Pediatric radiologist, alumnus joins faculty at USA College of Medicine

Michael Francavilla, M.D., recently joined USA Health as a pediatric radiologist and serves as an associate professor of radiology at USA College of Medicine.

He received his medical degree and completed an internal medicine internship at USA College of Medicine. After his diagnostic radiology residency at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Florida, he completed a pediatric radiology fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

“I chose pediatric radiology because the patients are the most vulnerable and yet the most resilient,” Francavilla said. “I focus on reducing radiation whenever possible to decrease their exposure.”

He has published more than 30 research papers and is a contributing author to "Pediatric Urogenital Radiology and Radiology Secrets Plus, 4th Edition." He also is a reviewer for the Pediatric Imaging Section of the Editorial Advisory Board of Applied Radiology.

Francavilla is a member of the American Medical Association, American College of Radiology, Radiological Society of North America, Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine and Society for Pediatric Radiology.

COVID-positive patients asked about intent to vaccinate in local study

Third-year medical students Sarah E. Bouslog, left, and Mary M. Vansant presented an abstract at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Society of Behavioral Medicine in Baltimore in April 2022. The study examined the intent to get vaccinated among COVID-19 positive patients.

In 2020 and 2021, researchers at the USA College of Medicine interviewed hundreds of people who tested positive for COVID-19 in Mobile about their intent to get vaccinated for the virus in a study led by Casey L. Daniel, Ph.D., M.P.H., associate professor of family medicine and director of epidemiology and public health.

Looking for trends among subgroups, the researchers asked questions over a year’s time, covering demographics, severity of illness, hospital stays and underlying health conditions. They found that women, Black patients and those with higher incomes were significantly less likely to say they planned to get the vaccine – findings that could guide future outreach efforts to increase vaccination.

“We concluded that multilevel interventions are needed to address vaccine hesitancy for the general population and targeted strategies should be implemented to overcome hesitancy barriers for these specific subgroups,” said Sarah Bouslog, a third-year medical student at the USA College of Medicine and one of two students who presented an abstract on the findings at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Society of Behavioral Medicine in Baltimore in April. The abstract was selected for a “Live Research Spotlight” presentation at the prestigious national conference.

The researchers interviewed 513 people who tested positive for COVID-19 through USA Health from April 2020 to May 2021. Asked whether they intended to get the COVID-19 vaccine, 36% of participants said yes, 38% said no, and 25% were unsure.

The data showed that women were less likely than men to say they would get the vaccine; Black people were less likely than white people, and individuals with higher reported annual incomes ($100,000 to $150,000) also were less likely to say they planned to get vaccinated.

The researchers, however, found no significant correlation between vaccine hesitancy and severity of the participants’ illness. “Variables that were not significantly associated with the intent to vaccinate were the type of acute COVID-19 symptoms, hospital or ICU admission, diagnosed co-morbidities and the duration of acute COVID symptoms,” said Mary Vansant, a third-year medical student who also presented the study findings in Baltimore.

Other authors on the study included medical students Juan Pardo, Madeline Tucker and Anna Wright; and USA Health researchers Grace Sullivan, Chelsea Green McGowen and Jenna James.

USA College of Medicine holds 2022 Academic Hooding Ceremony

Medical and doctoral students received their hoods at the Academic Hooding Ceremony.

The University of South Alabama College of Medicine held its 2022 Academic Hooding Ceremony on Thursday, May 5, at the Mitchell Center on the USA campus.

Seventy-six medical students took the Hippocratic Oath and were hooded by a person or persons of their choosing. Those with a military affiliation took the military oath of office and received their new rank. Two graduating doctoral students in the Basic Medical Sciences Graduate Program were awarded doctoral hoods by their major professors.

Susan LeDoux, Ph.D., professor emeritus at the USA College of Medicine, was chosen to give the faculty address to the graduates. She recalled telling them during freshman orientation that their journey would be a marathon and not a sprint. “None of us could have anticipated the obstacles you were going to face,” said LeDoux, who retired in 2019 as associate dean of medical education and student affairs. 

Class president Zachary Aggen addresses his classmates.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, classes were moved online, and students across the nation faced difficulty scheduling their Step 1 exams. In addition, social distancing requirements limited small-group meetings and restricted patient interaction during third-year clerkships. “You overcame all of those obstacles,” LeDoux told them.

Class president Zachary Aggen, who soon will begin residency training in emergency medicine at USA Health, encouraged his classmates to continue learning and to seek peace and happiness in their personal lives. “Travel, have a family and do things outside of medicine,” Aggen said.

Married couple Anna Robinson Wright and Griffin Wright both received hoods – she as an M.D. and he as a Ph.D. “We feel so proud of each other and of everything we’ve accomplished over the past four years,” Anna Wright said. “It’s hard to believe we’re already finished, but we are incredibly excited to begin our next chapter.”

Married couple Anna Robinson Wright and Griffin Wright 

hug during the ceremony.

The couple is headed to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where Anna will begin an anesthesiology residency at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, and Griffin will focus on translational medicine.

He completed his doctoral degree in basic medical science, cancer biology track, in under four years in order to finish with his spouse. “Without the support of Anna and my incredible mentor, Dr. Natalie Gassman, it would not have been possible,” Griffin Wright said. “I took advantage of Anna being so busy by focusing on lab and course work whenever she had to study or go to clinicals. It was exhausting at times, but now that I’m finished, I’m very glad that I pushed myself that hard.”

Anna Wright received the Dr. Robert A. Kreisberg Endowed Award of Excellence, awarded to a graduating medical student in the top 25% of the class who is distinguished in both the clinical and basic sciences. “The biggest help was this past year in a time filled with anxiety over interviews and matching; Griffin always helped me relax, have fun and see the value in what I was doing,” she said. “Difficult days were never really that bad because I knew I would come home to him to lift my spirits.”

Fellow graduate Gisella Ward, M.P.H., who will be the first physician in her family, said she is looking forward to building upon her medical school knowledge as she begins a residency in family medicine at USA Health. “I will have the opportunity to work in an amazing academic medical institution in a patient-centered medical home with faculty who emphasize population health and addressing the social determinants of health that I experienced first-hand growing up,” said the Mobile native.

Gisella Ward, M.P.H., is hooded by her husband and mother.

Ward, who received the Excellence in Public Health Award, the Southern National Medical Association Leadership Award and the H.C. Mullins M.D. Award, called the hooding ceremony a “monumental occasion.”

“I feel like I’m donning this hood as a representative for every minority who aspires to enter this field, every patient who wants a healthcare provider to reflect them and understand their struggle, and every person who supported me in my journey to get here,” she said.

The graduates will receive their degrees at USA’s Spring Commencement set for 2 p.m. on Friday, May 6, at the Mitchell Center. This year’s medical school class is the 47th class to receive medical degrees from the USA College of Medicine, bringing the total number of physicians to graduate since the medical school’s opening to 2,981. 

Several faculty awards also were announced at the Academic Hooding Ceremony. They are:

• Best Pre-Clerkship Module: Respiratory
• Best Pre-Clerkship Educator: Abu-Bakr AL-Mehdi, M.D., Ph.D.
• Best M3 Clerkship: Obstetrics & Gynecology
• Best Clerkship Educator: Nicolette Holliday, M.D.

Watch a video of the livestream on YouTube. 

View photos from the ceremony on Flickr.

Mark Your Calendar: M3 Case Symposium set for May 27

The University of South Alabama College of Medicine will host the M3 Case Symposium from 1 to 3 p.m. on Friday, May 27, in the first-floor conference room of the Strada Patient Care Center. 

Throughout their third year, medical students interact with patients as members of the healthcare team. Some of the patients encountered will have a lasting impact on students and potentially affect their career and specialty choices as future physicians. 

During the annual symposium, rising fourth-year medical students share poster presentations of interesting, rare or novel case studies observed during their third-year rotations. The event also is an opportunity for students to showcase independent projects. 

The case reports are judged based on originality, strength of conclusions, quality of references, overall appearance, organization and topic. 

Faculty, staff, residents and students are invited to attend. For more information, contact Sam Thomas at sct1921@jagmail.southalabama.edu.

Meet a Ph.D. Student: Mary O. Haastrup

Mary O. Haastrup

Age: 29

Hometown: Ilora, Oyo State, Nigeria

Undergraduate/graduate institutions and degrees earned: Doctor of Medicine in general medicine, Lugansk State Medical University, Ukraine

BMS Program track and year of study: Cancer Biology, third year

What research are you involved in? I research about the role of a mitochondrial import protein in pancreatic cancer.

What do you enjoy most about being a doctoral student at the USA College of Medicine? The standard of education and the state-of-the-art facilities

What are your interests and hobbies outside of school and work? I enjoy mentoring young individuals, and my passion for that led me to found a non-governmental organization (A Greater You) dedicated to helping young individuals achieve academic and career success. I also love to play chess.

Faculty Spotlight: C. Michael Francis, Ph.D.

C. Michael Francis, Ph.D.

Title: Assistant professor of physiology and cell biology, member of the Center for Lung Biology

Joined the USA College of Medicine faculty: July 2017

What does your position in the USA COM entail? Vascular biology research and teaching BMS and medical students

What is your favorite or most rewarding part of your position? The freedom to pursue areas of scholarly inquiry and the thrill of creation/discovery

What research are you involved in? Understanding how the endothelium functions in the context of human health and disease; building computational tools for other scientists

What is your advice for medical students and graduate students? Willpower is the ultimate currency.

What are your hobbies/interests outside of work? Hanging out with my wife and newborn daughter, gardening, running/lifting, producing music/art, playing Mario Kart

Surgical oncologist receives funding to study barriers faced by pancreatic cancer patients

Annabelle Fonseca, M.D., M.H.S., a surgical oncologist at USA Health and an assistant professor of surgery at the USA College of Medicine, received a grant from the Center for Clinical and Translational Surgery (CCTS) totaling more than $50,000 to study the barriers in access to care faced by pancreatic cancer patients.

When resectable, Fonseca said, pancreatic cancer is best treated with a combination of chemotherapy and surgery. Surgical resection is the only potentially curative therapy, but there is data that reveals not all patients who may benefit from a surgical evaluation are being referred for one, and some patients who are referred for surgical evaluation cannot receive resection. While this can be caused by co-morbidities, it also is due to the patents' lack of access to care.

As part of the study, Fonseca and her group will conduct in-depth interviews and coordinate focus groups with patients, caregivers, health administrators, community health workers, and primary care and specialist physicians. She expects this qualitative data to reveal the scope of specific barriers from a patients’ perspective and the provider-related and systemic barriers influencing access to oncological care.

“Once we have the data, we can integrate the knowledge on these barriers to identify potential targets of intervention to promote access to care for pancreatic cancer patients,” Fonseca said. “We want to make positive changes to offer the highest quality of patient care.”

Fonseca earned her medical degree at Padmashree Dr. D.Y. Patil Medical College in India. She continued her training, obtaining a Master of Health Science degree at Yale University School of Medicine and completing her residency at Yale New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. She completed a fellowship in complex general surgical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.