January

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Kudos

Published on Thursday, January 15, 2015

By: Gary Pettus at 601-815-9266 or gpettus@umc.edu.

Published on January 15, 2015

Honors and awards around the Medical Center

IAN PAUL ACCEPTS SECOND ANNUAL TEACH PRIZE

As the winner of the second annual TEACH Prize, Dr. Ian Paul, far right, professor of psychiatry and human behavior, receives a ceremonial check from Alon Bee, far left, Regions Bank Metro Jackson president. With them are Dr. LouAnn Woodward, associate vice chancellor for health affairs, and Dr. James Keeton, vice chancellor for health affairs.
As the winner of the second annual TEACH Prize, Dr. Ian Paul, far right, professor of psychiatry and human behavior, receives a ceremonial check from Alon Bee, far left, Regions Bank Metro Jackson president. With them are Dr. LouAnn Woodward, associate vice chancellor for health affairs, and Dr. James Keeton, vice chancellor for health affairs.

Dr. Ian Paul, School of Medicine professor of psychiatry and human behavior, has been named the recipient of the second annual Regions Bank TEACH Prize at UMMC.

The Toward Educational Advancement in Care and Health (TEACH) Prize includes a $10,000 check and recognizes a faculty member who engages students, challenges them intellectually and demonstrates the craft of education.

"I'm certainly honored to receive this award," said Paul, a neurobiologist and behavioral researcher who also directs the Graduate Program in Neuroscience in the School of Graduate Studies in the Health Sciences.

"However, this honor is as much a tribute to the faculty, students and staff of the Program in Neuroscience as it is to me. Without their dedication, creativity, hard work and patience, none of my work in graduate education could have gotten off the ground."

Paul earned his undergraduate degree in behavioral neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh in 1983 and his Ph.D. in neurobiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1989.

He came to UMMC as an assistant professor in 1993 from the National Institutes of Health. Paul was awarded tenure in 2000 and became a full professor in 2005. Two years later he established the Program in Neuroscience as the first interdepartmental graduate program at UMMC.

Throughout the past several years, he and a group of neuroscientists from UMMC and University of California, San Francisco have published numerous groundbreaking studies on rodents that point to possible links between early-life exposure to antidepressants, abnormal brain development and autism-like behaviors.

As with all his research, student learning played a major role.

"Teaching, for me, is an opportunity to connect the scientists of the past with those of the present and the future," Paul said.

"While all scientists want to make a difference during their careers, our successful trainees are really our most lasting legacy in science. If one scientist teaches just 10 successful students, his or her impact on the future of their field is tenfold greater than it could possibly have been, were they working alone in a laboratory."

 

AO NORTH AMERICA TAPS ORTHOPEDIST MCGUIRE

Dr. Robert A. McGuire Jr., M. Beckett Howorth Professor and Chair of Orthopedic Surgery and Rehabilitation, associate professor of neurosurgery and director of the Orthopedic Surgery Residency Program, has been elected president-elect of AO North America by the organization's board of directors.

McGuire will serve as president-elect through July 1, 2015, when he will begin a three-year term as president of AO America. He will succeed Dr. Michael Baumgaertner, whose term as president will end on July 1, 2015. 

"It would be an honor for me to serve as president of AO North America," McGuire said. "It will be my duty and privilege to preserve all that is right in the organization, to drive AONA to reach new levels of distinction, and to preserve the legacy of excellence in musculoskeletal care as set forth by our founding fathers years ago."

 

PROFESSOR EMERITUS FREELAND CELEBRATED AS JOHNS HOPKINS DISTINGUISHED ALUMNUS

Dr. Alan E. Freeland, professor emeritus at UMMC, has been named a Distinguished Alumnus of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. 

Freeland earned his M.D. from the George Washington University School of Medicine and was a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society. At UMMC, he practiced hand and upper extremity surgery from 1978 to 2013, the year he retired as physician and professor emeritus. 

He founded the Orthopedic Hand Surgery Fellowship Program at UMMC in 1991 and was the director from 1991 to 2004. Freeland authored numerous articles, book chapters, and two notable books on the treatment of hand and wrist injuries using miniature implants.

He was chair or a leading faculty member on national and international hand-trauma courses and served as visiting professor. In 1998, he was the winner of the American Association for Hand Surgery National Teacher/Clinician of the Year Award, and served as the association's president in 2002. The International Federation of Societies for Surgery of the Hand named him a "Pioneer of Hand Surgery" in 2013. 

The Alan E. Freeland M.D. Chair of Orthopedic Hand Surgery has been established in his honor at the UMMC.

 

THIGPEN’S PROPOSAL SECURES ACP AWARD

Dr. Calvin Thigpen, assistant professor of medicine, submitted the proposal for the Mississippi Chapter of the American College of Physicians that received the Evergreen Award at the ACP's Council of Residents national meeting May 9 in Orlando, Fla.

The Evergreen Award is given for the successful implementation of programs that boost membership, improve communication, increase member involvement, enhance diversity and foster careers in internal medicine, and improve management of the ACP chapter.        

 

FAMILY MEDICINE’S DIANE BEEBE SELECTED FOR FOUNDATION BOARD MEMBERSHIP

Dr. Diane Beebe (1984), professor and chair of the UMMC Department of Family Medicine, is serving as immediate past chair of the American Board of Family Medicine, 2014-2015, and was recently elected to its Foundation Board.

In 1987, Beebe joined the faculty of UMMC, where she also completed her family medicine residency after earning her M.D. in 1984.

She has led or served in a variety of professional organizations, including the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Residency Review Committee for Family Medicine, the Future of Family Medicine Task Force on Education, the Academic Council for the National Institute for Program Directors Fellowship, and the Board of the Annals of Family Medicine.

 

WALKER REAPS SCHOLARSHIP AWARDS

Senior medical student Micah Walker and his daughter, Emery Clair, join in the excitement as Walker receives the Dr. and Mrs. Henry O. Leonard Scholarship during the School of Medicine's 53rd annual Honors Day, May 2 in the Norman C. Nelson Student Union.

The scholarship is presented to a student who is planning a career in family medicine. Walker also received a Department of Surgery Medical Scholars Program Award.

 

RESEARCHERS PROVE THEIR MEDAL

Dr. Richard J. Roman, left, receives a Platinum Medallion from Dr. Richard Summers, professor of emergency medicine and associate vice chancellor for research, at the Excellence in Research Awards on Dec. 9. The platinum award is reserved for faculty who have brought in more than $5 million in funding for research projects. Now in its 14th year, the awards recognize those researchers whose projects attracted the top-dollar amounts, in categories based on their funding totals: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. This go-round, UMMC saluted 26 researchers.

 

HUMANISM HONOREES GET PINNED

 Fourth-year-medical student Eric McDonald hams it up as Dr. Loretta Jackson-Williams, associate dean for academic affairs, pins him during the induction ceremony of the Jeanette Pullen Chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society, Sept. 8 at the Norman C. Nelson Student Union. Those honored included 27 fourth-year medical students and three residents.

 

ASB FETES STUDENT OF THE YEAR

 Peter Mittwede, left, 2014-15 Associated Student Body president, accepts the ASB Student of the Year Award from Brad Deere, right, 2013-2014 ASB president and a 2014 School of Medicine graduate, during the 2014-15 ASB Officer Installation Banquet, May 5 at the Norman C. Nelson Student Union. Mittwede, a Ph.D. candidate, will resume his medical school education at UMMC in July as a fourth-year student. Carson Kisner, another 2014 med school graduate, also received the Student of the Year Award at the event. Other ASB officers installed included Kevin Randolph, vice president; Kelly Pippin, secretary; and Daniel Lyons, treasurer.