Dr. Gregory Snead will assume the role of Vice Chair of the Academic Department of Emergency Medicine.

In this role he will contribute greatly to the oversight of our academic mission while serving as an additional liaison to our EMSL leadership.

Greg has been instrumental in our department’s success over his seven year tenure with us as the Division Director of EM US. In that role, he has accomplished a number of impressive achievements:

• Our first Fellowship
• Extramural and intramural funding to include a large NIH award in collaboration with the department of Anatomy and Physiology
• Award winning longitudinal medical student US course in the COM (with outstanding contribution from our faculty)
• A large novel revenue stream from bedside ultrasound (easily in the top 5 nationally in total $s collected)

Greg has mentored and recruited key faculty from our US fellowship to sustain and grow their immense success as a division.  This past year he was promoted to Professor of EM and accepted to the Chair Development Program by sponsored by AACEM.

Greg will be a superb Vice Chair and will undoubtedly continue his trajectory as an outstanding leader for our Department.

Dr. Michael Wilson, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Psychiatry, has been named Chair-Elect of the Coalition on Psychiatric Emergencies (COPE). The coalition of behavioral health, psychiatry and emergency medicine professionals is headed by the Emergency Medicine Foundation. With representation from 13 professional organizations, it is the country’s largest collaborative in the field of emergency psychiatry. My thanks to Dr. Wilson for his outstanding work at the national level as well as here at UAMS, where he serves as Director of the Department of Emergency Medicine’s Behavioral Emergencies Research Lab and the department’s Research Associates Program.

Emergency Medicine physicians and their patients throughout Arkansas will benefit from the leadership of Dr. Brian Hohertz, Professor of Emergency Medicine, as the newly installed President of the Arkansas Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians. Assistant Professor Dr. Lauren Evans was selected as President-Elect during the annual chapter meeting last week. Thank you both for your service to our state.

Congratulations to Dr. Gregory Snead, Professor and Chief of Emergency Medicine Ultrasound, on being selected for the 2021 Association of Academic Chairs in Emergency Medicine (AACEM) Chair Development Program. Emergency Medicine Chair Dr. Tony Seupaul notes that the highly selective program is known for developing future leaders in academic emergency medicine, and Dr. Snead will represent UAMS exceptionally well.

Emergency Medicine Chair Dr. Tony Seupaul did a great job as the guest for a recent episode of the Residency and Medical Student Section of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine’s “Ask-a-Chair” podcast. Dr. Seupaul, who also serves as Chief Clinical Officer for UAMS Medical Center, discussed the challenges of holding a senior leadership role in an academic medical institution, his longtime interest in evidence-based medicine, and tips for medical students and residents as they transition to new roles through their academic career. Listen to the episode on the SAEM website.

Congratulations to the Department of Emergency Medicine’s Dr. Casey Smolarz on becoming the first person to be re-elected as Chief of Staff for Baptist Health-Conway. Dr. Smolarz, Emergency Department Medical Director for the hospital, was also named Physician of the Year by the Conway Chamber of Commerce early this year. We’re proud of the difference Dr. Smolarz is making in patient care in the Conway community as well as here on the UAMS campus!

UAMS Emergency Medicine fellow Meredith Von Dohlen, M.D., has been selected for a competitive national education program that will advance her goals as an educator and scholar.

The Harvard Macy Institute Program for Post-Graduate Trainees: Future Academic Clinician-Educators Course uses teaching theory to help participants become better educators. It also focuses on scholarship so that Von Dohlen can conduct original research on improving methods for teaching in medical education. The three-day intensive interactive virtual program will be held in December and the program culminates in a research project on educational theory.

Von Dohlen is the Department of Emergency Medicine’s inaugural medical education fellow.

“I love teaching, so this is a great opportunity for me to further my teaching skills,” Von Dohlen said. “My scholarly interests are health care disparities and social determinants of health. My project will look at gender disparities in medical education and how our teaching approaches influence that – the way residents are taught, their teaching environment, etc. – and how these experiences influence their effectiveness as physicians. Ultimately, these issues influence health care outcomes.”

Von Dohlen said there is a lot of research on gender disparities in the workplace, especially when it comes to pay, promotion and leadership opportunities, but she is interested in pinpointing how disparities are being reinforced along the way through education.

“Are we doing things that are propagating that?” Von Dohlen said. “Are there areas that we could teach it a little differently? Can we improve our resident education to positively influence the quality of physician they become and the quality of the health care they provide?”

In addition to learning skills from the course, she is working with a mentor at UAMS to complete the scholarly project. Mentor Sarah Greenberger, M.D., is an associate professor and director for the residency program in the Department of Emergency Medicine.

“In our residency program we emphasize leadership, and we encourage our residents and fellows to become involved with efforts to improve health care on a larger scale,” Greenberger said. “Gender disparities in medicine persist, and we need to recognize and understand these inequities to address them. I am excited about Dr. Von Dohlen’s work and can’t wait to see where it leads.”

Von Dohlen is already working on her project and will present parts of it during the course in December for feedback from its facilitators and her peers across the county. The ultimate aim is to develop publishable work from the project.

The course fits in with Von Dohlen’s career goals of continuing in academic medicine.

“I get so much fulfillment from patient care, but also medical education,” Von Dohlen said. “Better doctors mean better patient care. That is something I am incredibly passionate about, and something I feel we can always do better to improve.”

The course is co-sponsored by the Harvard Macy Institute, MGH Institute of Health Professions, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Boston Children’s Hospital.

Valerie Chism, D.N.P., M.N.Sc., APRN, from our department was featured on Faces of UAMS!