadership skills building. For more information, contact Nia Indelicato at nlindelicato@uams.edu  or visit the TRI website.

“The COBRE programs at UAMS and ACRI are having exactly the impact the NIH intends for them to have to build up the environment for quality research and innovative science,” Cornett said. “It is obvious with events like the showcase that the COBREs have created many graduated investigators with independent funding of their own and many collaborative partnerships that never would have taken place. The COBREs have concentrated expertise and technology on our campus in a way that benefits everyone.”

By Amy Widner

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has received a $1.27 million science education research grant to teach Little Rock School District students about STEM careers and cardiovascular health using handheld ultrasound devices and other interactive technology.

The five-year Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) comes from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health.

The program is a partnership with the Little Rock School District and will include activities at both institutions. UAMS faculty will bring programs to ninth-grade physical science classes in the district. The UAMS campus will also host week-long summer camps each year of the grant, and some students will be invited back in subsequent years to deepen their engagement with science by becoming members of the camp staff.

The project’s overall aim is not only to teach individual students about science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), but to research the most effective ways to inspire students to pursue STEM careers.

“UAMS’ mission as the state’s only health sciences university expands beyond its walls and out into the community,” said Christopher T. Westfall, M.D., dean of the College of Medicine. “Educational outreach is needed in a state like Arkansas, where we are challenged by racial, ethnic and socioeconomic health disparities, as well as growing shortages of health care professionals. We must develop new and innovative methods for cultivating a larger, more diverse, and culturally competent health care workforce.”

Kevin D. Phelan, Ph.D., co-director of the Division of Clinical Anatomy in the UAMS

College of Medicine, is leading the program, which is called ArkanSONO. In the high school science classrooms, UAMS faculty will use real medical-grade handheld ultrasound devices to teach basics about the physics of sound, how ultrasounds work and how they are used in various STEM fields, including medicine, biomedical research and industry.

“It’s a novel approach that has a bit of a ‘wow’ factor with students,” Phelan said. “They get to see blood vessels expanding or contracting in real time, or see tendons moving under the skin. We all had a favorite teacher, or can think back to an exciting educational experience that sparked our interest and propelled us to our futures. We’re hoping that for some of these students, this can be that experience for them.”

Phelan conducted a pilot study in spring 2017 at four of the five high schools in the district.

“Teachers said the students were talking about it for weeks afterward,” Phelan said. “We’re excited about seeing what additional interest in STEM we can generate by having some of these students attend summer camps at UAMS, where they build on what they learn in the classroom.”

“We are grateful to UAMS for this significant investment in our students and for this tremendous partnership,” said Little Rock School District Superintendent Mike Poore. “Our students need these types of hands-on, relevant experiences to learn about STEM and associated careers. It’s clear that most of the jobs of the future will require science and math, so exposure to STEM education today will prepare our students to become the next generation of great innovators.”

During the classroom visits, students will also be able to interact with smaller versions of UAMS’ Sectra Table, a virtual dissection tool that allows students to explore human anatomy in 3D with simple gestures similar to those on a smartphone. By the end of the classroom series, the students will use the ultrasounds to conduct their own experiments, using critical thinking and the scientific process to predict how the ultrasounds will interact with common objects.

At SONOcamp, students will be able to use the ultrasounds on “standardized patients” — actors who portray patients for teaching purposes — so that they can explore the heart. They will learn about cardiovascular health, including the importance of exercise, a healthy diet and refraining from smoking.

Students will interact with role models and mentors from a variety of STEM fields as well as current UAMS students from diverse backgrounds. Participants will put what they’ve learned to the test at the SONOlympics, during which they will use many of the real-life ultrasound skills they’ve learned to solve problems and complete tasks.

Phelan is joined in administering the grant, program and accompanying research by Gregory Snead, M.D., chief of the Division of Emergency Medicine Ultrasound in the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Emergency Medicine; Billy R. Thomas, M.D., UAMS’ vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion; Noor Akhter, Ph.D., and Mohsin M. Syed, Ph.D., both assistant professors in the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences; and Karen Yanowitz, Ph.D., professor in the Arkansas State University Department of Psychology and Counseling.

This is the fourth time UAMS has earned the prestigious SEPA funding. Robert Burns, Ph.D., administered the UAMS Partners in Health Sciences Program from 1997-2000. It was funded for a second phase from 2000-2004. In that time, the program brought in millions in grant funding and provided outreach to Pre-K-12 teachers from across the state, giving them science curricula and high-quality teaching tools to take back to their classrooms. In addition, Teresa Kramer, Ph.D., and JoAnn Kirchner, M.D., led the Partners in Behavioral Health Science SEPA program from 2000-2005.

For more information about ArkanSONO and for ideas for using ultrasounds to teach science, find ArkanSONO on the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Neurobiology website —  or follow @ArkanSONO on Twitter.

A month-long celebration of the life and career of Edith Irby Jones, M.D., who enrolled 70 years ago at UAMS as the first African-American student in the South to attend a previously all-white medical college, brought thanks and appreciation from those she inspired and served.

A pioneer in the desegregation of higher education in Arkansas and the South, Jones has a distinguished career as a doctor, educator and philanthropist. She graduated from UAMS in 1952.

Three events, sponsored by the UAMS Center for Diversity Affairs, were set to honor Jones’ legacy: a Sept. 5 historical presentation and exhibit; a Sept. 12 four-woman discussion panel; and a Sept. 19 luncheon with Jones herself in attendance and featuring M. Joycelyn Elders, M.D., former U.S. surgeon general, as keynote speaker. Co-sponsors were the UAMS Library and Historical Research Center, the UAMS College of Medicine and the college’s Office of Faculty Affairs.

Erick Messias, M.D., associate dean for faculty affairs, hosted a presentation Sept. 5 in the Active Learning Center of the UAMS Library. A capacity crowd listened intently as Messias went over the struggles that Jones endured throughout her life and career. (Read Dr. Messias’ full essay).

“This African-American woman, five feet tall, was a giant,” Messias said.

Jones was born near Conway in 1927. Her father, a sharecropper, died when she was eight, and her older sister died of typhoid fever at the age of 12, largely due to her impoverished family’s lack of access to medical attention. Jones herself suffered from rheumatic fever as a child and was unable to walk or attend school for a year. These experiences prompted her to seek a career in medicine, with the goal of helping those who could not afford standard medical care.

In 1948, Messias said, there were approximately 6,500 medical students in the country, but only 185 were African-American – and nearly all of them attended historically black colleges. Jones ranked 28^th out of 230 applicants to UAMS that year, and H. Clay Chenault, M.D., then dean of the College of Medicine, made the decision to desegregate medical education and accept her. That year, Messias said, the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees voted to increase the class size by one, so that it could not be said by those in the public who opposed the decision that Jones was somehow “taking a spot” from a white person.

Although she had been accepted to attend classes, Jones faced death threats and intimidation, and was not allowed to use the same dining, lodging or bathroom facilities as other UAMS students. Resisting the segregationist rules, many of her classmates chose to eat with her and study with her at her apartment.

After graduation, Jones opened a general practice in Hot Springs before moving to Houston, Texas, and becoming the first African-American woman intern at a Baylor College of Medicine Affiliated Hospital. She maintained her practice in Houston’s “third ward” for several decades, serving those who could not afford to go anywhere else for medical care. In 1985, Jones was elected the first female president of the National Medical Association, and is the only female founding member of the Association of Black Cardiologists. She has taught, consulted, or provided health care in not only the United States but in Haiti, Mexico, Cuba, China, Russia and throughout Africa. Jones continued teaching and practicing medicine at the University of Texas Medical School and the Baylor College of Medicine until 2014.

Messias emphasized that medical education still has a ways to go to build on Jones’ legacy.

“We have made progress, there is no question, but there is work to do for all of us,” Messias said. “Today, we are talking about decisions that people made 70 years ago. Seventy years from now, people will be looking at us the same way: who among us is trying to open doors? Who among us is trying to build walls?”

Messias pointed out that only 7.2 percent of the UAMS College of Medicine students are African-American – less than half the proportional representation of African-Americans in Arkansas. The number of African-American residents and faculty at UAMS have improved, he said, but are low.

Still, Messias believes that things are looking up.

“We may not have the numbers we want [for representation], but we have the quality we want,” Messias said. “We have amazing scientists, teachers and physicians. They came through a door opened by this woman from Conway, right here.”

Rodney Davis, M.D., professor and chair of the Department of Urology in the UAMS College of Medicine counts himself among those mentored by Jones.

An internationally recognized urology expert, Davis was the first African-American to lead a urology department in the United States. He opted for a career in medicine over missionary work, and met Jones at Baylor University.

“The compassion and care she displayed was enough to impress upon me that I really did want to go into medicine,” he said. “It’s full circle for me, because I got to follow in the footsteps of someone who played an important part in the history of this institution.”

“If you look at Dr. Edith Irby Jones, that’s just pure courage and persistence,” said Billy Thomas, M.D., M.P.H., vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion and Center for Diversity Affairs director. “We’ve got to have that same vision: that we are health care providers and we’re going to create a diverse workforce that can take care of the entire population.”

At the second event honoring Jones on Sept. 12, a four-woman panel, moderated by Lanita White, Pharm.D., director of the UAMS 12^th Street Health & Wellness Center, discussed the struggles of making it in the medical field, both as women and as African-Americans.

The panel consisted of Linda Haynie-Green, M.D., who established the first Arkansas chapter of the Student National Medical Association (SNMA), a student-run organization focused on the needs of medical students of color; Ronda Henry-Tillman, M.D., chief of breast oncology in the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Surgery; Nichole Bauknight-Boles, M.D., a child and adolescent psychiatrist; and Sasha Ray, an SNMA regional director and third-year student.

They shared stories in turn of establishing their medical careers, with similar themes about being overlooked and underpaid that had many of the women in the audience nodding along.

Bauknight-Boles, a 1995 graduate of the College of Medicine, remembered profiling and speaking to Jones when she served as a keynote speaker at graduation. She received emotional support from custodial staff while going through medical school, like Jones had. “I had to wonder how in the world [Jones] got through [medical school],” she said. “It was amazing to know that those same people were looking up to us in 1995, and were praying for us,” she said.

“There are going to be days where you don’t feel like you necessarily belong,” Ray said of Jones’ example. “But there’s always a quiet strength in the back of my mind, of knowing that I am participating in the tradition of a long line of women of color, of black women here at this institution, who have asserted their right to take up space. Dr. Jones was the genesis of that.”

The panel took questions from the audience and discussed various strategies to combat stereotypes and being stigmatized.

An invitation-only luncheon on Sept. 19 in the Hospital Lobby Gallery capped off the month-long celebration, with nearly 100 admirers present to welcome Jones back to UAMS.

“From the moment you enrolled in 1948 as a medical student at UAMS, you dedicated your professional life to one thing: helping other people, especially those who are underserved,” said UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA. “You paved the way for so many talented, remarkable African-Americans to follow your footsteps into a career of medicine, to better the lives of others through their work.”

Patterson credited Jones’ work with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights movement, and her role in establishing hospitals and clinics throughout the world, as having “a dramatic and lasting impact on health care that will never, ever go away.”

“Your footprints are all over this institution,” Patterson said. He presented Jones with a commemorative glass sculpture in honor of her contributions to medicine.

Members of Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s office presented a special commendation, which read in part: “Dr. Jones is a skilled and compassionate healer who demonstrated exemplary courage in breaking through racial and gender barriers, and her ongoing commitment to providing health care to those in need has had a positive impact on the lives of countless individuals.”

Christopher T. Westfall, M.D., dean of the College of Medicine, announced an endowed scholarship created in Jones’ honor by retired Maj. Gen. Elder Granger, M.D., a distinguished alumni in the College of Medicine. Westfall and Elders awarded two scholarships to first-year medical students Brittany Demmings and Tia’Asia James.

Elders, an emeritus professor of pediatrics and distinguished professor of public health, was the first African-American, second woman and first Arkansan appointed as U.S. surgeon general. She was inspired to become a doctor in 1950 after hearing Jones give a lecture at Philander Smith College. “It was because of that talk that I’m here today,” Elders said.

“I’ve been following her ever since,” Elders said. “Before that time, I came from the cotton fields in southern Arkansas. I thought that if I got out of the cotton patch, that would’ve been real progress, but after that day, all I wanted to be was just like Dr. Irby.”

“I want you to know that Dr. Jones has planted a lot of trees,” Elders said of Jones’ legacy. “They’re all coming up, and we’ll continue to plant them for the rest of the country.”

Myra Jones Romain, Jones’ daughter, spoke on her mother’s behalf of her love of UAMS.

“Her first love has always been UAMS, because she realized that they were taking a big leap of faith in admitting her,” Romain said. “She made a commitment to make sure that she did her part, not just to finish, not just to graduate, but to go forward after graduation and do something.”

She would receive financial help from the community as a show of support, Romain said, such as a quarter taped to a piece of cardboard from members of her church. Once, when she was missing $50 for tuition, Daisy Bates collected the amount for her in a coffee can.

“She never forgets that,” Romain said. “She recognizes that there were a lot of people behind her getting her here, and there were people here who had to then say, ‘Okay, we’ll open the door.’”

Christopher T. Westfall, M.D., F.A.C.S., a professor of ophthalmology and longtime clinical and academic leader at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), has been appointed dean of the College of Medicine.

Westfall has served as interim dean since Feb. 23, when former dean Pope L. Moseley, M.D., stepped down to pursue his research.

Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA, became UAMS chancellor June 1 and made Westfall’s position as dean permanent this month.

“We conducted a nationwide search and found that we already had the best person for the job in Dr. Westfall,” Patterson said. “Dr. Westfall has served UAMS for more than 20 years as a physician, department leader and head of the Jones Eye Institute. He is the perfect person for the job and we are thankful he has agreed to continue to serve in this important capacity.”

Until his appointment as permanent College of Medicine dean, Westfall had been chair of the college’s Department of Ophthalmology. UAMS professor Sami H. Uwaydat, M.D., has been appointed the department’s interim chair.

Westfall continues as director of the UAMS Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute and as holder of the Pat Walker Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology.

“In my past six months as interim dean, my understanding of the complex inner workings of this institution has expanded, my respect for the UAMS College of Medicine faculty is deeper than ever before and my dedication to our mission is stronger for the experience,” Westfall said. “I am honored that the chancellor and my colleagues continue to put their trust in me as we work together to educate exceptional physicians, advance research that transforms health care and improves health, and ensure that Arkansans receive the very best medical care.”

Westfall joined the faculty in 1997 and served in numerous leadership positions prior to his appointment as chair of ophthalmology and director of the Jones Eye Institute in 2009. These included vice chairman and medical practice leader; chief of the oculoplastic surgical services at UAMS Medical Center, the John L. McClellan Memorial Veterans Hospital and Arkansas Children’s; chief of service at Arkansas Children’s; and chairman and medical director of the Ophthalmic Medical Technology Program in the UAMS College of Health Professions. Westfall served as UAMS chief of medical staff in 2014-2016. In 2008 he was invested as the inaugural holder of the Pat Walker Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology.

Westfall received his undergraduate degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, and earned his medical degree at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He completed a residency in general surgery at Keesler U.S. Air Force Medical Center in Mississippi, was certified by the American Board of Surgery and awarded fellowship in the American College of Surgeons (FACS). He went on to complete a residency in ophthalmology at Wilford Hall U.S. Air Force Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, and a two-year fellowship in ophthalmic plastic and reconstructive surgery at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and Harvard Medical School in Boston. He is certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology.

Westfall served as department chair and residency program director in ophthalmology at Wilford Hall U.S. Air Force Medical Center. He retired at the rank of colonel and as chief consultant in ophthalmology to the U.S. Air Force Surgeon General.

Early on May 27, UAMS neuroradiologist Martin Radvany, M.D., was working to make sure that a joke about stroke from teenager Dra Bishop was not the last joke Dra made.

Bishop’s stroke was not a laughing matter.

Dra, 16, a Bentonville High School and Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) basketball player, was feeling a little sluggish when he got out of bed on the morning of May 26. Typically, Dra was enthusiastic and hard charging on a game day like that Saturday. His mother, Angela Copeland, noticed his lack of energy, but wrote it off as teenage lethargy.

Later in the day, she and Dra traveled from their northwest Arkansas home to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where her son played two AAU games.

“I knew something was off because Dra never misses lay-ups or free throws,” Copeland said. “He hasn’t missed a free throw in years, and he missed three that day. His shooting was just off.”

Dra explained after the game that his misses probably happened because his right hand felt weird and heavy. He and his mother thought that may have been caused by muscle strain and fatigue from some pre-game weight training.

Back at home and on waking at 6 p.m. from an afternoon nap, Dra called his mother on his cell phone, knowing she was only a room or two away in the house. She didn’t answer the call but yelled at him to get out of bed.

“He came in the room and said, ‘Hey, Mom, I think I’ve had a stroke.’ He looked just fine, and we started joking about it. About two hours later, we were watching the Cavs-Celtics game and all of the sudden, I was joking with him, and he wasn’t responding,” Copeland said.

Dra got up to take a shower and fell. His second and third attempts also failed. That’s when Copeland noticed her son couldn’t speak and one side of his face was drooping. Her daughter’s boyfriend carried Dra to her car, and she rushed him to Mercy Northwest Arkansas to find out what was wrong. She didn’t yet suspect a stroke

Initially, they thought his partial paralysis might be due to muscle loss and dehydration, but the hospital staff recommended Dra be transferred to Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH) in Little Rock for a full diagnosis by a neurologist.

An MRI scan done there confirmed Dra was having a stroke, and Radvany was called in to the hospital. By 1 a.m., Radvany and the stroke care team were working to remove the clot.

Radvany, a professor and chief of interventional neuroradiology in the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Radiology, also sees ACH pediatric patients.

“Stroke and especially this type of stroke is pretty uncommon in children,” Radvany said. “As far as treating strokes like this in children, I believe we’ve seen maybe one a year and on the adult side, maybe four or five a week. It’s a very large difference we see in the numbers of patients with these kinds of strokes.”

Adults typically develop high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis and other health conditions that can contribute to stroke, but children usually don’t have those issues, Radvany said.

Radvany inserted a catheter through an artery in Dra’s leg and with the visual guidance of a live, real-time x-ray used it to get to the clot. The team deployed a small stent to trap the clot in Dra’s brain, and then introduced a suction catheter very close to the clot to gently pull it out.

After the procedure, Dra was moved to a patient bed in the hospital’s intensive care unit to recover. He spent the next three weeks undergoing physical therapy before he was discharged to return home. Dra continued to take part in physical therapy over the summer along with follow-up visits with Radvany.

“Three and a half months out now, he has made fantastic progress,” Radvany said recently. “When I first saw him a month after the stroke, he still had some weakness in his right hand.  He had otherwise recovered well. I saw him today and as soon as I shook his hand I noticed a difference. The strength had improved significantly.”

Both Dra and his mother are grateful to Radvany and the team for saving Dra’s life.

“It’s still terrifying,” Copeland said. “He’s so young. I’m no stranger to stroke. My grandmother died of a stroke. I grew up knowing the signs, but to associate the signs to a healthy 16 year-old, that’s tough. It’s also tough as a mom knowing that 11 hours prior to the onset of his stroke, I could have gotten him medical attention if I had thought about him being sluggish and his right arm. People need to be aware it can happen to anyone.”

Copeland said Dra sometimes still experiences a slight aphasia, a loss of the ability to understand or express speech, and Dra acknowledges that and some remaining small-motion problems in his right hand. Both mother and son are optimistic about his chances of overcoming these remaining effects of the stroke and returning to the basketball court in the coming months.

Likewise, Radvany said Dra’s youth will be advantage in his recovery because his brain still is dynamically growing and developing, allowing it effectively to route around any neural damage and function normally.

“Thank you for saving my life,” Dra said. “Without all of you, I’d be six feet under. Don’t think you’re never too young to have a stroke. You’re not. Keep working. You only have one life, live it.”

Zoe Weeks of Jonesboro has been awarded the $10,000 Arkansas Mutual Medical Student Award, a scholarship for third-year medical students at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) who want to practice primary care in rural Arkansas.

Weeks, a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and the University of Missouri-St. Louis, first pursued a career in teaching and decided to switch to medicine after spending a summer in the Delta and seeing the health care challenges there.

“Throughout my time in education working in underserved communities, I found the challenges facing our rural communities to be particularly unique and intertwined with so many other barriers, like access to health care,” Weeks said. “This is why I came to medical school, and I hope to one day be a part of a bigger solution that focuses on improved health care access and preventive medicine in rural Arkansas.”

Weeks plans to return to northeast Arkansas to practice either family medicine or pediatrics, particularly in one of Poinsett, Craighead or Jackson counties, where her family is deeply connected: her father is a produce broker, her mother is an agricultural entomologist, and her husband is involved in rural agriculture.

“I am very passionate about rural development, particularly in the Delta, and believe that health care access expansion is critical to the future success of our community,” Weeks said.

Corey Little, president of Arkansas Mutual Insurance Co., the only medical liability insurance provider headquartered in Arkansas, said the company continues to commit its resources to improving rural health care in the state.

“As an Arkansas company, we’re thrilled to provide this scholarship to Zoe,” Little said. “Her passion and commitment regarding quality health care in rural Arkansas is exactly what Arkansas Mutual had in mind when we established this scholarship five years ago.”

More than two-thirds of Arkansas’ counties include federally designated Primary Care Health Professional Shortage Areas. Primary care physician shortages are projected to increase substantially as the state’s population continues to age and require more medical care, and as more Arkansans, now insured as a result of health system reform, seek primary care services.

“The College of Medicine is very pleased to award the Arkansas Mutual Scholarship to Zoe Weeks,” said Christopher T. Westfall, M.D., executive vice chancellor of UAMS and dean of the College of Medicine. “Zoe clearly shares our commitment to improving access to high-quality primary care for all Arkansans and especially those in underserved rural areas and smaller communities.”

Westfall also thanked Arkansas Mutual for the company’s ongoing support. “Scholarships help us attract the very best students to UAMS, and this scholarship is especially helpful because of its focus on students who intend to practice primary care where they are needed most.”

At 35, Mozart was feeling well and was as productive as ever, then a sudden illness killed him less than two months before his 36^th birthday. The cause of death has been the subject of speculation ever since, with more than 100 proposed diagnoses.

Philip A. Mackowiak, M.D., MBA, was invited to UAMS to lecture about his theory of Mozart’s cause of death. The emeritus professor of medicine from the University of Maryland School of Medicine spoke at the UAMS College of Medicine 14^th annual George L. Ackerman, M.D., Visiting Professor Internal Medicine Grand Rounds.

The event marked a couple of firsts for the grand rounds: It was the first time it has hosted an historical clinical pathological lecture and the first time with accompaniment by the Quapaw String Quartet from the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra.

Mackowiak’s lecture, “Mozart’s Fatal Anasarca,” followed the quartet’s performance of one of Mozart’s early string quartets, Herschel 159. It was composed by Mozart when he was 17.

Why the interest in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s death?

“The Quapaw Quartet told us the answer to that better than I could possibly articulate,” Mackawiak told the medical professionals and students packing the Rahn Building auditorium. “His music is just sublime, to say the least.”

Mozart’s extraordinary talent was evident at age 3, when he was playing the harpsichord, and age 4, when he was composing quartets. He also overcame numerous debilitating conditions and diseases, including malnutrition as an infant, typhoid fever, rheumatic fever, smallpox and hepatitis, yet he managed to compose a total 626 works, including 22 operas, before he died.

Some of the more popular theories about his cause of death include poisoning, syphilis and trichinosis.

“We’ll never know for certain what was the specific culprit that carried him off,” Mackawiak said, although he made a case for Streptococcus equi, a type that can infect humans through consumption of unpasteurized milk and cheese.

Streptococcus equi would account for Mozart’s symptoms – particularly the massive swelling all over his body (anasarca/edema) – that made him unrecognizable according to those who saw him before and after he died, Mackowiak said. A local physician at the time wrote that Mozart had the same symptoms as other residents, indicating an epidemic. In addition, a 2009 investigation of the Vienna Daily Register of Deaths for the winter of 1791 showed a spike in deaths from edema, also indicating an epidemic disorder.

Mackowiak has authored two related books: Post Mortem: Solving History’s Great Medical Mysteries, and Diagnosing Giants: Solving the Medical Mysteries of Thirteen Patients Who Changed the World.

The Quapaw String Quartet closed the grand rounds lecture with one of Mozart’s later movements.

James D. Marsh, M.D., chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, said the collaboration with the Arkansas Symphony for the lecture was made possible by Robert W. Bradshear, M.D., professor and director of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Internal Medicine, and Richard P. Wheeler, M.D., executive associate dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Medicine.

“One of the main points of this professorship is the humanities, and we thought we could bring it to life this way,” Marsh said.

The George Link Ackerman Visiting Professorship in Internal Medicine honors the now professor emeritus for having always been an exemplary model of the physician educator. He graduated cum laude from UAMS in 1954, and following an internship at Philadelphia General Hospital and service in the U.S. Navy, he returned to UAMS to complete his residency in internal medicine and his training in nephrology and in metabolic diseases.

Ackerman, a native Arkansan, has received numerous awards and has been frequently recognized as a consummately skilled clinician and exceptional teacher, known for his skillful practice of the Socratic mode of teaching.

He was the Honors Convocation speaker three times; recipient of a Golden Apple Award, an Outstanding Faculty Award from the internal medicine house staff, an Abernathy Award for Excellence in Internal Medicine from the Arkansas Chapter of the American College of Physicians, and the Arkansas Caduceus Club Distinguished Faculty Award. He received the Distinguished Service Award from UAMS and the UAMS Master Teacher Award in 1999. In 2000, he was named a Master of the American College of Physicians. In 2004, he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award and was named as Inaugural Member of the UAMS College of Medicine Hall of Fame.

Ackerman was active in the American College of Physicians, serving as governor for Arkansas 1987-1991. He has always been interested in literature and for many years organized an annual reading retreat for physicians.

Sept. 19, 2018 | William “Bill” Ventres, M.D., M.A., assistant professor in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine in the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), was invested Sept. 17 as the holder of the Ben Saltzman, M.D., Distinguished Chair in Rural Family Medicine.

Ventres, who joined UAMS in 2017, is a family physician and medical anthropologist with more than 30 years of clinical experience working with disadvantaged patients. He is known as a leader in developing family medicine internationally, researching doctor-patient communication using qualitative methods, and studying the social history of family medicine in the United States. He plans to encourage students and residents to practice in rural and underserved areas in Arkansas to improve health outcomes.

“It is a great honor to receive the Saltzman Chair, with its emphasis on rural and underserved family medicine,” Ventres said. “When I was in medical school and residency, I saw that lots of patients felt left out. Sometimes they were poor or uneducated, sometimes it was because of where they lived, and sometimes it was because of the color of their skin or the language they spoke. I didn’t see that medicine was doing a very good job helping these people, so I found my small niche in working to try and change things in this area.”

An endowed chair is among the highest academic honors a university can bestow on a faculty member. A distinguished chair is a $1.5 million endowment established to support the educational, research and clinical activities of the chair holder who will lead future innovations in medicine and health care. Those named to a chair are among the most highly regarded scientists, physicians and professors in their fields.

“The choice of Dr. Ventres to assume this chair is a very wise decision, and that’s because of his passion for the very highest quality of medicine and for his passion for taking care of his fellow man, which he has demonstrated throughout a long career and all parts of the world,” said Christopher T. Westfall, M.D., dean of the College of Medicine. “I am absolutely convinced that he is the right holder for this chair.”

The chair is named in honor of Ben Saltzman, M.D., who has been called the father of rural family medicine in Arkansas. Saltzman joined UAMS in 1974 as the first professor and chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine. During his seven-year tenure, he served as director of rural medicine development and the flexible internship program. In 1981, he was appointed director of the Arkansas Department of Health and served until his retirement in 1987. Saltzman died in 2003.

Saltzman built the first hospital in Mountain Home and helped establish others across the state. He is remembered as a champion of rural health and an international leader in helping eradicate polio. Saltzman made health care more widely available and worked as a traveling doctor who owned a twin-engine plane for his work.

Saltzman was past president of numerous statewide health organizations, including the Arkansas Lung Association, what is now The Arc Arkansas, the Arkansas division of the American Cancer Society and the Arkansas Board of Health. He served as chairman of the American Medical Association’s Council on Rural Health, as a member of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Community Health Project Review Committee, and as a member of the National Advisory Health Services Council.

“Dr. Saltzman was quite a leader in our state, and this endowment is to help those who follow his example as we expand our programs for the underserved and in rural medicine,” said Daniel Knight, M.D., professor and chair of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine. “In his short tenure here, Dr. Ventres has made quite a difference, and we’re excited to see the difference he’ll make going forward.”

Ventres was presented with a commemorative medallion by Westfall and Knight. He thanked Saltzman and recognized Julea Garner, M.D., the previous chair holder. Ventres reserved special thanks for his wife, Estella and his children, Roby and Cory, who were in attendance.

“With all the technologies that are supposed to make things smoother, we are sometimes prone to overlook what is most important in our work – the people we serve,” Ventres said. “I commit to you to learning from the people of Arkansas, as I am able, to see them as full of worth and dignity; to appreciate their presence; and to engage with them in a way that invites conversation, collaboration and compassion.”

“The work of improving the health of all Arkansans, wherever they may be, is not the task of one person – it is a responsibility we all share,” Ventres said. “And we are all enriched by the labor we invest to fulfill it.”

Ventres received his medical degree from the University of Minnesota Medical School and completed his residency and fellowship training in family medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson. He has received two Core Fulbright U.S. Scholar awards and has taught family medicine residents at the National Experimental University of Táchira in San Cristobal, Venezuela, and public health students at the University of El Salvador in San Salvador. Prior to his arrival at UAMS, he was a research associate for five years in the Institute for Studies in History, Anthropology and Archeology at the University of El Salvador.

Ventres has served as visiting professor at Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and scholar-in-residence at both the Brocher Institute in Geneva, Switzerland and the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

Sept. 19, 2018 | William “Bill” Ventres, M.D., M.A., assistant professor in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine in the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), was invested Sept. 17 as the holder of the Ben Saltzman, M.D., Distinguished Chair in Rural Family Medicine.

Ventres, who joined UAMS in 2017, is a family physician and medical anthropologist with more than 30 years of clinical experience working with disadvantaged patients. He is known as a leader in developing family medicine internationally, researching doctor-patient communication using qualitative methods, and studying the social history of family medicine in the United States. He plans to encourage students and residents to practice in rural and underserved areas in Arkansas to improve health outcomes.

“It is a great honor to receive the Saltzman Chair, with its emphasis on rural and underserved family medicine,” Ventres said. “When I was in medical school and residency, I saw that lots of patients felt left out. Sometimes they were poor or uneducated, sometimes it was because of where they lived, and sometimes it was because of the color of their skin or the language they spoke. I didn’t see that medicine was doing a very good job helping these people, so I found my small niche in working to try and change things in this area.”

An endowed chair is among the highest academic honors a university can bestow on a faculty member. A distinguished chair is a $1.5 million endowment established to support the educational, research and clinical activities of the chair holder who will lead future innovations in medicine and health care. Those named to a chair are among the most highly regarded scientists, physicians and professors in their fields.

“The choice of Dr. Ventres to assume this chair is a very wise decision, and that’s because of his passion for the very highest quality of medicine and for his passion for taking care of his fellow man, which he has demonstrated throughout a long career and all parts of the world,” said Christopher T. Westfall, M.D., dean of the College of Medicine. “I am absolutely convinced that he is the right holder for this chair.”

The chair is named in honor of Ben Saltzman, M.D., who has been called the father of rural family medicine in Arkansas. Saltzman joined UAMS in 1974 as the first professor and chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine. During his seven-year tenure, he served as director of rural medicine development and the flexible internship program. In 1981, he was appointed director of the Arkansas Department of Health and served until his retirement in 1987. Saltzman died in 2003.

Saltzman built the first hospital in Mountain Home and helped establish others across the state. He is remembered as a champion of rural health and an international leader in helping eradicate polio. Saltzman made health care more widely available and worked as a traveling doctor who owned a twin-engine plane for his work.

Saltzman was past president of numerous statewide health organizations, including the Arkansas Lung Association, what is now The Arc Arkansas, the Arkansas division of the American Cancer Society and the Arkansas Board of Health. He served as chairman of the American Medical Association’s Council on Rural Health, as a member of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Community Health Project Review Committee, and as a member of the National Advisory Health Services Council.

“Dr. Saltzman was quite a leader in our state, and this endowment is to help those who follow his example as we expand our programs for the underserved and in rural medicine,” said Daniel Knight, M.D., professor and chair of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine. “In his short tenure here, Dr. Ventres has made quite a difference, and we’re excited to see the difference he’ll make going forward.”

Ventres was presented with a commemorative medallion by Westfall and Knight. He thanked Saltzman and recognized Julea Garner, M.D., the previous chair holder. Ventres reserved special thanks for his wife, Estella and his children, Roby and Cory, who were in attendance.

“With all the technologies that are supposed to make things smoother, we are sometimes prone to overlook what is most important in our work – the people we serve,” Ventres said. “I commit to you to learning from the people of Arkansas, as I am able, to see them as full of worth and dignity; to appreciate their presence; and to engage with them in a way that invites conversation, collaboration and compassion.”

“The work of improving the health of all Arkansans, wherever they may be, is not the task of one person – it is a responsibility we all share,” Ventres said. “And we are all enriched by the labor we invest to fulfill it.”

Ventres received his medical degree from the University of Minnesota Medical School and completed his residency and fellowship training in family medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson. He has received two Core Fulbright U.S. Scholar awards and has taught family medicine residents at the National Experimental University of Táchira in San Cristobal, Venezuela, and public health students at the University of El Salvador in San Salvador. Prior to his arrival at UAMS, he was a research associate for five years in the Institute for Studies in History, Anthropology and Archeology at the University of El Salvador.

Ventres has served as visiting professor at Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and scholar-in-residence at both the Brocher Institute in Geneva, Switzerland and the Institute for the Medical Humanities at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.