Longtime pathologist, geriatrician join UMMC faculty

The Medical Center is proud to announce the following additions to its faculty and leadership staff:

Dana Marie Grzybicki, MD, PhD

Grzybicki

Dr. Dana Marie Grzybicki, a staff pathologist at major medical institutions in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Aurora, Colorado, and most recently the quality systems research manager at Eastern Health Regional Authority, St. John's Newfoundland, Canada, has joined the Medical Center faculty as a professor of pathology and director of the UMMC Graduate Program in Pathology.

After receiving her BS in biology from the University of San Francisco in 1980, Grzybicki trained and worked as a licensed medical technologist for six years at Eden Medical Center, Castro Valley, California before earning her MD at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1990. She then completed postgraduate residency training in anatomic pathology and subspecialty training in neuropathology at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and Veterans Administration Hospital, Iowa City. In addition, Grzybicki earned her PhD in neuroscience at the University of Iowa, completing her postgraduate medical and research training in 1997.

She began a 12-year academic career in Pittsburgh by joining the Duquesne University faculty in 1998 as an assistant professor in the School of Health Sciences. In 2000 she became a clinical assistant professor at Allegheny General Hospital and MCP Hahnemann University; two years later, she joined the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine as an assistant professor of pathology with a joint appointment in the Department of Biomedical Informatics there in 2006. In 2007, she joined the University of Colorado Denver faculty as an associate professor of pathology in the School of Health Sciences, and in 2009, she became professor of pathology in the Department of Specialty Medicine at the Rocky Vista University of Osteopathic Medicine in Parker, Colorado. In 2012 she joined the Eastern Health Regional Authority.

The author or coauthor of 47 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, nine invited reviews and one invited editorial, as well as a track record in both extramural and intramural grant funding, Grzybicki's research interests are clinical and health services research focused on quality improvement and patient safety in pathology and laboratory medicine.

Netrali Patel, MD

Patel

Dr. Netrali Patel joined the UMMC faculty in November 2015 as an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine and Family Medicine. She currently serves as a clinical director of the MIND Center. She was previously working for Meridian Health in New Jersey for three years as a geriatrician/ family practitioner before moving to Mississippi.

She graduated with President Honors from Florida Atlantic University in 2004 with a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry. She earned her MD at the Ross University School of Medicine in 2008. She completed her residency in family medicine at St Vincent's Medical Center in 2011. After her residency training, she completed her fellowship in geriatrics at St Luke's University Health Network in 2012, where she gained extensive skills in dementia evaluations/testing and comprehensive geriatric assessments.

Patel is dually board-certified in family medicine and geriatrics and is a member of the American Board of Family Medicine. She sees a wide range of patients, from neonates and adults to geriatrics.

Patel has conducted an extensive amount of research and presented numerous poster presentations, and she has received second prize for her presentation, "Reducing 30 Day Readmission Rates of Heart Failure Patients Residing in Long Term Care Settings." She has dedicated her time personally and professionally by providing screenings to uninsured patients through a mobile health unit in Florida and has volunteered her services to the Special Olympics and community religious organizations.

Her interests include dementia and memory evaluations/testing, preventative care, geriatric syndrome and comprehensive geriatric assessment, managing polypharmacy in the geriatric population, sleep disorders and depression in elderly, and women's health.