12th and Marshall spring 2015

ART & MEDICINE

T I C K- B O R N E D I S E A S E

NEWS FROM THE HEART OF THE MCV CAMPUS

School of Medicine

C L A S S N OT E S

SPRING 2015

FROM THE DEAN

Jerome F. Strauss III, M.D., Ph.D. Sometimes I worry about our admissions committee.

This year, we received a record 9,006 applications. We only have 216 seats. Committee members have the unenviable task of winnowing down the applicant pool, assessing drive, determination and dreams and assembling the first-year class.

We see great grades and MCAT scores, of course, but the academic record doesn’t tell the whole story.

So we look at each applicant holistically.

That means the committee did more than 900 interviews.

They discover applicants who have unique experiences that enrich the learning environment for the whole class. At an average age of 24.5, the incoming students bring to medical school a variety of work experiences as well as service in public health and medical missions around the world.

When I arrived in 2005, we had 4,877 applicants for 184 seats. Since then, across the nation, we’ve seen an increase in the number of students applying to medical school. By 2014, the national applicant pool had grown by 32 percent. In that same time span, applications to our own medical school increased by nearly double that.

Why does our growth far outpace the nation’s?

I’d say it’s our innovation. We’ve got a state-of-the-art building and one of the largest simulation spaces in the country. Even deans and facilities staff from other medical schools visit campus to check it out.

Despite the increasingly competitive Match process that we told you about in the debut issue of this magazine, we place most of our students into the specialties they want. All over the country. Matching to great residency programs. You can see where this year’s graduating class is headed on page 14 of this issue.

And now this year’s USMLE Step 1 scores are starting to arrive. Our new curriculum gets students through their pre-clinical studies quicker than ever, so they take the licensing exam earlier than ever. (A story on page 24 will tell you more about that.) With 93 percent of the scores in hand, we’re seeing results that are 12–13 points higher than previous classes.

That’s important not only because it means those students can move into clinical training. Those scores are what residency program directors will look at in a couple of years to decide who they’ll consider for their programs. With scores above the national average, our students will be in a position to follow their dreams into the specialties they love.

Medical school applicants look at outcomes like these. It’s one of the reasons we have applicants from all over the country.

Unfortunately, it looks like the job of our admissions committee is getting even more difficult.

Jerome F. Strauss III, M.D., Ph.D. Dean, School of Medicine Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, VCU Health System

12th & Marshall Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2015 Published twice a year by the Alumni and Development Office of the School of Medicine on Virginia Commonwealth University’s Medical College of Virginia Campus.

Letters to the Editor along with reader comments and suggestions are welcome; please write to us at P.O. Box 980022, Richmond, VA 23298-0022 or MedAlum@vcu.edu.

DEAN Jerome F. Strauss III, M.D., Ph.D. ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR DEVELOPMENT Tom Holland EDITOR Erin Lucero ASSISTANT EDITOR FOR CLASS NOTES Jack Carmichael CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jill U. Adams, Jack Carmichael, Lisa Crutchfield, Nan Johnson, Janet Showalter PHOTOGRAPHERS Steven Casanova, Allen Jones, Tom Kojcsich, Nancy Parker, Lindy Rodman, Kevin Schindler, Karl E. Steinbrenner, Marife Teague, Morgan Yacoe GRAPHIC DESIGN Scout Design The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the magazine or the VCU School of Medicine.

Articles, artwork and photography may be reprinted only with prior permission. © Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015.

LET US KNOW > Your latest news > Stories you’d like to see covered in future issues > What you think of this new magazine You can get our attention at http://go.vcu.edu/MedAlum via email at MedAlum@vcu.edu or snail mail at P.O. Box 980022, Richmond, VA 23298-0022 We’d love to hear from you!

NEWS FROM THE HEART OF THE MCV CAMPUS

ON CAMPUS Celebrating $1.8 Million in Scholarships ........................... 3 Saving Football ..................................................................... 8 Match Day ............................................................................ 14

FEATURES What's in Her Pocket? ......................................................... 20 Combatting Tick-Borne Disease ........................................ 22 Out of the Classroom, Into the Clinic .............................. 24 I2CRP Projects Help Medically Underserved .................. 28 Art & Medicine .................................................................... 36

CLASS NOTES Catch up with Your Classmates .......................................... 42 Piece of the Past .................................................................. 58 Mark Your Calendar for CME and Reunion ....................... 59 In Memoriam ...................................................................... 60 Through Your Eyes .............................................................. 64

Cover: Plastic surgery residents Jeremy Powers, M'14, and Brian Le, M'09, with sculptor Morgan Yacoe in the studio.

Cover photography: Allen Jones, VCU University Marketing

SPRING 2015

FROM YOU

Letters to the Editor My inaugural copy of 12th and Marshall arrived today and it is a wonderful idea, beautifully executed. I look forward to each future issue.

Congratulations and thanks.

Norman Sporn, M'57 Richmond, Va. Congratulations on a super inaugural issue of 12th & Marshall!

I thoroughly enjoyed the new magazine, especially Lisa Crutchfield's feature article on Kenny Offerman, with whom I share common connections to my PhD mentor Gaylen Bradley and her PhD mentor Judy Bond (also Gaylen's wife). I'm happy to see the magazine including articles on scientist grads (including PhD and MD-PhD) in addition to the MD grads. Thank you!

Again, congratulations on a great first issue!

I look forward to the next one!

The Fall 2014 edition is great, wonderful, magnificent! Beats Harvard Med mag completely.

Congratulations.

David W. Richardson, H’55 Richmond, Va. I wanted to express my compliments on the new magazine. It was quite impressive. I get the long standing magazines from University of Southern California and Washington University in St. Louis and I think it compares favorably.

Ralph S. Riffenburgh, M’47 Claremont, Calif.

Congratulations on your inaugural issue. Very nice indeed. I wonder that they’ve never had one before.

Keep up the good work.

Terry Woodworth, PhD'82 (MICR) Charlottesville, Va.

Mary Martin Powell, H’52 Newtown Square, Penn.

What a blast! Congratulations to you.

Francis H. McMullan, M’51, H’52 Richmond, Va. I enjoyed reading the initial edition of 12th & Marshall. Especially the section on Matching which was a lot easier in my days. It seems you covered every corner of the school. Keep up the good work. I truly appreciated the article on my deceased classmate, Don Perkins. We had gone to Pharmacy school together and both returned to N.J. for Ophthalmology practices.

Marvin G. Frank, M’65 Longboat Key, Fla. Congratulations on the new 12th and Marshall. Remembering as I do when “12th and Marshall” meant (I think) the Skull and Bones, this is an improvement, and it looks great! I am a 1982 graduate of the MCV pediatrics residency program, and the education I received was superb, not only in terms of hard medical knowledge but in terms of what it truly means to be a children’s physician. I have never forgotten the quality of the people I had the privilege to work with at MCV. Jeffrey H. Lamont, H’82 Weston, Wis.

EDI TOR’ S NOTES Well, gee! We’re so glad you liked it!

Thanks so much for your feedback on our inaugural issue.

Please keep it coming!

You may remember the photo feature in our fall issue, “What Not to Wear.”

In it, Infectious Diseases Chair Gonzalo Bearman, M.D., M.P.H., described how traditional physician dress may play a role in transmission of pathogens in the inpatient setting.

Now the medical school has announced a new dress code for students starting inpatient rotations. Scrubs and a vest will make bare below the elbows easier than ever.

ON C A M PUS

The Latest from Students, Faculty and the School

M CV FOU N DAT IO N’ S A N N UA L BR U N C H CE LE BR ATE S $1. 8 M I LLI ON I N SCH OLA R SH I PS “You have indescribably enhanced our time as students here at MCV. Your confidence in us is an incredibly inspiring gift, and we hope to one day be in your shoes, giving back to MCV.”

Photography by Chris Ijams, CSI Studios

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his year, 35 new scholarships were established on the MCV Campus, bringing the total to 325 funds supporting more than 430 students.

One of those students is the Class of 2015’s Ben Lindsey, who was chosen to speak on behalf of his fellow students at the MCV Foundation’s annual scholarship brunch. He holds the Kinloch Nelson Scholarship named after the beloved Dean of Medicine who is credited with starting the school’s Department of Family Practice and for whom the Nelson Clinic is named.

Before starting medical school, Ben worked as a medical scribe in Charlottesville, Va. He told the audience, “Many of the residents with whom I worked had attended medical school at MCV. They tended to be the most competent residents and they raved about the clinical experience they had received while attending MCV for medical school. It was my interaction with these MCV alumni and my desire for an unparalleled clinical experience that convinced me to aim for MCV.” The School of Medicine’s alumni have continued to impress him as he looks beyond graduation

this spring. Ben traveled to hospitals and academic medical centers across the country for residency interviews. Everywhere he interviewed he found connections to the MCV Campus and alumni who were excited to meet him and help out however they could.

At the close of his speech, Ben told the assembled donors, “You have indescribably enhanced our time as students here at MCV. Your confidence in us is an incredibly inspiring gift, and we hope to one day be in your shoes, giving back to MCV.” – By Jack Carmichael

Since 1949, the MCV Foundation has been serving VCU’s MCV Campus.

It's proud to partner with the School of Medicine in supporting its education, research and clinical care mission.

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PA I R OF M. D.- P H . D. S TUD ENTS LAND RES EA RC H FUN D I N G

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ow in the graduate phase of their M.D.Ph.D. program, Reed McDonagh (top right) and Jeremy Meier (bottom right) have each been awarded a National Research Service Award from the National Cancer Institute.

McDonagh is studying the potential of nanoparticles made of the rare-earth element cerium to shield against the long-term side effects of radiation therapy.

“The most exciting aspect of my research is that it is truly multidisciplinary and collaborative, involving physics, chemistry, biowlogy, pharmacology and a clinical application,” he said. “It is exciting to me that I have had to rely on all of my studies and training from college, medical and graduate school.”

For his part, Meier sees research as a puzzle, and his most recent one aims to address a novel molecular mechanism that cancer cells may take advantage of to evade death and even to become chemo- and radio-resistant. “The grant will fund our research efforts in exploring the potential role that mitochondria play in cancer progression and therapeutic resistance,” Meier said. “We are especially interested in the function of STAT3 in this context, a protein that traditionally has been thought to exert its effects largely at the nuclear level, but recently has also been shown to have an important role in mitochondrial regulation.”

T E ACH I N G T E A M WOR K

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“We’re trying to develop a sequence of learning activities that goes throughout the training of our students so that they’re developing interprofessional competencies over time”

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ach week, medical students are part of interdisciplinary teams that head to a local low-income high-rise apartment building.

They offer a free clinic for Dominion Place’s older residents, providing chronic disease management and wellness education. It gives the students a chance to connect classroom learning to a real-life experience and provides the building’s residents the chance to stay in their own homes, even as they age.

It’s one of several projects the Center for Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Care has created.

“We’re trying to develop a sequence of learning activities that goes throughout the training of our students so that they’re developing interprofessional competencies over time,” said Alan Dow, M.D., H’04, assistant vice president of health sciences.

The Richmond Health and Wellness Program at Dominion Place is funded by a three-year, $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It’s designed to get medicine, nursing, pharmacy, social work and psychology students working as teams while still in school, so that they are prepared for today’s new models of care.

NEUROSURGERY'S LISA FELDMAN RECEIVES PRESTIGIOUS FELLOWSHIP

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hrough her training in the Department of Neurosurgery, fifth-year resident Lisa Feldman, M.D., Ph.D., sees a lot of patients who are undergoing brain radiation for tumors. In a fraction of patients, the radiation will affect healthy tissue surrounding the tumor, causing the tissue to swell and die, in turn causing problems for patients that include seizures, neurological deficits and sometimes death.

“There are no good treatments so these patients are pretty desperate,” Feldman said. “If we could do something to help those patients, it would really improve their quality of life.”

Earlier this year, she was awarded the William P. Van Wagenen Fellowship, the most prestigious fellowship award offered by the national neurosurgical societies. She will spend a year at the University of Auckland in New Zealand studying perfluorcarbon as a new oxygen delivery therapy for treating the cell death that results from radiation treatment of brain cancers.

“The Van Wagenen Fellowship’s yearbook of past awardees reads like a who’s who of the neurosurgical field,” said R. Scott Graham, M.D., director of the Department of Neurosurgery’s residency program.

Photography by Tom Kojcsich, VCU University Marketing

“Many have gone on to become chairs of neurosurgery departments around the country or hold other prominent roles.”

Feldman has published in seven research journals and has developed five patent-pending neurosurgical devices in collaboration with biomedical engineers at VCU. She is the first awardee from VCU and only the fifth female honoree in the 46-year history of the the American Association of Neurological Surgeons’ award.

#GreatGood “Health affects all of us, and it affects all of us differently. With social media, we can express that in a totally new way,” says Jeanine Guidry, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Social and Behavioral Health.

Her research examines how the public uses social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest to communicate their experiences and thoughts on such timely topics as vaccines, depression and Ebola.

Over the past year, she’s had the chance to present her findings close to home and as far away as Montreal and Belgium.

“The range of experiences and the range of topics is incredibly broad,” she says. “Just look at Pinterest.

People at first thought it was just a visual platform, but it’s amazing to see how people talk about their struggles with depression or their fears of Ebola. Social media is developing at such breakneck speed.

There are so many conversations happening out there that we can get involved in and use social media for great good.”

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Photography by Steven Casanova, VCU University Marketing

G IVING B ACK

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OCS – short for a Day of Community Ser- grounds and help out at a safe house for victims of vice – is a yearly event in the medical school human trafficking. They also partnered with youth that last fall drew more than 125 students to who have physical and intellectual disabilities in a Buddy Ball football game. volunteer for five different community projects.

“In medical school — especially in the first two “We wanted to give back to Richmond and give thanks because in a lot of ways Richmond and the years — you’re in the classroom a lot,” Pumphrey said. people who live here give a lot to us through our stud- “Most students don’t come to medical school because ies at the hospital,” said second-year medical student they love studying. You get in because someone or Katie Pumphrey, the Medical Student Government’s something inspired you. I think this is a great chance for students to be reminded of why they chose medivice president of community service.

The students volunteered to clear trails, paint play- cine in the first place.”

VP SHELDON RETCHIN DEPARTS; MEDICINE DEAN JERRY STRAUSS SERVES IN INTERIM

Portraits by Allen Jones, VCU University Marketing

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heldon Retchin, M.D., H’79 (far left), first arrived on the MCV Campus in 1976 as a trainee. This winter he departed, having risen to the posts of senior vice president for health sciences and CEO of the VCU Health System. He is now at Ohio State University where he leads its Wexner Medical Center.

A national search for his successor is underway.

In the interim, Dean of Medicine Jerry Strauss III, M.D., Ph.D. (left), has assumed the responsibilities of the VP and CEO roles.

“Dr. Retchin’s leadership was one of the reasons I chose to come to Richmond in 2005, and I’m grateful to have had the chance to work closely with him over these past nine years,” said Strauss. “That experience has shaped my life, in professional, personal and lasting ways.”

Strauss pointed to a number of initiatives – from a half-billion dollars in new construction to award-winning safety and quality efforts – that “have created a great training environment for the more than 4,500 students enrolled in VCU’s health science schools.”

TEXT MESSAGES TO REDUCE TEEN SMOKING

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came across the idea with our work with adolescents and the ubiquitous presence of their phones,” said Michael Mason, Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and director of the VCU Commonwealth Institute on Child and Family Studies.

During the initial phase of a three-year study led by Mason, 72 tobacco-dependent inner-city adolescents were given smartphones for six months. Half received 30 texts over five days that counseled them on tobacco use, while the other half received texts about general health habits such as diet and exercise. The researchers then assessed the adolescents over the next six months, having them complete self-reported

surveys to measure tobacco use at one, three and six months following intervention.

After six months, significant differences existed between the two groups. The teens that got the counseling texts were smoking fewer cigarettes, increasing their intentions not to smoke in the future and felt more supported by their peers compared to the control group.

“There is evidence to suggest that these text messages are working and the personalized nature of them activates a self-referential part of the brain associated with behavior change,” Mason said.

E MI LY M A RKO H E A DS I N OVA CA MP U S’ SIM U LATI O N C E N T E R

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n obstetrician and gynecologist with years of experience in simulation and medical education has been named medical director for the Inova Center for Advanced Medical Simulation.

A partnership between the medical school and Inova Fairfax Hospital allows two dozen third-year and two dozen fourth-year students to train at the regional campus in northern Virginia. In the simulation center they learn through handson experiences with a variety of medical and surgical trainers.

Emily Marko, M.D., is charged with integrating simulation into Inova’s education and training initiatives to improve patient safety and satisfaction. She’ll also provide strategic leadership for clinical teams in developing interprofessional team training across the health system. She previously served as director of simulation for Inova’s OB-GYN residency program.

“Dr. Marko successfully incorporated simulation into the obstetrical curriculum and reported their experiences in national publications,” said Craig E. Cheifetz, M.D., associate dean for medical education at the medical school’s Inova Campus. “She’s devised many low-tech simulation materials to teach skills labs as well as multiple hi-fidelity simulation scenarios that are used in resident and team training.”

Photography by Craig Coleman

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SAVING F OOTB A LL

The research of neuroscientist Ray Colello, Ph.D., has attracted national media coverage, including NPR, Science magazine and Scientific American.

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ootball fans know well how it looks and how it sounds when helmets collide.

That was the scene playing out repeatedly via instant replay one Sunday afternoon. It led Ray Colello, Ph.D., to start thinking about a solution.

At first, it was a simple daydream.

He thought about practical solutions as well as outlandish ones, like giant helmets. “You start to free associate as a scientist,” said the associate professor in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology.

In a moment of science fiction digression he said to himself, “Each player just needs a force field.”

As he walked to the kitchen, he spotted all of the homework, tests and artwork secured to the family refrigerator. Suddenly that force field idea didn’t seem so out of reach after all – and it wasn’t science fiction that could make it possible.

It was magnets.

“We’ve all played with magnets, and if you take magnets with like poles – two positives or two negatives – and try to push them together you’ll see that they have a repulsive force.”

That, Colello hypothesized, could be applied in football helmets to slow down force, essentially putting a break on the impact before it occurs.

Some football players experience 500 to 600 helmet-to-helmet hits each year. Measured in G-force, the collisions range from 5 Gs or 10 Gs up to 150 Gs or 160 Gs. Concussions begin to occur at 100 Gs. Most concussions occur not in the biggest players, but in players like wide receivers and cornerbacks who are faster and have more space in which to accelerate. The result of that acceleration is what Colello said is the key to the problem.

“It’s the sudden deceleration the brain experiences within the cranium at impact as a football player running at up to 20 mph is stopped within 10 to 15 milliseconds,” he said.

A series of experiments that started in his garage showed that powerful, low-weight neodymium magnets could reduce the G-force by increasing the time of the collision by milliseconds. Colello uses an analogy of tossing a baby in the air. Catching with stiff arms will create a short hard jolt, but allowing the arms to give way in the catch increases the length of the collision and thus isn’t bothersome.

“What we’re doing is dramatically shifting the curve,” he said. “Remember, 100 (Gs) is where concussions readily occur. If we can shift to the lower side of that number it should reduce the amount of concussions on the playing field.”

He presented his initial findings at the annual meeting of the Society for Neurosciences and attracted attention from peers as well as the science media. National media coverage included NPR, Science m a g a z i n e a n d Scientific American.

The traditional approach helmet manufacturers are taking is to disperse, displace or absorb the energy after the collision has taken place by using special helmet materials and air- or foam-filled padding inside the helmet.

Colello’s idea is to supplement these methods.

“Our approach aims to add something completely different,” he said. “That is to put a brake on the impact before it even occurs.”

— By Eric Peters

SCH I ZO P H R E N I A R I S K I S DI M I NI SHED BY HI GH I Q

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n the largest study of IQ and schizophrenia to date, findings contradict conventional wisdom that schizophrenia and brilliance are linked. In fact, high intelligence could protect against the development of schizophrenia in people who have a genetic predisposition for the disease.

“If you’re really smart, your genes for schizophrenia don’t have much of a chance of acting,” said first author Kenneth S. Kendler, M.D., professor of psychiatry and human and molecular genetics in the Department of Psychiatry. He collaborated with colleagues from Lund University in Sweden on the study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Kendler added that low IQ is one of a wide array of risk factors for schizophrenia. Like unaffected individuals, people with schizophrenia vary widely in their intelligence. Environmental factors that diminish IQ, including intrauterine experience, childhood trauma or early drug use, could contribute to increased risk.

A high IQ does not eliminate the risk of schizophrenia, and well-known figures in popular culture, such as math prodigy John Nash whose story was made famous in the film “A Beautiful Mind,” have demonstrated that brilliant and highly creative individuals can suffer from schizophrenia.

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sychiatry’s Aradhana “Bela” Sood, M.D., has co-authored a book examining the failings of the nation's mental health services.

The Virginia Tech Massacre: Strategies and Challenges for Improving Mental Health Policy on Campus and Beyond is based on her experience serving on the Virginia Tech Review Panel, an eight-member advisory board appointed by former Gov. Tim Kaine that was charged with investigating the April 16, 2007, massacre.

The book begins with what Sood calls a psychological autopsy of shooter Sueng Hu Choi. “As we followed him from school into Tech, it became clear that there was a stark contrast between the care he received at the middle and high school level, which met his mental health needs and allowed him to be successful, versus the virtual lack of services at the college level despite numerous warning signs of an unraveling mind.”

NEW BOOK E X AM I N E S S H O RTCO M I NGS I N U. S. M E N TAL H E ALTH SYS TE M

“If someone needs to see a mental health provider in the regular scheme of things — if they’re not having a major crisis, but they need to be seen — it takes about eight months to get to a trained professional.

“We have not done well with the provision of adequate and good quality care not only in college counseling centers but across the board with mental health.”

Portrait by Tom Kojcsich, VCU University Marketing

The book also examines college mental health services and how the U.S. compares to other nations in terms of the way mental health services are delivered, gaps in services, legislative challenges, barriers and solutions.

“If someone needs to see a mental health provider in the regular scheme of things — if they’re not having a major crisis, but they need to be seen — it takes about eight months to get to a trained professional,” Sood notes. “We have not done well with the provision of adequate and good quality care not only in college counseling centers but across the board with mental health. It reflects the national problem of access to care as well as societal attitudes regarding stigma and mental health.”

Sood is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry. Her co-editor is Robert Cohen, Ph.D., a visiting scholar at Northern Arizona University.

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ACA A NALYSI S

Two teams in the medical school are analyzing the potential of the Affordable Care Act to change patients’ experiences – one from a practice stand point and the second from a policy perspective.

On the policy front, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has selected the medical school as one of only nine institutions nationwide to study how inpatient and emergency department utilization has changed at safety net hospitals in response to the Medicaid expansions outlined in the ACA. “We would expect to see that safety net hospin an article published in the Annals of Family Medicine, Alex Krist, M.D. (top left), associate tals would have an increase in utilization from professor in the Department of Family Medi- Medicaid patients and a decrease in utilization from cine and Population Health, provides insight on the uninsured patients,” said principal investigator Peter Cunningham, Ph.D. (bottom left), professor in the Department of Healthcare Policy and Research.

In 2016, hospitals that serve a large number of uninsured and low-income patients will lose a lot of the federal subsidies that they have relied on to help defray the cost of undercompensated and uncompensated care. The budget cut is under the assumption that those hospitals will replace most of the lost income with payments for patients who are newly covered by Medicaid or private insurance.

“If they’re not seeing such changes then these safety net hospitals could be at very high risk,” says Cunningbehavioral and mental health assessments required ham, who is currently working on a similar project for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. by the ACA. “Primary care practices are promising places to “Their financial viability might be threatened.” conduct health risk assessments because of the longterm relationships these doctors have with their patients,” said Krist. However, he discovered primary care practices lack the resources to do so effectively as the high number of health risks identified will likely stretch many practices beyond treatment capacity.

“These challenges need to be addressed before primary care practices can be expected to conduct health risk assessments as part of routine care, but doing so could help improve health and well-being for patients,” said Krist, who’s also a member of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that advises Congress, physicians and the general public on whether a preventive service is right for a patient’s need.

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“These challenges need to be addressed before primary care practices can be expected to conduct health risk assessments as part of routine care, but doing so could help improve health and well-being for patients.”

Portraits by Tom Kojcsich, VCU University Marketing

In 2016, hospitals that serve a large number of uninsured and low-income patients stand to lose a lot of the federal subsidies that they have relied on to help defray the cost of undercompensated and uncompensated care.

Precision Medicine at Massey Last year, Massey became the first cancer care provider in Virginia to perform in-house next generation DNA sequencing for precision cancer treatment.

The technology allows Massey scientists to sequence the DNA of a patient’s tumor and then match them with existing or experimental therapies that target the specific molecule or gene driving their disease.

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$4.4 million NCI grant to support a statewide cancer clinical trials network

The VCU Massey Cancer Center was awarded a $4.4 million NCI grant to support a statewide network in Virginia that brings clinical trials to patients in their own communities and fosters the inclusion of minorities in clinical trials.

The grant went to only a dozen centers in the nation.

Eight community hospitals and oncology practices joined with Massey on the grant application, many of which have previously partnered with Massey through its Research Affiliation Network. The network serves a catchment area that encompasses 3.8 million residents of Virginia, representing 46.2 percent of the state’s population.

BI O M ARKE RS A R E FOCUS OF NE W TBI STUDIE S

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ach year, more than 2.5 million people in the U.S. seek medical care for a traumatic brain injury resulting from a motor vehicle accident, fall, assault or playing a sport. Yet, no TBI treatment has proved to be effective.

“Even a mild concussion can trigger chronic and wide-ranging adverse physical, cognitive and neurobehavioral changes for months and even years after the injury,” said Randall E. Merchant, Ph.D., executive director of the VCU Center for Rehabilitation Science and Engineering. “We are hampered by the lack of reliable diagnostic tools which can predict who among our TBI patients will or will not make a complete recovery.”

He is leading VCU’s participation in a set of multicenter studies, the first an $18.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health and a second $17 million award from the Department of Defense. Both will study biomarkers from blood, new imaging equipment, software and other tools to better understand the biology of head trauma.

Co-investigator on the DOD grant is David X. Cifu, M.D., professor and chairman of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. He leads a national consortium studying traumatic brain injuries in military personnel that’s funded by a $62 million federal grant announced by the White House in 2013.

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R ESID EN T B I LL DANE R F O L LOWS I N TH E F O OTS TEPS OF HIS GRA N D FAT H E R , H AL F A C E N TU RY L ATE R Bill’s time on the MCV Campus has given him the opportunity to see the first Dr. Daner from another perspective: that of his patients.

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lthough William “Bill” Daner III, M.D., never met his grandfather, he is often reminded that he is following in his footsteps.

Bill, a current resident in orthopedic surgery, became interested in surgery at a young age after hearing stories about his namesake, the first William Daner, who earned his M.D. from MCV in 1941 and later became an associate professor of orthopedic surgery with the School of Medicine. Training on the MCV Campus has given Bill the chance to get to know the man he never met.

Since coming to the MCV Campus, Bill has gotten to know several faculty members who are familiar with his grandfather’s reputation and career, and invariably they describe him as a quiet, well-respected

S T U DE N T C H E L S E A CO C K B U R N TA K E S N ATI O N A L L E A DE R S H I P ROL E I N AC P

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and dedicated surgeon. Through these faculty members and some of his own research, Bill has learned a lot about his grandfather’s life and medical career.

The elder Daner served with the medical corps in the Italian and North African theaters of World War II with the 45th General Hospital, an army hospital that was organized and staffed by doctors and nurses from MCV. After the war, he returned home and completed his specialty training at the McGuire Veterans Affairs Hospital.

He went on to have a distinguished career in Richmond, where he served as an associate professor with MCV and as the chief of orthopedics at Johnston-Willis Hospital and the Crippled Children’s Hospital. He was also one of the founding members of the West End Orthopedic Clinic, now known as OrthoVirginia.

While former colleagues and family history helped relay the basic facts of his grandfather’s life, Bill’s time on the MCV Campus has given him the opportunity to see the first Dr. Daner from another perspective: that of his patients. On two separate occasions, says Bill, patients have recognized the name on his badge and connected him to his grandfather. Bill says that getting to care for these former patients has “made me feel closer to my grandfather.”

– By Jack Carmichael

n April, M.D.-Ph.D. student Chelsea Cockburn began a four-year term on the American College of Physicians’ National Council of Student Members, a 13-member group that advises the Board of Regents and Board of Governors on promoting internal medicine as a career and increasing the value of ACP membership to medical students.

She’ll be assigned a region of medical schools in the U.S. and will help advise the internal medicine interest groups at those schools to strengthen activities at the chapter level. She’s also been selected to represent the council on the ACP Education and Publication Committee that provides scientific and professional information to physicians, trainees and patients.

Originally from Harrisonburg, Va., Cockburn entered the M.D.-Ph.D. program in 2013 and in March 2015 began her graduate training in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. She’s been an admissions tour guide and was a trip leader for HOMBRE, the annual student-led medical relief trip to Honduras.

With a strong interest in global health, Cockburn plans on doing a fellowship in infectious disease after a residency in internal medicine.

An influential voice in American health care, the ACP is a national organization of internists and is the country’s second-largest medical-physician organization, behind only the American Medical Association.

N E W FU N DS, FI N DI N G S I N SU BSTA NC E A BU SE R E SEA RC H Substance abuse research is a continuing focus in the medical school with numerous teams at work on different questions.

A

$6.9-milion grant will expand the VCU Alcohol Research Center’s focus on preclinical and clinical studies. A nearly decade-long collaboration spans the Departments of Psychiatry, Pharmacology and Toxicology and Human and Molecular Genetics. Together they

D

espite 30 years of research, no approved medication to treat cocaine addiction exists. A $6-million grant will create a center to develop medications led by Gerard Moeller, M.D., division chair of addiction psychiatry. He believes the field’s history of failed clinical trials is due to insufficient preclinical and

S

teve Negus, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, was invited to co-author an article for the journal Neuropsychopharmacology on the pros and cons for treating cocaine-use disorder with agonist medications. The topic has attracted accelerating attention and controversy. Growing data published by Negus and others supports the use of amphetamine maintenance, but the practice faces opposition even though amphetamine maintenance is widely used

combine expertise in animal models with a research program in the human genetics of alcoholism to better understand what makes us vulnerable to alcoholism – a goal that’s eluded the scientific community up to now. There are only 15 other similar centers in the U.S.

early clinical evaluation to thoroughly characterize compounds. That’s where he’ll concentrate efforts. The grant supports three different projects plus an educational component that emphasizes communication between researchers in preclinical and clinical settings to ensure the models they use translate from one phase to the next.

in other patients such as those who suffer from ADHD and are prescribed Adderall.

Negus’ work is supported in part by a NIDA grant for a collaboration with the University of Kentucky that’s developing parallel procedures that can be used for research in both laboratory animals and in humans to improve preclinical-to-clinical translation of results in research on candidate treatments for cocaine addiction.

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M ATC H DAY

What will you be?

T

he world will have one less Top Chef, one less pilot, one less ballerina.

Instead, we’ll have family medicine physicians, surgeons and dermatologists.

For Match Day 2015, the fourth-year medical students chose the theme: What Would You Be if You Weren’t an M.D.? The answers to that question ran a wide gamut.

But the truly pressing question was “Where are you going?”

Match Day is the annual rite of passage for graduating medical students. At noon on March 20, medical students around the coun-

try learned where they're headed for residency training in their chosen specialties.

At the conclusion of the Match process, 97.4 percent of our 192 participating students had matched into a residency position.

Twenty-two students will stay at VCU Health System to complete residency training, and several more will complete preliminary training here in internal medicine or general surgery.

Look for graduating students heading to a medical center near you, and plan to welcome them when they arrive in June!

Photography by Nancy Parker, Cabay Photography

MATC H R E SU LTS Alabama

Raymond Melikian Kaiser Permanente-SF, Preliminary UC San Diego Med Center Radiology-Diagnostic

Tom Catron U Alabama Med Center-Birmingham Internal Medicine

Elaine Nguyen Huntington Memorial Hospital Internal Medicine

Connecticut

Matthew Innes Tucson Hospitals Med Ed, Ariz.,Transitional U Alabama Med Center-Birmingham Dermatology

Hoa Nguyen UC Irvine Med Center, Internal Medicine

Michael Connery Greenwich Hospital, Internal Medicine

Viet Nguyen Scripps Mercy Hosp-San Diego Internal Medicine

Gordon Pace Yale-New Haven Hospital, Medicine-Primary

Arizona Christopher Shin Maricopa Med Center, General Surgery

California Kelly Chen Kaiser Permanente – LA, Pediatrics Eveline Chu UC Davis Med Center, Family Medicine Sirisha Grandhe Scripps Clinic / Green Hospital Internal Medicine Tracey Kim Loma Linda U, General Surgery Preetham Kumar White Mem Med Center – LA Internal Medicine Kamilah Lee California Hospital Med Center Family Medicine Christopher Lynch U Southern California, Internal Medicine

14

MATC H DAY

Monish Parmar UC Riverside SOM, Psychiatry Matthew Perdue U Southern California, Psychiatry Ping Song UC Davis Med Center, Plastic Surgery Timothy Toney Naval Medical Center – San Diego, Pediatrics Nicole Yin UCLA Med Center, Anesthesiology Christina Yu UC Irvine Med Center, Pediatrics

Colorado Maria Amaya U Colorado SOM-Denver, Internal Medicine Sean Brodie St. Joseph Hospital, Internal Medicine Scott Freeman U Colorado SOM-Denver, Internal Medicine

Jeffrey Graham U Colorado SOM-Denver, Medicine-Pediatrics Shivani Pathak U Colorado SOM – Denver, Otolaryngology

Sonal Parikh VCU Health System, Preliminary U Connecticut School of Medicine Dermatology

Delaware Melissa Cummings Christiana Care, Emergency Medicine

District of Columbia Padma Chitnavis VCU Health System, Preliminary Howard U Hospital, Dermatology Rebecca Gersten Georgetown U Hospital, Internal Medicine Mohamed Hassanein Washington Hospital Center, General Surgery Hannah Kim Children’s National Med Center, Pediatrics Stanley Liu George Washington U, Internal Medicine

Ankita Munjal Georgetown U Hospital, Internal Medicine Vanessa Nunes Howard U Hospital, Obstetrics-Gynecology Philip Sholes Walter Reed Army Medical Center General Surgery Allison Waller Children’s National Med Center, Peds-Primary Caitlin Willemann George Washington U, Internal Medicine

Florida David Asher Riverside Regional Med Center, Va., Transitional Jackson Memorial Hospital, Radiation-Oncology

Pamela Palma Florida State U, Obstetrics-Gynecology

Mathew Schorr Eisenhower Med Center, Fort Gordon Transitional Year

Clayton Bauer U South Florida COM – Tampa Neurological Surgery

Georgia

Benjamin Whitehouse Atlanta Med Center, Preliminary Emory U SOM, Anesthesiology

Joshua Bradshaw U South Florida COM – Tampa, Otolaryngology Salman Elfeky Jackson Memorial Hospital, Psychiatry Hannah Fox U Florida COM-Jacksonville Emergency Medicine Alaa Mahmoud Drexel U COM/Hahnemann U, Penn.

Preliminary U Florida COM-Shands Hospital Radiology-Diagnostic Erika New U South Florida COM – Tampa Obstetrics-Gynecology

Timothy Boone Emory U SOM, Family Medicine

Sharon Yu Atlanta Med Center, General Surgery

Cara Iorianni Emory U SOM, Transitional Emory, Anesthesiology

Illinois

Albert Marle Eisenhower Med Center, Fort Gordon Internal Medicine

Scott Adney Northwestern McGaw, Preliminary Northwestern, Neurology

Richard Monti Howard U Hospital, DC, Preliminary Emory U SOM, Neurology

Rohit Choudhary U Illinois COM – Chicago, Anesthesiology

Jerrine Morris Emory U SOM, Obstetrics-Gynecology

Connie Ho Rush U Med Center, Internal Medicine

Heather Root Emory U SOM, Medicine-Primary

Hana Poser Rush U Med Center, Internal Medicine

SOME FAVO R E D F I E L DS

76 Students matched into primary care fields

20 Matched to anesthesiology

19

14

Matched to OB-GYN

Each matched to general surgery & emergency medicine

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Wendelyn Shue Northwestern McGaw, Family Med / Norwegian

Kathryn Skimming U Maryland Med Center Psychiatry / Sheppard Prat

Kentucky

Michael Wilber U Maryland Med Center, Internal Medicine

Alexander Pontikos U Louisville SOM, Internal Medicine Lauren Pontikos U Louisville SOM, Pediatrics

Maine Thomas Carraway Maine Medical Center, Radiology-Diagnostic Julie Chan Lahey Medical Center Neurosurgery Pre-Residency Fellowship Andrew Long Maine Medical Center, Medicine-Pediatrics

Maryland Puja Bharucha VCU Health System, Va., Preliminary U Maryland Med Center, Radiology / Diagnostic

Sarah Zuckoff U Maryland-Mercy Med Center, Preliminary Johns Hopkins Hospital, Radiation-Oncology

Massachusetts Jennifer Cooke U Massachusetts Med School Emergency Medicine

Missouri Emily Onufer Barnes-Jewish Hospital, General Surgery

New Hampshire Elizabeth O’Brien Dartmouth-Hitchcock Med Center Anesthesiology

Andres Ponce Dartmouth-Hitchcock Med Center Internal Medicine

Daniel Lotz U Mass Med School, Anesthesiology Benjamin Nicholson Boston U Med Center, Emergency Medicine

Michigan Amy Bruzek U Michigan Hospital – Ann Arbor Neurological Surgery

New Jersey

Ian Drillings U Maryland Med Center, Anesthesiology

Christopher John St. Joseph Mercy – Oakland, Mich., Transitional Wayne State U SOM, Anesthesiology

Giulia Dula Razzolini U Maryland Med Center, Obstetrics-Gynecology

Mark Korenke U Michigan Hospitals-Ann Arbor, Anesthesiology

New York

Bahrenegash Getachew Johns Hopkins Hosp, Emergency Medicine

Patrick Lam Henry Ford HSC, Emergency Medicine

Toshie Ahluwalia Winthrop-U Hospital, Internal Medicine

Benjamin Lindsey U Michigan Hospitals – Ann Arbor Orthopaedic Surgery

Kevin Sethi U Michigan Hospitals - Ann Arbor, Psychiatry

Albert Duah U Rochester / Strong Memorial, Anesthesiology

Quinn Wicks WSU / Detroit Med Center, Emergency Medicine

Minnesota John Jubar U Maryland-Mercy Med Center, Preliminary Johns Hopkins Hospital, Anesthesiology Roy Kim UC Irvine Med Center, Preliminary Johns Hopkins Hospital, Anesthesiology

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MATC H DAY

Trygve Armour Mayo School of Grad Med Educ, Anesthesiology

Ravi Gupta Cooper U Hospital, Internal Medicine

Steven Gordon NYU School of Medicine, Otolaryngology Danica Kim NY-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia U Anesthesiology Valeriya Klats NYMC-Westchester Med Center, Preliminary Einstein / Montefiore Med Center Neurology

Mississippi

Hanjoo Lee NYMC-Westchester Med Center General Surgery

Geoffrey Bader Kessler Medical Center, Kessler Air Force Base Internal Medicine

Katherine McCabe Maimonides Med Center, NY Preliminary NY Eye & Ear Infirmary, Ophthalmology

Rebecca Ochs-Mercer SUNY Upstate Med U, Obstetrics-Gynecology Ankur Patel George Washington U, DC, Preliminary NYU School of Medicine, Anesthesiology Alexander Philip Staten Island U Hospital Emergency Medicine

North Carolina

Ohio

Tasrif Ahmed Moses H Cone Mem Hospital, Internal Medicine

Alan Lee Ohio State U Med Center Obstetrics-Gynecology

Jaclyn Arquiette Duke U Med Center, Obstetrics-Gynecology Patrick Dale U North Carolina Hospitals, Internal Medicine

Apiradee Sanglimsuwan Einstein / Jacobi Med Center Emergency Medicine

Shawn Feinstein U North Carolina Hospitals Orthopaedic Surgery

Duncan Shabb Stony Brook Teach Hospitals Medicine-Pediatrics

Hannah Gardner Wake Forest Baptist Med Center, Pediatrics

Tejas Shah Stony Brook Teach Hospitals, Internal Medicine

Jennifer Harvey Wake Forest Baptist Med Center Family Medicine

Andrei Teodosescu Stony Brook Teach Hospitals, Pathology

Cara Randall U North Carolina Hospitals, Pathology Satyan Sreenath U North Carolina Hospitals, Otolaryngology

Tricia Olaes Akron Gen Med Center, Family Medicine Ian Smith Summa Health, Emergency Medicine David Soma Case Western / MetroHealth Med Center Internal Medicine

Pennsylvania Michelle Chandansingh Thomas Jefferson U, Emergency Medicine Judah Hwang Drexel U COM / Hahnemann U Emergency Medicine

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Todd Gledhill Vanderbilt U Med Center, Emergency Medicine Lynellen Gregory U Tennessee Grad – Knoxville, General Surgery

Texas William Brasher Baylor College Med – Houston Internal Medicine Maya Iyengar Baylor College Med – Houston, Pediatrics Zachary McDowell Baylor College Med – Houston, Preliminary Baylor, Urology Carnai Simpson U Texas Med Branch – Galveston Family Medicine Zhanna Tulchinskaya-Winchel John Peter Smith Hospital, Family Medicine

Virginia Andrew Anderson VCU Health System, Pediatrics Agnes Koczo UPMC Medical Education Internal Med / Women’s Health Sneha Kondragunta Lehigh Valley Hospital, Obstetrics-Gynecology Stephanie Lum St. Luke’s-Bethlehem, Obstetrics-Gynecology Sharonjit Sandhu Jefferson Med College / DuPont Children’s Pediatrics Courtney Saw Hospital of the U of Penn., Psychiatry John Scott Temple U Hospital, Internal Medicine Jordan Southern Geisinger Health System, Preliminary Geisinger HS, Urology Elizabeth White Hospital of the U of Penn., Anesthesiology Jessie Yester UPMC Med Ed, Pediatrics

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MATCH DAY

Rhode Island Audrey Le Rhode Island Hospital / Brown U Medicine-Primary Zachary Lipsman Rhode Island Hospital / Brown U Emergency Medicine

Edward Bahng Bon Secours Health System Family Medicine / St.Francis Balraj Bajaj VCU Health System, Medicine-Pediatrics

South Carolina Lauren Clifford Medical U of SC, Pediatrics Dustin Dalton Medical U of SC, Internal Medicine Clayton Foret Medical U of SC, Anesthesiology Supraja Rajagopalan Medical U of SC, Obstetrics-Gynecology

Jennifer Berrie VCU Health System, Surgery-Preliminary

Tennessee

Sara Braswell VCU Health System, Preliminary VCUHS, Dermatology

Jared Cummings Vanderbilt U Med Center, Anesthesiology

Eurica Chang Chippenham Med Center, Family Medicine

Caleb Cutherell Carilion Clinic – VA Tech, General Surgery

Glen Lee VCU Health System, Orthopaedic Surgery

Lauren Thompson VCU Health System, Surgery-Preliminary

Krystle David Riverside Regional Med Center Family Medicine

Manisha Magar VCU Health System, Anesthesiology

Samantha Umali Riverside Regional Med Center Family Medicine

Saliatou Maikarfi Inova Fairfax Hospital, Obstetrics-Gynecology

Nicole Vissichelli VCU Health System, Internal Medicine

Stephanie Marshall VCU Health System, Obstetrics-Gynecology

Kent Vu VCU Health System, Anesthesiology

Ashley McWilliams VCU Health System, Surgery-Preliminary

Eva Welch Inova Fairfax Hospital, Obstetrics-Gynecology

Daniel Moore VCU-Shenandoah Valley – VA, Family Medicine

Vivian Win Eastern Virginia Med School, Family Medicine

Marie Moorman VCU Health System, Obstetrics-Gynecology

Jeffrey Woo Riverside Regional Med Center Obstetrics-Gynecology

Ailene Dumo Riverside Regional Med Center Family Medicine William Eggleston Bon Secours Health System Family Medicine / Blackstone Katy Fleming Carilion Clinic – VA Tech Obstetrics-Gynecology Emilija Florance Riverside Regional Med Center Family Medicine Daniel Gardiner VCU Health System, Preliminary U of Virginia, Radiology-Diagnostic Samarth Gola Union Memorial Hospital, Md. Medicine-Preliminary VCU Health System, Radiology-Diagnostic Maya Green Chippenham Med Center, Family Medicine Trenee Harris Bon Secours Health System Family Medicine / St. Francis Allison Hastings Bon Secours Health System Family Medicine / St. Francis

Nina Olsen VCU Health System, Obstetrics-Gynecology Charles Opalak VCU Health System, Neurological Surgery

Brittany Wootten Naval Medical Center, Emergency Medicine Benjamin Yoon VCU Health System, Pediatrics

Lawrence Istrail Inova Fairfax Hospital, Internal Medicine

Adam Pflugrath VCU Health System, Preliminary VCUHS, Ophthalmology

Lynn Ivey VCU Health System, Preliminary VCUHS, Radiology-Diagnostic

Avinash Pillutla VCU Health System, Preliminary VCUHS, Radiology-Diagnostic

Erin Connor Madigan Army Med Center, Family Medicine

Timothy Johnson VCU Health System, Internal Medicine

Christopher Ray VCU Health System, Medicine-Pediatrics

West Virginia

Danielle Kania VCU Health System, Internal Medicine

Adam Rossi VCU Health System, Pediatrics

Chelsea Kidd VCU Health System, Pathology

Barbara Saber Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, OB/GYN

Steven Fish West Virginia U SOM, Transitional WVU Eye Institute, Ophthalmology

Kimball Kindley U of Virginia, Preliminary UVA, Dermatology

Nader Silver VCU-Fairfax Family Med, Family Medicine

Madison Sternberg West Virginia U SOM, Obstetrics-Gynecology

Washington

Eric Dennis Marshall U SOM, Orthopaedic Surgery

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W HAT ’S IN HER

POCKET ?

By Lisa Crutchfield

S

he’s one of the medical school’s most distinguished and resourceful teachers.

Marjolein de Wit, M.D., M.S, associate professor of internal medicine, is legendary among students, residents and fellows for her innovative and unusual style. Whether it’s eating chocolate-andcanned fruit sandwiches, doting on her beloved dog Ben or, most importantly, passing on critical care knowledge, she keeps students engaged and passionate about the field.

“I’m an analog person,” she says, forgoing a tablet computer in favor of pen and paper, on which she makes copious notes and observations. At the end of the day, she passes these notes on to students, residents and fellows. Those coveted notes, called The Book of de Witicisms, have been collected and shared throughout the medical school’s hallways and call rooms.

Her pockets might not be organized, but her mind is. De Wit is noted for her ability to incorporate evidence-based medicine into daily teaching, breaking it down into a methodical system for various levels of learners simultaneously, without missing a beat. Though her students say they never know what might come out when she reaches into a pocket, they know they’ll end up with a rich knowledge of medicine.

Photography by Kevin Schindler 20

F E AT U R E S

Though she’s not a fan of tablet computers, de Wit loves to roll up a WOW (workstation on wheels) and search out the latest information from sites like CDC and NIH when she’s rounding.

P E N & A LOT O F PAP E R “I write stuff out during rounds and I give it to the residents.” Her notes might include some of the myriad equations she tosses out. “Life is merely applied math. All you need is the right equation.

And I don’t have enough.”

STER ILZING F OA M / STETHOSCOPE She might be the heaviest user of sterilizing foam in the hospital. “I’m usually covered in it. Nobody is going to get a hospital-acquired infection from me.” Her stethoscope? Properly sterilized, too, of course.

P HOTO OF HER D O G

“When housestaff pull out their children's photos, I can pull out my pup's numerous photos – professionally photographed of course.” And though she doesn't always have a photo at hand, she's always ready to pull from her memory tales of her adventures during a childhood spent all over the world. The one from when she faced a herd of African elephants keeps students engaged.

TO -DO L I S T The physician’s list itemizes the procedures and attention each individual patient will need each day. “As the day goes on, you check it off.

It’s a way to stay organized.”

C H O CO L AT E To keep her fueled, it’s “dark only. Milk chocolate is a waste of calories.”

BEE PER “I’m still an analog person.

I have a phone, but I still like the beeper.”

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MENTOR & PROTÉGÉ PURSUE PARALLEL PATHS TO COMBAT TICK-B RNE DISEASE

By Jill U. Adams

Photography by Allen Jones, VCU University Marketing

Microbiology and immunology's Jason A. Carlyon, PhD’99, and Ricard T. Marconi, Ph.D.

22

F E AT U R E S

T

Image courtesy of CDC / James Gathany and William L. Nicholson, Ph.D.

wo MCV Campus researchers are making significant headway in the development of a novel multi-pathogen based vaccine that will protect people from Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses.

Jason A. Carlyon, PhD’99, associate professor of microbiology and immunology, and Richard T. Marconi, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and immunology, were graduate student and mentor at VCU back in the 1990s, working on Lyme disease only a decade after ticks were confirmed as transmission vectors.

“Jason was an outstanding student and the first to earn a Ph.D. in my lab,” Marconi says.

Carlyon headed to Yale to do a postdoctoral fellowship and then went on faculty at the University of Kentucky. During that time he took a different path than his advisor and established a research program on granulocytic anaplasmosis — another tick-borne disease.

“It’s an emerging disease, transmitted by the same ticks that carry Lyme,” Carlyon says. Indeed, the two diseases can be cotransmitted. Long known as a veterinary disease, it sickens horses, sheep and domestic animals. In the mid-1990s the first human cases were confirmed. Since then the number of reported cases has increased every year and now runs in the thousands.

In the meantime, Marconi continued his focus on the pursuit of new preventive strategies for Lyme disease. His laboratory developed a canine Lyme disease vaccine that has been patented, licensed and is now undergoing USDA field safety trails.

The Marconi lab is now aggressively working to modify the vaccine and tailor it specifically for use in humans. Lyme disease infects an estimated 300,000 people a year according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with most of those cases occurring in the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest.

While a human Lyme disease vaccine was briefly available in the United States, it was voluntarily pulled from the market by the manufacturer in 2002 after concerns about potential serious side effects were raised.

Marconi says his vaccine — which targets the three primary bacterial species that cause Lyme disease in North America and Europe (Borrelia burgdorferi, B. garinii and B. afzelii) — differs from the previous one in several important ways.

The old vaccine prompted the body to make antibodies against a bacterial protein known as outer surface protein A, or OspA. The new vaccine triggers antibody production against a different target — outer surface protein C, OspC. “The life cycle of the Lyme pathogen goes

from ticks to mammals to ticks,” Marconi such as fever, body aches, headache and says. “Those are radically different environ- malaise, although there is no rash. In severe ments and the bacteria changes the proteins cases, decreases in white and red blood cells on its surface in response to changes in their can occur, as well as liver damage, shock environment.” and seizures. “Death is rare, but can occur,” When it’s in the gut of a tick, the bacteria Carlyon says. produces OspA. The old vaccine was The pathogen — Anaplasma phagocytoreasonably effective — although it required philum — is very different however. It’s three shots for year-long protection — an intracellular bacterium that finds, binds antibodies in the blood killed the bacteria in and enters a type of white blood cell called the tick during a blood meal. a neutrophil.

Marconi believed targeting OspC was a Carlyon has spent the last 15 years better strategy. Once a tick starts feeding, studying the molecular mechanism of how the bacteria senses mammalian blood, OspA the bacterium invades the host cell. He’s production stops and OspC production ramps learned the bacteria’s surface proteins bind up. Production of OspC continues for the first to a neutrophil receptor, somewhat akin to few weeks of infection, presenting a longer a key in a lock that is the first step to entry. window for antibodies to neutralize the Carlyon’s team has proven that antibodies to bacteria. Marconi says OspC also is a power- the bacterial keys prevent them from openful antigen, stimulating a robust antibody ing the host cell’s lock to block invasion. response. So the OspC-based vaccine provides Working with his former advisor and now great protection, Marconi says. collaborator, Carlyon has performed epitope There’s another distinguishing feature of mapping on the bacterial keys and identified Marconi’s vaccine that’s based on years of the specific region of each that is necessary painstaking research identifying the precise for function. features of OspC that trigger the immune And, as in Lyme disease, the proteins he’s system to make antibodies. “We conducted targeting get turned on during transmission. extensive epitope mapping analyses,” he says, “When the tick starts feeding, signals in and identified two regions of the protein mammalian blood turn on the key,” Carlyon that elicit bactericidal antibody responses says. “The pathogen readies itself for the — “antibodies that will kill the bacteria.” The mammalian host.” vaccine contains only those segments, not the Now that they are reunited on the MCV whole protein.

Campus, Carlyon and Marconi have landed Because the Lyme disease spirochetes and pilot funding from the Virginia Innovation OspC are highly variable, Marconi designed Partnership to develop a broad protection his vaccine to contain protein segments vaccine that would contain segments of from a large set of OspC variants. His novel proteins from both Borrelia and Anaplasma.

OspC epitope based chimeric vaccine has This highly novel “multi-pathogen” vaccine the potential to provide protection against could be used to immunize and protect diverse strains from both North America people against both Lyme disease and HGA. and Europe.

The researchers are currently seeking both Human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA), federal support and the support of private Carlyon’s research interest, can resemble investors to bring their new vaccine to the An immunofloresence image of aggregates of Borrelia burgdorferi, one of the three Lyme disease, causing flu-like symptoms market. primary bacterial species that cause Lyme disease in North America and Europe.

The spirochetes (green) can be seen adhering to particulate in the growth media (yellow).

LYME DISEASE IN THE CLINIC

The decision on when to test for Lyme disease is based on clinical symptoms and likelihood of exposure to ticks, says Infectious Diseases Chair Gonzalo Bearman, M.D. But he acknowledges there’s controversy in the medical community on how to diagnose and manage the disease. He follows the guidelines set by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Different guidelines have been put forth by the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society.

Go online at http://go.vcu.edu/12thSpring2015 for more on Bearman’s approach on diagnosing and treating the disease.

A scanning electron micrograph showing the general structural organization of spirochetes.

A structural model of OspC. Specific regions of this protein will be isolated from the rest of the molecule and combined with segments of some Anaplasma protein to form the Lyme-Anaplasma vaccine.

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OUT OF THE CLASSROOM, INTO THE CLINIC Streamlined pre-clinical curriculum lets students enter clerkships in second year

P

Photography by Allen Jones, VCU University Marketing

24

F E AT U R E S

hysicians don’t practice medicine in a classroom. Yet for more than a century, medical students spent a great deal of their time

in one.

Many medical educators today believe that developing problem-solving skills, teamwork and early exposure to clinical situations better prepares future doctors for residency and ultimately practice.

That’s the heart of the medical school’s new curriculum, which takes learning outside lecture halls and into real-life situations right from the start.

Students who arrived on the MCV Campus in 2013 were the first class to dive into an experiential-based curriculum, developed with input from more than 200 faculty members, administrators and students.

“We have moved on from just supplying students pearls of knowledge for them to give back to us,” said Isaac Wood, M’82, H’86, F’88, VCU’s senior associate dean for medical education and student affairs. “Now we expect them to problem solve, think critically, appraise literature, figure out what’s important and what’s not important and

By Lisa Crutchfield

take ambiguous data and make sense of it before they get in the clinical situation. Because that’s what the clinical world is.”

AN 18-MONTH PRE-CLINICAL CURRICULUM “The goal of redesigning the pre-clinical years was to eliminate unintended redundancy and teach students in ways that mirror what we know about adult learning and best practices in education,” explained Michael Ryan, M.D., assistant dean for clinical medical education. “In the clinical setting, much of what they learn is experiential in nature, learned on the fly at a patient’s bedside or in the context of a particular case.”

It’s a fairly radical change from the old curriculum, which relied on large-group lectures the first two years and a lot of memorization. Though it was occasionally updated, the basic model was more than 100 years old, reflecting medical education recommendations from a 1910 report by educator

Abraham Flexner.

Other curriculum changes reflect how today’s physicians are treating patients, said Ryan. The old model was designed for a time when most people died of acute life-threatening illness such as tuberculosis or pneumonia. Today, a bigger threat is chronic disease such as diabetes and hypertension.

Though two years of learning is now compressed into 18 months, the new curriculum doesn’t skimp on the basics. But it’s more teamwork and technologybased, teaching students how to think, where to retrieve information and how to then apply it. A Practice of Clinical Medicine course, designed to integrate basic principles into clinical scenarios, is the core of the first year, getting M1s out of lecture halls and into situations requiring a hands-on experience.

The medical school’s new curriculum also helps eliminate what is perceived as a gap between what medical schools teach and what is expected for interns. [see sidebar on p. 26] “It’s about cultural competency, safety training, clinical assessments of competency, truly measuring skills. It’s not ‘do one see one teach one.’ Instead, it’s life-long learning which they continue to refine,” said Craig Cheifetz, M.D., regional dean of the VCU School of Medicine’s Inova Campus, where about 31 M3s and 31 M4s study each year.

In addition to stressing high-quality care, teaching patient safety is always paramount today, said Wood.

“You don’t lay hands on a patient until you have demonstrated competency on a standardized patient or a high-fidelity mannequin. And then, when you actually lay hands on a patient, there is a great deal of supervision.”

Teaching those competencies is easier because the new curriculum debuted at the same time as the opening of the $158.6 million James W. and Frances G. McGlothlin Medical Education Center. Located on the MCV Campus between Main and West hospitals, the 12-story, 200,000 square-foot building boasts areas designed for team learning and a state-of-theart Center for Human Simulation and Patient Safety.

That 25,000-square foot space features high-tech mannequins to simulate procedures from childbirth to colonoscopy, as well as live standardized patients, often drawn from VCU’s Department of Theatre.

From the time they enter medical school, students work in teams, using a specially designed computer system to order physical examinations and laboratory tests, diagnose conditions – and justify the time and money they spend.

“We’re giving them opportunities at lower stakes to practice skills before they hit the wards,” said Ryan.

“I’m starting to see more programs like ours with the pre-clinical piece involving an integrated curriculum of basic science information as it applies

“We’re giving them opportunities at lower stakes to practice skills before they hit the wards.” to the clinical care of patients,” said Wood.

“I think we were pretty revolutionary in turning it upside down.”

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH As a result of the compressed curriculum, M2s were able to take the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination’s Step 1 test this winter, months earlier than previous classes.

Just as the medical school’s curriculum is a far cry from the past, today’s Step 1 is a very different test than many physicians remember, said Wood.

“Every single question is a clinical question that tests basic science knowledge. So that’s the whole approach we’re taking, and we’re hoping they’re going to feel more comfortable, more confident and come out with a higher score.”

The test today is much more than just words on paper. “There are photographs,

Isaac Wood, M’82, H’86, F’88

Photography by the Class of 2017's Marife Teague

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MEDICAL SCHOOL JOINS PILOT PROGRAM TO ENSURE CORE SKILLS How well does the medical school’s new curriculum prepare students?

We’re about to find out, along with some of the top schools in the nation.

The School of Medicine has been selected as one of 10 in the U.S. to make up a pilot cohort to test the implementation of the new Core Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) for Entering Residency.

The guidelines, established by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), are intended to help bridge the gap between medical school curriculum and patient care activities all new physicians should be able to perform on day one of residency training without direct supervision.

VCU is part of an impressive group of institutions selected for the program, including Columbia, Yale, the University of Texas and Vanderbilt.

The 13 EPAs identified by the AAMC include skills like recommending tests, collaborating as part of a team and prioritizing differential diagnoses. All are designed to increase patient safety and quality of care.

“Our focus is to eliminate what is perceived as a real gap between how medical school typically trains students and what is expected when they are interns,” said Michael Ryan, M.D., assistant dean for clinical medical education, (above), one of the medical school’s team members for the pilot program.

videos, you listen to heart sounds, to breath sounds.

You can, with the mouse of the computer, move the stethoscope around parts of the virtual patient. You’ll do a biopsy and they’ll send you results you have to interpret,” said Wood.

“There is recognition now that unless you’re going to be a surgeon, it’s more important to understand functional anatomy than structural anatomy,” he said. “An example would be in an old practical exam, after someone had studied the brain, they’d put out a specimen of a brain and stick in a pin somewhere and ask what it is. Now, we might describe, for example, a 56-year old man presenting with slurred speech and weakness on the right side, and they’ll ask which area of the brain most likely has an occluded artery. They want you to know functional anatomy.”

Many wondered if paring down the pre-clinical curriculum would affect students’ performance.

Would they have enough time to learn the materials and pass the test?

Wood expects to see excellent results from students, as good or better than recent years’ 94-95 percent first-time pass rate that’s been around the national average. At press time, 93 percent of the class had received their scores from the Step 1 examination.

There had been only one failure (compared to the usual 6-8) and average scores were running 12-13 points higher than previous classes.

CLERKSHIPS GET STARTED IN SECOND YEAR Passing the test means students get to move on to the expanded clinical offerings sooner. “In third and fourth years, we’re giving them the opportunity to explore some specialties that they didn’t have in the past until the fourth year,” said Ryan. “So, all the

He believes the school’s updated curriculum is preparing students well for the EPAs. “They’re functioning in an interprofessional team and learning how to deliver high quality care. In addition, with a required ambulatory clerkship, students will have more exposure to real-world medicine outside the academic setting. That gets students thinking about cost-effective treatments, working with insurance companies and other experiences.”

“We’re trying to ease the transition at all stages, from the pre-clinical to clinical years, medical school to residency, and eventually, residency or fellowship to clinical practice.”

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Medical students round with Clifton C. Lee, M'94, H'98, now an associate professor of pediatrics in the medical school.

students this year will have flexible elective blocks where they can try out something like anesthesiology or radiation oncology.

“About 25 percent of our students match into residencies in specialties outside of the core clerkships,” he said, referring to the seven core clerkships traditionally offered: family medicine, internal medicine, neurology, OB/GYN, pediatrics, psychiatry and surgery.

“Those students entertaining fields such as emergency medicine or radiology, for example, are especially excited about the chance to try them out earlier in the clinical curriculum, not just a month or two away from doing residency interviews in the fourth year.”

Some rotations have been changed to offer more diverse experiences. For example, said Wood, what used to be a 12-week rotation in internal medicine is now eight weeks, but students are seeing a wider range of conditions in that time instead of spending large blocks of time in one specialty area.

Increased flexibility in years three and four is a big draw of the new curriculum, said Wood. Students have about 62 schedule options so they can choose what they feel works best for their interests.

The curriculum also includes four weeks of flexible time off, something that stressed-out students can use.

If the flexibility of the new curriculum has been good for students, it’s also been good for faculty, who have had to think about new ways to engage students and present material. Wood noted that he’s seen

some faculty members blossom with the new experiential focus.

As the results of this year’s Step 1 exam continue to come in, administrators will determine if the new curriculum is a resounding success or whether some tweaks are still needed.

“It’s keeping us on our toes,” said Cheifetz. “And the exciting time will be in a year or two when we see assessments. I think change is good. We have the opportunity to make things better.

“Medical school has been the same for 100 years. I believe that to work and develop better programs that will make better doctors is a welcome challenge.” z

Expanded clinical offerings allow students to chart a path that best prepares them for the specialty they are interested in.

Craig Cheifetz, M.D.

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they are here because they have heart

CAPSTONE PROJECTS OPEN DOORS TO HELPING THE MEDICALLY UNDERSERVED

By Janet Showalter

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eremy Powers, M’14, was driven by one thing and one thing only when he entered medical school in 2010. Like many of his classmates, his main mission in life was, and continues to be, helping people.

Especially the underserved.

“I feel drawn to helping those people from an underserved area,” he said.

So when he began considering his options for medical school, he immediately was drawn to the MCV Campus, in large part because of the school’s International/Inner City/Rural Preceptorship (I2CRP) Program.

All medical students can apply to the four-year program. It fosters the knowledge, skills and values needed by doctors to provide quality and compassionate care to the less fortunate.

A major focus of the program comes during the final year, when students complete a communitybased capstone project. Each project has the potential to help communities – local, elsewhere in the U.S. or overseas – by addressing critical medical needs.

It gives students the opportunity to serve patients before they even graduate from medical school.

“I feel very proud to have been part of this,” said Powers, who traveled to Cameroon to complete his capstone project. “It provided me with a way to focus on the things that drew me to medicine in the first place.”

Other schools across the country have programs similar to I2CRP, but VCU’s offering is unique in that it runs for four years, allowing classmates to remain together as they share life-changing experiences.

“The nature of the training is invaluable,” said Mark Ryan, M’00, H’03, medical director of I2CRP. Ryan was one of just two students to be part of I2CRP’s first graduating class in 2000. At that

“It provided me with a way to focus on the things that drew me to medicine in the first place.” time, the program focused on inner-city and rural communities. The international element was added in 2007.

“It started small as a test program,” said Ryan, assistant professor for the Department of Family Medicine and Population Health. “Now, it is getting increasingly competitive. The quality of students who are not accepted is remarkable. It’s really hard to make that final cut.”

This year, 69 students applied for 24 spots.

“There is more and more interest each year,” said

Top and middle: A capstone project took Jeremy Powers, M'14 (right), to Cameroon to learn if general surgery residents there could provide better care if they had training in plastic surgery.

Left: Mark Ryan, M’00, H’03, was one of just two students in I2CRP’s first graduating class. Now he directs the program that drew 69 applications for 24 spots this past fall.

Opposite: A busy surgical ward in Cameroon.

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Left: In Cameroon the doctor-to-patient ratio is about 1 to 15,000. Plastic surgeons are even more scarce.

Right: This stretch of land is used as an airstrip to fly in patients.

Ryan. He leads the program alongside Assistant “There’s a different level of visibility today on the Professor Mary Lee Magee, M.S., who serves as part of students in terms of the roles they can play,” I2CRP’s educational director. “My sense is there is a Ryan said. “There is so much more awareness. They generational component to it," Ryan said. “There is a know they can do meaningful things. They want to generational movement to serving others.” step in and do their part.”

I2CRP students participate in community volunteer activities, monthly journal club meetings and annual elective courses designed to foster a deeper Take a look at four recent capstone understanding of underserved populations. Students projects that are bringing change also complete semester-long rotations in underserved to underserved communities locally settings during their first- and second-years. and around the world.

By their third year, students spend a total of 10 weeks in underserved communities during rotations in family medicine, general internal medicine, pediatrics and general surgery.

“These students are not just in the program because they have great credentials,” Ryan said. “They are eremy Powers, M’14, traveled to Cameroon here because they have heart.” last year to find out if general surgery residents Ryan himself was attracted to the idea of helping there could provide better care to patients the underserved after spending a weekend on the if they had training in plastic surgery. The answer?

Eastern Shore during his undergraduate studies at A resounding yes.

William & Mary.

“What walks through the door there is what they “Driving around rural Virginia, I began recognizing have to deal with, whether they have the training the barriers people there had to accessing health or not,” Powers said. “They see a lot, and a lot goes care,” he said. “There was a level of need that was untreated because the expertise is not there.” compelling to me.”

Patients may present with burns, soft tissue cancer, Most I2CRP students come into the program with a facial deformities, open wounds or other injuries that long list of volunteer hours already logged. Many have could benefit from plastic surgery but don’t, because completed mission trips overseas, spent weekends in the few surgeons who do practice in Cameroon don’t this country at rural clinics or traveled with church have the needed training. members during summer vacation to provide health “There are huge social and self-esteem issues care to the poor and homeless. associated with these types of cases,” Powers said.

CAPSTONE PROJECT SHAPES LIFE’S DIRECTION

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“Plastic surgery can often restore form and function, providing patients with a better quality of life.”

Medical care is hard to come by in Cameroon, where the doctor-to-patient ratio is about 1 to 15,000.

Plastic surgeons are even more scarce.

That’s why Powers developed a survey and met with eight general surgery residents as part of his project. Because of the types of injuries these surgeons see and because specialists in plastic surgery are rarely available, all agreed more training would benefit patients.

“They want as much training as they can get, not just in plastic surgery, but in other areas as well, from experts in the field,” Powers said. “Medical aid is no longer simply about providing services to the underserved. In fact, if we just did that we may be doing a disservice to these communities, perpetuating a sense of dependency. We now have the opportunity to equip and train the brilliant and talented people who are already there with a heart to serve their own people.”

Powers graduated from William & Mary in 2009 and taught high school calculus, European history, physics and trigonometry before entering medical school to “make a positive difference in the world.”

He remains at VCU as a resident in plastic and reconstructive surgery, and plans to one day practice and teach in underserved communities.

“My motivation comes from my faith, as Jesus teaches us to serve the poor,” Powers said. “I2CRP has taught me so much. I know that what I’ve learned will continue to serve my patients throughout my entire career.”

“Medical aid is no longer simply about providing services to the underserved.

In fact, if we just did that we may be doing a disservice to these communities, perpetuating a sense of dependency.

We now have the opportunity to equip and train the brilliant and talented people who are already there with a heart to serve their own people.”

INTERPRETING WHAT’S BEST FOR PATIENTS

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cott Toney, M’15, will never forget the frightened teenager who had been rushed into the emergency room. Doctors tried to explain the injuries he had suffered when he fell off the roof, but they weren’t sure he understood the fact that surgery would be necessary to stop the internal bleeding.

“He did not speak English,” said Toney, who was on surgical rotation that day during his third year of medical school. “It became apparent that he did not fully understand the gravity of his injuries.”

With the memory of that experience still vividly in place, Toney examined interpretation services in the inpatient setting as part of his capstone project. He wanted to know if the type of interpretation method affects patient and provider satisfaction and if certain interpretation methods are more appropriate in certain clinical scenarios.

A frightened teenager in an emergency room was the launching point for Scott Toney, M'15.

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underserved, having taken 10 mission trips to such places as Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.

“To see other places in the world that don’t have the freedoms and the resources we have here is incredibly humbling,” he said. “It has motivated me to treat everyone with the utmost respect. I’ve come to realize that everyone has the same wants and desires.

Everyone wants to be healthy.”

ALERTING LATINOS AND OTHER MINORITIES TO SKIN CANCER RISK

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Ashley McWilliams, M'15, has identified gaps in knowledge for both physicians and the general public.

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“I want the patients at VCU who are not English speaking to receive the best possible care,” he said.

“We have interpretation services available, and by law we must provide them. But which method is best?”

The VCU Medical Center averages five to 20 Spanish-speaking patients on any given day. Health care providers can call on live interpreters to visit patients and translate for them or use technology assisted interpretation that are phone or web based.

“With the live interpreters, patients build a trust,” said Toney, who is headed to the Naval hospital in San Diego to begin his residency in pediatrics. “But as society becomes more tech savvy, patients are growing more comfortable with that as well.”

Toney, who grew up in Atlanta, has an undergraduate degree in health science from James Madison University. He is no stranger to visiting the

here are misconceptions out there that people with darker skin won’t get skin cancer,” said Ashley McWilliams, M’15. “That simply is not

true.”

As part of her capstone project, McWilliams made it her mission to raise awareness.

“As the population of Latinos continues to increase, we need to target that population or there will be an increase in skin cancer cases,” she said. “We must get in front of the problem.”

According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, skin cancer rates among Hispanics rose by almost 20 percent in the United States in the last two decades.

And since Hispanics are the fastest-growing population in the U.S., McWilliams cautions, the number diagnosed will only continue to rise.

To increase awareness, McWilliams surveyed minority patients at a local clinic to assess their knowledge and perceptions of melanoma, including risk factors associated with this form of cancer, their ability to recognize the early stages of melanoma and their willingness to have a suspicious spot examined by a physician.

“When melanoma presents in minorities, it presents differently,” McWilliams said. “For Caucasians, it presents on the face, neck and chest. For persons of

“As the population of Latinos continues to increase, we need to target that population or there will be an increase in skin cancer cases...We must get in front of the problem.”

color, it usually presents on the palms and soles of the feet as well as underneath fingernails or toenails. And the outcome is not as good in these groups compared to Caucasians.”

Her project not only helped educate minorities about skin cancer, but it also gave physicians a better understanding of their patients’ points of view.

Because some patients feel they are not at risk, for example, they don’t think it is necessary to talk with doctors about a change in their skin’s appearance, chalking it up instead to aging or some other factor.

Physicians, therefore, should discuss the risks and the warning signs.

“It was really a quality improvement study,” said McWilliams, who is headed into her surgery intern year at the VCU Medical Center. “The more knowledge patients and providers have, the better our quality of care.”

McWilliams, who grew up in Pensacola, Fla., received her undergraduate degree in biology from Howard University in 2008. She worked in research and health policy for a few years before entering medical school.

“I wanted to interact more with patients and help educate them in the healthiest ways to live their lives,” she said.

Her interest in dermatology dates to her middle school days.

“My science fair project examined which brand of sunscreen or tanning oil provided the best protection from the sun,” she said. “Of course we all know now that tanning oil doesn’t provide any protection at all, but the project demonstrated to me how the lack of proper protection from UV rays can cause lots of damage to your skin and over time can increase your chances of developing skin cancer.”

It also opened her eyes to the importance of skin cancer prevention. “The odds might not be as high that a person of color will get skin cancer,” she said.

“But if we can educate and in the process save one life, that’s the most important thing.”

to uncover the roadblocks many face to achieving good health.

“When physicians get to know the whole patient, they can provide a higher quality of care,” said Root, who’ll begin her internal medicine residency at Emory this summer. “I welcome that challenge.”

The group teamed with the family medicine residents on site to survey local neighborhoods. They

A "quinta," an enclosed alley of houses (usually 8-12) where many in poorer neighborhoods live.

BREAKING DOWN THE BARRIERS TO GOOD HEALTH

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he challenges of caring for the underserved are many. Communication. Transportation.

Trust. Physicians can’t always get a clear picture of what’s going on in the lives of their patients.

To help sharpen the view in one underserved area, the Class of 2015’s Heather Root, Lauren Clifford and Gordon Pace traveled to Lima, Peru for 10 days

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went door to door, asking family members about their backgrounds, daily diets, lifestyles, family medical histories, neighborhood crime and more.

“What was nice was how closely we got to work with the medical residents,” Pace said. “They welcomed us right in.”

The group visited more than 100 homes during their stay. They plan to analyze the information they gathered to see if correlations can be made between a person’s home life and their health care.

“We’ll look at those who have been vaccinated, for example, and those who haven’t and cross-reference

working with immigrants. He is headed to Yale New Haven Hospital for a residency in internal medicine .

“It’s interesting to go to different metropolitan areas around the world and compare nutrition and other cultural elements,” he said. “When we were in Peru, one minute we were surveying the poorest residents, and then within walking distance we saw upscale homes.”

No matter the location, people want the same thing – good health.

“The challenge is giving them a clear path to achieving it,” said Root, who has a math degree from

No matter the location, people want the same thing – good health.“The challenge is giving them a clear path to achieving it. When we understand the whole patient and the challenges they face at home, good health care can become more attainable.” that with those who have insurance and those who don’t,” Clifford said.

They will share their findings with the medical staff they worked with. They hope this study will be the first of many.

“What excites me is the idea of a cross-cultural partnership,” Pace said. “This was such an exceptional experience, I would love to see it continue.”

Traveling out of the country is nothing new for Pace, Clifford and Root. All three had experience working in Central America as part of the I2CRP and HOMBRE (Honduras Outreach Medical Brigada Relief Effort) programs. They also have done mission work on their own.

“While volunteering in rural clinics, I’ve seen the sickest of the sick and the poorest of the poor,” said Clifford, who has an undergraduate degree in art history from William & Mary. “I’m always shocked by how the people most in need are the ones who aren’t getting it. That has spurred me to do what I can to serve.”

Clifford, who is set to begin her pediatrics residency at the Medical University of South Carolina, is following in her father’s footsteps by becoming a doctor. She counts her experience with the I2CRP program as one of the most important of her life.

“I feel like this is something every single physician should be exposed to,” she said. “It has been a true privilege.”

Pace, who earned his undergraduate degree in history from Mississippi State University in 2003, took a few years off after school to volunteer in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he worked with inner city youth. He also spent time in Arizona

Opposite, clockwise from top left: color-coding the neighborhood map by type of insurance each family has; knocking on doors of community residents who've not yet filled out a survey; sitting in on an hour-long survey in the house of a community resident.

Below: I2CRP students with family medicine residents at the health center in Barranco, Lima

Emory University. “When we understand the whole patient and the challenges they face at home, good health care can become more attainable.”

Her trip to Peru reaffirmed that belief.

“Some people may shy away from helping the underserved,” she said. “It can sometimes be complex and frustrating. But I believe that it doesn’t get any better than giving help to those who need it most.” z

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&

ART MEDICINE Creative approaches to updating residency training

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THE ART OF R E CO N S T R U C T I O N

By Lisa Crutchfield

T

hough lectures and PowerPoint have been longtime staples in medical education, they seldom attain the level of an art form.

Taking advantage of today’s emphasis on active learning, Jennifer Rhodes, M.D., director of VCU’s Center for Craniofacial Care, partnered with a local sculptor, creating a pilot program of art workshops to enhance the plastic surgery residents’ experience.

“We are trying to foster the residents’ imagination, to encourage creativity,” said Rhodes. “Learning about aesthetics of the human body through sculpture is ideal for plastic surgery residents. In sculpting, we can talk about the things we used to talk about in lecture: proportions in the face, different features in the face, the concept of lighting and how it changes your perception of proportion…all things they must understand when they are doing a surgical procedure that affects the aesthetics of the face.

“I think it clicks much better in the residents’ minds when they learn these concepts during a hands-on approach in the artist’s studio rather than on the black board. I have never had the same kind of enthusiasm from them for a lecture.”

“Oh, we do enjoy a good lecture,” said Collier Pace, M’11, a fourth year plastic surgery resident. “But especially for us as surgical types, the hands-on stuff is what we remember and get excited about. Most of us are tactile learners.”

To reach those tactile learners, Rhodes works with VCU sculpture department alumna Morgan

“IT CLICKS MUCH BETTER IN THE RESIDENTS' MINDS WHEN THEY LEARN THESE CONCEPTS DURING A HANDS-ON APPROACH...”

Yacoe to design programs that allow residents to learn sculptural techniques and see how they relate to surgery – allowing them to test out aspects of their skill set before they apply them in the operating room.

Photography by Lindy Rodman (top photo) and Allen Jones (bottom photo) VCU University Marketing

A pilot program of art workshops was designed to enhance the plastic surgery residents' experience.

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Sculptor Morgan Yacoe created lifelike silicone faces so plastic surgery residents could practice flap design. Workshops like these help residents practice techniques before they apply them in the operating room.

Photography by Morgan Yacoe

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For example, Yacoe developed a workshop for should be or how much eyelid you should see residents to practice flap design, for which she or how far apart the eyes should be,” said Rhodes. created replicas of a face with silicone skin and “Now, our sensibilities are evolving and in resident underlying foam. education, we stress getting away from the numbers “They could practice local tissue rearrangement and and into developing residents’ own ways of looking then suturing to learn about how best to reconstruct at the face, understanding balance and harmony, and different types of skin cancer defects,” said Yacoe. understanding what features would be appropriate “I tested different silicones to get the elasticity right. for a particular individual.”

They got to practice tool handling, cutting, suturing, Mixing up the learning environment by going rotating the skin and other aspects of flap design and outside the hospital has another benefit. “Residents execution before they cut a real patient.” can get burned out,” Rhodes said, “and that affects The lesson was invaluable. “The next time I do this not only their ability to learn, but their empathy flap, I will have vision in my mind of how I want it,” towards patients, their outlook on life, their health said Pace. “These are helpful, subtle points that are and their perception of their career path and what hard to learn outside the operating room.” they want to do.

Other workshops have included sculpting clay “I think transforming a lesson into an experience busts and anatomical drawing. The skills they learn that they might not have sought on their own and teach residents that healing the body is art as well as outside their comfort zone is a way to help not only science. learning but to keep them inspired, foster creative “Historically, plastic surgeons had set numbers thinking, and enhance their connection to their for things – this is normal range for how thick lips chosen field.”

AC T I N G U P: P H Y S I C I A N S L E A R N N E W S K I L L S I N T H E T H E AT E R

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atherine Grossman, M.D., H’06, doesn’t expect any of the residents she supervises to ever pursue a career on stage, as entertaining as they may be. But she does see the value in learning theatrical improvisation skills. This year she incorporated an improv workshop into residency training.

Medicine, like theater, she believes, is an art as well as a skill, and improvisation enables residents to use different parts of the brain and approach ideas through a new lens.

“The millennial learner needs to be actively engaged and this is one way we engage them,” she said.

Grossman, associate professor of internal medicine on the MCV Campus, is not the first to see the parallel between art and science. Medical improv is an emerging field designed to improve cognition, communication and teamwork in medical settings.

Actor Alan Alda was recently honored by Stony Brook University for helping to establish a center using improvisation techniques to aid in communicating scientific information.

MEDICAL IMPROV IS AN EMERGING FIELD DESIGNED TO IMPROVE COGNITION, COMMUNICATION AND TEAMWORK IN MEDICAL SETTINGS. Grossman was introduced to improvisation during a medical simulation course at Harvard and recognized its value as a teaching tool. After an introductory class, she signed up for more.

“It was really neat looking at how the skills transferred back and forth. It made me think about how I teach, how I am at adapting rapidly, being in the moment and responding.”

When she returned to Richmond, Grossman contacted the Richmond Comedy Coalition.

“Improv can be very funny, but it’s more than making jokes on stage,” said Matt Newman, the Coalition’s managing director. “You really need to listen and respond to your scene partner with openness, honesty

and empathy. It helps you become a more thoughtful and responsive communicator.”

Grant Farr, D.O., a chief resident in internal medicine who participated in the workshop, agreed.

“Improv can help you express yourself so people will listen,” he said. Besides being fun, he added, it also helped loosen up the Type A personalities in his class.

Grossman, who was honored last fall for her innovative approach to education with the medical school’s Irby-James Award for Excellence in Clinical Teaching, notes that improv also is used in the school’s simulation center, where actors portray patients and physicians-in-training are required to react quickly.

Grossman has found her improv skills handy in many areas. “In improv, like real life, you have no idea how someone is going to respond.

“We’re always looking for ways to apply techniques from other fields into the way we teach. It’s interesting for me to work through different problems with different approaches. We’re walking down different pathways to be better at what we do.”

By Lisa Crutchfield

Photo courtesy of thecheatsmovement.com

A typical night of improv with the Richmond Comedy Coalition; pictured (left to right) are improv players Summer McCarley, Jim Zarling, Aaron Grant, David Pijor, Josh Blubaugh, and Eve Privman.

TIPS FROM A PRO To get the most from improv, performer and teacher Townsend Hart says you should: • Leave your ego at the door.

• Be open to feedback.

• Ask for help.

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L I G H T S, C A M E R A , AC T I O N

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tephanie Call, M.D., M.S.P.H., teaches residents a lot about caring for patients in today’s high-tech and high-pressure settings.

But she’s also teaching them to step away and reflect on what they’re doing – and why. Call, associate chair for education in the Department of Internal Medicine and director of its training program, believes that incorporating reflective practice into her teaching will enhance the way new physicians practice medicine. “We know that it will help them to connect with their patients and themselves, and make them better physicians,” she said.

A library of videos created by faculty and residents is available online.

Top: What Do You Think? Bennett Lee, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of internal medicine Above: A Good Death J. Christian Barrett, M.D., associate professor of internal medicine, Division of Hematology and Oncology

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By Lisa Crutchfield

She knows this because she’s done it herself.

Call took a technology course as part of a graduate certificate in medical education program last summer.

One of the course requirements was to create a digital story about a pivotal moment. “I have thought about a lot of things that I always have in my head that I want to journal or write a blog about, but I never do it,” she said. “So it was nice to take the time and space to do it.”

The course taught skills for teaching with digital media technologies, but there was also a reflective component.

Kenneth Warren, Ed.D., assistant professor and instructional technologist for medical education, led the course and recognized its value for faculty.

“Teaching reflection to medical learners includes activities such as critical incident reporting, journaling and oral storytelling,” he said. “As medical educators seek innovative methods to engage learners in reflection, digital storytelling is an exercise that can be used to promote deep learning and create rich narratives that represent meaningful experiences.”

Moved by the stories of her colleagues in the class, Call knew that the exercise would greatly benefit the residents she supervises. Beginning in 2014, she integrated it into their training.

“It’s a great way for active learners to reflect on what they do,” said Warren.

Call eases residents into the process. “I teach them about reflective practice and the act of reflecting. We talk about different methods including technology, blogs and digital stories, but we also have a low-tech option to start, with journals. I make them write their first entry in the journal while we’re sitting in a room together.”

“I am sensitive that many residents don’t feel comfortable taking the time and space to reflect. It is hard to get comfortable and be vulnerable.”

As part of the exercise, interns work with Call and Warren to create the digital stories. They’re assigned to write about a particular patient, challenge or obstacle and how their experience affected them.

They write scripts, record audio, find images and video and use WeVideo.com to create the 3-minute videos.

Sometimes the technology is the easy part. “They have to share it with others and go through that vulnerable moment,” said Call.

Resident Aaron Schatz, M’14, found the exercise liberating. “It was a socially acceptable way of connotatively expressing my emotions that are not typically acceptable. I could voice my frustrations and feelings without feeling guilty. I reaffirmed that

AS MEDICAL EDUCATORS SEEK INNOVATIVE METHODS TO ENGAGE LEARNERS IN REFLECTION, DIGITAL STORYTELLING IS AN EXERCISE THAT CAN BE USED TO PROMOTE DEEP LEARNING AND CREATE RICH NARRATIVES THAT REPRESENT MEANINGFUL EXPERIENCES. everybody has to internalize certain emotions, but it made me realize that in this field, it may be healthier to find a way to free myself from the burden of holding those feelings inside.”

“I will be honest: when she initially said we were going to be doing this video storytelling, I thought she was kind of crazy,” said Krista Edelman, M’11, a chief resident in internal medicine who went through the process with the interns. “I wondered if people would just do this to check it off the list. But I really ate my words. I found it very meaningful.”

So did resident Cesar Plazas-Guzman, M.D., who was fascinated by the opportunity. “In training and in practice, it can be easy to lose the focus on why we’re here. Sometimes we need to slow down.

“We need to reflect on the patients, how we’re treating them and spending time with them. And in doing that, we’re reflecting on ourselves.” z

Go online for a library of digital stories created by faculty and residents. http://go.vcu.edu/12thSpring2015

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A library of videos created by faculty and residents is available online, clockwise from top left: Mrs. Hope, Christina “Nina" Vitto, M.D., internal medicine resident Thank You, Mr. Jackson, Stephanie Call, M.D., M.S.P.H.,associate professor of internal medicine Rebirth, Emily Marko, M.D., FACOG, clerkship director of OB/GYN on the Inova Campus Relative Risks, Frank Fulco, M.D., R.Ph., assistant professor of internal medicine

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LET US KNOW YOUR LATEST NEWS! You can get our attention at http://go.vcu.edu/MedAlum or via email at MedAlum@vcu.edu

RALPH RIFFENBURGH RETURNS TO CAMPUS It’s not every day an alumnus from the 1940s returns to campus, but Ralph S. Riffenburgh, M’47, made the trip from California last September and brought along his three sons, Roger, Stephen and Bruce. The four spent time in the Egyptian Building, where Riffenburgh had classes, as well as in the new McGlothlin Medical Education Center, where he toured the clinical simulation center with Jerry Strauss III, M.D., Ph.D., dean of the School of Medicine.

He also had the opportunity to meet Vikram Brar, M’03, H’07, who holds the Ralph Riffenburgh, M.D., Professorship in Ophthalmology, which Riffenburgh and his wife, Angelyn, established in

2008 with a generous gift of $250,000.

From meeting the love of his life, to missing VE Day celebrations, Riffenburgh’s memories of his days on the MCV Campus are rich and plentiful.

His sons especially enjoy the story about their parents’ first date.

“During my junior and senior year they hired students to do all sorts of things,” he recalled. “I had a job doing autopsies at least every sixth day. A classmate recognized a girl from his hometown in the school dining room one day. She came with a roommate and I ended up asking the two of them to come over and see an autopsy.”

As one of the few female medical students at MCV in 1945, the future Mrs. Riffenburgh wasn’t put off by that first date.

The two were married soon after and spent their honeymoon eating each meal with ten 8- to 12-year-old boys – Riffenburgh had committed to working as a boys’ camp doctor while on summer break from MCV. One of the biggest disappointments in his life, Riffenburgh recalls, was missing the VE Day celebrations marking the end of WWII. “I was first up on outside OB which meant you sat by the telephone, waiting for a home delivery. I didn’t get a call for two days and by then the party was all over.”

Graduation was held at the Mosque Theater, now known as the Altria Theater, on what is now VCU’s Monroe Park Campus.

“Medical students don’t have the feeling that a lot of students do when they graduate – that they’re done,” he said. “We had four days to get to our internship. I interned in Pasadena, so I drove across the country.”

Riffenburgh thought he’d be a pathologist after his autopsy job experience.

“During internship, I worked in pathology with a national figure,” he said. “He was a great pathologist, but a miserable person. I decided it really wasn’t pathology I liked as much as it was the pathologist in Richmond.”

An ophthalmology rotation in internship was a better fit and put him onto a 60-year career path. In 1954, Riffenburgh settled in Pasadena, Calif., and opened an ophthalmology office where he practiced until his retirement in May 2014.

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50s Last fall, W. Kenneth Blaylock, M’58, marked 50 years on the faculty of the Department of Dermatology on the MCV Campus.

In November, Farrar W. Howard, M’53, of Providence Forge, Va., celebrated his 90th birthday as well as his 60 years in the Charles City and New Kent communities. For more than two decades, Doc Howard (seated) was the only physician in the two counties, and his party drew more than 550 guests!

Among the revelers were many with MCV Campus ties including (standing, left-to-right) Anup Gokli, M.D., assistant clinical professor with the Department of Family Medicine; James Darden, M’58, H’63; Wyatt Beazley, M'61, H'66; James Wickham, M’60; and (seated) Michelle Whitehurst-Cook, M’79, H’82.

Laurie E. Rennie, M’54, retired from Richmond's Neurological Associates in 1997, the practice that he helped found in 1969 with the late A. B. Harrelson, M’62, H’66. Rennie continued to work for free health clinics and participated in federal hearings until he stopped practicing medicine in July 2014. He and his wife, Barbara, spend the winter sailing and enjoying Florida until spring.

60s William F. Falls, Jr., H’62 , is a retired nephrologist who splits his year between homes in Dutton, Va., and Covenant Woods in Mechanicsville, Va. In 2014, his grandson Adam Robinson began as a first-year student in the medical school on the MCV Campus.

Adam’s wife, Shaheen Ali, is a third-year medical student.

John P. Moyer, M’66, of Denver, Colo., spent most of his 33-year career in primary care and pediatrics at the University of Colorado.

Though he has retired, he is still active on the volunteer faculty at University of Colorado School of Medicine where he coaches communication skills, professionalism and physical exam to first- and second-year medical students. He also teaches English as a first language to bilingual Latino second graders in inner-city Denver.

Retired surgeon James L. White, M’62, H’67, of Manassas, Va., was appointed as the Manassas representative to the Board of the Northern Virginia Community College, on which he previously served from 2004 to 2012. Jim and his wife, Barbara, are active in their church and enjoy traveling and

John F. Fisher, M’69, H’77, was honored with the Jane F. Desforges Distinguished Teacher Award at the American College of Physicians’ national meeting in Boston, Mass., in April. Now professor emeritus of Georgia Regents University, his academic career spans 38 years and 58 teaching awards, including the Clinical Teacher Award from the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

spending time with their four children and eight grandchildren.

New Jersey Medical School where he is also professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health and associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics.

70s Donald W. Barnes, PhD’71 (PHTX), is an emeritus professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine.

Jan Neil Basile, M’78, of Charleston, S.C., has been a professor of medicine on the faculty of the Medical University of South Carolina for more than 30 years. He retired from his role as chief of primary care at the MUSC-affiliated Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center after 31 years and now runs a consultative clinic on the MUSC campus for resistant and difficult-to-control hyperten­sion.

The Class of 1955 reunited for their 60th Reunion this April.

Marvin G. Frank, M’65, and his wife, Marsha, spend summers in Cedar Grove, N.J., and winter months in Longboat Key, Fla. When down south, he volunteers at the Sarasota Senior Friendship Center, a not-for-profit medical clinic and senior center that provides medical and dental care for seniors and indigent patients. A retired ophthalmologist, Frank is chief of the eye services at the center.

Steven M. Marcus, M’67, is executive and medical director of the New Jersey Poison Information and Education System at Rutgers

The Class of 1965 celebrated their 50th Reunion in April.

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BOB CENTOR WARNS OF WRONG DIAGNOSES AND DANGEROUSLY GOOD LIMEADE

For more than two decades, Robert M. Centor, M’75, says, the name Shaia meant one thing to him: “The best limeades in town.”

Now dean for the Huntsville Regional Medical Campus of the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine, Centor was back in town to speak as the guest lecturer at the annual Shaia Lectureship.

“It was my favorite lunch spot for 22 years,” Centor said of the Shaia family’s popular Skull and Bones restaurant on the MCV Campus that fed hungry medical students and doctors for 74 years.

After so many years of patronage, first as a student and later as a faculty member, he joked, “In my own way I helped contribute to this lectureship.”

A past president of the Society for Medical Decision Making, Centor discussed the sometimes problematic ways doctors assimilate and analyze information to make diagnoses. He warned against ignoring facts that conflict with your understanding of what’s wrong with a patient, and drove his point home by presenting anecdotes of patients he has seen throughout his career. After asking the audience to guess their diagnosis, he went on to reveal how an undiscovered or unlooked-for piece of information altered the diagnosis drastically.

Centor (center) was welcomed back to campus by Ed and Marie Shaia, whose family owned and operated the Skull and Bones. Ed Shaia and his brother Richard established the Shaia Lecture in 1965 in honor of their parents, Harry and Zackia.

– By Jack Carmichael

atrics. Her office is part of the Capital Area Pediatrics group, which has eight different practices across the D.C. Metro area.

Mary D. Colony, M’70, is an attending physician at the Arnot Ogden Hospital in Elmira, N.Y., and will be teaching bedside ultrasound and bedside echocardiography to the emergency medicine residents from Erie Osteopathic College.

The Class of 1970 marked their 45th Reunion this April.

Barry E. Brenner, M’75, PhD’76 (MICR), of Cleveland, Ohio, is the program director of emergency medicine at University Hospitals Case Medical Center. He works as a professor of emergency medicine and a professor of internal medicine at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He also

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serves as chief editor of Medscape, an online publication that provides relevant clinical information and news to medical professionals.

He is married with seven children.

Deborah G. Clapp, M’78, of Falls Church, Va., is a pediatrician at Sleepy Hollow Pedi-

In 2010, Richard F. Crowder, M’73, H’77, F’81, retired from his Gloucester, Va., gastroenterology practice. He lives in Ware Neck, Va., and serves on the board of directors for the Gloucester-Mathews Humane Society as well as Riverside Walter Reed Hospital. Crowder volunteers at the Gloucester-Mathews Free Clinic and travels to Tangier Island to see patients as needed.

John M. DeSesso, PhD’75 (ANAT), of Alexandria, Va., is the director of the Center for Toxicology and Mechanistic Biology at Exponent, an international engineering and scientific consulting company that

Though semi-retired, Robert A. Comunale, M'71, H'74, keeps a busy schedule as an aviation medical examiner in McLean, Va., medically clearing pilots for flight. The McLean Connection newspaper recently featured the physician who's also authored six novels. He uses the many personalities and stories that he has come across during his years of practicing medicine as inspiration for his characters and plots.

"Characters write the book...[they] write the story for you," he told the newspaper.

performs scientific research, analysis and evaluations. He also works as an adjunct professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Georgetown University School of Medicine.

Lynn W. Enquist, PhD’71 (MICR), is the Henry L. Hillman Professor in Molecular Biology in the Princeton Neuroscience Institute at Princeton University. His research focuses on mechanisms of herpes virus pathogenesis.

Robert T. Fraker, M’75, works at the Military Entrance Processing Station at Fort Lee in Virginia. He is responsible for helping determine the physical qualifications and aptitude for military service of those seeking to enlist in the armed services. As a veteran of the U.S. Navy, he enjoys the opportunity to continue supporting the armed forces.

Kathryn Duplantis, M'79 (right), is a cosmetic surgeon and CEO of the Hair, Laser and Liposuction Center of Dallas. She publishes in her field and also teaches reconstructive surgery to University of Texas Southwestern's dermatology residents at the veterans hospital. Her daughter Lauren Isbell is a third-year medical student at Texas Tech with a goal of following in her mother's footsteps into the dermatology field.

Duplantis' classmate and twin sister Katy Reynolds, M'79 (left), is a sports medicine physician at the Naval Hospital in Pensacola, Fla., where she also conducts research with the military to prevent injuries to troops. She has published numerous journal articles on injuries in military troops including the infantry, special forces, marines and other combat forces.

Reynolds is currently collaborating with the staff in the Exercise Physiology Department at the University of West Florida to examine strategies to reduce injuries in military troops including Coast Guard Special Ops teams.

Jack Ende, M’73, is assistant dean for advanced medical practice at Perelman School of Medicine and executive medical director of Penn Signature Services in the University of Pennsylvania Health System. He also serves on the editorial board of the journal Academic Medicine.

June S. Henderson, M’72, H’75, of Williamsburg, Va., has retired from her position with the College of William and Mary's Student Health Center, but she remains an active volunteer with the Fan Free Clinic in Richmond. She also serves on the clinic's board of directors. She is married to classmate Clifford E. Henderson, M’72, H’75. Cliff and Tom Powers, M’72, H’75, opened a family practice office in Williamsburg in 1975 where Cliff practiced until 1990 when he joined his wife June at William & Mary’s Student Health Center. June and Cliff retired in 2008.

Marion W. Leff, M’76, is a family medicine physician with the Sutter Medical Group in Sacramento, Calif. She also serves as program director of the organization's family medicine residency program.

Robert M. Litt, M’73, is a diagnostic radiologist who, after working for 29 years in Las Vegas, Nev., now works part time doing locums work. He's enjoying more opportunities to go to the gym, travel and visit kids in Texas and Washington.

James L. McDaniel, M’76 , specializes in internal medicine and pulmonary medicine with Riverside Eastern Shore Physicians & Surgeons in Nassawadox, Va. He is also medical director for Riverside Shore Hospice.

Saul Gorman, M’73 (right), and Jason Chiang, M’05 (left), met up with the medical school's Annual Fund Director Kenny Melvin to cheer on the Rams at the A-10 Tournament in Brooklyn, N.Y. VCU won the conference tournament.

David N. Greenblum, M’76, now of Chevy Chase, Md., and his wife, Annie, moved from Titusville, Fla., in 2013 to be closer to their children. They are expecting their second grandchild in May. Greenblum is an adult psychiatrist with a group practice in Bethesda, Md. Gary D. V. Hankins, M’77, is a professor as well as the Garland D. Anderson, MD Distinguished University Chair in Maternal-Fetal Medicine in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

Edith P. Mitchell, M’74, will be inducted as president of the National Medical Association at its annual convention in Detroit, August 1–5, 2015. A clinical professor in the Department of Medicine and Medical Oncology at Thomas Jefferson University, Mitchell is also associate director for diversity programs at Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center. The NMA is the largest and oldest national organization representing African American physicians and their patients in the United States.

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retired from his position as chief of medicine at the VA hospital in West Palm Beach and moved to Knoxville, Tenn.

Stephen Randall Thomas, PhD’77 (PHIS), is a research director with the French National Center for Scientific Research. His research centers on mathematical modeling of integrated transport systems in renal and epithelial physiology.

David G. Weiss, MS’72 (BIOS), PhD’75 (BIOS), enjoyed a 35-year professional career with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Cooperative Studies Program. Following retirement, he returned to a full-time career in music and is following a dual track: private studies reflect his primary interest in music with the focus on classical music repertoire for both piano and guitar, and public performances express his interest in Celtic traditional music and include regular performances at local and regional venues in Maryland. For relaxation, he is an avid reader of the general science literature, having acquired a library of several hundred books over the years.

The Class of 1975 celebrated their 40th Reunion in April.

Sally M. Pinkstaff, M’76, is the director of the Diabetes Resource Center at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore and is also an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

David I. Zolet, M’79, is the on-site physician advisor with Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Md. He works with hospital administration, the care management department and medical staff to assure compliance with Medicare and Medicaid regulations, avoid denials and formulate appeals. He also works as a faculty member in the Department of Medicine, where he helps instruct internal medicine residents.

Emergency medicine physician Richard F. Prince, M’70, continues to practice about 80 hours a month with Partner’s Urgent Care in San Diego, Calif. "I am just not ready to take that stethoscope off yet." He and his wife enjoy traveling and have visited Europe twice in recent years to visit their oldest daughter who is a foreign service officer with a U.S. embassy.

Glenn S. Simon, PhD’79 (PHTX), is director of corporate toxicology with Solvay, a global specialty chemical company based in Brussels, Belgium. He lives in Raleigh, N.C. Robert Duncan Slay, M’73, is a staff emergency medicine physician at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance, Calif. He's appeared in multiple episodes of the TV shows "Untold Stories of the ER" and "Sex Sent Me to the ER" and also does stand-up comedy as "Funny ER Doctor" on the YouTube and Funny or Die websites. He also is an advocate for preventing diseases, heart attacks, strokes and cancer. With that in mind, he's authored The Battle Buddy Diet, a couples' guide to health and functional longevity.

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Thomas M. Scalea, M'78, is serving as president of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma.

He took office in September 2014 at the 73rd Annual Meeting of AAST. He also was named president of the Western Trauma Association in March 2015, the only time in recent memory anyone has held both posts simultaneously. Scalea is physician-in-chief at the University of Maryland R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.

Retired gastroenterologist Robert W. Swisher, M’71, H’78, knew in the seventh grade that he wanted to be a physician. After training under Alvin M. Zfass, M’57, in the 70s, he went on to practice in Florida. In 2005, he

80s James W. Altizer, M’85, reports that he's working hard in Charlotte, N.C., trying to wrangle all the varicose vein patients away from the general surgeons. He is still collecting antique medical instruments, old houses and ex-wives. He has two grown-up kids but no grandkids yet.

Stuart A. Binder-Macleod, PhD’88 (PHIS), of Newark, Del., is associate deputy provost for clinical and translational research at

A Washington Post reporter spent the day with Peter Boling, H'84, last fall to learn more about how he helps elderly patients avoid expensive hospital stays by bringing medical care to them. Since 1984, Boling has run the VCU Medical Center's House Calls program. “The idea is to deliver health care where it’s best for the patient. If the clinic is the right place for them, then come to the clinic. If it’s hard for them to come to the clinic, short-term or long-term, we’ll go to them.” One of his goals, he told the Washington Post, “is to have established an economic model that makes this a desirable mode of practice.”

The Class of 1980 reunited for their 35th Reunion this April.

the University of Delaware, where he also serves as the Edward L. Ratledge Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy. He is the principal investigator for the Delaware Clinical and Translational ACCEL Program, a collaboration between the state of Delaware and the NIH that aims to promote and facilitate clinical and translational biomedical research.

Kurt F. Brandt, M’84, H’88, and Dawn M. Huff, H’89, are pediatricians in Knoxville, Tenn. They have four children, the youngest of whom are twins who will enter college in the fall. Their eldest daughter will enter medical school this fall at East Tennessee State University and their eldest son is currently a junior at Rhodes College.

E. Brantley Burns, Jr., M’80, practices with Tennessee Orthopaedic Clinics in Knoxville.

He specializes in hand and foot surgery and has taken on wound care patients as well.

A native of Richmond, Va., Burns worked during high school in the cardiac cath lab under Eric Kemp, M.D., and remembers it as a unique time to be among the great surgeons

David Hume, M.D., Lewis H. Bosher, Jr., H’47, and Richard Lower, M.D. Shambhavi Chandraiah, H’85, F’86, has joined the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at East Tennessee State University's Quillen College of Medicine in Johnson City, Tenn., as a professor. She will serve as director of outpatient services as well as associate residency training director.

Joseph T. Chun, M’85, has been the chief of plastic surgery at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville for two years.

Bruce E. Dornseif, PhD’85 (BIOS), of Flemington, N.J., is vice president of biometrics, data operations, medical writing and submission planning at Celgene Corporation, a biotechnology company that focuses on the development of treatments for hematological and solid tumor cancers and inflammatory disorders.

Yvonne P. Dragan, PhD’88 (PHTX) , of Newark, Del., works as a principal toxicologist with DuPont, where she provides

internal consulting for regulatory and investigative toxicology studies. She also works as a business unit liaison supporting bio-based businesses and as the technical leader of the Predictive Sciences Group.

Last fall, Janet M. Eddy, M’87, H’90, was honored by the Medical Society of Virginia Foundation with its Salute to Service award for her service to the uninsured and underserved. Eddy has a longstanding commitment to providing care to those without insurance. Even before medical school, she worked at Richmond’s Fan Free Clinic. She continued volunteering at the clinic during medical school and after residency became its director. She is currently medical director of the Bon Secours Richmond Health Care System’s Care-A-Van and has helped lead the mobile outreach program’s expansion into Hampton Roads, Va. Under her leadership, it grew from 8,000 patient visits in 2009 to more than 19,500 in 2013.

Gerald L. Feldman, PhD’82 (HGEN), M’84, serves as the current president of the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, the national organization for clinical and laboratory genetics professionals. He is a professor of molecular medicine and genetics, pediatrics and pathology at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Mich., where he also serves as director of clinical genetics services and as the medical director of the Division of Laboratory Genetics and Molecular Pathology.

Kevin W. Fergusson, M’85, H’88, is vice president and medical director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond where he provides both primary and acute patient care as well as administrative oversight. He has instituted a stress management training

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The Class of 1985 celebrated their 30th Reunion in April.

program for employees and is currently implementing a program for the prevention of diabetes. Fergusson also earned a master's in health administration from the School of Allied Health in 1995.

Lynn S. Findley, M’89, H’93, and Bruce A. Mast, H’93, live in Gainesville, Fla., where they are raising their two children. Findley is an anesthesiologist with Anesthesia Associates of North Florida, and Mast is chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the University of Florida College of Medicine.

Richard E. Fuller, M’88, H’00, of Brookfield, Wis., is returning to family medicine after 15 years of exclusively pediatrics practice.

Tenn. He and his wife Annette, who earned degrees from both the Schools of Nursing and Allied Health, met on the MCV Campus while she was an instructor in the Department of Nurse Anesthesia. They've lived in Tennessee since 1998.

Orthopaedic surgeon Wilford K. Gibson, M’85, of Virginia Beach, Va., practices with Atlantic Orthopaedic Specialists. He is the past chair of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Board of Councilors and currently serves the organization's Council on Advocacy as chair of the Advocacy Resource Committee.

A trip to the MCV Campus in the seventh grade was enough to convince Donald J. John Patrick Galdun, M’84, practices with Grandis, M’85, to change his career plans.

Anesthesia Medical Alliance in Knoxville, The would-be astronaut instead set his sights on becoming a physician. In the fall of 2014, he and his wife, MEDICINE ALUMNI ARE IDENTIFIED Jennifer, moved from

BY DEGREE AND GRADUATION YEAR Pittsburgh, Penn., to the west coast to take F Fellowship positions at the UniH Housestaff versity of California M Doctor of Medicine San Francisco on the MPH Master's of Public Health cardiology and otoMS Master's laryngology faculties, PhD Doctor of Philosophy respectively.

ANAT BIOC BIOS EPID HCPR HGEN MICR PHTX PHIS SBHD

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Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department of Biostatistics Department of Family Medicine and Population Health Department of Healthcare Policy and Research Department of Human and Molecular Genetics Department of Microbiology and Immunology Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology Department of Physiology and Biophysics Department of Social and Behavioral Health

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Jeffrey G. Gross, M’83, of Columbia, S.C., established the Carolina Retina Center in 1992.

It has now grown to include four offices in central South Carolina.

In addition to seeing patients, he is also the

Norma Kenyon, PhD'87 (MICR), is the executive director for translational research at the University of Miami and has recently taken on a new role as vice provost of innovation. In an interview with The Miami Herald she talked about her efforts to market technologies and ideas produced by the school's faculty, efforts that have led to over 20 startup companies at the university. Kenyon is the Martin Kleiman Professor of Surgery, Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology and Biomedical Engineering, and her own research is in the field of diabetes.

managing partner. He has been principal investigator on over 30 clinical research trials in retinal diseases, has authored over 30 peer reviewed publications and book chapters and is an instructor for courses in retinal diseases and surgery.

“I was as fresh off the boat as it gets,” says Sebastian Joyce, PhD’88 (MICR), who traveled from India to the MCV Campus to pursue his Ph.D. in the early 1980s. Today he’s a professor in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology at Vanderbilt University, where he’s developing the unconventional approach of using T cell-targeted vaccines against infectious diseases. Last fall, he returned to campus with five commandments for young scientists, including: “You don’t have to listen to the gray haired, the balding [older generation] or go to them with all your questions. If they already knew all the answers, there would be no point in you doing the experiment!”

Colleen A. Kraft, M’86, H’89, is now the chief medical officer and medical director of the Health Network by Cincinnati Children's. The Health Network is a pediatric

ALUMNI PROFILE Wayne Reichman leaves Baltimore surgery practice behind to expand access to surgical care in Haiti

His first trip to Haiti in 2013 left him speechless.

“When I got home, I couldn’t talk about the experience for a few days,” said Wayne Reichman, M'83. “I needed some time to process it all.”

The rubble from the 2010 earthquake still littered the city of Jacmel. Many roads remained unpassable and homeless families continued to struggle.

“Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere,” he said. “So many of these people literally have nothing.

I simply wanted to do what I was trained to do as a doctor and surgeon – help the less fortunate.”

So Reichman began transitioning out of his vascular surgery practice in Baltimore two years ago to become the medical director of the Jim Wilmot Surgery Center in Jacmel, Haiti.

Opened in 2012 and operated by the non-profit Community Coalition for Haiti (CCH), the center provides free surgical care for an impoverished area of 250,000 people and is a sustainable surgical training site for Haitian health care providers. It has three operating rooms, a physical therapy department, pharmacy and primary care clinic.

“The average family earns about $750 a year, so most patients could never afford surgery,” he said. “They are extremely grateful. It can get very emotional.”

Reichman runs the clinic logistics from Baltimore and is on site several a times a year. Other surgeons, nurses and primary care physicians from around the country rotate in monthly.

Cases include plastic surgical repair of cleft lip and palate, vascular surgery, orthopedics, general surgery, urology and GYN laparoscopic procedures.

“Our clinic is one of the most modern facilities in Haiti,” Reichman said. “We even have air conditioning in the operating

rooms and recovery room as well as fluoro and ultrasound capabilities. We don’t have the advanced diagnostic equipment that one would typically expect in the United States.

Working in this environment, you become a better diagnostician by relying mainly on your clinical skills,” he said.

His wife and two children have also accompanied him on past trips to Haiti teaching in the schools and shooting video for CCH. Vicky, his wife, is a potter and has worked with the schoolchildren teaching them how to make ceramics and their own cereal bowls. The students are ecstatic when their works of art are complete because it means they no longer have to eat off a Frisbee or piece of cardboard.

Helping the underserved of Baltimore has always been a part of Reichman’s surgical practice. But completing medical school and his residency, starting a practice and raising a family monopolized his time so traveling to underdeveloped areas was difficult.

“My children are now grown, so it is a good time in my life for this type of service,” he said. “Life is unpredictable and fragile. I often remember the saying that God laughs at those who make plans. I believe that if you want to do something in your life, just go and do it so you have no regrets.”

– Janet Showalter

Top: Class of 1983’s Wayne Reichman with a post-op patient in the recovery room of the Wilmot Surgery Center in Haiti. Middle: The Community Coalition for Haiti’s medical mission charter flight from Jacmel on the southern coast to Port au Prince. Above: The Community Coalition for Haiti’s clinic is a retrofitted grocery store left standing after the earthquake.

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Accountable Care Organization partnership with Medicaid Managed Care in Ohio. She also serves on the faculty of the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics.

Patrick McGrath, H’86, F’88, holds the Ward O. Griffin Endowed Chair in Surgery and serves as chief of general surgery and section head of surgical oncology for the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.

Robert S. Miller, M’85, has been named medical director of CancerLinQ and senior director of quality and guidelines at the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Alexandria, Va. He will lead quality initiatives including developing practice guidelines and performance measures. He also is editor-in-chief of ASCO’s patient information website, Cancer.Net. Previously, he was a clinical associate in the breast cancer program and oncology medical information officer at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.

Jeffrey Lamont, H'82, was named the 2014 Wisconsin Pediatrician of the Year. For more than 30 years he has practiced in Wisconsin, where he works as the medical advisor for three school districts and serves as the School Health Chair for the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “I have never forgotten the quality of the people I had the privilege to work with at MCV,” Lamont said. “The education I received was superb, not only in terms of hard medical knowledge but in terms of what it truly means to be a children’s physician. The faculty set a tone, a standard of conduct, that one tried to live up to. To this day, I’ll find myself facing a clinical dilemma and thinking of how this or that faculty member would respond to what I’m contemplating at the time."

Samuel D. Land, M’88, H’93, F’94, is chief of the Section of Forensic and Medical Pathology with Forensic Pathology Associates, a division of Health Network Laboratory at the Lehigh Valley Health Network. He lives in Allentown, Penn.

Richard D. Lane, PhD’81 (ANAT), retired with the title of professor emeritus from the University of Toledo last July. He quickly made the most of that by traveling with his wife, Sally, to visit children and grandchildren in Los Angeles, Baton Rouge and Chicago. He returned to the UT campus for a five-month stint teaching anatomy to the medical students, but now is back on the road again and enjoying his retirement.

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Gold Coast Orthopedics & Spine in Newport Beach and San Diego.

After many years as an emergency medicine physician, William A. Reese, M’86, is now senior partner and medical director of Reese Medical Associates, a busy primary care and occupational medicine practice in the Fredericksburg, Va., area. He's also active as an entrepreneur, starting a record label, a music publishing company and developing a real estate business.

Robert S. Moreland, PhD’82 (PHIS), is a professor in the Departments of Pharmacology and Physiology as well as Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Drexel University College of Medicine. He is also an adjunct professor of urology in the Department of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He is currently involved with research that seeks to understand how smooth muscle function is regulated.

Cynthia C. Morton, PhD’82 (HGEN), is the recent past president of the American Society of Human Genetics with research interests that include hereditary deafness, molecular cytogenetics, uterine fibroids and human developmental disorders. She is the William Lambert Richardson Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology and a professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School. She also serves as the director of cytogenetics at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Alan M. Peaceman, H’85, is professor and chief of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He also serves as chief of obstetrics at Northwestern’s Prentice Women’s Hospital. He continues to be involved with clinical research in the NICHD Maternal Fetal Medicine Units Network, and his clinical interests focus on hypertension in pregnancy and multiple gestation.

David A. Petersen, M’87, H’94, has moved to California, where he owns and practices with

Oncologist Gerald J. Robbins, M'83, of New Port Richey, Fla., ended his term on the Florida Cancer Control and Research Advisory Council last year. A past president of the Florida Society of Clinical Oncology, his desire for patients to have access to needed education, life skills and tools led him to launch FLASCO's Patient Advocacy Initiative. Now battling cancer himself, Robbins has seen his colleagues rally to his cause. They've taken up the baton, organizing FLASCO's first patient advocacy program in Tampa earlier this year, a milestone event that they dedicated to Robbins.

Gastroenterologist and hepatologist, Don C. Rockey, M’84, of Mount Pleasant, S.C., was named chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina in 2012. He is active in basic and clinical research, education, patient care and leadership. He and his wife, Kathy, who graduated from the School of Allied Health with a physical therapy degree, have three children.

Jackson B. Salvant, Jr., M’88, H’94, is a neurosurgeon with Riverside Regional in Newport News, Va. He is married to Katherine P. Lloyd, M’97, H’02, who is a hematologist-oncologist.

Virginia M. Sanders, PhD’85 (PHTX), is a professor in the Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics at the Ohio State University College of Medicine.

Clifton A. Sheets, M’83, is managing partner and president of PrimeCare, a largely urgent care practice in Fredericksburg, Va. In addition to administrative duties and urgent care shifts, he enjoys serving as primary care physician for a cadre of patients with PMS, PMDD and peri- and post-menopausal disorders. After more than 20 years as an emergency medicine physician, he is pleased to now have a schedule that allows him to put his family first.

Frank Alan Snyder, M’86, is founder and chief executive officer of Wilmington Internal Medicine, a practice located in southeastern North Carolina that specializes in cardiovascular disease and diabetes. He also serves as the chief medical officer for CardioPharma, a pharmaceutical company that develops drugs to treat cardiovascular disease.

Charlie Strange, M’82, of Charleston, S.C., is a professor of pulmonology at the Medical University of South Carolina where he focuses his time on emphysema research and

training the pulmonology fellows. He also is active with the Waring Historical Library Society working to make its historical archive of medical notes and artifacts dating back to the 1700s accessible to the community.

90s Marty A. Baker, M’98, practices with Charlotte Pediatric Clinic. He enjoys both his clinical care and administrative responsibilities that include overseeing quality and meaningful use for his practice and several others within Carolinas HealthCare System.

He and his wife, Trish, have three children.

J. Rand Baggesen, M’97, is medical director of n1 Executive Health Group in Richmond, Va. Ashley J. Birkett, PhD’94 (BIOC), of Bethesda, Md., is the director of PATH's Malaria Vaccine Initiative, which works to accelerate the development of malaria vaccines and catalyze timely access in endemic countries.

He has 20 years of vaccine development experience in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors.

Surgeon Timothy J. Broderick, H’97, has been named associate dean for research affairs, Boonshoft School of Medicine, and chief scientist, Wright State Research Institute in Dayton, Ohio. He is responsible for growing Wright State University’s basic and applied research and development. Since 2010, he has served as a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He has developed high-impact biotechnology for the Department of Defense and NASA that has translated into improvements in patient care.

Leigh Ann Burns Naas, PhD’92 (PHTX), is the vice president of drug safety evaluation at Gilead Sciences, a research-based biopharmaceutical company focusing on liver disease, oncology, inflammatory disease and HIV/AIDS among other conditions. Her department provides scientific interpretation of nonclinical safety studies and contributes to risk management and issue resolution strategies to enable the rapid discovery, clinical progression and registration of novel therapeutic candidates.

Last November, Diane DeVita, M’96, posted a time of 5 hours and 6 minutes in the Firenze Marathon in Italy – it was her seventh 26.2- mile race; she’s also run more than 40 half-marathons. DeVita is assistant chief of the emergency department at the Army's joint base Lewis-McChord outside Tacoma, Wash.

The Class of 1990 marked their 25th Reunion this April.

Alison Ensor Dunn, M’96, and Richard K. Dunn, M'96, practice in Warsaw, Va. Alison is a pediatrician with Warsaw Medical Arts and Richard is a family medicine physician with Riverside Physicians.

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is an anesthesiologist with Anesthesia Associates of North Florida, and Mast is chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the University of Florida College of Medicine.

The Class of 1995 reunited for their 20th Reunion in April.

Dianne Farina-Sisofo, PhD’97 (BIOS), is an assistant professor at the University of Delaware in the Department of Applied Economics and Statistics.

Robert J. Feezor, M’99, returned to the MCV Campus in March to present the second annual H.M. Lee Lecture. A vascular surgeon at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville, Feezor spoke on the current management of type B aortic dissections. Feezor explained that serving as the Lee Lecturer was a particular honor because in 1964, his father, Bill Feezor, was the 40th kidney transplant patient of pioneering surgeons H.M. Lee, H’61, and David Hume, M.D. He went on to become one of the transplant program’s longest-living kidney recipients.

Over the next 42 years, his life continued to be entwined with MCV where he worked as a hospital administrator from 1967–1974, saw the birth of his two children in the hospital's labor and delivery unit and applauded his son’s graduation in 1999.

James M. Gardner, M’92, is a family medicine physician in Abingdon, Va., where he also serves as a trustee for Johnston Memorial Hospital.

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Victor C. Joe, M’95, is director of the UC Irvine Health Regional Burn Center. His research interests include trauma and burn resuscitation as well as critical care outcomes.

Wendy R. LeBolt, PhD’90 (PHIS), has published a new book entitled Fit 2 Finish: Keeping Your Soccer Player in the Game that aims to help youth soccer coaches find healthy ways of training their players.

In the book she focuses on keeping young athletes healthy by avoiding common injuries as well as ways to keep them dedicated to playing sports.

Robyn Carline Murphy, M’92, H’93, is section chief of pediatric radiology at Goryeb Children's Hospital at Morristown Medical Center in Morristown, N.J., where she has worked since 1998. She is also an assistant clinical professor of radiology at Icahn School of Medicine of Mount Sinai in New York City.

She lives with her husband and two children in Mendham, N.J. Ramesh Natarajan, PhD’97 (BIOC), was awarded a $1 million grant from the Department of Defense that aims to prevent the coagulopathy that leads to multiple organ failure in injured swine that hemorrhage following penetrating wounds. He is an associate professor of internal medicine on the MCV Campus.

The YWCA of Richmond has named Melissa Byrne Nelson, M’98, one of its Outstanding Women of 2015. She was recognized for her work to give children – regardless of race, ethnicity or family income – the best medical care available. In addition to practicing with Pediatric Associates of Richmond, she is an advocate for PACKids, an organization that supports the creation of a new children’s hospital in Richmond, Va.

Carmen L. Lewis, H’91, of Denver, Colo., is an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Colorado where her research focuses on interventions to engage patients and educate them about their care decisions.

Hematologist-oncologist Katherine P. Lloyd, M’97, H’02, is married to Jackson B. Salvant, Jr., M’88, H’94, who is a neurosurgeon with Riverside Regional in Newport News, Va. Bruce A. Mast, H’93, and Lynn S. Findley, M’89, H’93, live in Gainesville, Fla., where they are raising their two children. Findley

The Nightly Business Report talked with Kenneth Redcross, M’98, about the growing popularity of concierge medicine to meet the needs of the business world. Primary care physician Redcross founded a New York City practice that offers coast-to-coast concierge services, office medical care and housecalls – at home or work. The long-running business news show airs on public broadcasting stations around the country.

A HOMECOMING FOR THOMAS YEH Thomas Yeh, H’97, PhD’97 (PHIS), has returned to the MCV Campus to lead the cardiac surgery program at Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU (CHoR).

“It is an honor to provide cardiac care to children and families in Central Virginia, and to give back to one of the institutions that was so fundamental to my training,” says Yeh, who completed his general surgery and cardiothoracic surgery residencies here.

“The lessons I learned here form the very heart of what I believe it means to be a great doctor. I’m reminded of this every day when I look in the residents’ and students’ faces, and remember that was my face 28 years ago – here to learn the lessons of a career.”

His career has taken him to Kosair Children's Hospital at The University of Louisville, Dallas Children’s Hospital and Parkland at the University of Texas Southwestern. Most recently he was professor and chair, leading the complex rebuilding of Tulane’s Pediatric Heart Center after it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Yeh’s return to campus last fall was followed by an announcement from Children’s Hospital Foundation that it would advance pediatric cardiac surgery through a $28 million gift to create the Children's Hospital Foundation Heart Center at CHoR. The announcement marked the largest gift to children’s health in VCU’s history.

Children’s Hospital and VCU Health System joined in 2010 to form CHoR. Since then, Children’s Hospital Foundation has given generously to numerous CHoR programs. With this latest gift, their total level of support exceeds $58 million.

Bennie A. Skinner, M’95, H’99, of Hampton, Va., is a radiologist with Tidewater Diagnostic Imaging.

Rebecca R. Swan, M’90, of Nashville, Tenn., is an associate professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and director of its pediatrics residency program.

Denise Toney, PhD’93 (MICR), is the laboratory director for the Virginia Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services.

Mark A. Vincent, M’92, of Charlotte, N.C., works as a medical director with New York Life Insurance Company, where he reviews customers' medical impairments to produce mortality risk assessments for the company.

Cynthia C. Romero, H’96, was honored for her outstanding contributions promoting the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health through political service. She accepted the Clarence A. Holland, M.D. Award during the Medical Society of Virginia’s annual meeting in October 2014. Romero currently serves as the director of Eastern Virginia Medical School’s Brock Institute for Community and Global Health and is the physician manager for TPMG Romero Family Practice in Virginia Beach, Va. The award bears the name of former state senator and longtime public servant Clarence A. Holland, M’62.

00s Amin Amini, M’02, is medical director of neurosurgery at Washington Adventist Hospital and chairman of neurosurgery at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Md. He also has a private neurosurgery practice, the Center for Brain and Spine, that specializes in minimally invasive and image-guided surgeries.

Carey Compton Bertsch, M’09, and Stuart R. Bertsch, M’09, live in Hebron, Ky., where Stuart is an anesthesiologist with the U.S. Air Force and Carey is a pediatrician.

Jason Chiang, M’05, and Saul Gorman, M’73, met up with the medical school's Annual Fund Director Kenny Melvin to cheer on the Rams at the A-10 Tournament in Brooklyn, N.Y. VCU won the conference tournament.

See photo on page 45.

Wirt W. Cross, Jr., M’04, is a general surgeon with Riverside Tappahannock Hospital in Virginia. He decided to pursue working in a small community after serving with the U.S. Navy in the Middle East and witnessing the direct impact surgery can make.

Angela E. Fritzinger, PhD’04 (MICR), of Richmond, Va., is deputy director with the Virginia Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services. The division performs over 7 million tests a year for 650 different analytes in service of the Commonwealth of Virginia, federal agencies and other states. Tests include analysis of drugs of abuse, exposure to chemical weapons and outbreaks of infectious diseases.

Seth A. Gale, M’08, is a neurologist with Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

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health contributor for The Daily Beast and a blogger for Psychology Today.

Brian M. Lingerfelt, M’06, H’09, of Mount Pleasant, S.C., practices with Charleston Hematology Oncology Associates at Roper St. Francis Hospital. He and his wife, Louise, have three sons, ages 8, 6 and 3 years old.

The Class of 2000 celebrated their 15th Reunion this April.

Tracey Ann Dechert, H'08, was among the keynote speakers at the annual Rao R. Ivatury Trauma Symposium in March. She shared perspectives on preparedness, postoperative care and everything in between—lessons she gained from treating patients after the Boston marathon bombing. Dechert is a trauma and acute care surgeon at Boston Medical Center and was on duty when the bombing occurred.

LaToya A. Griffin-Thomas, PhD’09 (MICR), is the bioterrorism emergency response coordinator for the Virginia Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services, where she also serves as lead scientist for vaccine preventable disease and flu and respiratory illness testing.

Ali M. Khan, M’09, is chair of the American College of Physicians' National Council of Resident/Fellow Members that represents the interests of over 22,000 residents and fellows-in-training. Now based San Francisco, where his wife Asima is a fellow in reproductive endocrinology/infertility and global health sciences at UCSF, he is a clinical innovator and director of physician engagement with Boston-based Iora Health and practices general internal medicine at Iora's super-utilizer clinic serving medically complex casino workers in Las Vegas. Having completed residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital, he now serves on Yale's clinical faculty. He reports that when he's not on a plane, a burgeoning family life happily takes up much of his time.

His daughter Arya, 2, is about to be joined by a little brother.

Jean Kim, M’00, of Washington, D.C., is pursuing her interests in both medicine and writing. In addition to serving as a psychiatrist for the U.S. State Department and a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at George Washington University, she also is a

Eric S. Gwynn, MS’98, M’02, of Hilton Head, S.C., is a urologist with New River Urology.

He moved to South Carolina from Blacksburg, Va., two years ago.

Long P. Huynh, M'04, was married to Colin Lohse on June 22, 2013. Long and Colin welcomed a baby boy, Ryder, to their family in December 2014. Long is an OB/ GYN with Avista Women's Care in Boulder, Colo.

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The Class of 2005 marked their 10th Reunion in April.

Michael S. Murchie, M’05, is medical director at CrossOver Healthcare Ministry in Richmond, Va., the largest charitable clinic in the commonwealth of Virginia. He lives in Henrico with his wife Missy and their four children: Camille, 9; Natalie, 8; Josiah, 5; and Grace, 1.

Maulik P. Parikh, M’02, of Colleyville, Texas, is managing partner of Atlas Anesthesia Associates, PA and one of five founders of the practice. Established in 2010, the practice has grown to more than 100 anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists.

Aurora J. Peacock, M’04 , and Kevin H. Peacock, MS’97 (ANAT), M’01, H’04, recently welcomed a set of twins to their family.

Baby boy and girl join older brothers, Ian and Rhys. The Peacock family lives in Atlanta, where Aurora is a neuroradiologist and Kevin is a hematologist-oncologist.

Stefan Pomrenke, M'08, MPH'08, and his wife Lee Ann welcomed daughter Margareta "Greta" Florence Pomrenke to their family on Oct. 1, 2014. She joins proud big sister Viktoria, age 4.

Pomrenke is a family physician with West Side Community Health Services in Saint Paul, Minn.

Thomas S. Ridder, M’07, H’14, is completing a one-year fellowship in pediatric neurosurgery at Children’s Hospital of Colorado. He currently lives in Denver, Colo., with his wife, Jenna, whom he met on the MCV Campus when she was completing her physical therapy degree in the School of Allied Health.

They are expecting an addition to their family in September 2015.

Vincent H. Roddy, M’09, is an emergency medicine attending physician at Broward Health Medical Center's Level I Trauma Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Daniel V. Santos, M’03, H’08, is an otolaryngologist with Chesapeake Ear Nose & Throat in Baltimore, Md. He lives in Homeland with his wife, Susan, and their three children.

Margaret Shih, M’02, PhD’02 (BIOS), is the director of the Office of Health Assessment and Epidemiology with the County of Los Angeles' Department of Public Health. Her office tracks and analyzes health data, which is used in policy development and research.

Lauren Turner, PhD’08 (MICR), is a principal scientist with the Epidemiological Support Group of the Virginia Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services, which provides testing in support of disease surveillance activities and epidemiologic investigations.

Career Physicians Committee for the Virginia chapter of the American College of Physicians.

Timothy J. Wallace, PhD’99 (BIOC), M’03, H’08, of Henrico, Va., is a radiation oncologist and medical director of Radiation Oncology Associates and the Bon Secours Cancer Institute. He is principal investigator on an R21 research grant from the National Institutes of Health, the first of its kind for Bon Secours and a rare achievement for a community cancer center. He will investigate the tumor-mediated immune variations in African American men with prostate cancer. The study represents a state-wide collaboration of five medical centers and constitutes one of the largest databases of African American men with prostate cancer in the United States.

David M. Wilson, PhD’01 (PHTX), is senior director of bioanalytical at Ardea Biosciences, a biotechnology company focused on the development of small-molecule therapeutics for the treatment of serious diseases. He lives in San Diego, Calif.

Richard A. Boe, M'14, married Amy N. Lee on May 3, 2014 at The Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Va. Boe is an orthopaedic surgery resident at Marshall University.

Julia Siegel Breton, M'12, and her husband, Andrew Gumby Breton, welcomed a baby girl to their family.

Chase Virginia Siegel Breton was born February 26, 2015.

Breton is a family medicine physician with Cambridge Health Alliance near Boston, Mass., and will start a fellowship in geriatrics at Harvard's Multicampus Fellowship based at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center this summer.

Harry V. Wright, M'08, and his wife, Christy, recently welcomed their fourth child, Christian, to their family.

He joins older siblings Harrison, Lillian and Jackson.

Wright practices with Hillstrom Facial Plastic Surgery and Skin Care Center in Sarasota, Fla.

10s Paul Singh, M'06, joined the Department of Neurological Surgery and the Neurological Institute of New Jersey at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in August 2014. More recently he was on hand to watch the men’s basketball team win the A-10 Tournament in Brooklyn, N.Y. Here Singh (right) is pictured with the medical school's Annual Fund Director Kenny Melvin.

Krystal E. Ainsley, H’12, of Williamsburg Va., has joined Riverside Partners in Women's Health, where she works in the gynecology office and provides primary care to women.

She is also serving as co-chair of the Early

Omar M. Hussain, M'14, married Fizza H. Tirmizi in May 2014. He is an anesthesiology resident at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Fizza graduated from the School of Dentistry in 2012 and is practicing as a dental hygienist.

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Esther Miriam Johnston, M’11, is completing a fellowship in global clinical education with Massachusetts General Hospital and is currently on faculty at Hubert Kairuki Memorial University in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, through a partnership between the U.S. Peace Corps and Seed Global Health.

William S. Kaufman, M’11, of Roanoke, Va., will complete his dermatology residency at Wake Forest University in June 2015 and will begin practicing with Dermatology Associates, PA, in Wilmington, N.C. Allison Powers, M'14, and Jeremy Powers, M'14, have welcomed a new baby to their family. Their son, Elisha "Eli" Jonathan Powers was born Nov. 17, 2014. Allison and Jeremy are residents with the VCU Medical Center, Allison in family medicine at the Bon Secours St. Francis residency site and Jeremy in plastic surgery on the MCV Campus.

Maxwell Sirkin, M'12, married Caitlin Alewine, a 2011 graduate of VCU Clinical Radiation Sciences, on Sept. 13, 2014, in Richmond, Va. Max is a thirdyear Army surgical resident, and Caitlin is a nuclear medicine technologist, both at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas.

Lt. Joseph Roderique, MS’13 (PHIS), M'14, is now a surgery resident with the U.S. Navy Medical Corps.

He recently was named Best Young Investigator at the Military Health Research Symposium, the premier scientific meeting of the U.S. Department of Defense.

While a medical student, he worked to develop a unique form of vitamin B12 as an effective treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning.

Christina M. Vitto, M'14, and husband Michael Vitto, H'14, welcomed baby Mason to their family on Jan. 27, 2015. Christina and Michael are both training at the VCU Medical Center, Christina as an emergency medicineinternal medicine resident and Michael in an ultrasound fellowship.

Aaron M. Schatz, M'14, married Meredith Davis on Oct. 10, 2014. Schatz is an internal medicine resident on the MCV Campus.

Meghan Richardson, M'14 (right), married Victoria Solderitch in November 2014 in Fernandina Beach, Fla. Richardson is an orthopaedic surgery resident at State University New York at Stony Brook.

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Aaron R. Wolen, PhD’12 (HGEN), of Midlothian, Va., is a bioinformatics specialist at VCU's Center for Clinical and Translational Research.

Michael R. Zeigler, MS'10 (ANAT), M'14, married Andrea on April 12, 2014. He is currently completing a surgical internship in Wilmington, N.C., and will begin an anesthesiology residency at GRU Medical Center (formerly, the Medical College of Georgia) in July.

WELCOME TO THE CLASS OF 2015 THE NEWEST MEMBERS OF OUR ALUMNI BODY

Lindy Rodman, VCU University Marketing SPRING 2 015

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PIECE OF THE PAST

T

he young doctor stares in disbelief at his patient.

How could this be? No blood, no torn flesh, no bullet wound.

This is, after all, 1942 North Africa. World War II wages all around. But this latest patient shows no sign of trauma.

He is, however, suffering from chronic tonsillitis and needs surgery. With no medical equipment readily available to handle a procedure unrelated to combat, the resourceful surgeon fabricates a tonsil snare out of an aluminum propeller from a downed French airplane.

“Necessity is the mother of invention,” said Jodi Koste, university archivist and head of Tompkins-McCaw Library’s Special Collections and Archives. “It certainly shows the ingenuity of the surgeons during that time.”

The tonsil snare is one of about 6,500 pieces in the library’s Medical Artifacts Collection. When J. Warren Montague, M.D., H’41, donated the piece in 1982, he told Koste the story of how he created it while serving in North Africa during World War II. When faced with the unanticipated tonsillectomy, he and an Air Force sergeant improvised. They carved the finger pieces from the aluminum propeller, while the other parts were made from a drill rod, part of a typewriter and a bicycle spoke.

Montague used the snare to remove the tonsils of about 300 U.S. servicemen throughout the course of the war in both Africa and southern France.

“This is how many medical instruments were developed,” Koste said. “Surgeons would work with a bioengineer to develop a piece that would help them become more proficient. It still happens today based on need or to make a procedure simpler and less invasive.”

Few, however, are fabricated on the spot by a quickwitted surgeon like Montague. Koste said only about one percent of the school’s collection was fabricated, the rest manufactured.

“It is not unusual for medical schools to have a collection of medical artifacts,” she said. “And there are larger ones out there. But we are proud of our collection here because of the stories it can tell about the unusual.”

By Janet Showalter

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KEEP UP WITH THE LATEST Do you want to expand your knowledge or improve your clinical skills?

REUNION WEEKEND FUTURE DATES

VCU Continuing Medical Education offers a year-round schedule of live CME and web-based activities.

3 7 TH A N N UA L PEDI ATR I C PR I MA RY CA RE CONFERENC E “Pediatrics at the Beach” July 17–19, 2015 Virginia Beach, Va. Wyndham Oceanfront Resort

2016 April 15–17

for Class Years ending in a '6 or '1

2017

6 TH A N N UA L VCU PA I N MA N AG EMEN T & SP INE SYM P OSIUM Oct. 16–18, 2015 Richmond, Va. Hilton Richmond Hotel & Spa at Glen Allen

P R AC T I C A L FRO N TI ER S I N PR I MA RY CARE Oct. 24, 2015 Richmond, Va. Hilton Richmond Hotel & Spa at Glen Allen

April 7–9 for Class Years ending in a '7 or '2

2018 21 ST ANNUAL VCU SPORTS MEDICINE UPDATE IN PRIMARY CARE *New this year: a half day program presented by Children’s Hospital of Richmond on Dec. 4 Dec. 4 –6, 2015 Williamsburg, Va. Kingsmill Resort & Spa

April 20–22

for Class Years ending in a '8 or '3

R I C H M O N D C ME FO R DO C S Jointly provided with Bon Secours Medical Group, free registration 4th Wednesday each month 6 pm – 8 pm Bon Secours Heart Institute, Richmond, Va.

For more information: Visit the CME website at www.cme.vcu.edu Call (804) 828-3640 or (800) 413-2872 Email CME info@vcu.edu

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IN MEMORIAM 40s John R. Clark, Jr., H’47, of Martinsville, Va., on Feb. 4, 2015, at age 97. A urologist, Clark retired in 1994 after 47 years of private practice in Martinsville.

Regina Barberia Cuffaro, M’48, of Wheeling, W.Va., on Oct. 19, 2014, at age 91. She loved her patients and took care of anyone who came to her office.

George A. Curry, H’45, of Morgantown, W.Va., on Nov. 11, 2014, at age 94. After his intern year at MCV, he served in the U.S. Navy for 14 months as a physician, first in California, then the Marshall Islands. He returned to Richmond in November 1946 to finish residency training in internal medicine at the VA Hospital. Four years after opening a private practice in Morgantown, Curry was recalled to active duty during the Korean War. In all, he served his country for five years. He also served on the West Virginia Medical Institute Board for 11 years and the State Medical Council for six years.

Herbert Gershberg, M’41, of Westport, Conn., on Jan. 11, 2015. During World War II, he was Captain AUS of the 39th Evacuation Hospital in France and Germany and was decorated with a Bronze Star Medal among other honors. A medical educator, he was on the medical faculty of New York University. He contributed 133 articles to scientific publications and was an editorial reviewer of numerous professional journals.

Malcolm E. Hunter, Jr., M’46, of Fredericksburg, Texas, on June 13, 2014. Hunter practiced internal medicine for 35 years after serving more than eight years in the U.S. Navy.

Robert W. Irvin, Jr., M’48, of Roanoke, Va., on Jan. 9, 2015. He served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps for 30 years and worked in all areas of medicine, including hospital administration. His overseas assignments included Korea, Germany, Vietnam and Panama. He

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was awarded several medals including the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star Medal. Irvin retired from the Army in 1974 and returned to Roanoke where he started the OB-GYN residency program at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, which he administrated for 20 years until his retirement in 1995.

Arthur A. Kirk, M’41, H’47, H’51, of Portsmouth, Va., on Jan. 26, 2015, at age 99.

A veteran of World War II, he served as a Major in the Army and commanded a unit that provided medical support for the 82nd Airborne and freed prisoners at the Ludwigslust Concentration Camp in Germany. Kirk began private practice in 1951 as the first orthopedic surgeon in Portsmouth. This began 43 years of care that included innovative hand repair techniques and disc surgery work. He served as team doctor for the Norcom and Wilson High School football and basketball teams until the last year of his life. This past November, Kirk was honored as Philanthropist of the Year in Hampton Roads for the indelible impact his generosity made in the community.

Ulric J. Laquer, M’49, of Burlington, Vt., on Feb. 20, 2014, at age 89. He served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1943-1946 as a PFC and as a Captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps from 1955-56. Laquer opened a medical practice in Cape May Court House, N.J., where he specialized in family care and made house calls. Later in his career he taught at the University of Texas Health Science Center’s medical school.

William C. Link, M’49, H’50, of Unionville, Ind., on Sept. 1, 2014, at age 90. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve and was called to active duty as a private in June 1943, serving in World War II through 1946. He became a medical corpsman before entering medical school. Link was stationed in Germany with the occupying forces from 1950 to 1952, achieving the rank of Captain in the 16th Army Field Hospital, the same hospital in which his father served during World War I. In 1952, he established his medical practice and, for more than 50 years, provided medical care to the Bloomington, Ind., community, caring for generations of residents, making house calls and providing pro bono care to poor and indigent families.

Madge D. May, M’45, H’60, of Pungoteague, Va., on Feb. 13, 2015. She trained in pediatrics, practiced medicine at King's Daughters Children's Clinic in Norfolk and entered public health, becoming acting director of the Richmond Health Department. After earning a master's degree in public health in 1963 from University of North Carolina, she was the first full-time health director for the City of Virginia Beach, where she was instrumental in establishing drug outreach and mental health clinics and served on the Board of Mental Health and Retardation. Survivors include her son James T. May III, M’73, H’76, daughter-in-law Linda T. May, M’73, H’76 and grandson James T. May IV, M’05.

John C. McGill, H’47, of Kings Mountain, N.C., on Nov. 11, 2014, at age 92. He served in the U.S. Army during World War II as a public health officer in Kobe, Japan. He was the owner of the McGill Clinic, serving as a family physician for over 42 years, delivering more than 2,000 babies, caring for entire families and making house calls on a regular basis.

Warren Lodowick Moorman, Jr., M’43, of Salem, Va., on Oct. 8, 2014, at age 95. From 1945-47, he was Captain in the Medical Corps of the U.S. Army in Japan, and in 1950 he began his years of medical practice in the Roanoke Valley as a staff surgeon at the VA Hospital in Salem, Va. After training in plastic surgery at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., in 1957, he joined the staff of Lewis-Gale Hospital and Clinic in Roanoke, where he established the Department of Plastic Surgery. He was instrumental in the clinic’s move to Salem and served as its president and as chief of staff of the hospital. For many years, Moorman was on the board of Blue Shield of Southwest Virginia and served as its president. In 2005 the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation honored him with a Lifetime Achievement award as a medical historian and preservationist.

David S. Palmstrom, M’49, of Akron, Ohio, on Oct. 11, 2014, at age 90. He served as a Captain in the Army Medical Corps in Germany and opened his family medical practice in Ravenna, Ohio, in 1953. Affiliated with Robinson Memorial Hospital, he served as president of medical staff, as medical director and as vice-president for medical affairs. He volun-

teered as medical director of Portage County Hospice also was team doctor for the Ravenna Ravens' football team for 20 years.

John H. Sproles, M’43, H’57, of Daleville, Va., on Feb. 19, 2015, at age 95. After earning his medical degree, he was drafted into the U.S. Army as a Captain in the Medical Corps and was first stationed in the South Pacific. He was sent to Hiroshima in the first Army medical unit to arrive after Japan surrendered and witnessed firsthand some of the effects of the atomic bomb. After his discharge in 1946, Sproles practiced general medicine in Virginia until returning to MCV in 1954 to train in OB-GYN. He began private practice in Bluefield, W.Va., and in 1964 moved to Riverside, Calif., where he practiced for 20 years. He delivered more than 9,000 babies and retired in 1985.

Robert Manton Wilson, Jr., M’43, H’49, Spokane, Wash., on Nov. 19, 2014, five days after celebrating his 100th birthday. He was awarded the Bronze Star for his service as an Army captain and medical officer in World War II, during which he volunteered to make a dangerous parachute jump in south China to save the life of an American officer who lay critically ill with a ruptured appendix. He then escaped by walking out through Burma.

Wilson moved to Spokane in 1959 to join Rockwood Clinic as a radiologist.

50s W. Edward Anderson, M’55, of Leesburg, Va., Jan. 7, 2015, at age 88. He served in Europe during World War II and spent many years in government service: as a Navy flight surgeon, with the Federal Aviation Administration and the FDA and as the regional medical programs coordinator for George Washington University. He later entered the private sector as director of clinical research for a number of pharmaceutical companies before retiring in 1987.

Henry Maynard Bellamy, M’58, of Clemmons, N.C., on Sept. 18, 2014, at age 81. He served in the U.S. Air Force for 20 years including as

hospital commander at Wurtsmith Air Force Base, chief of aerospace medicine at Okinawa and Stewart Air Force Base and chief of the clinical medicine/surgeons office at Strategic Air Command Headquarters. After his military career he practiced as a gastroenterologist for 10 years and ended his career as chief of staff at W.G. Hefner VA Medical Center in Salisbury, N.C. Hall G. Canter, M’54, H’55, on Feb. 3, 2015, at age 85. After earning his medical degree, Canter served in the U.S. Army in the medical corps, achieving the rank of captain. From 1957 to 1994, he was a pulmonologist and professor at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C. William A. Cassada, Jr., M’55, H’67, of Crozet, Va., on Aug. 30, 2014, at age 86. He began his career in a busy family practice in Brookneal, Va., during which he made house calls, rendered service to Rustberg’s well-baby clinic, was medical examiner for Campbell County, and had privileges in obstetrics and served in the emergency room at Halifax County Hospital. In 1964, he returned to MCV to specialize in radiology. After completing his residency, he practiced at Roanoke’s Lewis Gale Hospital for 22 years, serving a term as chairman of the Radiology Department and developing the Vascular and Interventional Radiology Department.

Ronald B. Dietrick, H’54, of Wilmington, N.C., on Jan. 30, 2015. He practiced in South Korea as a medical missionary for 26 years before returning to the U.S. in 1985. He practiced another nine years and in 1994 retired to Wilmington, N.C.

Hugh L. Farrior, M’53, H’55, of Black Mountain, N.C., on Jan. 2, 2015. The son of Presbyterian missionaries, Farrior himself served as a medical missionary for 10 years in Congo, where he focused on clinical work as well as the training of Congolese medical personnel. When a civil war broke out in 1960, the U.S. State Department ordered the evacuation of most women and children. Farrior was one of six men who opted to stay at their posts. In 1971, he returned to the U.S., practicing first with an OB-GYN practice in Shelby, N.C., and later with the Group Health Association in Washington, D.C. James Robert Leonard, M’59, of Jupiter, Fla., on March 15, 2015. Leonard earned a degree from MCV’s School of Pharmacy before entering medical school. He practiced in academic medicine including a stint as professor and chair of the Department of Otolaryngology at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Penn. In 1973, he entered private practice in Atlanta until 1999, when he retired and moved with his wife to Jupiter, Fla. Eugene B. Linton, M’51, of Winston-Salem, N.C., Jan. 10, 2015. A veteran of World War II, he was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge and was imprisoned by the Germans until the end of the war. His career included faculty posts at both Bowman Gray medical school and the University of Tennessee Memorial Hospital in Knoxville where he was chairman of OB-GYN. He also worked in private practice, including starting Lyndhurst Gynecological, which is the longest standing private medical practice in North Carolina.

P. Franklin Mullinax, Jr., M’55, of Richmond, Va., on Jan. 11, 2015. He served in the U.S. Marshall Evans, M’55, H’56, of Fort Pierce, Navy as an instructor and research assistant Fla., on March 10, 2015. Evans had served and, in 1963, began his career at MCV where as a medic for more than a year during the he remained a dedicated physician and proKorean War when the Air Force agreed to let fessor for 43 years, retiring as a professor him study medicine on the GI Bill at MCV. emeritus in 2007. Chair of the Department of Afterward, he served in the Navy for two Internal Medicine John E. Nestler, M.D., describes Mullinax as an icon of the institution. years in Hawaii, practiced nuclear medicine in Pittsburgh, Penn., and joined the space “Dr. Mullinax was known for his dedication program in Cape Canaveral. He ultimately re- to his patients, expert clinical acumen and commitment to educational excellence. His alized family practice was more in line with contributions to medical education at VCU his interests and desire to care for the whole were legion, and he will be sorely missed by person, and he and his family put down roots all who knew him.” in Stuart, Fla. After retiring in 1995, he cared for patients as a volunteer through Volunteers in Medicine and Hospice.

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Ross M. Orr, Jr., M’53, of Bethlehem, Penn., on Jan. 30, 2015, at age 87. He served in the U.S. Air Force as a Lt. Colonel and settled in Bethlehem where he opened his practice in general and vascular surgery, practicing from 1959 until 1998. Orr started the vascular lab at St. Luke's Hospital, which now bears his name. He coauthored eight books with his wife Sandra S. Orr, a 1952 graduate of the School of Pharmacy, who survives him.

Thomas Pairo Overton, M’52, H’54, of Richmond, Va., on Oct. 17, 2014, at age 87. A World War II veteran, he served as a U.S. Naval Officer until 1946 and with the Reserves through 1960. Overton began his pediatrics career with Edwin Kendig, H’37, and Gayle Arnold, M.D., and in 1961 was one of the founding partners of Drs. Overton, Wiley, Kirchmier, Terry and Rowe P.C. He also served on the boards of St. Mary's Hospital and Southern Health Corporation and as an assistant clinical professor of pediatrics on the MCV Campus.

Jane Carswell Roberts, M’58, H’60, of Lenoir, N.C., on March 25, 2015. In 1961, she moved to Lenoir and began her family practice.

She was recognized in 1984 as the National Family Doctor of the Year by the American Academy of Family Physicians. She touched the lives of thousands in Caldwell County and many others through her mission work in Guatemala. Recognizing a need to support victims of domestic violence, she was a founding member of the Shelter Home of Caldwell County and a committed volunteer.

Following retirement from medical practice, she continued to provide medical care to the community through volunteer work at the Helping Hands Clinic.

Richard H. Smith, Jr., M’53, of Bridgewater, Va., on Nov. 6, 2014. While an undergraduate student, he served two and a half years in the U.S. Navy as a hospital corpsman during World War II. After an internship at MidState Baptist Hospital in Nashville, Tenn., he moved with his family to Harrisonburg, Va., in 1954, where he worked as a general practitioner making house calls and delivering babies. He also helped establish a halfway house for alcoholics and addicts that was one of the first in the area, and he taught classes and helped train members of the local rescue squad. In 1963, he was employed by Rock-

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ingham Memorial Hospital as director of the emergency room until his retirement in 1992.

Arnold F. Strother, M’58, H’59, of Richmond, Va., on Oct. 17, 2014. He practiced psychiatry in Richmond for 40 years.

Anthony “Tony” G. Velo, H’58, of Richmond, Va., on Dec. 4, 2014, at age 88. He was in private practice as a neurosurgeon until his retirement in 2002 and was an avid sailor, tennis player, scuba diver, artist and private pilot.

William H. M. Weaver, H’56, of Macon, Ga., on Dec. 6, 2014, at age 88. In his third year of training, he was the chief medical resident and the president of the house staff.

Afterwards, he returned to his hometown of Macon where he practiced internal medicine for 35 years, serving in many positions including as chief of staff at the medical center and the Middle Georgia Hospital.

60s Alston W. Blount, Jr., H’61, of Richmond, Va., on Sept. 9, 2014, at age 81. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Air Force from 1962 to 1964 and upon receiving an honorable discharge, moved to Richmond, where he began his professional career as a staff cardiologist at the McGuire Veterans Medical Center and was promoted to chief of cardiology in 1965.

His interest in cardiac medicine took him to MCV Hospitals in 1966, where he served both on the teaching faculty and as the director of the Coronary ICU. In 1972, Blount formed Medical Specialist Inc., a multidisciplinary private practice. He retired from the practice in 1998 and worked for Cardiovascular Associates of Virginia until 2001 and part-time for the Social Security Administration until his full retirement in 2006. Survivors include his wife, Nancy Hughes Blount, an alumna of the School of Nursing and his daughter Margaret A. Blount, M’98.

Linwood W. “Little Bear” Custalow, M’64, H’69, of Williamsburg, Va., on Dec. 19, 2014, at age 77. Born on the Mattaponi Indian Res-

ervation in King William County, Va., he was the first Native American to graduate from one of Virginia’s medical colleges. He practiced his specialty of ear, nose, throat, facial plastic surgery and allergy in Newport News, Va., for 38 years and was a founding member of the Association of American Indian Physicians. Custalow assisted in the health care of the Mattaponi Tribe as well as numerous other reservations.

Ronald W. Dillon, M’64, of Roanoke, Va., on Nov. 21, 2014, at age 84. After completing his residency at McGuire Veterans Hospital in Richmond, Va., he practiced ophthalmology for many years at Salem Eye Center in Salem, Va. Robert H. Hackler, H’65, of Richmond, Va., on Oct. 25, 2014, at age 80. He completed his urology training and a fellowship in renal medicine as one of the first residents to train in the merged program overseen by the McGuire Veterans Hospital and MCV. He served three years in the U.S. Air Force as Chief of Urology at the USAF Hospital in Orlando, Fla. before joining James Masloff, H’64, in private practice in Charlottesvile, Va. In 1971, Hackler joined the VCU faculty as an assistant professor and as a staff urologist at the McGuire VA Hospital. A nationally and internationally recognized expert in managing the spinal cord injured patient and the neurogenic bladder, he became chief of urology at the VA hospital in 1973 and served as chairman of the division of urology on the MCV Campus from 1997 through 1999. He mentored the training of over 70 residents during his tenure, including many who practiced in Virginia and others who moved across the nation and abroad, in some cases becoming professors and chairs in urology at other institutions. The Bunts-Hackler Lectureship and the Robert Hackler Prostate Cancer Research Fund will preserve his memory on the MCV Campus.

Howard A. Hall, M’62, H’66, of South Dartmouth, Mass. and Providence, R.I., on Oct. 25, 2014, at age 80. An Army veteran of the Korean War, he was an OB-GYN in private practice and on the staff of Woman & Infants Hospital and the Warren Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University.

Lawrence D. Hanback, Jr., M’61, H’66, F’68, of Winchester, Va., on April 25, 2015, at age 83. He served in the U.S. Army from 1951 to 1954. In recognition of his service during the Korean conflict, he was awarded a Bronze Star. During his time at MCV, he trained as a resident under David Hume, M.D., and was remarkably good at remembering details of his work with the famous surgeon. After time spent practicing in South Carolina, he joined Winchester Surgical Consultants in 1977 where he remained an attending physician until 2001. During his tenure with the Winchester Medical Center, he served as chief of surgery, president of the medical staff and president of the board of directors, among other positions. He served for 16 years on the Malpractice Review Panel of the Virginia Supreme Court. Survivors include his daughter Katherine Hanback Johnson, M’05.

Francis E. McGee Jr., M’64, H’68, of Manakin Sabot, Va., on Oct. 27, 2014. After completing fellowship training at the Mayo Clinic in 1971, he joined Neurological Associates in Richmond, Va., a practice begun by Laurie Rennie, M’54, and A.B. Harrelson, M’62, H’66. He served as the president of the Virginia Neurological Society, authored numerous articles and gave presentations at both local and national levels. From the mid-90s until his retirement in 2010, he and his wife, Jan, focused on Phase II and Phase III clinical trials for FDA approval of medication to help those suffering from conditions such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, migraine and seizures. McGee loved teaching medical students as an MCV adjunct professor of clinical neurology.

Amin T. Nasr, H’67, of Muncie, Ind., on Oct. 2, 2014. He was a well-known pathologist in the Muncie area for over 40 years.

Peter Rosanelli, Jr., M’65, H’69, of Richmond, Va., on Nov. 8, 2014, at age 78. He served two years in the U.S. Air Force as a captain stationed in Loring, Maine, where he was a military OB-GYN. In 1971, following in his father's footsteps, he entered private practice in Richmond, until his retirement in June 2010.

Charlene A. Seibert, MS’68 (ANAT), of Pelham, Ala., on Sept. 23, 2014, at age 72. She was dedicated in her service to the Peace

Corps and to her volunteer work at Shelby Memorial Hospital.

70s Frank T. Bishop, M’74, of the U.S. Virgin Islands, on Oct. 22, 2014. He was a patient and caring doctor who was devoted to the people and community of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.

Kelly A. Fogle, M’74, of Richmond, Va., on Aug. 31, 2014, at age 66. He practiced ophthalmology for 32 years, with offices in Richmond, White Stone and Colonial Heights.

George E. Long, M’73, of Frederick, Md., on July 11, 2014. He was a retired emergency room physician who volunteered with the Hagerstown Free Clinic and The Washington Ear. Bernard P. Novak, M’70, of Los Angeles, Calif., on June 26, 2014. He was a surgeon at St. Jude for 34 years and was an active reserve officer in the Los Angeles Police Department air support division and a reserve Orange County deputy sheriff.

Henry C. Rowe, H’76, of Gloucester, Va., on Aug. 11, 2014, at age 67. In Gloucester for 39 years, the family medicine physician was the medical director of Riverside long-term health care. He also served for many years as a medical examiner in Newport News and Gloucester.

N. J. Sorrow, Jr., M’70, H’71, of Lutherville Timonium, Md., on Dec. 13, 2014. He was a longtime practicing ophthalmologist in Maryland.

80s Basil E. Smith, M’82, of Cleveland, Tenn., on April 8, 2014. For four years, he served as an

orthopedic surgeon in the Air Force, stationed in Alaska and Las Vegas. Smith practiced with Tennessee Valley Bone and Joint from 1993 to 2013 and was deeply saddened when his career was cut short by a diagnosis of cancer, as his greatest joy was being in the operating room and treating patients.

FACULTY Alston W. Blount, Jr., H’61, please see entry in the 1960s listing.

Robert H. Hackler, H’65, please see entry in the 1960s listing.

P. Franklin Mullinax, Jr., M’55, please see entry in the 1950s listing.

Professor Emeritus George P. Vennart, M.D., of Overland Park, Kan., on Sept. 13, 2014, at age 88. A renowned pathologist, Vennart held teaching positions at the University of North Carolina and Columbia University before being named chairman of the Department of Pathology on the MCV Campus. Survivors include William C. Vennart, MS’78 (PATH), M’82, of Overland Park, Kan., and R. Marc Vennart, MS’80 (PATH), M’85, of Las Vegas, Nev.

MEDICINE ALUMNI ARE IDENTIFIED BY DEGREE AND GRADUATION YEAR F Fellowship H Housestaff M Doctor of Medicine MPH Master's of Public Health MS Master's PhD Doctor of Philosophy ANAT BIOC BIOS EPID HCPR HGEN MICR PHTX PHIS SBHD

Dept. of Anatomy and Neurobiology Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Dept. of Biostatistics Dept. of Family Medicine and Population Health Dept. of Healthcare Policy and Research Dept. of Human and Molecular Genetics Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology Dept. of Pharmacology and Toxicology Dept. of Physiology and Biophysics Dept. of Social and Behavioral Health

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THROUGH YOUR EYES Christopher P. Johnson, M’05, grew up on the stories his parents told about transporting patients in the tunnels that run under the MCV Campus. This winter, he got permission to take his camera – and his dad Bruce E. Johnson, M’74, H’78 – underground. Mom, Mariann H. Johnson, M’78, H’89, elected to stay home.

When he isn't working in the St. Mary's ER, Johnson enjoys photographing scenes around Richmond. You can join his 5,000+ followers on Instagram where he posts as vintage_rva.

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Nonprofit Organization US Postage PAID Richmond, VA Permit No. 869

P.O. Box 980022 • Richmond, VA 23298-0022 Address Service Requested

SK YWA L K

A skywalk stretches over Marshall Street, linking the new James W. and Frances G. McGlothlin Medical Education Center with Main Hospital. karl e. steinbrenner photography

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