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Martin president-elect of national organization

Published on Monday, November 16, 2009

Published in Press Releases on November 16, 2009 (PDF)

A University of Mississippi Medical Center physician was named president-elect of a national medical organization this weekend in Hawaii.

Dr. James Martin, professor of ob-gyn and director of maternal-fetal medicine at UMMC, is the new president-elect of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The 52,000-member college is the nation's largest group of professionals providing health care for women.

The membership will vote on the slate of officers at the organization's annual business meeting in May 2010.

In October, Martin received the Hope Award, the highest honor of the Preeclampsia Foundation for his "lifetime achievement in preeclampsia research."

His 28-year career has changed the way obstetricians around the country manage crisis pregnancies, including those complicated by preeclampsia, the leading cause of premature birth and maternal death.

Martin and his team at the Medical Center have the world's largest data base of patients with HELLP syndrome, a severe form of preeclampsia. HELLP is the acronym for the symptoms that define the syndrome: hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, and low blood platelets.

Using the protocol that Martin has developed for the syndrome the ob-gyn service at the Medical Center has treated 190 patients with HELLP syndrome from 2000 to 2007 with no deaths, no strokes and no liver rupture - all possible outcomes if the syndrome isn't recognized quickly and treated appropriately.

Martin has served as secretary of ACOG and a member of its executive board. He is a founding member and a past president of the North American Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy, and is a past chair of District VII, ACOG.

 He's the author of three books, 71 book chapters and more than 500 articles in professional journals. He serves as an editorial consultant and reviewer for the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Endocrinology, Journal of Maternal Fetal Investigation, Journal of Perinatology, Hypertension in Pregnancy, American Journal of Hypertension, New England Journal of Medicine and the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Martin earned the MD at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, completed ob-gyn internship and residency at Chapel Hill, a clinical research fellowship for the World Health Organization in Stockholm, Sweden, and a maternal-fetal medicine fellowship at the University of Texas in Dallas Parkland Hospital.

For more information contact Janis Quinn at 601-815-5133 or jquinn@umc.edu.