Levy Awards go to Medicine Faculty

This year's Albert E. Levy Scientific Research Awards for Junior and Senior Faculty, the university's highest research honor, were both awarded to Department of Medicine faculty.

Leslee Shaw (cardiology) received the Levy Award for senior faculty, for her work on the effectiveness of cardiovascular imaging, especially in women. Shaw was also the recipient of the 2015 Dean's Distinguished Lecture and Award.

David Weiss (infectious diseases) received the Levy Award for junior faculty for examining ways in which bacterial pathogens resist antibiotics and evade the host immune system, so as to combat drug-resistant bacteria.

Ajit Yoganathan (biomedical engineering) was elected to the National Academy of Engineers, and Hanjoong Jo, Garrett Stanley, Johnna Temenoff, and May Wang (biomedical engineering) were elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineers.

Sheila Angeles-Han and Kiran Hebbar, Ravi Patel (pediatrics) were elected to the Society for Pediatrics Research.

Jeremy Ackerman (emergency medicine) is the 2015 winner of the Georgia Tech Center for Teaching and Learning Junior Faculty Teaching Award.

Jessica Alvarez (endocrinology) has been selected to participate in the Dannon Nutrition Leadership Institute designed to support outstanding nutritional scientists at an early stage of their careers.

Kimberly Applegate (above, radiology) was featured as one of the "25 Top Radiology Professors" on the Medical Technology Schools blog.

Daniel Barrow (neurosurgery) was named Pamela R. Rollins Chair in Neurosurgery.

J. Doug Bremner (psychiatry and behavioral sciences), director of the Emory Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit, was elected as a member of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research.

Xiaodong Cheng (biochemistry) received the 2015 SER-CAT Outstanding Science Award.

Walter Curran Jr. (radiation oncology), Lawrence W. Davis Professor and Chair, was appointed to serve on a new, seven-person advisory panel to NASA.

Robert Gross (neurosurgery) was named MBNA/Bowman Professor of Neurosurgery.

William Hu (neurology) represented the Young Leaders in Dementia at the first WHO Ministerial Conference in Geneva, as one of four delegates from the US, Canada, EU, and Japan. The group will make recommendations on novel approaches to improve the care and cure of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.

Michael M.E. Johns, former Emory chancellor and executive vice president for health affairs, received the 2015 Castle Connolly National Physician of the Year Award for Lifetime Achievement. More info.

William Mahle (pediatrics), Marcus Professor of Pediatric Cardiology, was elected to the American Pediatrics Society.

Darlene Mashman (anesthesiology) was elected as a member of the American Society of Anesthesiologists/Society for Pediatrics Anesthesia.

Modele Ogunniyi (cardiology) assistant medical director, Grady Heart Failure Program, was elected a fellow of the American Heart Association, affiliated with the Council of Clinical Cardiology.

Mark Hyman Rapaport (psychiatry and behavioral sciences) is president-elect of the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology.

Kerry Ressler (psychiatry) had his work honored by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, which named his PTSD research among the 10 major discoveries in 2014 by NARSAD grantees.

Raymond Schinazi (pediatrics), Frances Winship Walters Professor of Pediatrics, was named Chair of the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children's Development Committee, and was also appointed to the Global Virus Network.

Sidney Stein (hematology and medical oncology) was named Sidney F. Stein, MD Chair in Hemophilia and Hemostasis.

Guillermo Umpierrez (above, endocrinology) was honored by the Georgia House of Representatives with the "Inspiring Mentor Award."

Sharon Weiss (pathology) received the 2015 USCAP Board's Distinguished Pathologist Award.

Nanette Wenger (cardiology) was presented the inaugural 2015 Bernadine Healy Leadership in Women's Cardiovascular Disease Award at the 64th Annual American College of Cardiology Scientific Session.

Memorable Match Day

On Match Day in March, nearly half of our graduating medical students were selected to join one of the country's top 20 residency programs and one-fourth of our students were selected by the top 10. (You can watch the excitement here.)

"Finding out where you'll spend your residency is a memorable day in the life of a medical student," says Bill Eley, executive associate dean for medical education and student affairs. "The Emory School of Medicine Class of 2015 has achieved wonderful results in this year's match. We are excited that they are going to outstanding medical centers to continue their training."

Of the 137 Emory graduating seniors, 133 participated in the match. Prior to Match Day, several students already had matched in ophthalmology and urology.

The most popular specialties chosen by Emory's graduates in the match included the following:
• Internal medicine (36)
• Pediatrics (21)
• General surgery (14)
• Orthopedic surgery (9)
• Anesthesiology (8)

Twenty-eight graduating students will spend all or part of their residencies in Emory's Residency Training Programs. In addition to Emory, residency training will occur at a variety of esteemed institutions, including Harvard, UCSF, Northwestern, Cleveland Clinic, University of Washington, University of Pennsylvania, Mayo Clinic, Cornell, Columbia, Yale, Brown, Duke, Johns Hopkins, and Vanderbilt.

Bill Eley and his team have built one of the best medical education programs in the world, which was clearly evident with the extraordinary match results. Congratulations, all! To see more, go to a geographic map of residency locations and to Storify Emory Match Day.

SOM students celebrate successful matches on March 20.

Genetic Counseling Accredited

The Genetic Counseling Training Program, which accepted its first class in 2012, was awarded full accreditation by the Accreditation Council for Genetic Counseling in March 2015, following successful completion of a self-study and site visit.

Last spring, US News & World Report predicted that a master's in genetic counseling "can give your career prospects a lift in a field with a big future." The number of genetic counselors is still small—2,100 positions as of 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics—but job openings are predicted to grow 41% over the next decade, much faster than the health care average.

The Emory Genetic Counseling Training Program will soon graduate its second cohort and accept its fourth class. "We're proud to be adding to the ranks of this growing profession," says Cecelia Bellcross, program director.

AAMC Challenge Winner

Beau Bruce (middle) with patient.

Examination of the ocular fundus is a key element of the physical exam. Despite remarkable advances in various diagnostic medical technologies (e.g., neuroimaging), visualization of the ocular fundus often provides the only diagnostic clues in the identification of potentially serious diseases.

Emory was named an AAMC 2014 Challenge Award Winner for an innovative, interdisciplinary project between neuro-ophthalmology and emergency medicine to improve care in the emergency department by supplanting direct ophthalmoscopy with non-mydriatic fundus photography. This allows wide-field photographs of the ocular fundus (optic nerve and retina) to be taken without pharmacologic pupillary dilation. Patients with headache, focal neurologic deficits, visual complaints, and severely elevated blood pressure are evaluated with this technique.

Beau Bruce (ophthalmology and neurology), medical director of clinical trials in the Department of Ophthalmology, hopes this collaboration will begin to restore the importance of ocular fundus exams and lead to improved diagnosis of sight-threatening and life-threatening disease.

This is a meaningful advance that can improve care in many settings and be widely disseminated.

Springtime labor

Students tend to the medical school garden in early spring.

Medical student volunteers got together and worked on the School of Medicine garden, one of several educational gardens on campus, in a program managed by Emory's Sustainability Initiatives. Garden representatives for the M1 class are Kylee Martens and Patrick Strickland. View more here. (Photos by Maggie To M18.)

Events

Grand Rounds, Department of Emergency Medicine. Michael Rich, professor of political science and environmental studies, will speak on "The War on Poverty and its Legacies." April 21, 11:00 to noon, Steiner Auditorium, Grady campus.

Vega String Quartet Performance. April 27, noon to 1 p.m., SOM lobby. Free.

Academic & Industry Intersection Conference, "Innovative Investment Models" will profile successful public-private partnerships and how to navigate the commercialization process. April 30, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., Morehouse School of Medicine, Louis W. Sullivan National Center for Primary Care Auditorium, 720 Westview Drive SW, Atlanta.

Student-Sponsored Art Gala. May 2, 7:00-11:00 p.m. $20 (includes refreshments). Proceeds will support student-run clinics and student groups, which operate to serve people in the Atlanta community and around the world. Semi-formal or business casual. SOM bldg. RSVP.

BEINGS 2015 ("Biotechnology and the Ethical Imagination: A Global Summit") brings together more than 400 thought leaders from the top 30 biotech-producing countries to draft a model set of global ethical principles for cellular biotechnologies. May 17-20, Tabernacle, Atlanta, beings2015.org.

Fourth annual Southeastern Immunology Symposium, Immunologic Diseases and Basic Immunology, June 13-14, WHSCAB auditorium, sis.emory.edu.

Historic exhibit on Emory vascular surgeon Daniel C. Elkin, Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library. Elkin served as chair of Emory's Department of Surgery from 1930 to 1954. He improved the surgical curriculum, elevating teaching to equal footing with clinical activities and adding a year to the surgical residency. More info.

Daniel Elkin was the nephew of William S. Elkin, who was dean of one of Emory's antecedent medical schools.