Dr. Mary Sheppard Receives First-Ever Alliance Mentorship Award

One of the goals of the Alliance Research Initiative is the development of mentorship for all members, especially early-career physicians and scientists. This year, the Alliance Research Initiative celebrated that commitment with the conferral of the first Alliance Mentorship Award.

Mary Sheppard, MD, co-associate director of the Saha Aortic Center and member of UK-AARC (Aortopathy Alliance Research Center), is the first to accept the Alliance Mentorship Award, an honor she describes as exciting and humbling.

“It’s exciting because of all the potentially great things that can help my patients, and humbling because the people you admire scientifically are trusting you to advance the field,” said Dr. Sheppard, who also is an assistant professor in the UK College of Medicine Department of Family and Community Medicine.

The Alliance Mentorship Award was established to fund continued mentoring of early-career faculty within Alliance Research Initiative teams. Part of the selection criteria was evidence that mentorship in the initiative’s first phase resulted in active research for the early-career faculty member – judged by grant submissions, awards, publications, and/or presentations.

Dr. Sheppard’s recent work through the Alliance Research Initiative includes a publication in Clinics in Sports Medicine on the correlation between physical activity and heritable thoracic aortic disease, as well as a new classification schema for aortic aneurysms in the International Journal of Angiology. In 2021, she was part of a study examining changes in aortic cell populations and gene expression in Marfan syndrome to better understand the molecular and cellular processes that lead to aortic aneurysms in those with the disease.

With funds made available with the award, Dr. Sheppard will expand her lab research on medications for patients with aortic diseases.

Among her mentors who helped make this possible, Dr. Sheppard singles out Alan Daugherty, PhD, DSc, director of the Saha Cardiovascular Research Center, and UK Vice President for Research Lisa Cassis, PhD. Both now are principal investigators with UK-AARC.

“Mentorship is essential to research,” Dr. Sheppard said. “No one starts research from nothing. A mentor will walk the journey with you. They’re someone who may have solved a similar problem and can guide you through the process of solving yours.

“And the mentors at UK are at the cutting edge.”

Dr. Sheppard explained that the Alliance Mentorship Award makes clear that “UK is committed to develop physicianscientists who can take the insights that they learn from their patients and use those insights to advance research.”

She emphasized that UK is willing to contribute money to make that possible.

Amentor might be defined simply as a senior professional willing and able to provide support and direction for younger colleagues or learners. But it’s also a challenge requiring particular skills and strengths. Just how are mentors made?

In her fourth and final year of residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R), Jennifer Murphy, DO, MS, was named chief resident, an honor as well as a serious responsibility. In the PM&R program, the academic chief resident develops the didactic curriculum, communicates regularly with residents and other learners, and acts as an intermediary between attending physicians and residents.

It’s a demanding role, but Dr. Murphy has support from the Emerging Leaders Program, part of the Office of Graduate Medical Education (GME) Institutional Initiatives to train chief residents to be superb leaders. Now halfway through the program, Dr. Murphy praises Emerging Leaders for providing new insight into her leadership style.

“I’ve become more aware of how my behavior may be perceived and drive or stifle the productivity and teamwork of the entire health care team, not just other residents,” she said. “Thankfully, we have also been educated on viewpoints that may differ from our own and how to manage that in a productive way.”

The program introduces strategies for intentional leadership. “For our first meeting, we completed a DiSC assessment to evaluate our own behaviors and how they may be impacting others around us,” Dr. Murphy explained. “The second meeting provided insight not only into our own natural coaching styles, but into types of team members and how they are best coached. The last meeting to date provided us with tools for building trust within our teams.”

Dr. Murphy also values the breadth of involvement by GME residents and fellows. “The program has provided the opportunity to glean insight from chiefs across GME that I may not have otherwise had the opportunity to interact with.”

She has good advice for those learners looking for mentors. “Never underestimate the value of the unexpected mentor, that upper-level or attending you click with on rounds and things are just better. When you find those mentors, pick their brain for everything and anything. Never stop being a mentee and make yourself available to pull the next person up behind you as their mentor. You can never have too many mentors. Plus, if you are like me and have a lot of questions, it never hurts to spread the love!”

Dr. Murphy will begin UK’s interventional pain management fellowship in July 2023.

Uk College Of Medicine

The college celebrated alumni from multiple class years during the month of October.

The following photos of from our 50th and 55th class reception at The Origin Hotel in Lexington, Ky.