Graduate students and faculty present at ATS International Conference

Faculty, residents, fellows and graduate students participate in the American Thoracic Society International Conference in San Francisco.

Representatives from the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine and USA Health attended the American Thoracic Society (ATS) International Conference, held last month in San Francisco, to present and learn about the latest advances in pulmonary disease, critical illness and sleep disorders.

Numerous faculty, residents, fellows and graduate students participated in the meeting, which drew nearly 14,000 physicians, scientists and healthcare professionals from around the globe.

The following Ph.D. students in the Basic Medical Sciences Graduate Program were poster presenters: Aritra Bhadra, Grant Daly, Meredith Gwin, Jenny Hewes, Jennifer Knighten, Sunita Subedi Paudel, Pallavi Sen and Reece Stevens. Viktor Pastukh, Ph.D., pharmacology instructor; Nida Ahmed, M.D., pulmonary fellow; and Taylor Cook, M.D., internal medicine resident, also presented posters at the conference.

Natalie Bauer, Ph.D., associate professor of pharmacology, was selected as co-chair of the Assembly on Pulmonary Circulation planning committee and will serve as chair for 2023-2024. She also organized the ATS Science and Innovation Center (SIC) reception, hosted the SIC/Ph.D., Basic and Translational Scientists Working Group reception, chaired a faculty development session, and facilitated a poster discussion session.

Karen Fagan, M.D., professor of internal medicine and pharmacology and director of the pulmonary and critical care division, facilitated a poster discussion session. Troy Stevens, Ph.D., professor and chair of physiology and cell biology and director of the Center for Lung Biology, organized an endothelial workshop.

Also in attendance were Phillip Almalouf, M.D., assistant professor of internal medicine; Mark Gillespie, Ph.D., professor and chair of pharmacology; Raymond Langley, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmacology; Ji Young Lee, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of internal medicine, physiology and cell biology; and Robert Petrossian, M.D., pulmonary fellow.

Meet a Med Student: Sarah Blackstock

Sarah Blackstock

Age: 24

Class of: 2025

Hometown: Gadsden, Alabama

Undergrad institution: Auburn University

Degree earned: Bachelor of Science in biomedical sciences

Interests, hobbies: Traveling, baking and listening to true-crime podcasts

Something unique about me: I was almost stuck in Peru when COVID-19 first broke out. We were the last plane to leave the country, and we left just 30 minutes before they closed the borders.

Three of my favorite things: I love traveling to new places, spending time with my family and dogs at the lake, and eating anything chocolate.

What I enjoy most about being a student at the Whiddon College of Medicine: I really appreciate that South offers us so many opportunities to get involved on campus and in our community.

USA Health residents, fellows compete in 2022 scholarship exposition

Chaitra Manjunath, M.D., right, a third-year pediatrics resident, discuses her research with Mimi Munn, M.D., professor and chair of obstetrics and gynecology. Manjunath won first place in the Clinical and Translational Research category for her poster presentation. 

Residents and fellows at USA Health presented scholarly works at the USA Resident and Fellow Scholarship Exposition on Thursday, June 16, at the Strada Patient Care Center. The expo was held in person after being held virtually in 2021.

The expo provides an opportunity for residents and fellows to display their scholarly activities from research projects, quality improvement projects, and patient safety, education and advocacy projects, as well as case reports. This year featured an oral presentation competition in addition to the poster competition.

“It’s important for us to share our knowledge to add to the overall body of medical knowledge that helps advance care for all patients,” said Judy Blair-Elortegui, M.D., associate dean for graduate medical education, associate professor of internal medicine and pediatrics, and program director of the internal medicine residency program. “In particular, our projects in quality improvement and patient safety have a specific, measurable impact on the care we provide to our patients at USA Health.”

Elizabeth Ekpo, M.D., a third-year resident in emergency medicine, presented a poster outlining a case in which Double Sequential External Defibrillation (DSED) was used in a 36-year-old patient who was admitted to the emergency department with refractory ventricular fibrillation from thyrotoxic periodic paralysis, a rare condition that causes severe muscle weakness. Ekpo concluded that DSED could have value in an in-hospital setting. 

“This event allows us to showcase all of our hard work,” Ekpo said. “When I see a rare case, I want to know how the physicians solved the case, and how I can do better. Hopefully, people can learn from this and save someone’s life.”

Winners were announced in these categories:

Poster sessions

Quality Improvement and Performance Improvement, Patient Safety, Patient Education, and Patient Advocacy: Jonathan Jones, M.D., a third-year resident in OB-GYN, who presented “Financial toxicity of gynecologic oncology patients undergoing treatment in the Deep South.”

Clinical and Translational Research: Chaitra Manjunath, M.D., a third-year resident in pediatrics, who presented “Multivariate analysis of the use of Quetiapine in delirium among hospitalized children.”

Clinical Vignettes: Katie Vines, M.D., a second-year resident in surgery, who presented “Traumatic Aortic Injury: Is the seatbelt to be blamed?”

Oral presentation session

1st place (tie): Benjamin Eisenman, M.D., a second-year resident in family medicine, who presented “One step at a time: Addressing COVID hesitancy in patients who received one out of two recommended doses.”

1st place (tie): Jorge Sucar-Marquez, M.D., a second-year resident in pediatrics, who presented “Retrospective review of accidental toddler drug ingestion; the clinical manifestations and length of stay.”

2nd place: Joseph Anderson, M.D., a third-year resident in orthopaedic surgery, who presented “Clavicle mass in a competitive CrossFit athlete.”

See more photos from the expo on Flickr.

 

White Coat Ceremony marks transition for Class of 2024

The Class of 2024 assembles at the Mitchell Center for the White Coat Ceremony.

Members of the Class of 2024 at the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine at the University of South Alabama were cloaked with white coats in a ceremony on Thursday, June 16, marking the transition into their clinical training.

During the ceremony, 74 third-year medical students took the Medical Student Oath, a promise to uphold the human aspects of medicine such as sensitivity, compassion and respect for patients. They were led by Chris Semple, M.D., president of the USA Medical Alumni Association, which provides the white coats.

Class President Carey P. Johnson addresses his classmates.

Carey P. Johnson, class president, addressed his fellow students. “With all the exams, the quizzes, the interviews and the caffeine-induced migraines, I thought, ‘Why would somebody continue down the path to do this?’ One word came to mind: passion,” said Johnson, who would be helped into his white coat by his wife, Angela Mosley-Johnson, M.D., an OB-GYN resident at USA Health.

“As I stand up here and look out at you, Class of 2024, I know that you are capable. You answered the call, and you endured,” he said.

Phillip K. Henderson, D.O., assistant professor of internal medicine and assistant professor of surgery at the Whiddon College of Medicine, delivered the keynote address.

Henderson urged the students to learn from humiliation, bad decisions and human tragedy, and to become an advocate for their patients. “I don’t care if you’re a third-year medical student or a third-year professor, being an advocate for your patients – there’s no better honor that you could ever have,” he said. 

During the ceremony, senior medical students, residents and faculty were inducted into the USA Chapter of the Arnold P. Gold Humanism in Medicine Honor Society (GHHS), a national society that celebrates compassionate, patient-centered care. They also received GHHS pins.

Arnold P. Gold Humanism in Medicine Honor Society
inductees receive pins.

The inductees included:

• Kasey Andrews, student
• Donavon Dahmer, student
• Baylee Edwards, student
• Sarah Fillingim, student
• Mengjie Hu, student
• Natalie Kidd, student
• Ashley Nguyen, student
• Hailey Selikoff, student
• Mary Vansant, student
• Nicholas Viyuoh, student
• Rennan Zaharias, student
• Elizabeth Minto, M.D., assistant professor, department of neurology
• Justin Grimes, M.D., resident, department of surgery
• Sana Ozair, M.D., resident, department of internal medicine
• Macy Vickers, M.D., resident, department of obstetrics and gynecology

View more photos from the ceremony on Flickr.

Medical students and residents win at regional emergency medicine conference

From left, Christopher Musselwhite, M.D., emergency medicine chief resident; Kyle Johnson, M.D., emergency medicine resident; medical students Nicholas Viyouh and Payal Patel; and Michael Sternberg, M.D., professor of emergency medicine, display the awards they won at the American College of Emergency Physicians’ Emerald Coast Conference.

The USA Health Department of Emergency Medicine, with the support of the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine, sponsored four medical students and two emergency medicine residents in a 10-state regional poster competition at the American College of Emergency Physicians’ Emerald Coast Conference. The meeting was held in Destin, Florida, last week; and awards were presented on
June 8.

Medical students Payal Patel and Nicholas Viyouh

“We competed against multiple medical schools and established emergency medicine residency programs throughout the Southeast and ended up winning two of the three awards given,” said Michael Sternberg, M.D., professor of emergency medicine and medical student clerkship director, who has taken many students to the competition during the past 10 years. “We have established a reputation for academic excellence at this conference that greatly influences our ability to place our medical students into their top choices for residency.” 

Emergency medicine resident Kyle Johnson, M.D.

Mentored by Sternberg, third-year medical students Payal Patel and Nicholas Viyouh won first place in the clinical case series with a presentation on a patient with acute myelogenous leukemia and thrombocytopenia, which is a deficiency of platelets in the blood. 

Kyle Johnson M.D., a second-year emergency medicine resident, also won in the category for his presentation of a case of Wernicke’s encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disorder, that presented as blindness in a pregnant patient. He was assisted by Christopher Musselwhite, M.D., a third-year chief resident.