UAB Medicine Magazine Fall 2019

A Magazine for Alumni and Friends of the School of Medicine

YOU CAN GO

HOME AGAIN An innovative interdisciplinary program brings care to vulnerable patients in their homes

Volume 46 • Number 2 • Fall 2019

LETTER FROM THE DEAN

I

’m very excited to share with you the launch of the UAB Healthcare Educators Academy (HEA). The mission of the HEA is to advance the development of faculty in the health professions throughout UAB by strengthening educators through mentorship, fostering a culture of excellence in teaching, developing innovative teaching resources across disciplines, and advancing a collaborative teaching environment.

The HEA is a strategic partnership among UAB’s Schools of Medicine, Dentistry, Health Professions, Public Health, and Nursing. This fall, 12 faculty mentors and 12 faculty mentees comprise the pilot class of the HEA. Turn to page 37 of this issue for a full list of the inaugural members.

Lisa Willett, M.D., program director of the Tinsley Harrison Internal Medicine Residency Program, and Caroline Harada, M.D., assistant dean for community-engaged scholarship, co-chair the HEA with the assistance of a steering committee. I’m very grateful to both of them, as well as to the host of the other individuals who helped the HEA come to life.

The HEA operates within three pillars: teaching excellence, career advancement, and professional meaning. HEA members are charged with offering faculty development in a variety of settings and venues, including mentoring junior faculty, teaching workshops, and developing educational materials such as videos and podcasts. They will also oversee Research and Innovations in Medical Education (RIME) week, UAB’s annual medical education week. The HEA will provide mentees with training and tools to ensure future promotion and advancement. It will also support professional well-being and professionalism, including work-life balance and role modeling.

This effort is sure to have tremendous impact across the university. We have many outstanding educators in the School of Medicine and in the other health-related schools. By providing in-depth mentorship to other faculty members, our schools will be strengthened and our students will reap the benefits of an even more excellent education.

Sincerely,

Selwyn M. Vickers, M.D., FACS Senior Vice President for Medicine Dean, UAB School of Medicine James C. Lee Jr. Endowed Chair University of Alabama at Birmingham Chair, UA Health Services Foundation Board

8 FEATURES

8 13

You Can Go Home Again

An innovative interdisciplinary program brings care to vulnerable patients in their homes

Lost in Translation

UAB researchers, residents, and medical students are working to understand low health literacy to improve outcomes

16 20

Road to the Top Five The Department of Biomedical Engineering celebrates 40 years of dramatic growth

Sound Learning

Ultrasound training prepares future physicians to provide better care

A Magazine for Alumni and Friends of the School of Medicine Volume 45, Issue 2, FALL 2019 SCHOOL LEADERSHIP Senior Vice President for Medicine and Dean Selwyn M. Vickers, M.D., FACS Executive Vice Dean Anupam Agarwal, M.D.

DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNITY RELATIONS

DEPARTMENTS BRIEF 3 IN Research and clinical highlights from across UAB Medicine 22 COMMUNITY Physician support for local symphony becomes personal for music director facing illness

23 24

CLINICAL CARE

Pregnant women battling addiction find success in UAB program

MEDICAL EDUCATION

Meet a group of second-year medical students who devoted their summer to research

26

STUDENT PROFILES

28

ALUMNI PROFILES

30

36 40

Sydney Mohr becomes the fifth Sara Crews Finley, M.D., Leadership Scholar; Brittany Hatter balances medical school with an expanded family

Meet award-winning young alumni who help shape our care and training programs

INVESTING IN INNOVATION

Partnerships from faculty and donors drive progress in nephrology; new scholarship and faculty scholar gifts honor esteemed neurosurgeon; innovative Alzheimer’s disease research programs fueled by philanthropy; and more

ACROSS CAMPUS

Events, announcements, and achievements in the academic life of the School of Medicine

GET TO KNOW

Cystic fibrosis researcher Viktoria Havasi is on a mission to take pictures of every mural in Birmingham

Assistant Vice President, Development, School of Medicine Sarah Andrews, Ed.D., MBA O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB Lisa Roth Comprehensive Diabetes Center Christian Smith Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine Jessica Towns Department of Dermatology Sarah Andrews, Ed.D., MBA Department of Medicine Megann B. Cain, Christian Smith Department of Neurology Katye Fuglaar Department of Neurosurgery Katye Fuglaar Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Erica L. Hollins Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences; Callahan Eye Hospital Morgan Quarles Department of Orthopaedic Surgery Jessica Towns Department of Otolaryngology Rachel Fornest Department of Pathology Rachel Fornest Department of Pediatrics Andrea Martin Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation; Spain Rehab Rachel Fornest Department of Radiology Jessica Towns Department of Surgery Jessica Towns Medical Student Scholarships; Primary Care Jessica Brooks Lane Friends and Family Program Ivy Watson Cardwell Contact Information (205) 975-5659 • somdev@uab.edu

MEDICAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION President John R. Wheat, M.D. ’76 President-Elect V. Michael Bivins, M.D. ’96 Secretary/Treasurer Rebecca R. Byrd, M.D. ’95 Immediate Past President Timothy P. Hecker, M.D. ’04 Executive Director Meredith Burns Assistant Director Beth Eddings Business Administrator Michelle Giddens Contact Information (205) 934-4463 • office@alabamamedicalalumni.org

UAB MEDICINE STAFF

Contributing Writers Cary Estes, Rosalind Fournier, Tyler Greer, Jeff Hansen, Haley Herfurth, Brian Hudgins, Savannah Koplon, Bennett Page, Adam Pope Contributing Photographers Edward Badham, Frank Couch, Nik Layman, Andrea Mabry, Dustin Massey, and Steve Wood

CONNECT WITH US UABSchoolofMedicine

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Published twice a year by UAB School of Medicine Communications. UAB is an EEO/AA/Disability/Veteran Employer. © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of University of Alabama System for the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Executive Director of Communications Paige Dorman Editor Jane Longshore Art Director Kristin Farmer Associate Editor Emily Henagan Interns Bennett Page and Allison Taylor Contact Information (205) 934-0256 • somdev@uab.edu

New Tool, New CF Insights

IN BRIEF Research and clinical highlights from across UAB Medicine

QUOTE, UNQUOTE Crucially, today’s opioid prescribing metrics take no count of whether the patient lives or dies. Data from two recent studies strongly suggest it is time to start counting. The sooner quality standards are revised in favor of genuine patient protection, the better.”

A paper published in August in Science Translational Medicine describes a minimally invasive new tool for viewing differences in the nasal airways of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients in vivo at a cellular level. The technique provides high-resolution images of the hair-like structures called cilia that line nasal airways as well as of the detailed features of the clearance of mucus, which is impaired in people with CF. The imaging catheter, which is about 2 millimeters in diameter, uses optical coherence tomography with a resolution of about 1 micrometer—a 50th the size of a human hair— allowing researchers to probe the nasal passages of patients without sedating them.

The researchers found that in CF patients the mucus was dehydrated and moved slowly, impacting cilia speed. The mucus also contained more inflammatory cells that could be quantified. Researchers could also measure that mucus was more viscous, and patches of CF patients’ cilia and epithelium were ablated.

“Visualizing abnormal mucus will be a powerful tool,” says Steven Rowe, M.D., co-principal investigator of the study and director of the Gregory Fleming James Cystic Fibrosis Research Center at UAB. “Now we’ll be able to see how various treatments affect airways—not only those intended to fix the mucus but also agents that repair the basic CF defect.”

Stefan Kertesz, M.D., M.Sc., professor in the Division of Preventive Medicine and an expert on addiction and the opioid crisis, quoted in Pain News Network’s Sept. 6 article, “Outcomes Matter When Opioids Are Tapered”

Type 1 Diabetes Discovery Beta cells in the pancreas produce insulin. The death of these cells—a key feature of Type 1 diabetes—starts long before diagnosis. However, there has been no straightforward way to measure that early loss. Anath Shalev, M.D., director of the UAB Comprehensive Diabetes Center, and UAB colleagues have identified an early biomarker of Type 1 diabetes-associated beta cell loss in humans: microRNA-204, or miR-204.

MicroRNAs help control gene expression in animal and plant cells. Shalev previously found that miR-204 plays key roles in regulating insulin production and other critical beta cell processes. In a study published in the American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism, Shalev and colleagues report that dying beta cells release miR-204, which is highly enriched in human beta cells. After that release, it becomes detectable in circulating blood.

“Having a noninvasive, straightforward method sensitive enough to detect early beta cell loss—especially prior to a Type 1 diabetes diagnosis—is critical in order to allow for any therapeutic intervention to be started as early as possible in the disease process and ideally before the majority of beta cells has been destroyed,” Shalev says.

—3—

IN BRIEF

UAB is the only hospital in Alabama to be recognized as an Age-Friendly Health System

by The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. UAB Medicine joins more than 100 health systems acknowledged as working to make high-quality care for older adults even more tailored to patients’ goals and preferences.

Understanding Major Depressive Disorder Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the world’s leading causes of disability. Yogesh Dwivedi, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology, is searching for the underlying biological causes of MDD by focusing on a newly developing arena of gene control called epitranscriptomics.

Dwivedi says the challenge in MDD research is the absence of any coherent hypothesis to explain the maladaptive processes to external stimuli that impair people with MDD. Preliminary evidence from Dwivedi’s lab offers a clue involving the messenger RNAs called transcripts. In postmortem human MDD brain tissue, they have seen changes in the amounts of the enzymes that can alter messenger RNA by adding or removing methyl groups. They have also seen changes in the messenger RNA targets of these enzymes, and these human preliminary findings were also found in the brains of rats susceptible to depression.

The data suggest these changes could lead to aberrant gene expression that affects specific molecular pathways of MDD pathogenesis. Dwivedi has received a five-year, $3 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to pursue these findings in postmortem brains from people with MDD compared with postmortem brains from healthy subjects.

“No one has done epitranscriptomic mapping in the brain,” Dwivedi says. “It’s the very first time. This is a new chapter in gene regulation.”

—4—

UAB Medicine Fall 19

IN BRIEF

Maternal-Fetal Telehealth UAB specialists can now help more patients in north Alabama who can’t travel to UAB Hospital thanks to a grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission. UAB received a $200,000 grant to establish additional telehealth sites at Bibb Medical Center in Bibb County and at North Alabama Medical Center in Lauderdale County. Each site will be outfitted with three patient rooms to accommodate telehealth visits.

“This will create a telehealth hub for high-volume sites and will enable providers based in Birmingham to see multiple patients on the same day, even if the patients are not in the same clinic,” says Eric Wallace, M.D., the medical director of UAB eMedicine. “While a doctor is seeing one patient, another patient will be prepped by a nurse and ready to go once the previous appointment is over.”

Wallace says lab work has posed a challenge when it comes to delivering telehealth to rural areas. If a patient needs lab work but does not have access to a hospital, the lab work has to be done three days before the appointment in order for the results to be ready in time. Since patients will now be coming to a hospital for their appointments, they will get their lab work done and see the doctor in the same day.

The grant will also provide funding to train ultrasound technologists, which will allow UAB’s Maternal-Fetal Medicine team to see high-risk patients remotely and see the results of a high-risk ultrasound.

New Knee, Same Day UAB’s Department of Orthopaedic Surgery has begun to offer same-day knee replacement surgeries for selected patients who return home the same day. “For some patients, an overnight stay in the hospital is not necessary,” says orthopaedic surgeon Elie Ghanem, M.D. “We want patients to go home and be active through physical therapy, and not be in ‘sick’ mode at the hospital.”

Twenty years ago, knee replacement patients would remain in the hospital for four or five days. As recently as two years ago, a patient could expect to stay three days. The program is limited to patients living within a 90-minute drive to UAB Hospital-Highlands. Patients receive two or more physical therapy sessions following surgery. They must be medically stable, have pain under control, and be able to walk 150 feet to be eligible for same-day discharge. Ghanem says most cases are done under spinal sedation, not full anesthesia.

UAB is working to develop the same program for total hip replacement.

UAB Medicine’s joint replacement team performs more than 1,000 hip and knee replacements annually.

—5—

UAB Hospital is among the first medical centers in the nation to switch to administering whole blood during transfusions for patients with severe trauma rather than component blood products.

The switch is driven by recent experience gained in battlefield medicine by the U.S. military.

IN BRIEF

Resolving Back Pain

Economic Recession and Heart Health

Predicting Illness and Death in COPD

When analyzed by a mathematical function called airway fractal dimension, CT scans of the lungs of smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can estimate increased risk of death for a group of people who are not otherwise identified as high-risk by conventional tests.

That major finding appears in a Journal of Clinical Investigation study led by senior author Surya Bhatt, M.D., and first author Sandeep Bodduluri, Ph.D., associate professor and instructor, respectively, in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine. “We showed that a significant number of smokers without airflow obstruction—who would be considered to have mild or no disease by traditional classification schema—can be identified to have high mortality risk based on grouping using fractal dimensions and peribronchial emphysema,” Bhatt says.

Lungs develop in a fractal pattern with successively smaller scales specific to each individual. Large bronchi split to progressively thinner bronchi that end in 300 million tiny air sacs called alveoli. Bhatt and colleagues found that fractal analysis of COPD lungs delivers additional information that can tell a patient’s risk of greater illness or death.

COPD, which is caused primarily by smoking, is characterized by airway remodeling—including narrowing of bronchial lumens and loss of branches. Current analysis of CT scans does detect these changes individually at each branching generation, but this new study shows that calculation of airway fractal dimension, or AFD, can be used to quantify this loss of airway branching complexity.

—6—

UAB Medicine Fall 2019

Contributors: Hannah Bae, Tyler Greer, Jeff Hansen, Adam Pope, Bob Shepard

A study published in the American Journal of Medicine indicates that economic resurgence was not associated with improvement in cardiovascular health among American adults after the great economic recession of 2008-2009. Moreover, cardiovascular health appears to be further deteriorating for American adults, particularly those with highand low-socioeconomic status.

Existing evidence has supported that economic recession had varying degrees of adverse effects on population health. However, the effect on cardiovascular health had remained undefined until this point. Nirav Patel, M.D., a resident in the Department of Medicine, and his team examined the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2007-2016.

They found that American adults showed a decline in mean cardiovascular health score driven by an increasing prevalence of obesity and impaired fasting glucose. Individuals from high- and low-socioeconomic strata showed decreasing prevalence of ideal cardiovascular health. They also found that cardiovascular health has continued to decline nationally despite economic recovery.

“The economic recession and decline in ideal cardiovascular health measures coincided with a reduction in health care spending by the U.S. government,” says senior author Pankaj Arora M.D., an assistant professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease. “This is particularly worrying as cuts in health care funding in an era when ideal cardiovascular health is quantifiably worsening may lead to a potentially endless cycle of poor health outcomes.”

People with osteoporosis may find relief with a new device and procedure used exclusively in Alabama by interventional radiologists at UAB Hospital. SpineJack is an implantable system that relieves the pain of acute vertebral compression fractures, the most common fracture in patients with osteoporosis.

According to Ahmed Kamel, M.D., the director of the Division of Interventional Radiology, the procedure takes 30-45 minutes and offers quick recovery. “The patient usually recovers for about two hours after the procedure, and then they go home,” Kamel says. “They are able to walk and resume their lives.”

SpineJack is a titanium implant that resembles a tiny scissor jack. It is put into the fractured vertebra, then expanded to lift the compressed vertebra and potentially restore it to its normal height. One implant is used on each side of the vertebral body and are locked in place by bone cement to stabilize the vertebra.

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You Can Go Home Again An innovative interdisciplinary program brings care to vulnerable patients in their homes

By Rosalind Fournier

I

ncreasingly frail and wary of doctors’ offices and hospitals, Michael Fox’s mother was the type of patient who inspired the 2015 creation of UAB House Calls.

UAB House Calls offers a different kind of health care for geriatric and other physically vulnerable patients ages 18 and older by sending physicians and health care professionals to patients’ homes to provide care and treatment they might not otherwise receive.

Marianthe Grammas directs the UAB House Calls Program and provides care for homebound patients on a regular basis. These home visits allow Grammas and her team to evaluate not only a patient’s health but also their home environment. It also enables the providers to communicate more closely with patients’ caregivers.

For Fox’s mother, receiving in-home care became her last hope of receiving medical attention. “She had had so many falls, broken bones, and accidents that she didn’t want to leave the house,” Fox remembers. “For us to know they would come out to see her was such a huge relief.”

UAB House Calls started as an informal arrangement several years ago with UAB Geriatrics seeing select patients at home as needed. In 2014, Marianthe Grammas, M.D., assistant professor in the Division of Gerontology, Geriatrics, and Palliative Care, became medical director of the Geriatric Medicine Clinic at UAB Hospital-Highlands.

She seized on the program’s potential and formalized it. “I recognized the opportunity to develop a house calls program that allowed us to enroll patients through both the clinic and the hospital and eventually the community at large. These patients were unable to access primary care in the traditional setting and faced multiple barriers to their general health care,” Grammas says.

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UAB Medicine Fall 2019

FEATURE

In an April 2018 letter to the House Calls staff, Fox explained the positive effect the program had on his family: “As you know, it’s very difficult trying to encourage, prepare, transport, and help geriatric patients understand why they need or have to go to the doctor for wellness and sick care,” he wrote. “This program has been a godsend for us.”

MEASURING SUCCESS

Today, UAB House Calls sees about 30 patients every week, with an average census of 300. Grammas estimates the program has touched 850 patients’ lives since its inception. Many of them are geriatric patients, but the program serves patients 18 or older who face multiple medical problems or live with severe functional limitations. They also must live within the program’s footprint, which is a 30-mile radius around UAB. Grammas says the program’s success is measured in a number of ways, both tangible and intangible. “Probably most important to all of our providers and our team is doing the right thing for the patient,” she says. “Many of our patients are homebound or bedbound. If we didn’t come to see them at home, they couldn’t access care in an easy way.”

Benefits to the UAB Health System include patients making fewer trips to the emergency room and requiring fewer hospitalizations for problems that could be treated or prevented with high-quality home care. “We looked at our data and saw we have reduced emergency department visits by half, reduced hospital admissions by a third to a half, and decreased 30-day readmissions by 90% among our House Calls patients,” she says. “We’ve had some really robust outcomes.”

Another measure of success lies in the satisfaction level among patients and their caregivers and families. After his mother passed away this past year, Fox requested the program for his father, who was also growing increasingly frail. Fox says he is especially grateful for the phone consultations the program offers to patients and their families. Recently, his father called him with fears that he was suffering a heart attack or stroke. “He thought he needed to go to the ER,”

Fox says. “But he sounded OK to me, not at all like someone who was having a stroke or anything. I called the House Calls program and talked to a staff member, who agreed my dad didn’t seem to be in immediate danger. The House Calls provider came out the next day, took some bloodwork, and gave him a physical. My dad being spared a trip to the ER was a huge relief, because it would have taken a toll on him.”

Grammas says having House Calls providers accessible to patients and families by phone is a critical component. “Patients can communicate very easily with us,” she says. “We really drive home, ‘Call us first if you have any concerns at all—big or small—so we can help you understand what’s going on and help triage the situation.’

Sometimes we can see the patients on the same day or maybe the next day.

We have the ability to order X-rays at home or get labs. We try to assess the situation in a timely manner and prevent an unnecessary or avoidable trip to the emergency room.”

Grammas notes that the House Calls program helps keep these medically vulnerable patients from entering the hospital, and it is often advantageous to this patient group and their providers.

“We see the patient where they spend the majority of their time, which allows us to observe the social context,” she says. “We can ask questions to better understand their caregiving needs and their home environment: Is their space safe or cluttered? Is there food in the fridge? It’s a window into everything that’s going on with the patient. It can show the problems that the caregiver has with managing the patient, their diseases, emotional issues, and personal care needs. Seeing the patients at home turns out to be more efficient in some ways, because you get valuable information all at once.”

A CARE CONTINUUM

Brian Spraberry, chief administrative officer of UAB Heath System, sees the House Calls program as part of a larger effort at UAB to create a more responsive care continuum for patients that extends far beyond the hospital setting. “Traditionally, the acute care

— 11 —

focus is episodic and relational to an inpatient admission,” Spraberry says.

“Taking a more responsive approach to how we manage care throughout the care continuum is something that we want to be more involved in—that care should transcend the inpatient episode.”

Spraberry says home care is poised for significant growth because you can incorporate telemedicine and other new technologies into it. He and Grammas agree health care entities will have to work within the reimbursement system and with payers to create proper mechanisms to pay for the care of patients in the home.

WE LOOKED AT OUR DATA AND SAW WE HAVE REDUCED EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT VISITS BY HALF, REDUCED HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS BY A THIRD TO A HALF, AND DECREASED 30-DAY READMISSIONS BY 90% AMONG OUR HOUSE CALLS PATIENTS.” – MARIANTHE GRAMMAS

FEATURE

Above left: UAB House Calls team (clockwise from far left), Natalja Deineko, CCRN; Chaeli Lawson, CRNP; Jessica Nix, LMSW; Kathleen Shields, CRNP; Kate Morgan, CCMA; and Marianthe Grammas, M.D. Above right: Carson Klein, a fourthyear medical student, created the Senior Companion Program in the SOM as her Schweitzer Fellowship project.

Carson Klein, a fourth-year medical student from Beauregard, Alabama, conceived of another extension of the care continuum for seniors as her Schweitzer Fellows project.

In 2017, Klein, who plans to practice family medicine, created the “Senior Companion” program, a School of Medicine service organization that organizes medical students to visit homebound seniors. She says her goal was to help counteract the negative effects of social isolation, which she observed from personal experience. “I had only one grandparent growing up, my grandfather,” Klein says. “We were really close to him. As he got older, he got dementia.”

She notes her family paid for a caregiver and spent some evenings caring for him at home. “Even with us being a very attentive family and trying to be there for him as much as we could, he was still very lonely,” Klein says.

Social isolation and a lack of resources are major issues in the elderly community. “There are so many people in the geriatric and elderly community who are homebound and just sit at home with their same routine,” says Klein. “Their whole world may be the one or two rooms they’re in.”

Klein says loneliness exacerbated her grandfather’s dementia and caused his overall health to deteriorate. She wanted to help prevent that from happening for others. “It has been shown that social isolation can negatively affect someone’s mental and physical health,” she says. “Most senior citizens love to talk to young people and ask them about their interests, and the seniors want to talk about their youth.”

Klein ran the program for the first year and personally paid visits to eight seniors on a regular basis. She also recruited

other students to volunteer. The Senior Companion Program is now in its third year, and a new first-year medical student takes over running the program each year. The program’s scope is impressive, with 50-60 students having participated to date. Klein estimates that collectively the students have paid 150-200 visits to seniors who need and value their visits.

Klein says the nature of the visits can vary, depending on how much or how little support the seniors have on a regular basis. She notes that even those with spouses or other family members at home are eager to see a fresh face at the door, and their caregivers are happy, too. “The families recognize the need, because there is a burden on caregivers,” Klein says.

“Students tell me that a lot of their visits turn into the four of them—the pair of students, the spouse, and the senior—all hanging out together. And it’s fun. It is almost as though they were also visiting the spouse. It’s an enjoyable visit for everyone involved.”

Both concepts—medical house calls and social visits— require a “cultural change and shift in thinking” about what is best for certain patients, Grammas says. “A lot of what we do is really about being creative and thinking outside the box in how we care for patients,” she says.

Fox says the House Calls home visits dramatically improved his late mother’s quality of life and continues to do the same for his father, who looks forward to the visits.

“The program helped develop better communication among the House Calls staff, my parents, and me,” he wrote in his 2018 letter to the House Calls staff. “It’s like we have a personal relationship with each other now. My parents have actually asked, ‘Is today the day that Chaeli or Jason is coming to check on us?’ For me, this is the best reaction toward patient care that I have experienced with my parents in years, and having this care in our own home environment makes it all the better.”

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UAB Medicine Fall 2019

FEATURE

LOST IN TRANSLATION UAB researchers, residents, and medical students are working to understand low health literacy to improve outcomes

By Adam Pope

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FEATURE Left to right: Surgery residents Samantha Baker and Lauren Theiss, medical student Rachael Rainey, Daniel Chu, Joy Deupree, and medical students Kara Kichler and Elle Kaplan comprise some of the team studying health literacy.

L

ow health literacy is all too common in a large portion of the nation’s population. UAB health care teams and medical trainees are working to fix that.

While researching health literacy in the surgical population, Associate Professor Daniel Chu, M.D., of the Division of Gastrointestinal Surgery, and his team found that low health literacy is quite prevalent and exists across every socioeconomic class, race, and geographic origin. However, certain groups are at higher risk for having low health literacy, and this information will help develop more targeted interventions.

“African-Americans with inflammatory bowel disease, for example, in Alabama and Mississippi have high rates of low health literacy and face incredible challenges dealing with a complicated disease that requires complicated management,” Chu says. “As providers and health care systems, we are responsible for helping these patients achieve the best possible outcomes and experiences. Health literacy is one way to take immediate action, and we are learning that the most impactful interventions occur at the provider and health care system level.”

Chu, who also serves as associate director of Health Services Research, notes that research has consistently linked health literacy with health outcomes. To be specific, patients with low health literacy are at high risk of having poor health outcomes and experiences. But this relationship is potentially modifiable in a positive direction.

“It is quite important to invest time and resources in addressing low health literacy because, if we can improve health outcomes and experiences, we benefit patients, providers, and health care systems,” Chu says.

WHY WE’RE HERE

To help understand why there is such a low health literacy rate, Chu asked UAB School of Medicine students and residents to survey patients on their understanding of patient education materials that were provided to them.

Elle Kaplan, a third-year medical student, was asked to study the readability of documents and how the layout of documents affects readability. She says one of the things that shocked her most was that a higher education level did not necessarily translate into higher health literacy.

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UAB Medicine Fall 2019

FEATURE

What happens when you get in a car accident? You have so much running through your head that it is hard to think. The same thing happens when you get a dire diagnosis—your head can get so cloudy that you have a hard time making decisions.”

– JOY DEUPREE

“If people don’t have the capacity to understand, they won’t adhere to guidelines set for them,” Kaplan says. “As medical professionals, we can’t assume everyone knows what we’re talking about. This research has opened a Pandora’s box in many ways. Just because you are fluent in business or English doesn’t mean you have a high level of health literacy.”

Kaplan says more image-based information—like infographics—were more widely understood compared to a page filled with words and bullet points. The old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” absolutely holds true, according to Chu. Samantha Baker, a third-year surgery resident at UAB, helped develop patient education materials for patients at the Birmingham VA Medical Center. She says her previous training in medical school prepared her to work with patients in Birmingham who had a similar level of health literacy.

“When I meet with patients, I say to them, ‘I know, when you leave here, you will want to tell your family members what we’ve talked about, so why don’t we practice? Tell me what you are going to say to them about our visit,’” Baker says. “I ask this so that I can know if we are on the same page and I can identify any gaps in their understanding.”

RECRUITING COLLABORATORS

Chu also enlisted help from UAB School of Nursing Associate Professor Joy Deupree, Ph.D. Deupree, who serves as chair for the Alabama Health Literacy Initiative, has poured countless hours into understanding why states like Alabama have such poor health literacy rates.

In 2016, an executive order signed by former Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley created the Health Literacy Partnership of Alabama; the work of the partnership concluded in February

2017 and produced a strategic plan to begin efforts to improve health literacy in the state.

Deupree says patient anxiety can be a major contribution to low guideline adherence. “What happens when you get in a car accident? You have so much running through your head that it is hard to think,” she says. “The same thing happens when you get a dire diagnosis—your head can get so cloudy that you have a hard time making clear decisions.”

She adds that there is a misconception about the face of health literacy. Many providers are adept at recognizing populations expected to be at risk to misunderstand health information—such as high school dropouts, lower socioeconomic populations, and those with English as a second language.

“In reality, the largest demographic group in the U.S. at risk for low health literacy is our seniors. They have been out of school the longest and grew up at a time when medicine was much less complex,” she says.

With Deupree’s help, Chu and his team are hoping to make things easier for patients by simplifying information in easy-to-read formats.

“Our research with patients and focus groups has reiterated this and suggests that more visually based information could help patients better understand the surgical journey,” Chu says. “I think surgery is particularly amenable for this as we are a very visually based field.”

He adds that the goal of his current research is to convert text-heavy patient education material into image-heavy media using best practices in design and technology. He says he thinks image-based media will lead to a better understanding of complex surgical information and, ultimately, beneficial effects on patient outcomes and experiences.

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Road to the Top Five

By Cary Estes

Photos courtesy of UAB Archives

Department of Biomedical Engineering celebrates 40 years of dramatic growth

FEATURE

I

t began much like a rock band or a startup company: with a handful of true believers gathered in a small, dingy space who were willing to work tirelessly for a future filled with both promise and uncertainty.

Opposite, clockwise from top left: Jay Goldman (far left), and Louis Sheppard (second from left) watch fellow professor Martin McCutcheon (seated) demonstrate the university’s new expert system from Digital Equipment Corp., circa 1987; Linda Lucas (left), Rose Scripa (second from left), and Martha Bidez (far right), with then-president of the Society of Women Engineers Suzanne Jenniches (second from right), present James Woodward (center) with the Rodney D. Chip Memorial Award from the Society of Women Engineers, circa 1989; Jarl Risberg, Ed Wilson (at right, left to right), and Edward Wills, of the Department of Physics (seated at left), measure a patient’s cerebral blood flow, along with Audie White (seated at rear), computer operator; Timothy Wick with a researcher pictured in Wick’s lab, circa 2009; Raymond Ideker (pictured in 2001), an expert in cardiac electrophysiology, came to UAB from Duke University in the early 2000s and directed the Cardiac Rhythm Management Laboratory.

This was the scene in 1979 when UAB founded the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME). The department consisted of four professors and a staff technician toiling together in Cudworth Building’s windowless basement.

“It was a truly terrible space,” recalls Linda Lucas, Ph.D., UAB’s first Ph.D. graduate in biomedical engineering who went on to serve as the BME department’s chair, the School of Engineering’s dean, and UAB provost. “I had to paint my office. Since there were no windows, I painted it a bright yellow.”

Now 40 years later, the department’s outlook has brightened considerably. BME covers three buildings with about 20,000 square feet of modern, well-equipped laboratory space. In 2014, it became a joint department of the School of Engineering and the School of Medicine, the only department with dual status at UAB. The department has grown so much that it now consistently ranks in the top five nationally in National Institutes of Health research funding. From 2016-2018, the department ranked top 5 in NIH Blue Ridge Rankings. Moreover, several BME collaborations across schools have led to successful spinoff businesses throughout the years.

“In spite of the tiny faculty at the beginning, there was a strong cadre of M.S. and Ph.D. students,” says Ernest Stokely, Ph.D., who became the department’s second chair. “Since we had so few faculty members, it was only through collaborations in the School of Engineering and across UAB that we achieved research at critical mass to span several research areas.”

Lucas agrees that a spirit of collaboration has been key to the department’s growth. “From the very beginning of this program, partnerships from both sides of the campus were important,” she says. “There has always been strong collaboration between the engineering and medical programs, and BME couldn’t have succeeded without faculty who liked to work across campus.

“We recruited students who saw that we were an engineering program with a very strong medical program. That was a strong recruiting tool for students and for faculty. From the get go, that has been our spirit and our driving force.”

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FEATURE Jianyi (Jay) Zhang joined the BME department as chair in 2014, when the department became a joint department between the Schools of Medicine and Engineering.

“We recruited students who saw that we were an engineering program with a very strong medical program.

That was a strong recruiting tool for students and for faculty. From the get go, that has been our spirit and our driving force.”

– LINDA LUCAS

The results have been impressive, with a number of BME faculty members and graduates making substantial contributions to the field. They include: • Martha Bidez, Ph.D., who founded the Birmingham-based dental implant company BioHorizons, which has had several BME graduates serve in leadership roles over the years. Bidez also pioneered BME’s Advanced Safety Engineering degree program and was named the International System Safety Society’s 2011 Educator of the Year.

• Ken Solovay, M.S., B.S., who has worked for companies ranging from Johnson & Johnson to smaller startups such as Aspiration Medical Technology, where he brought an obesity treatment from concept through development and validation. Solovay has extensive experience developing implantable devices with minimally invasive delivery systems and holds 36 patents.

• Louis Sheppard, Ph.D., the first chair of BME, who developed computerbased systems for intensive care that utilized closed-loop, feedback control of cardiac and vascular pressures.

Sheppard was succeeded as BME chair in 1990 by Ernest Stokely, Ph.D.,

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UAB Medicine Fall 2019

who expanded BME’s focus to include biomedical imaging. By the turn of the 21st century, UAB recruited Raymond Ideker, M.D., Ph.D., and his entire team from Duke University. This recruitment created new opportunities in the area of cardiac electrophysiology. Many of the team members have become leaders in the field of cardiac electrophysiology.

Ideker is now professor emeritus in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease.

Timothy Wick, Ph.D., became department chair in 2005 and spent the next decade guiding the department through an era of tremendous growth.

In particular, his efforts bolstered faculty recruitment, which in turn expanded extramural research funding, especially around tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Wick was also central to creating the strategic plan that led to the department’s most recent major transition.

The department’s biggest change came in 2014 when BME joined forces with the School of Medicine. This enabled UAB to recruit Jianyi (Jay) Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Minnesota Medical School to succeed Wick to become BME’s current chair. Zhang is an international leader in myocardial bioenergetics, biomaterial, and cell therapy for myocardial repair.

“Engineers develop tools to benefit society, and medical research develops

FEATURE

inventions that improve public health,” Zhang says. “So the convergence of these two schools was attractive to me because we can apply scientific discoveries to benefit society.”

Through a $2.5 million NIH grant in collaboration with Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York and UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Zhang is leading research at UAB to discover ways to, as he puts it, “turn back the clock” on cardiac myocyte regeneration.

“One of the major reasons the heart fails is the loss of myocytes, a type of cell generate force and found in muscle tissue. That’s because we are born with a set number of myocytes, and they don’t regenerate,” Zhang says. “Myocytes continue to divide during the fetal stage, but they stop dividing after birth. When we lose enough of that muscle tissue, it causes heart failure to occur.

“So if we can understand the mechanisms of why the myocyte exits the cell regeneration cycle after birth, then we can manipulate the mechanisms to increase lost cardiac muscle mass due to a heart attack.”

As part of a seven-year, $8 million NIH grant, Zhang and UAB are also working with Duke University Medical Center and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health on cell therapy research to create a cardiac “muscle patch” for patients who have experienced a heart attack. “We want to use a patient’s own stem cells to generate more cardiomyocytes,” Zhang says. “That way we can engineer tissue to patch on to the heart with a patient’s own cardiac-fabricated tissue to prevent further dilation of the heart.”

This type of cutting-edge research might have seemed impossible four decades ago, when the first BME faculty members say they were simply trying to spruce up the walls of their offices.

“It’s amazing how much the program has grown in both quality and strength,” Lucas says. “And it’s not just the numbers, but it is also the kinds of problems they’re addressing in a very interdisciplinary way. It would have been hard to believe 40 years ago when I was sitting in that basement at Cudworth that all this would have happened.”

R

arely do the worlds of rock ’n’ roll and bioengineering collide.

But this odd convergence has been a regular occurrence since 2003, each time the band BEDrock—founded in part by two current UAB BME professors—takes the stage.

Alan Eberhardt, Ph.D., professor and associate chair, and Joel Berry, Ph.D, associate professor, are regular members of the band, which consists of a rotating list of bioengineering professors from across the globe who perform at major bioengineering conferences. It began as something of a lark at the 2003 conference for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Bioengineering Division—the BED in BEDrock—but quickly grew to become one of the conference’s most anticipated events.

“Our first gig was at a conference in Miami. We played at the student center, and there were maybe 40 people there,” Eberhardt says. “In 2014, we played at the House of Blues in Boston in front of 2,000 people.”

Eberhardt says the band’s lineup changes every year, with different professors and even some students joining a jam session that consists heavily of classic rock covers (Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, etc.). The band has swelled to as many as 19 people and has included participants from England, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

Once the lineup is established for the current year, each member practices on their own. They then get together for a single group practice session at the conference the night before they perform.

“There are moments where you’d think we’re a professional band, and then there are other moments where it’s obvious we practiced only one time,” Eberhardt says, laughing. “It’s just something we do for fun.”

“With BEDrock, we found a way to make other bioengineers dance, which is not an easy thing to do,” adds Berry.

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FEATURE

SOUND LEARNING Ultrasound training prepares future physicians to provide better care

By Haley Herfurth

U

ltrasonography is an incredibly useful tool in medicine, particularly in emergency departments. It usually takes under a minute for an ultrasonography tool to assess whether a critically injured patient has time for a CT scan or needs to be rushed directly to the operating room. As the technology advances, it gets cheaper, more portable, and more powerful. Since it uses sound waves, an ultrasound doesn’t put the patient at risk for radiation.

Despite its usefulness, ultrasound education for medical students often is limited. Fewer than half of U.S. medical schools give students the option to perform hands-on ultrasound examinations. Significantly fewer have it fully integrated into the required curriculum or offer preclinical ultrasound electives, says David Resuehr, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Cell, Development and Integrative Biology.

Wanting to ensure UAB provides the highest-quality medical instruction, Resuehr teamed up with colleagues from across UAB to develop high-quality ultrasound instruction programming for interested students. The result was a week-long special topics course, STP 2233 Introduction to Ultrasound in Anatomy, in which about a dozen second-year medical students learn the basics of ultrasound technology and technique beginning with the physics behind it and culminating in identifying pathological processes.

“Understanding how complex three-dimensional anatomical structures translate to grayscale ultrasound images is very helpful for students to gain a deeper understanding of the anatomy and physiology they’re studying,” Resuehr says.

INTERPROFESSIONAL PARTNERSHIPS

Resuehr developed STP 2233 in 2014 with faculty and staff from the Department of Emergency Medicine and the Office of Interprofessional Simulation for Innovative Clinical Practice (OIPS). The course provides students with a unique opportunity to learn foundational knowledge about emergency medicine ultrasounds, and it gives them hands-on practice with high-fidelity ultrasound simulators and standardized patients. They also shadow physicians in the emergency department.

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UAB Medicine Fall 2019

FEATURE At left: David Resuehr demonstrates ultrasound techniques for a group of medical students.

“Scanning live emergency department patients with active pathophysiology is vital to helping them understand. It shows how a two-dimensional gray image can help them understand what is happening with the patient in front of them and help them make better decisions regarding that patient’s care in real time,” says Luke Burleson, M.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine who co-directs STP 2233 with Resuehr.

Each August, medical students have the chance to learn more about ultrasound technology and experience its value as an educational and clinical tool.

“We are all working toward one common goal: giving students the best medical education,” Resuehr says. “We want to give students a solid foundation on how to effectively provide and interpret ultrasound scans so they can to provide better patient care as future physicians.”

A STEP AHEAD

Fewer than half of U.S. medical schools give students the option to perform hands-on ultrasound examinations.

Significantly fewer have it fully integrated into the required curriculum or offer preclinical ultrasound electives.

While ultrasound technology is becoming cheaper, machines are still relatively expensive, Resuehr says. He notes finding time and funding for training programs are barriers to incorporating ultrasound education into the medical school curriculum.

At UAB, Resuehr collaborates with the Department of Engineering and several clinicians on projects involving homemade ultrasound phantoms. He partnered with OIPS, which has purchased ultrasound machines for student practice for high-fidelity ultrasound simulations. OIPS also trains practicing clinicians to improve their use of ultrasound technology. Resuehr has helped them develop training materials for practicing clinicians, says OIPS Director Marjorie Lee White, M.D. “Ultrasound is an incredibly important part of patient care,” White says. “We serve as a host site for ultrasound training and partner with experts like Dr. Resuehr to make sure all our learners across the spectrum—everyone from medical and physician’s assistant students to residents, nurse practitioners, and other health care practitioners—develop ultrasound skills.”

Adopting the simulation model to train students and clinicians has given UAB an advantage in the field of ultrasound education because it enables the learners to benefit from interprofessional partnerships across relevant fields and access technology that is specific for their use.

Students benefit because they train with the right people and technology, and patients benefit because their practitioners have the right expertise, White says.

SHARING KNOWLEDGE

UAB students trained in ultrasound technology will have a head start when they begin practicing, Resuehr says. He started STP 2233 several years ago to create a curriculum-based place to get that instruction. He also hosts independent sessions for students interested in the OIPS. “Not every specialty needs it, but everyone who becomes a physician should be able to do basic ultrasound,” he says.

Resuehr has presented his ideas at conferences across the U.S. and Canada. At the World Congress for Ultrasound in Medical Education conference in Montreal, Resuehr and clinicians from other leading institutions recently conducted an interactive, hands-on ultrasound workshop. He often meets other non-clinician anatomists like him and practicing physicians interested in his philosophy who want to learn more about ultrasound education.

“It highlights the fact that many clinicians don’t know how to do ultrasounds. But it shows that everyone realizes the value of it, especially once they’ve gotten their hands on it themselves,” Resuehr says.

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COMMUNITY

WORKING IN CONCERT Physician support for local symphony becomes personal for music director facing illness

BY ROSALIND FOURNIER

I

n his second season as the Alabama Symphony Orchestra’s (ASO) music director, Carlos Izcaray was at the top of his game—bringing boundless enthusiasm, ambitious new works, and critical acclaim to the ASO. Then in December 2017, he found a suspicious lump in his neck and came to UAB to have it checked. Izcaray was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. “It was very scary from day one,” he says.

Lorena de Idiaquez Bakula, M.D., a physician in the Division of Hematology and Oncology, took over his treatment. “He was almost a brand new director and he was facing this disease,” she says. “Chemotherapy is tiring, and it’s hard not knowing what will happen next. Patients often ask themselves, ‘Will this be enough? Will I be cured?’”

In spite of the challenges, Izcaray was determined not to miss a beat. “I wanted to continue making music and share this wonderful art form with the community,” Izcaray says.

De Idiaquez designed Izcaray’s treatment plan, which included six months of chemotherapy delivered through a port in the chest, which was placed on his left side in order not to impair his ability to direct the orchestra. Izcaray was able to go right back to the work he loves doing.

“It is such a blessing to lead an orchestra and make music. Perhaps the nature of the work that I do helped me get through it,” Izcaray says. “The musicians, the staff, my colleagues and friends, and the whole community was very supportive. I also felt fantastic support from my entire oncology team. Many of them went to the concerts, so they knew about the orchestra. Even within this unlucky scenario, I felt lucky to have such good care.”

Then, an even better day came. “After two months of treatment, Carlos had a great PET scan,” de Idiaquez says.

“I decided to shorten his treatment to four months.” At four months, Izcaray’s scans came back clean, and he finished undergoing treatment in May 2017. More than two years later, he remains cancer-free.

Izcaray’s experience at UAB is emblematic of the longstanding relationship between UAB and the ASO. Since 2008, they have collaborated on Physicians and Faculty for the ASO (originally Doctors for the ASO), a fundraising and support organization for the ASO as well as a celebration of the commonalities between music and medicine.

“There is a lot of connection,” says Ansley Frachiseur, individual giving manager for the ASO. “We use all our senses when we’re playing music to communicate, as in medicine.”

When people become Physicians and Faculty for the ASO members—which includes tickets to a special, side-by-side

Above: Carlos Izcaray became the music director for the Alabama Symphony Orchestra in 2015. In 2017, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and was treated by UAB hematologist-oncologist Lorena de Idiaquez Bakula (right).

concert by the Alabama Symphony and the Alabama Symphony Youth Orchestra featuring a reception with Izcaray, part of their membershiphelps bring live performances into hospitals. It also supports music education in the community.

Last year, 57 individuals contributed to the program, which raises about $100,000 each season.

Anupam Agarwal, M.D., executive vice dean of the School of Medicine and Division of Nephrology director, is the program co-chair and says there is a strong push to recruit health care professionals from outside UAB to become members. He thinks it should be an easy sell. “I’ve been to symphonies all over the country, and ours is second to none,” Agarwal says. “It’s a crown jewel for our city.”

Izcaray’s treatment journey made the connection personal, but he also sees the less tangible bonds. “We are all in a way in the same business: to improve lives in our community and to make people feel better,” he says. “Going back even to the birth of medicine and the Hippocratic oath, Hippocrates was a huge believer in the power of music and how it’s good for the soul.”

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UAB Medicine Fall 2019

CLINICAL CARE

HOPE REBORN Pregnant women battling addiction find success in UAB program

BY SAVANNAH KOPLON

K

ate (name changed for patient privacy) was five months’ along when she found out she was pregnant. She struggled for years with addiction to heroin and prescription drugs but had no idea she was using while pregnant until she failed a drug test during a doctor’s visit.

Kate was referred to the UAB Comprehensive Addiction in Pregnancy Program (CAPP) in the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine. In Alabama, it is a felony offense to use drugs during pregnancy, as a result of the state’s Chemical Endangerment Law. CAPP’s multidisciplinary, outpatient approach aims to help vulnerable mothers who voluntarily enter the program with prenatal and postnatal care. It helps them navigate government systems and resources, social work support, opioid replacement therapy, and ultimately, recovery.

In April 2019, CAPP celebrated its first year of care, enrolling 48 women in the program. Since July 2018, 22 women have successfully completed a treatment program.

“The women we treat face tremendous barriers to care during pregnancy, including social stigma, legal consequences, transportation, poor communications between providers, and limited facilities for addiction treatment programs,” says Lorie Harper, M.D., maternal-fetal medicine specialist and CAPP director. “In this first year, we have exceeded our own expectations and have created a sustainable model of care for vulnerable patients who not only need our direction and resources, but are also truly buying into our program of sobriety and success.”

CAPP is the only program of its kind in Alabama. It provides a full

complement of obstetric addiction therapy, including opioid replacement therapy, subspecialty pediatric follow-up, care coordination, social services, peer recovery support, and in-home parenting education. Many of the mothers CAPP supports would not seek recovery-based services during pregnancy out of fear of criminal consequences and the shame often associated with substance use.

However, for mothers like Kate, enrolling in CAPP’s intensive outpatient program was key in detoxing and reaching sobriety, which she has maintained in the year since her son’s birth.

For Kate, CAPP nurses’, social workers’, physicians’, and her program peers’ unwavering support gave her a sense of belonging and encouragement in a judgment-free zone. “CAPP provided such a safe space where I could grow and learn. I wasn’t just learning how to be a mother. I was learning how to be the best version of myself,” she says. “Knowing the CAPP team was investing in all aspects of my sobriety and journey made all the difference. Dr. Harper even stayed by my side during all 30 hours of my labor; that’s just one testament to what this program provides.”

“The women we serve are getting prenatal care and resources, and

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they are working on themselves with everything else that’s going on in their lives that led them to this point. They are really resourceful, strong, and self-sacrificing, and want to overcome their addiction for themselves and their baby,” Harper says. “We’ve tried to cultivate a community where there’s no shame and stigma. Rather, we are creating a place where these mothers can get the critical medical care that both they and their babies need, and have guidance and access to resources to help them live a sober life.”

In reflecting on the care that CAPP provides to so many mothers, Suzanne Muir, UAB Substance Abuse Programs associate director and principal investigator for the Children’s Bureau funding, says she sees ways for the program to expand in the future.

“We serve such a vulnerable population. While I think we are meeting a lot of gaps in care for our patients, we find new ways to add to our care portfolio with each patient we see,” Muir says. “Our goal is for mothers to leave the hospital with their child. If we can get them the treatment they need, they can become healthy and stable for themselves and their child.”

MEDICAL EDUCATION

THE ‘LAST SUMMER’ Meet a group of second-year students who devoted their summer to research

BY BENNETT PAGE

T

Above, left to right: medical students Amaris Elston, Emily Harrison, Andres Camino, and Colin Quinn.

he summer after a student’s first year of medical school is often dubbed the “last summer.”

Some medical students spend their “last summer” traveling, saving money, or relaxing at home. Other students take the opportunity to gain valuable research experience, getting a head start on a required part of the medical school curriculum.

“As a medical school that requires every graduating student to formally participate in research or scholarly activity, we think it’s important to offer that opportunity as early as possible,” says Craig Hoesley, M.D., senior associate dean for medical education and professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases. “We are fortunate

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UAB Medicine Fall 2019

to have such a diverse and broad research enterprise here on our campus, which provides significant opportunities for our students to engage in scholarly projects at a high level.”

Amaris Elston Family health problems led Amaris Elston, MS2, to medicine. When graduating from UAB with a degree in psychology, Elston says she hadn’t decided what she wanted to do. Her brother, Donovan, was diagnosed with toxic shock syndrome when she was 8 years old, an experience that introduced her to the medical world. Right before she graduated, her brother faced complications during surgery. “The doctor came out and told us he was

MEDICAL EDUCATION

unresponsive and unable to move his left side,” Elston says.

“That experience showed me practicing medicine was where I was supposed to be.”

Elston encountered the world of kidney transplantation thanks to a perfect match. She was completing a master’s program before applying to medical school when her sister Dominique was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease.

In December 2018, Elston donated her kidney to her sister.

“During the process, it dawned on me that kidney transplants don’t occur as often as they should in order to save as many lives as possible,” Elston says.

After her experience with transplants, Elston spent her summer doing research with Jayme Locke, M.D., MPH, director of UAB’s Incompatible Kidney Transplant Program and the Comprehensive Transplant Institute, among other roles. The research focuses on the Living Donor Navigator Program, UAB’s program for kidney donor matching. “The program has increased the number of African-American kidney donations by a much greater number than in other ethnic groups,” Elston says.

She works with donors and recipients who have gone through the program, assessing what aspects worked for them. “If we can figure out why it has worked so well among African-Americans, we can use that information to implement programs like it across the country.”

Elston notes she is drawn to medical research because it connects all the dots. “When you’re a physician, you’re helping people. When you’re an academic medical professional, you’re helping people even outside of the clinic,” Elston says. “I think that’s the value of working in academic medicine.”

Colin Quinn A series of childhood events piqued Massachusetts native Colin Quinn’s interest in medicine. “When I was in sixth grade, I lost one of my good friends to pediatric cancer,” Quinn, MS2, says. “That same month, my mom was diagnosed with cancer, so that year exposed me to the medical world.”

Quinn attended The Ohio State University for undergrad and became involved with BuckeyeThon, Ohio State’s Miracle Network Dance Marathon, where he developed a passion for pediatric cancer.

He carried that passion to UAB, spending his first summer in medical school conducting pediatric cancer research in the lab of Elizabeth Beierle, M.D., the Charles D. McCrary Endowed Chair in Pediatric Surgery. “We specifically look at solid pediatric tumors,” Quinn says. “A lot of research and progress has been made in blood cancers, but we’re trying to see that same progress in cancers like neuroblastoma, hepatoblastoma, and kidney tumors.”

Underfunded compared to other cancer types, pediatric cancer must be approached differently than adult cancers due to differences in the cancer profiles. “You can’t treat a kid born with a cancer mutation the same way you would treat an adult with lung cancer who has been smoking for 30 years,” Quinn says. The lab examines the tumors to see what kinds of mutations they have, and then looks at how the mutations respond to different drugs.

“I’ve always wanted to be doing something that feels like it has a purpose,” Quinn says. “It can feel like you’re not doing anything purposeful when just sitting in a classroom all day. I think that’s why I wanted to get involved in research.”

Emily Harrison Birmingham native Emily Harrison, MS2, returned to her hometown for medical school after earning her chemistry degree at Rhodes College. After her first year at UAB, she was unsure how she wanted to spend her “last summer.”

After struggling to find a lab she wanted to work in, Harrison found a perfect fit with Marissa Gowey, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition. “In this lab, we focus on the executive function—which is a specific type of cognitive function used for self-regulation—and how it relates to different health habits and risk factors in children,” Harrison says. She helped enroll children in the program and assessed them after they enrolled. “At assessments, we collect their blood data, get body scans, and assess cognitive and executive functioning. We are looking for a relationship among body composition, biomarkers such as blood sugar levels and insulin, and self-regulation. The study’s long-term goal is to see if there’s a relationship between those three things, and we want to use those findings to help create better interventions for children with obesity.”

Andres Camino Andres Camino, MS2, found his way to the School of Medicine after studying classical civilization at Duke University.

“My dad is a doctor, so pursuing a career in medicine was always in the back of my mind,” Camino says. “But I wanted to go into college being open to other things. I didn’t want to be confined to medicine just because that’s what I was familiar with.” With minors in biology and chemistry along with his classical civilization degree, Camino pursued his master’s degree in biomedical science before applying to medical school.

“I was kind of scared of research in undergrad, so I don’t have a ton of experience with it,” Camino says. “I’m glad that UAB has the opportunity to do this research and helps provide us with funding.” Camino is doing research in the UAB Sexual Health Clinic with Nicholas Van Wagoner, M.D., Ph.D., associate dean for students.

“The clinic opened in 2015, and there hasn’t been a study that looks at how students utilize it or assesses its outreach,” Camino says. He looked into the clinic’s positive screening rates for sexually transmitted infections on campus and organized focus groups this fall to see what students think of the clinic.

“I enjoy that research and medicine in general have a public health epidemiological side, and I think infectious disease is a great specialty that has a significant public health impact,” Camino says. “Doing clinical research and interacting with your patients is great, but affecting a greater population through your work is something that I really like.”

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STUDENT PROFILES

FOSTERING LEADERSHIP Sydney Mohr becomes the fifth Sara Crews Finley, M.D., Leadership Scholar

BY BENNETT PAGE

I

n August, third-year medical student Sydney Mohr was awarded the 2019 Sara Crews Finley, M.D., Leadership Scholarship, which provides full tuition for the third year of medical school and is renewable for the fourth year. The scholarship is awarded annually to a student who has excelled in academics, service, and leadership. Mohr was recognized at the School of Medicine’s White Coat Ceremony Aug. 18, where she received a new white coat with a special insignia identifying her as the Sara Crews Finley, M.D., Leadership Scholar.

For Mohr, a Suwanee, Georgia, native, her passion for medicine began at an early age. “In middle school, I had a science teacher who chose a few kids to learn labs before everyone else and then teach them to the class,” Mohr says.

“That’s when I first became interested in the sciences.”

In Mohr’s first month of her undergraduate education at the University of Georgia, life-changing news turned her interest in science into a love of medicine. “My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer,” Mohr says. “Seeing how the doctors impacted her life pushed me even more in the direction of medicine.”

Mohr shadowed physicians and went on a medical relief trip to the Dominican Republic with the Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children. “We shadowed doctors at the local hospital, and taught clinics for diabetes and nutrition education,” Mohr said. “Those experiences clearly showed me that medicine was in my future.”

Mohr says she is grateful to receive this scholarship because it recognizes someone who put service to her patients and community first. “It’s a huge honor, probably the biggest honor of my life, to receive this scholarship in Dr. Sara Crews Finley’s name because she was such a pioneer for women in the medical field,” Mohr says. “If I could be half the doctor she was, I would be content.”

While she is still deciding on a specialty to pursue, Mohr knows that she wants to help the underserved. While at the University of Georgia, Mohr volunteered at the Mercy Health Center, a clinic that provides free health care services to the uninsured in the Athens area. “There are so many people with so many needs, but we could only accept a limited number of new patients a week,” Mohr said. “It was difficult to see a lot of people not receiving the health care they needed. Because of this experience, it has become my priority to help people who can’t get help otherwise throughout the rest of my medical career.”

During her time at UAB, Mohr has worked with the underserved community in Birmingham. She has volunteered at Equal Access Birmingham and the M-POWER Ministries Health Center, two clinics that provide health care to those without access to insurance.

She is thankful for this scholarship because it allows her to continue her community outreach without having to worry about the heavy burden of paying for medical school. “I chose to come to UAB because I really loved the school, the research opportunities, and the clinical training,” Mohr says. “At the same time, I knew I was going to have to pay out-of-state tuition. This scholarship really changes my life.”

Sara Crews Finley, M.D., co-founded the first medical genetics program in the Southeast with her husband, Wayne H. Finley, M.D., Ph.D. and served as co-director of the Laboratory of Medical Genetics at UAB for more than 30 years. Not only does the scholarship honor Finley for her contributions to the field of genetics, but it also recognizes her leadership and service to the community around her.

“When our family first established this scholarship to honor my mother’s legacy, we weren’t sure how the program would evolve,” says Sara J. Finley, daughter of Sara Crews Finley, M.D., and Wayne H. Finley, M.D., Ph.D. “Five years later, we are so proud to know these scholars on a personal level and follow them as they earn their medical degrees and transition into select residency programs. We look forward to welcoming Sydney to this extraordinary group.”

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UAB Medicine Fall 2019

STUDENT PROFILES

MAKING IT WORK Student balances medical school with an expanded family

BY BENNETT PAGE

W

ith schoolwork, rotations, research, and community service commitments, most medical students do not have much time for anything else.

However, Brittany Hatter, MS2, balances medical school demands with another priority: raising her 15-year-old daughter and two teenaged half-sisters.

“Three weeks before I started medical school, it was just my daughter Tiyanna and me,” says Hatter, a Bessemer native.

“Due to circumstances beyond my control, I adopted my two teenage sisters, and now I have three teenage girls. Honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

As her family’s sole breadwinner, Hatter works weekends to earn extra income. She picked up a part-time job at a local nightclub and withdrew her retirement and savings from previous jobs to make a living for her family while in medical school. She has received partial scholarships from the Executive Women International’s Birmingham chapter, the School of Medicine’s Mr. & Mrs. Claude E. Dorsey Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund, and the Charles and Mildred Smith Scholarship. She also receives financial support from her loving grandmother, Peggy Brown Gardner.

Hatter had her daughter, Tiyanna Brown, when she was 16 years old. With family support, Hatter finished high school and attended the University of Montevallo. “My family supported me a lot with my daughter, but I also worked three part-time jobs during undergrad,” Hatter says. She worked as a patient care assistant at Brookwood Medical Center, a substitute teacher for Shelby County Schools, and did data entry for a political surveying company.

Hatter graduated from the University of Montevallo in 2010 with a major in biology and a minor in chemistry. “My ultimate goal has always been to become a physician,” Hatter shares.

“But I didn’t feel prepared for medical school, so I decided to take time off to prepare for the MCAT while earning my master’s in secondary education with a concentration in biology.” She taught seventh grade life science for six years, during which time she obtained a master’s degree in teacher leadership. She also taught anatomy, physiology, and microbiology part-time at Lawson State Community College.

“I decided teaching adolescents and young adults wasn’t what I wanted to do, so I looked at UAB’s health-related programs,” Hatter says. She landed on its biomedical health sciences master’s program. “I applied, was accepted, and quit my full-time job teaching seventh grade science. I kept my part-time job at Lawson State, though.” She completed the master’s program at the top of her class with a 4.0 GPA. Hatter was accepted to the UAB School of Medicine in March 2018. She was preparing to begin the training she had

dreamed of for so long when her personal life underwent a profound transformation, but she notes that raising her daughter and sisters motivates her. “I like providing them with stability,” she says. “In addition, my daughter is my biggest cheerleader. She sees me becoming a doctor as a joint venture and accomplishment for us.”

Hatter spent this past summer conducting medical research in anesthesiology, a field her mother first acquainted her with when she was 9 years old. “My mom worked as an anesthesia technician, and she sparked that interest in me,” she says. “This summer research opportunity was a perfect fit for me.”

For Hatter, family keeps her going despite her daunting and demanding schedule. “What keeps me in a positive state of mind is knowing that I’m making my family proud and that I’m finally pursing my goal of becoming a physician,” Hatter says. “No matter what obstacles or challenges I may have faced, I never gave up on my dreams. I may have detoured, but I never derailed.”

To learn about giving to medical scholarships and minority medical scholarships, contact Jessica Brooks Lane at (205) 975-4452 or jblane@uab.edu.

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ALUMNI PROFILES

THE NEXT GENERATION Meet award-winning young alumni who help shape our care and training programs

BY BRIAN HUDGINS

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ach year, UAB and the School of Medicine honor outstanding faculty through a variety of awards. Among the winners are numerous School of Medicine and Joint Health Sciences graduates who carry on UAB’s tradition of excellence in their professional lives as clinicians, researchers, and educators. Here we meet a few alumni whose talents and commitment to care and teaching have been honored in recent years.

An Artist in Medicine Medicine was woven into the upbringing of Anand Iyer, M.D., MSPH—his father has a family practice in Anniston and Gadsden, and his mother runs the clinic. Indelible childhood experiences gave Iyer, a three-time UAB graduate (2007 College of Arts and Sciences, 2011 School of Medicine, 2018 School of Public Health), youthful insights into an ongoing problem for many Alabamians. “My dad sees a primarily rural population,” Iyer says. “He would take his black medicine bag out and sometimes come back with tomatoes, or ‘maters,’ pies, or vegetables as payment. Seeing him reach out to people who were isolated in their homes is where it all started for me.”

That early education contributed to Iyer, an assistant professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, receiving the UAB National Alumni Society’s Young Alumni Rising Star Award in 2017 and the Outstanding Young Alumni Award in 2018. Witnessing rural Alabamians’ health care challenges motivated Iyer to step up to address them. He rebuilt the pulmonary clinic at Cooper Green Mercy Health Services to provide pulmonary care for hundreds of Jefferson County citizens and also conducts research at the interface of geriatrics, palliative care, and pulmonary medicine.

“In my research, I am trying to bring proactive geriatricspalliative care to people with pulmonary problems in their homes or over the telephone. So that arc of reaching out to somebody in the home and seeing how much that improves quality of life is an integral part of what I am doing,” Iyer says.

Iyer’s background as an accomplished pianist also played

a vital role in his clinical development. Although not a music major (he was recruited to UAB’s Early Medical School Acceptance Program and the University Honors Program in 2003), Iyer was mentored by Yakov Kasman, a distinguished professor and artist-in-residence in the Department of Music. Iyer recalls toting a keyboard up to the geriatric unit at UAB Hospital and playing jazz for patients’ music therapy.

“Focusing on palliative care to improve quality of life for people living with serious chronic respiratory diseases is outside of the box for a physician in pulmonary medicine, but this holistic thinking probably came from my training in the arts,” he says.

Those family ties and educational experiences across multiple disciplines gave Iyer the drive to provide care for patients in both rural and urban areas. “A lot of my advocacy is for older patients with COPD,” Iyer says. “I think there is also a mentoring role for me in teaching residents and medical students about what palliative care can offer these patients.”

Risk and Reward When Cristin Gavin, Ph.D ’12, made a “risky move” away from academic science to help build a new program at UAB, she knew she had a solid foundation to help her maintain her footing. Gavin received her doctorate in neuroscience from UAB while training remotely at The Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida.

Gavin, an assistant professor in the Department of Neurobiology, is the co-director of the Undergraduate Neuroscience Program, a collaboration that launched in 2008 between the Department of Neurobiology in the School of Medicine (SOM) and the Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS). “That has been a new challenge of bringing undergraduates into our world in the Joint Health Sciences in the School of Medicine,” Gavin says.

“We have not always had a rich undergraduate presence in our labs and our courses, but that has really been a paradigm shift for our faculty.”

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“I have spent a lot of time interfacing with many different people who I would never have the opportunity to come in contact with in my job as a scientist or a member of the neurobiology faculty,” Gavin says. “It has made UAB’s huge, rich environment seem so much more familiar and immediate.”

Gavin’s ties to UAB reach back to her childhood. She is a Birmingham native, and both of her parents are UAB graduates. As a nurse, Gavin’s mom provided care for former Gov. George Wallace when he was shot on the campaign trail in 1972. “He convinced her to apply to UAB’s physician assistant program,” Gavin says. “She did that before becoming a CRNA. She and my dad met in the program.”

Helping shape the Undergraduate Neuroscience Program is a scenario Gavin says is unique to UAB. “They are so open to innovation,” she says. “They were willing to take a risk on something that may or may not work. As long as I put thought, organization, and good plans into place, they were willing to try something new.”

Learning by Doing

Clockwise from top left: Anand Iyer, Cristin Gavin, and Winter Williams are all alumni faculty who have been recognized by UAB and/or the School of Medicine for their achievements and commitment to care and training.

It is a different set of challenges from the ones Gavin gravitated to as an undergrad at Birmingham-Southern College, where she pursued degrees in philosophy and biology. Those two disciplines intersected in neuroscience.

“What led me to neuroscience was thinking about the concrete system that exists in science and all of the higher order thought, reason, and cognition that comes from the established biological structures,” she says.

The switch to program builder led Gavin to winning a 2019 Dean’s Excellence Award for Teaching. Helping build an undergraduate-focused collaboration between the SOM and CAS enabled her to work with experts across UAB’s campus.

As Winter Williams, M.D. ’09, became an educator and care provider, he counted on a hands-on plan for success. “My training before joining the faculty included rigorous patient care exposure, which informs my focus as a clinician-educator on experiential learning—the chance to learn by doing,” Williams says. “Whether in the clinical setting or simulation activities, I hope to teach students and residents a hands-on approach to the complexity of medicine, including how to effectively interact and communicate with patients.”

Williams’ focus on experiential learning has paid off, for both him and the students and residents with whom he works. An assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, Williams won a 2019 Dean’s Excellence Award for Teaching.

Long before becoming a faculty member, Williams saw his father serve as a small-town surgeon in McComb, Mississippi.

To make sure a medical career was the correct path, Williams evaluated the patient care environment on his own.

“I got exposure to medicine early, but my parents did not push me in that direction,” Williams says. “They let me find my own way, which was critical in me discovering my own passion for medicine. After college, I worked as an emergency room technician for several months to ensure it was the right fit for me, and it confirmed my love of patient interaction and medicine as a whole.”

Williams draws on those experiences for one of the most gratifying aspects of his job: advising students who are making decisions about their own careers and applying for residencies. And he is not above seeking out advice from peers and colleagues when he needs it.

“I have an incredible group of colleagues in the Division of General Internal Medicine that have taught me so much,” he says. “They have filled that mentor role for me, and it has been rewarding to have a chance to pay that forward for the benefit of our students.”

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INVESTING IN INNOVATION

SEARCHING FOR SOLUTIONS Nephrology gifts spotlight innovative research and outstanding faculty

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labama has one of the country’s highest rates of kidney disease, but recent gifts to the Division of Nephrology aim to bolster research efforts, attract and retain key talent in the state, and combat the prevalence of the disease.

Ashita Tolwani, M.D., a nephrologist at UAB and a world-renowned expert on continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT), established the Tolwani Innovation Fund in Nephrology using royalties from an anticoagulant solution she developed in 2004 at UAB and patented in 2011. The money will support investigators and researchers studying novel ideas for therapies for kidney-related diseases.

The solution—currently distributed in Canada, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, and throughout Europe—helps critically ill patients safely receive a type of dialysis known as CRRT. CRRT is different from routine hemodialysis because it runs 24 hours a day and continuously removes fluids and toxins building up in the kidneys, Tolwani says.

“While it is far gentler than regular dialysis, it frequently requires anticoagulation to keep the dialysis circuit from clotting,” Tolwani explains. “The anticoagulation formulation developed at UAB improves the ability for us to deliver CRRT effectively and safely without having clotting issues.”

Anupam Agarwal, M.D., the director and Marie S. Ingalls Endowed Chair in Nephrology Leadership in the Division of Nephrology and executive vice dean of the School of Medicine, praises both Tolwani’s invention and initiative to create the fund that will help future researchers.

“She has set an example to enable others to take their ideas further toward a patent and to make that idea or invention be implemented for the benefit of both patients and health care providers,” Agarwal says.

Tolwani says the idea for the fund grew from discussions with Agarwal and her desire to give back to UAB, where she was encouraged and supported to find new solutions to kidney-related problems.

“If there is an innovative idea you wish to pursue at UAB, there is a way to get it done,” Tolwani says. “I am grateful I can support our innovators through this fund so they can create new innovations that will help others.”

HONORING A LEADER Throughout UAB Nephrology, faculty advance the field through their leadership skills and collaborative efforts.

Stephen Rostand, M.D., has been an example of these

principles his whole career. A renowned investigator and longtime faculty member, Rostand was recently honored when the Division of Nephrology renamed an existing endowed professorship the Stephen G. Rostand, M.D., Endowed Professorship in Nephrology.

“The creation of this endowed professorship in my name was a great and unexpected honor,” Rostand says. “I am pleased that my contributions to the School of Medicine, to patient care, and to the field of nephrology have made a difference.”

Rostand completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Duke University, as well as research fellowships in nephrology at Boston University Medical Center, the University of Pennsylvania, and Duke University. He did a two-year tour in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army, where he received the Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service.

Rostand came to UAB in 1973 as an assistant professor in the Division of Nephrology. He served as chief of Nephrology Service at the Birmingham Veterans Affairs Medical Center from 1973-1985 and as assistant chief of staff at University Hospital from 1985-1996. He is now professor emeritus in the Division of Nephrology. Rostand was the principal investigator for the Clinical Center at UAB for the African-American Study of Kidney Disease and Hypertension Trial (AASK), an eight-year multicenter study funded by the National Institutes of Health. He continued as the principal investigator of the AASK Cohort Study that followed for an additional five years.

Edward Inscho, Ph.D., professor in the Division of Nephrology, currently holds the endowed professorship in nephrology. His research focuses on the role P1 and P2 receptors play in regulating renal microvascular function in healthy and diseased kidney settings.

“Dr. Rostand’s contributions to the division have been instrumental in the growth and reputation of our programs,” says Agarwal. “This endowment will provide resources to support Dr. Inscho’s research.”

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Clockwise from top left: (left to right) research pharmacist Rajesh Speer, nephrologist Ashita Tolwani, and research nurse Brenda Stofan; Stephen Rostand; Roslyn Mannon; Michael Mrug; and Vineeta Kumar.

A TALENTED FIELD In April, Vineeta Kumar, M.D., and Roslyn Mannon, M.D., became holders of endowed positions in transplant nephrology, with Kumar serving as the inaugural holder of the Robert C. and Cutessa D. Bourge Endowed Professorship in Transplant Nephrology and Mannon assuming the Robert G. Luke, M.D., Endowed Chair in Transplant Nephrology.

A fund initially established by Robert Bourge, M.D., and his wife Cutessa was elevated through additional gifts into a professorship in transplant nephrology in their names. The endowment commemorates their exceptional philanthropy, dedication, and commitment to transplant nephrology at UAB.

Bourge says he believes that philanthropy is vital to advancing the School of Medicine’s three-part mission. “With all our mission areas—in clinical care, research, and teaching— funding can wax and wane,” says Bourge, professor and senior vice chair in the Department of Medicine and former holder of the E.A. and Abbie Drummond Endowed Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine, among other roles. “I believe endowments can provide stability and help us keep the best people here at UAB and continue our history of excellence.”

The Bourges also established the Detraz Family Endowed Professorship in Polycystic Kidney Disease, an effort that hits close to home. Polycystic kidney disease is a hereditary condition with complications ranging from hypertension to kidney failure, and it often leads to the need for a kidney transplant. The disease runs in Cutessa Detraz Bourge’s family, so they designated that the fund bear the Detraz name. “Dr. Michal Mrug is an established star in that area, so I’m happy he will be the holder of this professorship,” Bourge says.

Another star is Kumar, the lead nephrologist for both the UAB Living Kidney Donor Program and the UAB Incompatible Kidney Transplant Program. She is an expert in kidney transplantation, living kidney donation, incompatible kidney transplant, kidney paired donation, and cardiovascular outcomes after kidney transplantation. She has been named a “Top Doctor” by U.S. News & World Report each year since 2012 and was named “Best Educator” by the 2018, 2019, and 2020 UAB medical school classes. Earlier this year, she was awarded the UAB President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. “Throughout my 40 years at UAB, Dr. Kumar has been one of the most intelligent and compassionate physicians that I have ever met,” states Bourge. “I think she is the perfect fit to be named the Robert C. and Cutessa D. Bourge Endowed Professor in Transplant Nephrology.”

Mannon, a professor of medicine and surgery in transplant nephrology and the director of research in the UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute, is the holder of an endowed chair that honors a game-changing nephrologist.

Robert G. Luke, M.D., was the former division director of nephrology at UAB. In 1979, he started the first transplant nephrology service at UAB with John Curtis, M.D. The endowed chair in Luke’s name supports the important research, clinical, and educational efforts in the Division of Nephrology. Mannon personifies the recipient Luke envisioned. She studies the problem of long-term kidney graft failure. She also developed a research program in kidney and kidney/pancreas transplantation that spans the spectrum of basic science, translational studies, and clinical research.

“All of the gifts to the Division of Nephrology have an enduring impact on both our institution as a whole and our patients,” says Agarwal. “They are significant and will have lasting value.” – Holly Gainer, Emily Henagan, Bennett Page, and Jane Longshore To give to nephrology at UAB, contact Megann Bates Cain at (205) 934-7408 or meganncain@uabmc.edu.

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INVESTING IN INNOVATION

ALLIES IN THE FIGHT Advancing Alzheimer’s disease research

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lzheimer’s disease is called “the long goodbye” because of its particular cruelties. People with Alzheimer’s disease not only lose their memories and ability to function, but their personalities also often undergo profound changes—a different but no less painful loss for their loved ones. But thanks to the support of philanthropic partners, UAB researchers are untangling the mysteries of the disease with hopes to develop new preventive measures and treatments.

Earlier this year, the Gale Foundation made a generous $500,000 gift to establish the Rebecca Gale Endowed Professorship in the Department of Neurology, and the foundation has committed future gifts that will elevate the professorship to an endowed chair. The purpose of the gift is to help the department recruit and/or retain a national leader in Alzheimer’s disease care and research. Established

by Rebecca and the late Edwin Gale of Beaumont, Texas, the Gale Foundation supports a variety of initiatives around education and human services, among other causes. “You can never go wrong doing the right thing,” says Rebecca Gale, a philosophy that influenced the Gales’ philanthropic giving.

“We are grateful for the support of the Gale Foundation in committing to establish the Rebecca Gale Chair in Neurology,” says David Standaert, M.D., Ph.D., the John N. Whitaker Endowed Chair in the Department of Neurology. “This endowment, which will remain with the university in perpetuity, will help us recruit, retain, and support the most talented physicians and scientists. It will allow them to focus their energy on developing treatments and cures for Alzheimer’s disease and other important neurological disorders. This is truly a gift that will change the future for the better.”

This spring, UAB created the Pre-Doctoral Scholars Program for Alzheimer’s Disease Research with a generous gift from the Alzheimer’s of Central Alabama Junior Board.

The program supports two graduate students conducting Alzheimer’s disease research over the next three years.

“This focused program is for pre-doctoral graduate students to study basic and translational approaches to Alzheimer’s disease,” says Erik Roberson, M.D., Ph.D., the Patsy W. and Charles A. Collat Professor of Neuroscience and director of the UAB Alzheimer’s Disease Center. “This unique emphasis will enable our students to take leading roles in therapeutic discovery across the spectrum of different skill sets and enterprises that are required to deliver the vitally needed treatments of the future.”

“Since Alzheimer’s of Central Alabama’s Jr. Board was established in 2015, they have attracted a dynamic group of young people who are both personally and professionally tied to the disease,” says Miller Piggott, executive director of Alzheimer’s of Central Alabama. “They are ambitiously raising money with two major annual fundraisers: Glow for a Cure, a nighttime golf tournament in August, and Ales for Alzheimer’s, a spring event at Avondale Brewery. In addition, they host an annual educational event for their peers. It is our hope that establishing the Pre-Doctoral Scholars Program for Alzheimer’s Disease Research at UAB can assist in recruiting the brightest, most promising graduate students to establish careers in Alzheimer’s research.”

In addition to the Pre-Doctoral Scholars Program, ACA has funded 24 research grants at Alabama universities since 2001, including 21 at UAB. This summer, the New Neighbors League Club (NNLC) of Birmingham gave a $4,000 gift to the Alzheimer’s Research Program led by Jeremy Herskowitz, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Neurology. The NNLC raised most of the money through a mah jongg tournament and fundraiser.

This gift will help sustain Herskowitz’s work to understand what causes Alzheimer’s at the molecular level and how those processes can be stopped or reversed. His past research efforts have included identifying an enzyme in the brain that may be an intriguing target for interventions against Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. He has also been studying what differentiates people who have amyloid-beta and tau pathology in their brains but do not develop dementia from those who have dementia. – Jane Longshore, Bennett Page, and Bob Shepard To give to Alzheimer’s disease care and research at UAB, contact Katye Fuglaar at (205) 934-0792 or kcf@uab.edu.

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FINDING HOPE IN TRAGEDY Research fund memorializes beloved former faculty member and ALS expert

BY EMILY HENAGAN

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or 56 years, Birmingham neurologist Gwen Claussen, M.D., did it all. She chased sunsets in Hawaii, hiked canyon trails in Utah, skied the mountains of Colorado, and basked in the beauty of art and architecture in Italy. She dedicated herself to caring for her patients with ALS—amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease—and other neuromuscular disorders. She also devoted her life to sharing adventures with her husband of 32 years, Tom, and being a loving mother to her two adult sons, Matthew and Michael.

In April 2018, Claussen died tragically in a car accident. But her untimely death hasn’t diminished the impact she made on so many people. Family, friends, former patients, and longtime colleagues joined forces to create the Gwen Claussen, M.D., Endowed ALS Education and Research Fund in her honor.

“We wanted to pay tribute to her in a way that embodied her spirit and showed everyone who she was,” says Peter King, M.D., professor and vice chair of the Department of Neurology and chief of neurology for the Birmingham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, who counted Claussen as a friend and colleague for more than 24 years. “Gwen loved being an educator. She enjoyed helping trainees understand the material that had eluded them. She had an open door policy to those in need of help, and her patience was an inspiration to everyone in the neurology department.”

King conceived of the fund, which will support undergraduate students conducting ALS research at UAB. He has hosted many undergraduates in his lab throughout the years, and he says fostering that interest at an early age is the best and most practical way of getting the next generation involved in helping find new treatment options and ultimately a cure for ALS. The progressive neurodegenerative disease affects about 30,000 Americans, and there are few treatment options available for patients.

The fund has drawn great support from family, friends, colleagues, and former trainees, and Tom Claussen has made a significant gift to it. “ALS is a terrible disease,” he says. “If we can make some headway in correcting this disease, then that would be something good coming out of Gwen’s death.”

Before leaving to practice in Tuscaloosa in 2014, Gwen Claussen worked for 26 years at UAB. She established Alabama’s first ALS Multidisciplinary Clinic while at UAB, bringing together several specialists to treat patients more effectively and study the deadly disease. During her UAB career, she served as professor of neurology, director of

Top to bottom: Gwen Claussen (right) with Peter King (center) and another ALS faculty member circa 2009; Gwen and Tom Claussen on one of their trips exploring the wonders of the U.S. and Canada.

the ALS Multidisciplinary Clinic, associate director of both the Neuromuscular Pathology Laboratory and the Neuromuscular Disease Laboratory, and fellowship director of the Neuromuscular Medicine Program. She earned many awards and accolades over her career, but she was proudest of her Argus Award for Best Neurology Attending Teaching presented by the residents at the end of each year.

For Tom Claussen and King, her memory lives on in the special attention she paid to her loved ones and patients.

She made house calls to patients who could not make it to the clinic. “She was incredibly important to that population of people and was a lifeline for them,” says Tom Claussen. “She helped some of her immobile patients get walking again.”

“She had the most generous spirit,” adds King. “She lived to help those around her, and she was the smartest person in the room with the most compassion anyone could have.

I’m glad her legacy will be honored at UAB.” – Matt Windsor contributed to this article

To give to ALS care and research at UAB, contact Katye Fuglaar at (205) 934-0792 or kcf@uab.edu.

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LEAVING A LEGACY Retired pediatric doctor pledges support across multiple subspecialty areas

BY EMILY HENAGAN

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rowing up, Carolyn Ashworth, M.D., noticed that sick children needed an advocate. Despite having no family members who practiced medicine, Ashworth decided the best way to accomplish her childhood calling was to pursue pediatric medicine.

“Children needed someone to speak for them and someone to focus on their health,” Ashworth says.

After 25 years at UAB, Ashworth retired in 2017.

However, she still focuses on children and their health by giving back to areas in the UAB Department of Pediatrics. She pledged a legacy gift to three subspecialties: general academic pediatrics, developmental and behavioral pediatrics, and adolescent medicine.

Anyone can make a legacy gift to UAB by pledging a portion or all of their estate, life insurance policy, or retirement payout to the area or areas they value. Ashworth says it was critical to her that she give to those three subspecialties because they are primed for opportunity.

“I became director of the Division of General Pediatrics in 1995, and pediatric medicine has changed so much since then. There is more knowledge and more information specific to children and adolescents, and to their behavior and development,” she says. “These areas, along with training the next generation of doctors in pediatric medicine, are very important to me. They have so much potential to improve the overall health of children.”

Ashworth notes that clinicians and researchers are learning more about behavior and development than when she was a resident. More is known today, for example, about how children’s brains respond to different stressors. However, there are still gaps in understanding how to build resilience, Ashworth adds.

“There are things that we didn’t know or weren’t around when I was training—like teenagers dealing with social media and technology—which are part of the challenge of medicine today,” she explains. “There is a lot of work to do with its fair share of challenges and changes. Hopefully my gift will be a little bit of help.”

She joined the UAB Department of Pediatrics in 1991 after earning her medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta in 1981, completing a three-year pediatric residency at the Medical College of Georgia, and spending two years at Duke University Medical Center as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Fellowship in Academic General Pediatrics.

In 1995, she became the director of the five-member Division of General Pediatrics. Later that year, it merged with the four-member Division of Adolescent Medicine to form the Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Faculty members supervised medical students and residents in providing care in a variety of settings: the UAB Newborn Nursery; Children’s General Inpatient Pediatric Service; residents’ continuity clinics; juvenile detention facilities; and subspecialty clinics such as an Adolescent Clinic, Medical Autism Clinic, and the follow-up clinic for prematurely born infants. The faculty grew in number to reflect the scope of knowledge about child development, preventive care, and adolescent health needs. Upon Ashworth’s retirement, the groups became three distinct divisions reflecting the unique health care needs of the children and youth they served.

One of the most rewarding parts of Ashworth’s career involved training medical students, residents, and fellows. She says she felt a sense of pride when a trainee helped a patient by combining what they learned from their academic work and clinical experience. “It’s like watching a spark flare up into a campfire,” Ashworth says. “As they grow in experience, they can make that right decision for the patient. It’s fun to watch.”

Now that she has pledged a legacy gift to three subspecialties close to her heart, she encourages other faculty and staff to give back to the School of Medicine. “I’m very grateful for people who donated money when I was a resident,” she says. “If it is important to you, then you want to support it with your time, energy, and money.”

To give to pediatrics at UAB, contact Andrea Martin at (205) 934-9303 or amartin@peds.uab.edu. To make a planned gift, contact Kimberley Coppock at (205) 975-5970 or kcoppock@uab.edu.

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IN LOVING MEMORY Family honors esteemed neurosurgeon and wife through generous gifts

BY CARY ESTES

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van Zeiger III always knew his father’s work as a neurosurgeon was life-saving. But he didn’t realize how deeply impactful it truly was until after his parents—H. Evan Zeiger Jr., a 1974 School of Medicine graduate, and Margaret “Peggy” Shook Zeiger—died in a plane crash in 2010.

Even nine years later, Zeiger III says their memorial service remains vivid in his memory.

“Literally hundreds of his patients attended the service,” Zeiger III says. “Countless people came up to me and said, ‘Your dad saved my life. I’m so thankful for him. He truly listened and cared about me.’ That’s when it clicked for me just how much of an impact he made on people’s lives.”

That impact continues to reverberate through the Zeiger Charitable Foundation, which recently made two gifts to the UAB School of Medicine: one to establish an endowed scholarship and the other to establish an endowed faculty scholar fund in the Department of Neurosurgery. UAB intends to grow the fund into an endowed professorship and eventually an endowed chair. “The foundation is a way to carry on the amazing heart and love that my mom and dad had,” Zeiger III says. “They were selfless and generous. They truly put others’ needs above their own, even accepting difficult cases knowing the patient had no insurance to pay for surgery or personally flying food and medical supplies to hurricane-torn Honduras.”

Zeiger Jr. grew up in Birmingham and graduated from Samford University before attending medical school at UAB. He later served as an associate professor in the UAB Division of Neurosurgery from 1981-87. Zeiger III says his father was “very exact and meticulous” in his work but was also a caring man who “gave great hugs.”

“I grew up watching him in surgery, and it was obvious he expected the people who worked with him to be on their A game,” Zeiger III says. “Everybody knew he was the leader in the OR, but they also knew he cared about them like family. We’d go to the ICU on Christmas and sing carols for the nurses who had to work that day. That’s just the type of person he was.”

In addition to maintaining a private practice, Zeiger Jr. served as both chief of neurosurgery and chair of the Department of Surgery at Carraway Methodist Medical Center in Birmingham.

His three decades of work in Birmingham made him a well-known and respected member of the local medical community.

“Evan and Peggy Zeiger were remarkable individuals,” says Mark Hadley, M.D., Charles A. and Patsy W. Collat Endowed

Left to right: Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education Craig Hoesley, M.D.; Evan Zeiger III, M.D.; Neurosurgery Chair James Markert, M.D., MPH; and Neurosurgery Professor G. Yancey Gillespie, Ph.D.

Professor of Neurosurgery and director emeritus of the Neurosurgery Residency Program. “They were grounded in the principles of faith, service, and community. He practiced with skill and integrity and lived his life the same way.

“The Zeiger family has been generous in supporting the Department of Neurosurgery. The endowed faculty scholar is a set-aside gift aimed to stimulate alumni and any organizations influenced by Evan Zeiger Jr. to contribute. The goal is to create an endowed professorship and chair honoring Evan Zeiger Jr. and his accomplishments in neurosurgery and health care.”

Zeiger III was so influenced by his father’s passion for medicine that he is now pursuing a medical career, too. He graduated from the UAB School of Medicine this past May—becoming a third-generation alumnus—and is conducting his neurology residency at the West Virginia University School of Medicine.

“We want to continue seeing UAB grow and excel, especially the neurosurgery training program,” Zeiger III says. “Dad thought the human brain was the most beautifully complex thing in the world. He’d be pleased to know that he is still helping future neurosurgeons become trained. I’m elated that future generations of physicians will be encouraged to carry on his legacy of character, intelligent technique, and compassion through this scholarship and endowment.”

To give to medical scholarships, contact Jessica Lane at (205) 975-4452 or jblane@uab.edu, and to UAB neurosurgery, contact Katye Fuglaar at (205) 934-0792 or kcf@uab.edu.

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MEET THE 2019 ENTERING CLASS

ACROSS CAMPUS

509

186

average MCAT score

matriculated

Events, announcements, and achievements in the academic life of the School of Medicine

49

undergraduate colleges represented

48% female

3.77 average GPA

23

mean age at application

52% male

LEADERSHIP NEWS Dan Berkowitz, M.D., MBBCh, was named chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine.

He came to UAB after 25 years at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he served most recently as the vice chair for research in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care.

Adam McClintock, MBA, CIP, became director of the UAB Office of the Institutional Review Board for Human Use (IRB) following a national search. He previously served as the human research protections manager for OhioHealth Research & Innovation Institute and as the operations manager in the Office of Responsible Research Practices at The Ohio State University.

Elizabeth Worthey, Ph.D., joined the UAB Department of Pediatrics as the director for the Center for Genomic Data Sciences.

Additionally, she will serve in the Department of Pathology as the director of the Bioinformatics Section in the Division of Genomics Diagnostics and Bioinformatics. She is also the new associate director for the Hugh Kaul Precision Medicine Institute.

On Aug. 18, the School of Medicine welcomed the 2019 entering class to the Alabama Theatre for the annual White Coat Ceremony. The ceremony marks the end of medical school orientation and the students’ first class, “Patient, Doctor, and Society,” which explores physicians’ role in society with emphasis on professionalism, compassion, responsibility, ethics, and the doctor/patient relationship. Students were officially presented with their white coats, which were provided by the Medical Alumni Association, at the ceremony.

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UAB Medicine Fall 2019

ACROSS CAMPUS

UAB HOSTS NIA DIRECTOR Research funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging (NIA) has increased dramatically as the U.S. population ages. Since 2011, when the first wave of baby boomers turned 65, 10,000 Americans have turned 65 daily. Over that same period, funding for the NIA has tripled as more and more older Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, osteoporosis, cancer, heart disease, and all the other health problems that aging can bring.

To discuss the latest research focused on ways to keep us healthier longer, UAB hosted Richard Hodes, M.D., director of the NIA since 1993, as keynote speaker for a scientific symposium in October.

His presentation reviewed the diverse types of aging and dementia research, as well as the programs and infrastructure that the NIA is currently supporting. The presentation also outlined the impact of recent investments on the dementia research field as a whole, including new funding opportunities.

HEALTHCARE EDUCATORS ACADEMY LAUNCHES On Sept. 17, UAB celebrated the launch of its Healthcare Educators Academy (HEA). The HEA’s mission is to advance the development of faculty in the health professions throughout UAB by strengthening educators through mentorship, fostering a culture of excellence in teaching, developing innovative teaching resources across disciplines, and advancing a collaborative teaching environment.

The HEA is a strategic partnership among the School of Medicine (SOM) and the Schools of Dentistry (SOD), Health Professions (SHP), Public Health (SPH), and Nursing (SON).

Twelve faculty mentors and 12 faculty mentees comprise the HEA’s pilot class: Mentors • Caroline Harada, M.D., associate professor of medicine and assistant dean for community-engaged scholarship, SOM • Kenneth Kim, M.D., associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, SOM • Dawn Taylor Peterson, Ph.D., assistant professor of medical education, SOM • David Rogers, M.D., MHPE, professor of pediatric surgery and senior associate dean of faculty affairs and professional development, SOM; chief wellness officer, UAB Medicine • Laurel Hitchcock, Ph.D., MPH, LICSW, associate professor of social work, College of Arts and Sciences • Jason Morris, M.D., FACP, associate professor of medicine, SOM • James Willig, M.D., MSPH, associate professor of medicine and associate dean of clinical education, SOM • Tino Unlap, Ph.D., CRA, professor of clinical and diagnostic sciences, SHP • Robin Lanzi, Ph.D., MPH, professor of health behavior, SPH • Cathy Roche, Ph.D., R.N., assistant professor of nursing, SON • Lisa Willett, M.D., MACM, FACP, professor and vice chairperson of medicine; director, Tinsley Harrison Internal Medicine Residency Program, SOM • Jessica Williams, Ph.D., MPH, assistant professor of health services administration, SHP

RUNNING FOR CARE Equal Access Birmingham (EAB) hosted its sixth annual Heart + Sole 5K run Aug. 24 to raise funds for the School of Medicine’s student-run free health clinic, which provides medical care to underserved and uninsured populations in the greater Birmingham area. The run had 228 registered participants and 23 sponsors, and it raised $21,000 for the EAB Clinic.

EAB was created in 2005 to improve health care access for underserved populations in the Birmingham area and provide School of Medicine students with service learning experiences. Student volunteers see approximately 400 patients per year at the EAB Clinic.

Mentees

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• Heather Austin, Ph.D., associate professor of adolescent medicine, SOM • Andrew Gunn, M.D., assistant professor of radiology, SOM • Maninder Kaur, BDS, M.S., MPH, assistant professor of periodontology, SOD • Brenessa Lindeman, M.D., MEHP, assistant professor of surgery, SOM • April Love, MSN, R.N., instructor of nursing, SON • Will Meador, M.D., assistant professor of neurology, SOM • Gregory Pavela, Ph.D., assistant professor of health behavior, SPH • David Resuehr, Ph.D., assistant professor of cell, developmental and integrative biology, SOM • Carleton Rivers, M.S., RDN, assistant professor of nutrition sciences, SHP • Audra Williams, M.D., MPH, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology, SOM • Maxwell Thompson, M.D., assistant professor of emergency medicine, SOM • Rebekah Weil, M.D., assistant professor of medicine, SOM

ACROSS CAMPUS

RURAL MEDICAL SCHOLARS ENTER FAMILY MEDICINE RESIDENCY Four School of Medicine graduates who were also Rural Medical Scholars entered The University of Alabama Family Medicine Residency Program this summer.

Jacob Guin, M.D., Joshua Price, M.D., Crystal Skinner, M.D., and Hannah Zahedi, M.D., are the largest group of Rural Medical Scholars to finish the two programs in a number of years. They plan to complete their residency and practice family medicine in rural West Alabama in places such as Coker, Marion, and Moundville.

The Rural Medical Scholars Program and residency comprise an eight-year educational commitment that includes a year to earn a master’s degree, four years of medical school, and three years of residency. Since the Rural Medical Scholars Program was created in 1996, 128 scholars have finished their medical education and residency. Current information shows 101 of those scholars are now practicing in Alabama.

“Geography helps me establish a better relationship with my patients. I know their landmarks. I’ve seen their home and community,” says Zahedi.

TEACHING THE TEACHERS The Department of Medicine has premiered the second installment in its MedEd Moments video series, “Giving Feedback.” The video addresses one of a clinician educator’s most important skills: giving timely feedback on specific behaviors in an appropriate setting.

The MedEd Moments series was designed by faculty development specialists to be widely applicable across the medical training profession.

Each approximately five minute long installment incorporates adult learning principles using high-quality video and state-of-the-art theory to facilitate and encourage active learning. The vignettes serve as a foundational primer on teaching techniques and a reference or review for seasoned, experienced faculty.

The new video and the first installment, “Setting Expectations,” are available on the Department of Medicine’s website under the Education tab.

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UAB Medicine Fall 2019

SELMA PHYSICIANS TALK ‘MEDICAL MATTERS’ The UAB Selma Family Medicine Residency Program (part of the UAB School of Medicine Montgomery Regional Medical Campus), Vaughan Regional Medical Center, and the Selma-Dallas County Public Library have joined forces to host a series of monthly “Medical Matters” community meetings. The meetings began Sept. 6 with a discussion of “Aging Well,” and a new health topic will be discussed each month for eight months. The next several Medical Matters meetings will explore women’s health, flu season, and emotional wellness.

“We’re trying to build trust with the community that should be there between a doctor and a patient,” Hamid Qazi, M.D., of the UAB Selma Family Medicine Residency Program, told the Selma Times-Journal. “We want to show them that they don’t have to keep running to Montgomery and Birmingham when there’s good care available here. Stay in Selma; we’ll take good care of you.”

SCHOOL FORUMS FEATURE HUNTSVILLE EXPERTS Child psychiatrists Clinton Martin, M.D., and Janaki Nimmagadda, M.D., from the UAB School of Medicine Huntsville Regional Medical Campus are collaborating with Huntsville City Schools in a series of community outreach meetings called “Safe and Inclusive Schools.”

Nimmagadda spoke about ADHD in children and adolescents, and Martin spoke about psychosis in adolescents at an Aug. 24 forum.

According to Martin, the audience received their presentations very well. Nimmagadda and Martin will speak again at an April 21 meeting from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. at the Annie Merts Center in Huntsville.

According to Christie Finley, superintendent for Huntsville City Schools (HCS), the Safe and Inclusive Schools effort is part of the “Year of the Whole Student,” a pillar of HCS’ strategic plan. The effort is meant to ensure that the Huntsville schools are safe and conducive for learning for all students.

SEEN ON SOCIAL As part of the School of Medicine’s celebration of Wellness Month in August, faculty members, medical students, and residents shared their thoughts on social media about what they do to maintain physical and emotional well-being.

AWARDS & ACCOLADES Anupam Agarwal, M.D., executive vice dean of the School of Medicine and director of the Division of Nephrology, has been named president of the American Society of Nephrology, which represents more than 20,000 health professionals in 131 countries dedicated to leading the fight against kidney diseases.

Monica Baskin, Ph.D., professor in the Division of Preventive Medicine, received the 2019 Odessa Woolfolk Community Service Award, which recognizes a faculty member who has rendered outstanding service to the Birmingham community in education, economic development, health care delivery, the arts, social services, human rights, and urban and public affairs.

Etty (Tika) Benveniste, Ph.D., senior vice dean for basic sciences in the School of Medicine and professor in the Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at UAB. Smita Bhatia, M.D., MPH, received the Northwestern Mutual Award for Excellence in Childhood Cancer Survivorship. The award recognizes an individual who translates research findings into intervention-based approaches and/or makes outstanding contributions to childhood cancer survivors’ clinical care.

Do-Yeon Cho, M.D., M.S., assistant professor and director of otolaryngology research in the Department of Otolaryngology, received the Triological Society Career Development Award to support his chronic sinusitis research and a K08 award from the National Institutes of Health for his project, “Dysbiosis of the Sinus Microbiota in Chronic Rhinosinusitis.”

James Cimino, M.D., director of the UAB Informatics Institute, was awarded the 2019 Morris F. Collen Award of Excellence by the American College of Medical Informatics.

Tamera Coyne-Beasley, M.D., MPH, professor in the Department of Pediatrics, was elected to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Board of Directors.

Christine Curcio, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, received the 2019 RPB David F. Weeks Award for Outstanding AMD Research, funded through Research to Prevent Blindness, an anonymous donor, and the Association of University Professors of Ophthalmology.

German Henostroza, M.D., associate professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, was elected president-elect of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene’s Clinical Group. The ASTMH is the largest international scientific organization of experts dedicated to reducing the worldwide burden of tropical infectious diseases and improving global health.

Gustavo (Tavo) Heudebert, M.D., MACP, interim dean of the UAB School of Medicine Montgomery Regional Medical Campus, received the Ellen Gregg Ingalls/UAB National Alumni Society Award for Lifetime Achievement in Teaching, the highest award for teaching presented by UAB. Jayme Locke, M.D., MPH, director of the UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute and the UAB Incompatible Kidney Transplant Program, was appointed to the Committee on Admissions for the Society of Clinical Surgery.

Sadis Matalon, Ph.D., FAPS, distinguished professor and the Alice McNeal Endowed Chair of Anesthesiology, received the George Kotzias Award from the Hellenic Physiological Society.

Sara Mazzoni, M.D., MPH, associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, was awarded the 2019 Brewer-Heslin Endowed Award for Professionalism in Medicine.

Cynthia Owsley, Ph.D., the Nathan E. Miles Chair of Ophthalmology and director of the Clinical Research Unit in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, received the 2019 Jenny Pomeroy Award for Excellence in Vision and Public Health from Prevent Blindness.

Gene Siegal, M.D., Ph.D., executive vice chair in the Department of Pathology, was sworn in as president of the American Society for Clinical Pathology, the world’s largest professional member organization for pathologists and laboratory professionals.

GET TO KNOW

ART FOR EVERYONE

Researcher on a mission to capture Birmingham murals

BY JANE LONGSHORE

O

riginally from Hungary, Viktoria Havasi, M.D., Ph.D., is a researcher in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics.

She has been conducting cystic fibrosis research at UAB since 2006.

In her downtime, she is on a mission to photograph every mural in the Birmingham area.

Havasi started an Instagram account, @magiccitymurals, to showcase her photos. She has photographed over 100 murals across the metro area so far and says she has a list of 20-30 more she plans to shoot.

“A lot of the murals are in places that were kind of run-down before,” Havasi says. “It was an ugly gray wall, and someone came with a bunch of paint and made something beautiful.”

Havasi is often surprised by the hidden gems she finds. “Sometimes I don’t even know what the murals look like beforehand. I just have an address and go there, and I’m like, ‘Wow!’ “I hope that people discover how pretty Birmingham is, how many murals we have, and how many nice areas we have that they might not know about.”

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UAB Medicine Fall 2019

FEATURE

Be our partner in shaping the future of medicine At the UAB School of Medicine, we’re dedicated to improving the health of people not only in Alabama but across the globe. With your support, we’re training the next generation of leaders in medicine, conducting groundbreaking research, and providing world-class patient care. Thanks to alumni like you, the future can be healthier for all.

To learn more about giving to the UAB School of Medicine, visit uab.edu/medicine/give.

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