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Marc Ernstoff Photo credit: Mark Washburn Courtesy Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center
Anna N.A. Tosteson Photo credit: Mark Washburn Courtesy Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center
Marc Ernstoff, MD, has been named as the inaugural O. Ross McIntyre Chair in Oncology at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC) and the Geisel School of Medicine (GSM) at Dartmouth. Anna N.A. Tosteson, ScD, has been named the James J. Carroll Professor in Oncology at the NCCC and the GSM.
Dr. Ernstoff is professor of medicine and associate director for Clinical Research at NCCC. His work focuses on the immunobiology of cancer, in particular melanoma and genitourinary cancer. He has served on the staff at NCCC since 1991. He earned his MD from New York University School of Medicine in 1978. He completed residency in Internal Medicine at the Bronx Municipal Medical Center and The Hospital of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a fellowship in Medical Oncology at Yale University School of Medicine. He is board certified in both Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology.
Dr. Tosteson is professor of medicine, community and family medicine and of The Dartmouth Institute. She directs the Comparative Effectiveness Research Program of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice as well as the Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Center in Musculoskeletal Diseases. She is co-director of the Cancer Control Research Program at NCCC and associate director of Dartmouth SYNERGY: The Institute for Clinical and Translational Science. Her work focuses on clinical and health policy issues in cancer and musculoskeletal diseases. Dr. Tosteson earned her ScD in Biostatistics (Health Decision Science) and her MS in Biostatistics from Harvard University.
Surgical Couple Joins Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Andrew Parsa Courtesy Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Charlotte Shum Courtesy Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Andrew T. Parsa, MD, PhD, and his wife, Charlotte Shum, MD, have been recruited to Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Parsa, an internationally-renowned neurosurgeon specializing adult brain and spinal cord tumors, will join Feinberg on July 1 as the Michael J. Marchese Professor and chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery. Dr. Shum, a hand and upper extremity specialist, will join Feinberg in the fall as associate professor of orthopaedic surgery.
Dr. Parsa completed his undergraduate degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale College. He earned his medical and graduate degrees at Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY and completed neurosurgical training at Columbia University. He joins Northwestern from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), where he serves as professor, vice chair, and Reza and Georgianna Khatib Endowed Chair in Skull Base Tumor Surgery. He has been at UCSF for the past decade and has received continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 2002. His work has yielded important discoveries, including the identification of a novel link between oncogenesis and immune-resistance in brain tumors.
Dr. Parsa has served on the executive board for the joint section on tumors of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. He is on the board of directors for the Society of Neuro-Oncology, and is an elected member of the American Academy of Neurological Surgeons. He currently serves as the study chair for the the largest randomized brain tumor vaccine trial ever to be funded by the NIH's National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Shum earned her MD at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She completed orthopaedic surgery residency at the New York Orthopaedic Hospital Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and a hand, upper extremity, and microvascular surgery fellowship at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. She joins Feinberg from the Permanente Medical Group in Oakland, CA, where she has served for over a decade as a hand and upper extremity orthopaedic specialist.
Chair of Radiology Appointed at Stony Brook Medicine
Mark Schweitzer, MD, FRCPSC, has been named Chair of the Department of Radiology at Stony Brook Medicine. He joins Stony Brook from The University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Canada, where he serves as Chief of Diagnostic Imaging and Chair of Radiology. His appointment is effective June 20. He succeeds John Ferretti, MD, who has been serving as interim Chair.
Dr. Schweitzer earned his MD from State University of New York at Buffalo. He completed residency in diagnostic radiology at Nassau County Medical Center (now Nassau University Medical Center), serving as Associate Chief Resident, and a fellowship in osteoradiology at the University of California, San Diego. He has previously served as Chief of Radiology at New York University Hospital for Joint Diseases and as Professor of Radiology and Orthopedic Surgery and Director of Musculoskeletal Radiology at New York University. He has served on the staff at Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa since 2008.
Dr. Schweitzer's research interests include functional musculoskeletal imaging, cartilage, tendon pathophysiology and shape analysis. He is certified by the American Board of Radiology and has served as Presiding Officer of the Radiological Society of North America and of the International Skeletal Society. He has served on numerous expert advisory panels and has been a consultant for many college and professional sports teams. Dr. Schweitzer has participated as Principal Investigator or co-Principal Investigator on more than 30 grants, including National Institutes of Health R01 awards. He has also provided leadership for clinical trials focused on determining the effectiveness of novel contrast agents.
Chief of Cardiology Named at Cardiovascular Institute at Rhode Island and the Miriam Hospitals
Samuel C. Dudley Courtesy Lifespan
Samuel C. Dudley, MD, PhD, has been appointed chief of the division of cardiology at the Cardiovascular Institute at Rhode Island and The Miriam hospitals. He will also serve as chief of the division of cardiology in the Department of Medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. His appointment was effective March 1. Prior to joining Brown University, he was serving at the University of Illinois at Chicago as chief of cardiology and co-director of the Center for Cardiovascular Research.
Dr. Dudley earned his MD at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical College. He completed residency and fellowship at the University of Chicago Hospital and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine. His research has focused on the structure, regulation and pathophysiology of the cardiac Na+ channel, and he has developed an innovative blood test to identify patients at high risk for sudden cardiac death. Dr. Dudley also previously served at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center as chief of cardiology and at Emory University as associate professor of medicine and physiology.
Chair of Health Policy and Management Named at USF
John Petrila Photo credit: Aimee Blodgett Courtesy University of South Florida
John Petrila, JD, LLM, has been named as chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management (HPM) at the University of South Florida (USF) College of Public Health. He has served at USF since 1992, when he joined the University as Chair of the Department of Mental Health Law and Policy at the Florida Mental Health Institute (FMHI). He serves in the USF School of Social Work and the USF College of Public Health and is former chair of the FMHI. He joined HPM in 2012.
Mr. Petrila earned his master and juris doctor of law degrees from the University of Virginia. His research interests include the impact of health law on population health, disparities in access to health care, and the development and implementation of health policy. Prior to joining USF, he was General Counsel to the New York Office of Mental Health. In 2010, he received a Fulbright Scholar Award to teach and conduct research at Maastricht University in the Netherlands for his project, International Perspectives on the Rights of Individuals with Mental Disabilities; Developing a Forensic Psychology Research Program for the Netherlands. He was a member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Mandated Community Treatment, which received funding from 2001 to 2010, and is a past president of the International Association of Forensic Mental Health Services. In 2003, he was honored with the USF President's Award for Faculty Excellence.
University of Maryland Announces Interim Director for Clinical Celiac Program
Anca Safta, MD, has been named as Interim Director of the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research. The Center is widely recognized for its pioneering research into celiac disease, which has yielded a diagnostic blood test for the disorder and has established collaboration with the North American Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition to publish guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of children with celiac disease.
Dr. Safta joined the University of Maryland in 2007 and is Assistant Professor and Medical Director of Endoscopy in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition. She earned her MD at Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest, Romania. She completed residency in Pediatrics at the University of Illinois at Chicago and fellowship in Gastroenterology and Liver Transplantation at Stanford University Medical Center. Her research interests include biliary atresia and primary sclerosing cholangitis etiology and treatment, esophageal stricture dilation, capsule endoscopy, and advances in pediatric gastroenterological procedures.
Founding Chair for Department of Basic Sciences Named at the University of North Dakota
Malak Kotb Courtesy University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Malak Kotb, PhD, has been named the founding chair of the Department of Basic Sciences at the University of North Dakota (UND) School of Medicine and Health Sciences. An infectious disease and biodefense expert, Dr. Kotb joins the University of North Dakota from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, where she has served as a tenured professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry, and Microbiology/Immunology since 2008. Dr. Kotb has also served as a senior career research scientist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Cincinnati. Her appointment at UND begins on July 1, 2013.
Dr. Kotb earned her doctorate in immunology and biochemistry from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. She completed postgraduate work at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Duke University. While at UTHSC, she established and directed the immunogenetics, translational and biodefense research programs and founded and directed the Surgical Immunology Program. She also served as medical director for the Transplant Program Surgical Immunology Laboratory.
Dr. Kotb's research is centered on the genetics and biology of disease-modifying genes and pathways and she is focused on translating her discoveries into development of diagnostic methods and personalized treatments. While at the University of Cincinnati, Dr. Kotb was a member of the Institute for Military Medicine Research in the Department of Surgery and she directed the Midwest Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases. During her tenure in Tennessee, she established the MidSouth Center for Emerging Infectious diseases in Memphis, where she focused on ensuring preparedness for natural pandemics or deliberate man-made biological attacks.
Chair of Neurological Sciences Named at the University of Vermont
Gregory Holmes Courtesy University of Vermont College of Medicine
Gregory Holmes, MD, has been named as the inaugural professor and chair of neurological sciences at the University of Vermont (UVM) College of Medicine and as physician leader of neurology at Fletcher Allen Health Care. The recently created Department of Neurological Sciences, approved by the UVM Board of Trustees in May 2011, is comprised of the departments of neurology and anatomy and neurobiology. Dr. Holmes joined UVM from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, where he was professor and chair of neurology and director of the Neuroscience Center. His UVM appointment was effective May 1.
A leading epilepsy investigator, Dr. Holmes’ basic research has focused on the short- and long-term effect of seizures on the developing brain. His clinical work has focused on the treatment of pharmacoresistant epilepsy in children, and he has received funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for over two decades. He is a member and past president of the American Epilepsy Society (AES) and has received numerous honors for his work, including the AES Research Award, the Pierre Gloor Research Award from the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society, the Hoyer Lectureship from the NIH and the Sachs Lectureship from the Child Neurology Society. He is also recognized for mentoring and training undergraduate, graduate and medical students, residents, and postdoctoral fellows. He serves as principal investigator on a T32 Translational Neuroscience Postdoctoral Training Program grant focused on providing translational research experiences for clinicians training in neurology, neurosurgery and psychiatry. In 2011, Dartmouth College of Arts and Science honored him as the recipient of its Graduate Faculty Mentor Award.
Dr. Holmes earned his MD from the University of Virginia School of Medicine and completed residencies in pediatrics at Yale University School of Medicine and pediatric neurology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He subsequently served on the neurology and pediatrics faculty at the University of Connecticut Health Center, where he directed the Neurophysiology Laboratory at Newington Children's Hospital. He then served as associate professor of neurology and director of the Pediatric Epilepsy Program at the Medical College of Georgia before joining Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital in 1988. In 1996, Dr. Holmes took a sabbatical to train at the Laboratoire de Neurobiologie et Physiologie du Développement at the Institut National de la Santé de la Recherche Medicale (National Institute of Health and Medical Research) in Paris, France with Professor Yezekiel Ben-Ari.
Dr. Holmes serves as the chief physician for Camp Wee Kan Tu, a camp for children with epilepsy.