Snapshots: USA College of Medicine History

Forty years ago this past January, the USA College of Medicine admitted its first class of medical students. As we look back at the medical school’s four decades of history, each week we will post several photos and look forward to your responses as far as memories and details surrounding the images.

USA College of Medicine's Charter Class

 

Dedication ceremonies for the Medical Sciences Building

 

Charter faculty in the USA College of Medicine's Department of Pharmacology

USA Medical Center Ranked No. 1 in Quality Care Report

A recent quality measures report released by the University Health System Consortium (UHC) shows that the University of South Alabama Medical Center is ranked No. 1 in quality of care among 158 university teaching hospitals.

In addition to receiving the No. 1 position in all core composite measures for the 4th quarter of 2012, the USA Medical Center was ranked No. 1 in numerous measures for the entire year, including CMS Appropriate Care Measures, Acute Myocardial Infarction Composite Measures, Heart Failure Composite Measures and Surgical Care Improvement Project Composite Measures.

“Our hospital takes great pride in providing the highest quality of care for our patients,” said Beth Anderson, hospital administrator at USA Medical Center. “These high marks reflect the careful attention to quality of care by both our physicians and staff.”

UHC, formed in 1984 and located in Chicago, is an alliance of 118 academic medical centers and 293 of their affiliated hospitals representing the nation's leading academic medical centers.

Medical Student Research Day Set for August 2

The University of South Alabama College of Medicine’s 40th annual Medical Student Research Day will feature Dr. Joe G.N. Garcia, vice president for health affairs and Earl M. Bane Professor of Medicine, Pharmacology and Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The event will take place August 2, 2013, in the Medical Sciences Building. Oral presentations will begin at 8:30 a.m. and poster presentations will begin at 1 p.m. Dr. Garcia’s lecture will take place at 11 a.m. in the Medical Sciences Building Auditorium.

Dr. Garcia will also present a talk at Internal Medicine Grand Rounds on Aug. 1, 2013, at 8 a.m. at the USA Medical Center.

Dr. Garcia, who also serves as director of the Institute for Personalized Respiratory Medicine and founder/president of Aqualung Therapeutics, is a leading authority on lung biology and disease. His research focuses on understanding the biochemical and molecular basis of lung inflammation.

Dr. Garcia earned his bachelor of science degree in biology from the University of Dallas in 1976, followed by his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. He completed his internship and residency at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics In Iowa City, Iowa, and a fellowship in the division of pulmonary diseases at Albany Medical College in Albany, N.Y.

He joined the faculty of the University of Texas Health Center as an assistant professor of medicine in 1985, followed by an appointment as associate professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at the Indiana University School of Medicine in 1988. After becoming full professor in 1992 and later Dr. Calvin H. English Professor of Medicine in 1995, Dr. Garcia joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1998 as the David Marine Professor of Medicine and director of the division of pulmonary and critical care medicine and director of the Center for Translational Respiratory Medicine. He was also appointed as professor of biomedical engineering in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and professor of environmental health sciences in the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In 2005, Dr. Garcia was appointed as the Lowell T. Coggeshall Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago. During his tenure at the University of Chicago, the department of medicine was awarded nearly $80 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health--more than 40 percent of the medical school's research portfolio--and rose from a national NIH ranking of No. 25 to No. 10.

Dr. Garcia is the author or co-author of approximately 400 peer-reviewed publications and numerous book chapters. He serves on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, is associate editor of Journal of Organ Dysfunction, and is co-editor in chief for the journal Microvascular Research. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2009 Diversity Award from the Association of Professors in Medicine, the American Thoracic Society Distinguished Scientist Award, the Henry F. Christian Award for Meritorious Research from the American Federation of Medical Research, and the David M. Levine Excellence in Mentoring Award from the Johns Hopkins University.

To learn more about Dr. Garcia’s research, click here.

For more information on Medical Student Research Day, contact Marcina Lang at (251) 461-1548.

USA Welcomes Dr. Ghazanfar Qureshi

Dr. Ghazanfar H. Qureshi was recently appointed assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine and will serve as an interventional cardiologist with USA Physicians Group.

Prior to his appointment, Dr. Qureshi completed a general cardiology fellowship and an interventional cardiology fellowship at State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Dr. Qureshi attended the University of Karachi Dow Medical College in Pakistan. He completed an internal medicine internship and residency at Muhlenberg Regional Medical Center in Plainfield, N.J., an affiliate of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J.

In addition to certifications by the National Board of Echocardiography and the Certification Board of Nuclear Cardiology, Dr. Qureshi is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine for Internal Medicine and Cardiovascular Diseases.

Dr. Qureshi is the recipient of the 2008 Robert F. Furchgott Fellowship Award for Outstanding Clinical Research.

He is now accepting new patients. To make an appointment with Dr. Qureshi, call (251) 445-8242.