Register now: Opioid Awareness Summit set for Aug. 26

The USA Office of Continuing Medical Education and the Mobile County Health Department will host the Opioid Awareness Summit 2022. The virtual event is set for 8 a.m. to noon on Friday, Aug. 26, via Zoom.

Objectives for the summit include discussing the scope of the opioid crisis in Mobile County, identifying the impact of social determinants contributing to substance use disorder, providing an overview of improvements in care associated with patients living with or at risk for opioid use disorder, and describing best practices for prescribing opioids.

To learn more and register, visit www.usa-cme.com. 

Mark your calendars for additional upcoming conferences this year:

• Aug. 31: Emergency Ultrasound in Foley
• Oct. 6-7: OB-GYN Annual Conference at the Convention Center
• Oct. 21-23: Paddle the Delta Annual Conference in Citronelle
• Oct. 28-29: Inaugural Pathology Conference in Gulf Shores
• Nov. 11: 6th Annual Ethics and Opioid Conference on USA Campus

For questions, contact USA Office of CME at 251-414-8080.

Meet a Ph.D. Student: Takreem Aziz

Takreem Aziz

Age: 25

Hometown: Mobile, Alabama

Undergraduate institution and degree earned: University of South Alabama, Bachelor of Science in biomedical sciences

Basic Medical Sciences Program track and year of study: Vascular Biology, fourth year

What research are you involved in?
The role of base excision repair enzyme, OGG1, in mediating calcium handling in vascular endothelium

What do you enjoy most about being a doctoral student at the Whiddon College of Medicine?
Becoming a part of and working with a devoted group of medical professionals who devote their time and efforts into advancing scientific and medical knowledge, improving health, and gaining insight into the treatment and/or prevention of diseases.

What are your interests and hobbies outside of school and work?
Soccer, photography and traveling

Alexeyev to present on mitochondrial DNA

Mikhail Alexeyev, Ph.D., professor of physiology and cell biology at the Whiddon College of Medicine, is August's speaker for the Department of Pathology's Research Seminar Series.

He will present "Mitochondrial DNA: Old But Not the Same" at noon on Thursday, Aug. 18, in the Strada Patient Care Center conference room. 

Mitochondria’s main function is to produce energy for the cell. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is the only DNA found in human cells outside of the nucleus. Alexeyev's research focuses on improving our understanding of mtDNA maintenance, replication and mutagenesis. 

For more information, contact Patrick Carlisle at 251-471-7753 or pcarlisle@health.southalabama.edu.

Williams named assistant dean for institutional and academic success

David S. Williams, Ph.D., has been named the assistant dean for institutional and academic success at the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine.

“For nearly 50 years, we have been very successful educating future physicians to help meet the healthcare needs of the people of Alabama,” said John V. Marymont, M.D., M.B.A., dean of the Whiddon College of Medicine and vice president for medical affairs at USA. “Dr. Williams will lead our efforts to further strengthen our curriculum, so our students are even more successful.”

In collaboration with his colleagues in the College of Medicine, Williams will enhance the academic support that the college provides to its students. Initial ideas for accomplishing this include individual counseling of students, workshops to help students understand how to achieve academic success, a method for more closely monitoring student success, and a peer tutoring program.

Another initiative will be to enhance the college’s review and revision of its curriculum to further define measurable learning objectives that eventually will lead to more student success.

“Strengthening the depth of academic support to our students in and out of the classroom will help us meet and exceed the high standards we have for ourselves,” Williams said. “Student success is a core component for our institutional success, and I look forward to working with our extremely talented faculty, staff and students to reach even higher heights.”

Williams most recently was the assistant director of course development at the USA Innovation in Learning Center. He previously served as a distance learning and assessment analyst at the center. He is an adjunct professor at USA.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts in social science from the University of Mobile, a Master of Public Administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and a doctorate in instruction design and development from USA.

Department of Urology established at Whiddon College of Medicine; interim chair appointed

Christopher Keel, D.O., will serve as interim chair of
the new academic department.

USA Health and the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine have formally established a Department of Urology. The department will expand the educational, research and patient care offerings to patients, students and trainees. Christopher Keel, D.O., an associate professor and urologist at USA Health University Urology, will serve as the interim chair. 

“One of the responsibilities we have as the region’s only academic health system is to provide the medical professionals needed by the people of Alabama and beyond, as well as to create new treatments, cures and preventions,” said John Marymont, M.D., M.B.A., dean of the Whiddon College of Medicine and vice president for medical affairs at USA. “Creation of this department adds to our ability to meet those duties and provide for the citizenry today and tomorrow.”

“The creation of this department is part of USA Health’s efforts to meet the growing healthcare needs of the people in our region,” said Owen Bailey, M.S.H.A., FACHE, chief executive officer of USA Health. “We now will be able to further expand our advanced urological services, while carrying out our missions of research and education.”

Keel said he is excited to lead the newly established department as it helps train medical students in becoming competent physicians and lifelong learners and begins a residency program. “The United States is facing an overall shortage of physicians, especially among medicine specialties such as urology,” he said. “My goal is to prepare third- and fourth-year medical students to enter and succeed in the residency programs of their choice. It is my hope this new department, in turn, will help address the shortage, as medical students discover their niche while matriculating through various clinical rotations.”

“Further, through the formal establishment of the department we will have enhanced research opportunities that will lead to new, better and innovative care that will be available to our patients,” Keel added.

The educational design of the M.D. program is a competency-based curriculum spanning all four years, with the last two years of medical school spent working across USA Health facilities with the goal of expanding the students’ education as they are immersed in full-time patient care. 

Keel, who earned his doctoral degree from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has served as a urologist at USA Health University Urology since 2017. He completed an internship in general surgery and his residency training in urology at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans. He is board-certified by the American Board of Urology and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. 

The new department comprises urologists from USA Health University Urology – the only urologic clinic in the area backed by the resources of academic medicine – who will serve as assistant and associate professors at the Whiddon College of Medicine, including: Lisa Bailey, M.D.; Kristie Burch, M.D.; Lorie Fleck, M.D.; Robert Mevorach, M.D.; Mariarita Salvitti Fermin, M.D.; William Terry, M.D.; and Austin Younger, M.D.

Lin awarded $2.3 million NIH grant to further study cognitive deficits in pneumonia patients

Mike Lin, Ph.D., associate professor of physiology and cell biology, is examining impaired cognitive function in patients with hospital-acquired pneumonia.

To further investigate the link between hospital-acquired pneumonia and impaired cognitive function, Mike Lin, Ph.D., associate professor of physiology and cell biology at the Whiddon College of Medicine, recently was awarded a $2.3 million five-year renewal grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). 

A collaboration between the University of South Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the study builds upon Lin’s previous research grant from the NIH, which totaled $1.7 million over a four-year period. 

Past collaborative studies found that patients in the intensive care unit who contracted bacterial pneumonia have elevated levels of cytotoxic species, which are substances that damage or kill cells. These cytotoxins can be found in several bodily fluids, including bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, cerebrospinal fluid and blood collected from the patients. The presence of cytotoxins indicates they may spread from the lung to the brain after a bacterial pneumonia infection, Lin said. 

“Using rodents as an animal model, our studies have shown that the cytotoxins recovered from the cerebrospinal fluid of pneumonia patients impair learning and memory, and our studies provide a mechanism that may help explain why many pneumonia patients suffer from cognitive deficits,” he said. 

In the next phase of their studies, researchers will dive further into identifying the cytotoxic species that are generated in and distributed from the lung after infection.

“This research is important because it links two seemingly unrelated organs together,” Lin explained. “This lung-brain axis is an example of an impairment that may start to manifest in the brain, perhaps even years after the primary lung injury has been cleared.” 

Co-investigators on the grant from USA include Ron Balczon, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biology; and Troy Stevens, Ph.D., professor and chair of physiology and cell biology and director of the USA Center for Lung Biology. Co-investigators from UAB include Jean-Francois Pittet, M.D., and Brant Wagener, M.D., Ph.D.