Tag Archives: Announcement

Upcoming changes announced in GME, faculty development

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School of Medicine Interim Dean Mary Anne Jackson, M.D., has announced changes within the dean’s office that will take effect July 1.

Dr. Christine Sullivan, Dr. Sara Gardner, Dr. John Foxworth

Christine Sullivan, M.D., associate dean for graduate medical education for the past five years, will transition to a new role as associate dean for professional development. Sara Gardner, M.D., assistant dean for graduate medical education for the past two years, will assume the role of associate dean. John Foxworth, Pharm.D., who has served as associate dean for faculty development for the past 10 years, will become associate dean of academic enrichment.

Sullivan’s new role will focus on the development of a formal faculty mentorship program. She will work to expand resources for development training, including those that foster career progression, professionalism and physician well-being.

In her previous role with graduate medical education, Sullivan was responsible for implementing a GME Ombudsman program and establishing an annual Resident/Fellow Appreciation Day.

“It has been my great honor to serve in the role of associate dean for GME over the past five years,” said Sullivan, a professor of emergency medicine. “I truly have enjoyed advocating for our wonderfully talented residents and fellows who are the future in medicine.”

Gardner, associate professor of internal medicine/pediatrics, served as program director for the Internal Medicine-Pediatrics residency program prior to assuming the role of assistant dean.

“It’s been a privilege to work with Dr. Sullivan in the GME office,” Gardner said. “I look forward to collaborating with her in her new role in the faculty development office to support our program leaders and enhance our clinical learning environments.”

The associate dean for GME serves as the Designated Institutional Official for the school’s 35 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited programs and as the chair of the school’s Graduate Medical Education Council.

In his new role, Foxworth, a professor of medicine, will focus more narrowly on supporting faculty, student and trainee success in academics and research. He will also oversee a new grant writing program.

He is a member of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and a fellow in the American College of Clinical Pharmacology. He has been with the School of Medicine since 1974.

“It has been a pleasure working with the school’s talented faculty, students and residents and I look forward to supporting their ongoing academic and research efforts in this new role,” Foxworth said.

In Memoriam: Dr. Lynn DeMarco

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Demarco, LynnLong-time UMKC School of Medicine faculty member and docent Lynn DeMarco, died on Feb. 15 in Leawood, Kansas. He was 85.

Dr. DeMarco joined the School of Medicine and the internal medicine staff at Truman Medical Center in 1977. He served as a docent for 10 years and continued on the School of Medicine faculty as a professor of medicine.

Interim Dean Mary Anne Jackson, M.D., was a member of Dr. DeMarco’s docent unit as a student at the School of Medicine.

“As one of the first students on his docent unit in 1977, I remember him as positively engaged with students, a wonderful clinician who always had a smile on his face.”

Jim Wooten, Pharm.D., said he remembered how years ago Dr. DeMarco helped him fit in as a new member of the School of Medicine faculty.

“At least once a week, when he used to have a clinic at TMC, I would drop by for a visit,” Wooten said. “I would get lots of clinical questions from him when he had a clinic here and at TMC Lakewood although I believe many questions were more to make me feel good about myself rather than me helping him much.  He was a good man and extremely bright.  I have no doubts that his patients will miss him and so will I.”

Before coming to Kansas City, he was in private practice at the Donahoe Clinic, later Central Plains Clinic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

A graduate of Creighton University and the Creighton University School of Medicine, Dr. DeMarco interned at Harbor General Hospital in Torrance, California. He completed his internal medicine residency at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota.

He is survived by his wife, Mary Dianne Markell DeMarco, daughters, Gini Collins, Theresa DeMarco, Paula (Fritz) Long, Sons, Romano (Melissa), Lynn (Nick), John (Erika) and 10 Grandchildren, Virginia, Laura, John, Dianne, and Maria Collins, Henry, Walter, and Veronica Long, Oscar and Andrew.

 

Dr. Robert Riss selected as assistant dean for career advising

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The School of Medicine has announced that Robert Riss, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics and pediatric hospitalist at Children’s Mercy Kansas City, will serve as the next assistant dean for career advising.

In his new role at the School of Medicine, Riss will be responsible for oversight of all career advising services.

Riss is an associate director of medical student education and director of curriculum for the highly regarded pediatric clerkship at Children’s Mercy. His leadership in revising the pediatric clerkship curriculum using a scholarly approach and innovative facilitation of technology is cited as a reason for improved performance of students taking their NBME exams.

He has served on many leadership committees at UMKC and Childrens’ Mercy and currently serves as co-chair of the Medical Student Education Special Interest Group with the Academic Pediatric Association. He is also a faculty member of the association after recently completing the organization’s Educational Scholars Program.

Riss has received many awards for teaching and leadership including UMKC’s Elmer F. Pierson Good Teaching Award, as well as the Children’s Mercy Gold Apple Mercy Mentor Award and a faculty award for outstanding teaching support of student medical education.

He currently participates in educational research focusing on curriculum design, evaluation and implementation utilizing technology. He is an educational consultant on the NIH grant: SPeCTRE: The Sunflower Pediatric Clinical Trials Research Extension in which he is charged with designing a curriculum for primary care physicians to increase the research capacity for pediatrics in the state of Kansas.

Riss received his medical degree from the University of Kansas School of Medicine and completed his postdoctoral training as a pediatrics resident at Children’s Mercy Kansas City.

 

Student research office announces 12 Sarah Morrison awards

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Top row: Yicheng Bao, Shannon Demehri, Abygail Dulle, Ankit Kadakia. Middle row: Cynthia Liu, Andrew Peterson, Amber (Lelia) Sarvestani, Som Singh. Bottom row: Kevin Varghese, Firas Al-Badarin, Kathryn Kyler, Ali O. Malik

The School of Medicine Student Research Program has awarded 12 Sarah Morrison Student Research Awards for the Fall 2018 cycle. Recipients included nine medical students and three graduate students.

Sarah Morrison awards of up to $2,500 are presented to School of Medicine students each year in April and October. The awards help students become involved in and learn about a wide variety of research activities based on their interests. The research may be in the basic sciences or in clinical medicine.

Students may develop their own hypothesis and work plan or work on an established research project with their mentor. Winners of the awards are expected to present the results of the research at a School of Medicine student research event such as the UMKC Health Sciences Student Research Summit) or a similar venue as recommended by Research Administration.

More than 100 students have received Sarah Morrison awards since 2013 with an estimated $155,000 of financial support provided from the program to conduct research projects at the School of Medicine.

The next application deadline for students interested in receiving a Sarah Morrison research award is March 1 for the April award. Applicants are reviewed by a committee of faculty judges and processed through the Office of Research Administration.

For complete application information, visit the student research website.

Fall 2018 Sarah Morrison Research Awards
(Recipient / Faculty Mentor / Project title)
  • Yicheng Bao, MS 4 / Betty Drees, M.D., Professor, Dean Emerita / Prevalence and Risk Factors of Depression Among Patients with Diabetic Retinopathy
  • Shannon Demehri, MS 6 / John Wang, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, Westport Anesthesia/Missouri Endowed Chair for Research / Regulation of Src Family Kinases in the Rat Brain by Adenosine
  • Abygail Dulle, MS 5/ Paula Monaghan-Nichols, Ph.D., Professor, Associate Dean for Research Administration / Prenatal Glucocorticoid Exposure for Preterm Birth: Investigating The Role Of Glucocorticoid Receptor Phosphorylation In The Development Of Neuropathology
  • Ankit Kadakia, MS 4 / Paula Monaghan-Nichols, Ph.D., Professor, Associate Dean for Research Administration / Role of Synthetic Glucocorticoid Exposure in Ocular Development and Pathology
  • Cynthia Liu, MS 4/ Gary Sutkin, M.D., Professor and Associate Dean of Women’s Health, Victor and Caroline Schutte Chair in Women’s Health / The Prevalence and Effects of Ambiguous Language on Communication Errors in the Operating Room
  • Andrew Peterson, MS 5 / Xiangping Chu, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biomedical Sciences / Modulation of Heteromeric Acid-Sensing Ion 1 a/3 Channels by Zinc
  • Amber (Lelia) Sarvestani, MS 6 / Geetha Raghuveer, M.D., M.P.H., Professor of Pediatrics / Long Term Outcomes and Survival Following Repair of Truncus Arteriosus With and Without Interrupted Aortic Arch Utilizing Linkage of the Pediatric Cardiac Care Consortium with the National Death Index and Organ Procurement Transplantation Network Datasets
  • Som Singh, MS 2 / Li Zhang, M.D., Professor of Biomedical and Health Informatics / The Effect of GM26870 Gene Expression on Acetaminophen Hepatotoxicity
  • Kevin Varghese, MS 2 / Alain Cuna, M.D., Assistant Professor of Pediatrics / Effectiveness and safety of repeat use of postnatal steroids for bronchopulmonary dysplasia
  • Firas Al-Badarin, grad student / Tim Bateman, M.D., Professor of Internal Medicine and Radiology / Cardiovascular Outcomes of Patients with Normal Positron Emission Tomography and Single Photon Computed Tomography Myocardial Perfusion Imaging
  • Kathryn Kyler, grad student / Kim Smolderen, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biomedical and Health Informatics / Variation in medication dosing and guideline adherence by weight status for commonly prescribed medications during pediatric asthma hospitalizations
  • Ali O. Malik, grad student / Paul Chan, M.D., Professor of Internal Medicine / Association between hospital reimbursement models and rates of normal elective coronary angiograms

In Memoriam: Shui Qing Ye

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Ye, Shui Qing

Remembering Shui Qing Ye
(1954-2018)

School of Medicine faculty member and renowned researcher Shui Qing Ye, M.D., Ph.D., died on Oct. 24 following a prolonged illness.

A professor in the Department of Pediatrics, and professor and chair of the Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics, Ye served as the William R. Brown / Missouri Endowed chair in Medical Genetics and Molecular Medicine. He also served as director of the Division of Experimental and Translational Genetics and Core of Omic Research at Children’s Mercy.

He is survived by wife and research collaborator, Li Qin Zhang, an associate professor at the UMKC School of Medicine, and daughter, YuMin Ye.

“Our hearts are broken,” said Mary Anne Jackson, interim dean at the UMKC School of Medicine and his colleague at Children’s Mercy. “He was a dedicated faculty member and excellent researcher, but above all that, he was one of the kindest people I have known.”

An expert in genomic and translational bioinformatics, Ye had a strong track record of using new-age tools to gather and explore Big Data. He was a highly active researcher, partnering with local and worldwide scientists to pinpoint new diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets for human diseases.

“He was a fellow University of Chicago graduate, co-author, co-teacher and briefly, I had the privilege of having him as the chair of the department where I hold a courtesy appointment in the UMKC School of Medicine — I already miss him terribly,” said Gerald J. Wyckoff, interim chair of the Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences, UMKC School of Pharmacy. “He was a rare individual with a true appreciation not only for the results of science, but for the process of science. He enriched a lot of lives; mine included.”

A principal investigator or co-investigator for many National Institutes of Health-funded research studies, Ye served on grant review panels for the NIH-National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the U.S. Department of Defense and the American Heart Association.

He authored two highly acclaimed books on bioinformatics and Big Data:Bioinformatics — A Practical Approach, published in 2007, and “Big Data Analysis for Bioinformatics and Biomedical Discoveries,” published in 2016.

Before joining UMKC faculty in 2010, Ye served as director of the Gene Expression Profiling Core at the Center of Translational Respiratory Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He also served as director of the Molecular Resource Core at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

Ye earned his medical degree from Wuhan University School of Medicine at Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in lipid metabolism at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation in Oklahoma City, and received his Ph.D. in molecular mechanisms of disease from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

Visitation will be from 2 to 3 p.m. and a memorial service from 3 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 3 at Mt. Moriah, Newcomer and Freeman Funeral Home, 10507 Holmes Road, Kansas City, MO 64131.

 

Reception planned for retiring Education Team Coordinator Mary Pirotte

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Senior Education Team Coordinator Mary Pirotte, a longtime staff member of the Office of Student Affairs, will retire from the School of Medicine at the end of June.

Pirotte has served as ETC for the Blue unit for the last 14 years. She started as an education assistant for the Gold unit in 1989. During her time at the school, she has been a member of the curriculum council and the evaluation council. And she has worked with every dean of the medical school in some capacity.

A reception is planned from 3:30-5 p.m. on June 28 in the fifth-floor Biomedical and Health Informatics conference room, M5-103.

School of Medicine announces new chair of Biomedical and Health Informatics

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Shui Qing Ye, M.D., Ph.D.

School of Medicine Dean Steven Kanter, M.D., has announced the appointment of Shui Qing Ye, M.D., Ph.D. as chair of the Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics. The appointment will take effect January 1, 2018.

A professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine, Ye will continue to occupy the William R. Brown / Missouri Endowed Chair in Medical Genetics and Molecular Medicine.

As department chair, he will work closely with faculty, staff, and students to help position the Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics as a catalyst of innovation and creativity. Ye is an expert in genomics and translational bioinformatics, which will help foster important collaborations with other units throughout the university and with School of Medicine clinical partners. He has a strong track record of using new-age tools to gather and explore Big Data, and of partnering with researchers locally and worldwide in an effort to pinpoint new diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets for human diseases.

Ye is the author of two highly acclaimed books on bioinformatics and Big Data in addition to extensive research experience. He served previously as director of the Gene Expression Profiling Core at the Center of Translational Respiratory Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Additionally, he served at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine as director of the Molecular Resource Core.

Ye earned his medical degree from Wuhan University School of Medicine at Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in lipid metabolism at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation in Oklahoma City, and received his Ph.D. in molecular mechanisms of disease from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

Kansas City’s leading health-care institutions team up to create UMKC Health Sciences District

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UMKC’s health sciences community and surrounding hospitals are part of a newly created UMKC Health Sciences District announced Friday, May 19.

With a collaboration unlike any other in the nation, many of Kansas City’s leading health-care institutions announced today that they have agreed to align more closely to form the UMKC Health Sciences District. The newly created district combines the unique expertise and services of 10 partners to spur research and community outreach in service of the Kansas City region and beyond.

The UMKC Health Sciences District includes:

The UMKC Health Sciences District is unlike any other in the nation. It is one of 18 areas in the country that have public schools of medicine, pharmacy, dentistry and nursing in one location along with a children’s hospital and an adult, acute-care hospital. But by including a health department, the medical examiner and a mental health center that bring together agencies of the city, county and state, the UMKC Health Sciences District is one of a kind.

Drawing on these institutions’ efforts, the UMKC Health Sciences District has the potential to enhance collaboration on research and grant requests; combine efforts on community outreach; improve faculty recruitment; coordinate area parking, safety and transportation; and create shared opportunities in health and wellness for more than 16,000 health professionals, faculty members and students.

“We have all worked together already for a long time, and worked very well together, but today we are opening a new chapter,” said UMKC Chancellor Leo E. Morton. “Today, we will sign an agreement designed to stimulate economic growth and job creation, attract new talent to Kansas City, create shared opportunities in health and wellness, and improve opportunities for recruiting and neighborhood outreach.”

“Better functioning health-care teams provide better patient care. Interprofessional education means educating future physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists and other health-care professionals to work effectively as members of those teams so that patients get the best and safest care possible,” said Steven L. Kanter, M.D., Dean of the UMKC School of Medicine. Kanter will serve as the first executive director of a newly-formed Health Sciences District Board.

“The UMKC Health Sciences District is the perfect environment for students, scientists and health-care professionals to work and learn together as they deliver top-quality, personalized health care,” Kanter said.

“This District is a collaboration among dedicated organizations determined to improve the health and wellness of people in Kansas City—and across the United States,” said Charlie Shields, President and Chief Executive Officer of Truman Medical Centers and University Health. “We believe that as the UMKC Health Sciences District, we will be able to stimulate collaboration in research, advance interprofessional education and foster communication. Those are the steps necessary to developing the kind of innovations that will shape the health care of the future.”

“Children’s Mercy is proud to be a part of this one-of-a-kind District, celebrating the collective spirit of innovation, research and discovery that drives our collaborative quest for answers, new treatments and cures,” said Randall L. O’Donnell, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Children’s Mercy. “And while today’s announcement focuses on the organizations within the boundaries of this District, the resulting impact of our work together will benefit every corner of our city and touch families throughout the region and the nation.”

The UMKC Health Sciences District will be governed by a board composed of approximately 20 members, including two from each institution. The board will also appoint a chair for a two-year period beginning July 1, 2018. The chair will rotate among the following participants in the following order: UMKC, TMC and CMH. The first chair, who will serve a two-year term, will be the UMKC Chancellor. The executive director of the District will serve a three-year term.

The District is about two miles in circumference and will be bound on the north by 20th Street; south by 25th Street; west by Oak Street; and east by U.S. 71 South.

Applications due April 1 for Sarah Morrison research awards

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The Office of Research Administration is taking applications for the next round of Sarah Morrison Student Research Awards. The next application deadline is April. 1.

Sarah Morrison awards are given twice a year to help students learn the value and application of research in the study and practice of medicine. Funding from the Sarah Morrison awards supports the student’s and their mentor’s research.

Students may be involved in and learn about a wide variety of research activities based on their interests in basic sciences or  clinical medicine. Students may develop their own hypothesis and work plan, or work on an established research project with their mentor. Recipients are expected to present their results at the SOM student research event or a similar venue as recommended by the Director of Student Research.

Project proposals are screened by a School of Medicine review committee. Visit the Sarah Morrison Student Research Award online for complete information, including a downloadable application form.

Family Medicine Residency announces 2017-18 chief residents

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Dr. Byle, Dr. Munger

The UMKC School of Medicine Community and Family Residency Program has announced that Chadwick Byle, M.D., and Kevin Munger, D.O., M.S., will take on leadership roles as the program’s chief residents for 2017-18.

Byle received his medical degree from the University of Missorui-Columbia. Munger is a graduate of the Des Moines University College of of Osteopathic Medicine.

As chief residents, Byle and Munger will serve as liaisons between program residents and faculty, representing the interests and serving as spokesmen for residents. They also serve as a role model, providing oversight and educational leadership.