USA Welcomes Dr. Myria Mack-Williams

Dr. Myria Mack-Williams recently was appointed assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine and serves as a general pediatrician with USA Physicians Group.

Prior to joining USA, Dr. Mack-Williams served as a general pediatrician with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Children’s Hospital New Orleans in Covington, La.

Dr. Mack-Williams earned her medical degree in 1996 from the Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She then completed her internship and residency training in pediatrics at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital/ Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Philadelphia in 1999.

She is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and was named 2017 Top Doctor for pediatrics in Covington, La.

Dr. Mack-Williams practices at the Strada Patient Care Center, located at 1601 Center St. in Mobile. To make an appointment with Dr. Mack-Williams, call (251) 410-5437.

USA GME Program Expands to Include Medical Oncology Fellowship

Dr. David Clarkson, professor of interdisciplinary clinical oncology at USA Mitchell Cancer Institute, talks with Dr. Yesica Campos and Dr. Luis Betancourt, both first-year internal medicine residents at USA Medical Center, as they round at the hospital Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2018. USA has been approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education to start a medical oncology fellowship program.

The University of South Alabama has been approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) to start a medical oncology fellowship program. Initially, two physician candidates will be chosen for the two-year program, which will begin on July 1, 2018.

Dr. David Clarkson, professor of interdisciplinary clinical oncology at USA Mitchell Cancer Institute, has been appointed as director of the medical oncology fellowship program.

“This accreditation allows us to recruit residents with three years of training experience after medical school for additional training and certification in the sub-specialty of medical oncology,” Dr. Clarkson said. “The fellowship program joins the ranks of more than 200 ACGME-certified programs nationwide in medical oncology. In addition, it adds to the already established residency and fellowship programs at USA, thus enlarging the scope and breadth of our advanced training programs.”

The program’s goals include training the next generation of medical oncologists to serve the Southeastern U.S.; training and developing potential new faculty clinicians and physician scientists; enhancing the internal medicine residency educational experience in hematology and oncology through increased access and interaction with fellows; and improving the patient experience through increased access to expertise.   

“We want to develop a program in which these individuals will take their places in our own and other academic programs in the burgeoning area of medical oncology,” Dr. Clarkson said.

The accreditation process and ACGME application process involved close to 12 months of work – including developing the didactic lecture program; developing clinic rotations in breast cancer, gastrointestinal cancer, blood diseases, clinical trials experiences, and allogeneic and autologous transplantation; and refining multi-disciplinary tumor conferences in different subspecialties.

“Many of these programs were already in place but needed adaptations to make them more appropriate as a learning environment,” Dr. Clarkson said.

Dr. Samuel McQuiston, assistant dean for graduate medical education and associate professor of radiology at the USA College of Medicine, said USA Hospitals will serve as the sponsoring institution of the medical oncology fellowship program with the internal medicine residency as the parent program – comparable to the fellowships in cardiology, gastroenterology and pulmonology. The USA Mitchell Cancer Institute will serve as the major site for training.

“Each of our programs has a long history of providing outstanding training experiences and preparing residents and fellows for competent medical practice and a life of personal advancement,” Dr. McQuiston said. “We are confident that USA’s new medical oncology fellowship program will continue our tradition of excellence in graduate medical education.”

Mark Your Calendar: Match Day 2018

On March 16, 2018, senior medial students and residency training program directors across the United States and Canada will find out this year’s Match Day results.

Locally, the University of South Alabama’s Match Day will be held at 10:30 a.m. CST on March 16, 2018, in the Upper Concourse Grand Ballroom at the Mobile Convention Center at 1 South Water Street in Mobile, Ala. The envelopes containing Match results will be handed out to the students shortly before 11 a.m. followed by the students’ individual announcement of the location of their residency.

The National Residency Matching Program (NRMP), or Match Day, is the annual event in which senior medical students across North America simultaneously learn where they will be doing their residency training.

The Match process works like this: after interviewing with different residency programs - both near and far - students provide a ranking of the programs in order of preference. The training programs, in turn, rank the students who interviewed. Students are then matched based on a mutual ranking with a specific residency program.

The NRMP matches applicants’ preferences for residency positions with program directors’ preferences for applicants. Each year, thousands of medical school seniors compete for approximately 24,000 residency positions across the United States.

Updates from the event will be posted on the USA College of Medicine's Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts. Be sure to check them after the event for our full wrap-up coverage, including details about all of the matches and full photo galleries from the day.

Share your own posts and photos using the hashtag #USAMatchDay and #Match2018.

USA Neurology to Host Annual Spring Symposium

The University of South Alabama’s Neurosciences Program will host the fifth annual Neuroscience Symposium on April 6-8, 2018, at the Perdido Beach Resort in Orange Beach, Ala. The event will cover a broad range of topics including seizures, stroke, multiple sclerosis, deep brain stimulation, neuromuscular disease, movement disorders and headaches.

The program will be beneficial to neurologists, primary care physicians, nurses and health professionals throughout the region. This conference is open to all health care providers interested in increasing their knowledge, addressing competence and performance, and improving patient outcomes.

Dr. Juan G. Ochoa, associate professor of neurology at the USA College of Medicine and a neurologist with USA Physicians Group, will serve as the course director. Guest faculty include Dr. Hubert H. Fernandez, professor of neurology at the Cleveland Clinic at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and Dr. Solomon L. Moshe, professor of neurology, neuroscience and pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at the Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y. USA faculty speakers include Drs. Bassam A. Bassam, Elias G. Chalhub, Steve M. Cordina, Daniel D. Dees, J. Ivan Lopez, Paul Maertens, Elizabeth H. Minto and Dean K. Naritoku.

Advanced registration is requested. For more information and to register, click here.