In the United States, educators have made only slow gains in recruiting minorities into the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

In 2010, the National Science Board reported that not only are underrepresented minorities disproportionately absent in these so-called STEM fields, there's little short-term hope for improvement. Data shows even promising students from lower-income families are losing ground as they move through the educational system.

It's a challenge for educators who would like to increase the number of minorities in health and science disciplines.

"Given the incidence of chronic disease in underrepresented populations, there is a need for more underrepresented people in research and in positions of leadership, so that they can ensure that those health problems are adequately addressed," said Suzanne Barbour, Ph.D., a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology.

Over the past few years, she has seen VCU move to the forefront in tackling the national problem. The university currently boasts $1.3 million in grants supporting six different programs that are opening opportunities for underrepresented minorities.

Four of those programs are funded through grants from the NIH's Division of Training, Workforce Development and Diversity. That makes VCU one of only two institutions in the country to reach that level of support, an achievement that Barbour called "a huge vote of confidence from the NIH."

Today's portfolio of programs got its start in 2007 when Barbour together with staff in the VCU Center on Health Disparities ran a summer program that accepted undergraduates from colleges around the U.S. and placed them in a nationwide network of labs. When that program proved successful, she and colleagues began securing funding for additional opportunities, including year-round programs that would keep trainees on VCU's campuses. These programs have benefitted from the leadership of a committed cadre of VCU faculty who serve as principal investigators, including Drs. Paul Fisher (Human and Molecular Genetics), Rakesh Kukreja (Internal Medicine), Joyce Lloyd (Human and Molecular Genetics), John Ryan (Biology) and Barbour.

"Summer programs serve an important purpose, but we wanted to provide students more continuous exposure and immersion in research," Barbour said. Organizers also wanted to deepen the pool of prospective students interested in pursuing science degrees at VCU.

A case in point

Ph.D. candidate Allen Owens has benefitted from two of the medical school's programs that draw underrepresented minorities into science careers: first a year-long stint in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology with the support of the Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program and now pursuing a doctorate as a member of the Initiative for Maximizing Student Diversity program.

One of those students was Allen Owens, a North Carolina native with an undergraduate biology degree. He parlayed his training into a first job as a lab technician at a chemical company that produced raw materials for soaps and other hygiene products. But he was intrigued by the product development work undertaken by the company's chemists as they tested and improved the company's products. He wondered if that might be the direction he'd like to see his career head.

To gain research experience, he applied to the Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program. Known as PREP, the year-round research training program for recent college graduates is run by Joyce Lloyd, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Human and Molecular Genetics.

Lloyd guided Owens in choosing the lab where he would work in over the course of his PREP year. Because of his interest in how drugs interact with the body - and a desire to learn about something completely different from anything he'd already studied - he was drawn to the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology where he found a mentor in professor Aron Lichtman, Ph.D.

Owens described the program as challenging, pushing him beyond his comfort level. "As an undergraduate, you learn about science," he explains. "But to be someone who develops science is a different process." The program gave him the research experience he wanted, along with opportunities to present his work. It confirmed that he liked the world of research and served as a launching pad into graduate school.

Owens is now pursuing a Ph.D. on the MCV Campus, this time with the support of Barbour's IMSD program - short for the Initiative for Maximizing Student Diversity. The year-round research training program assists junior Ph.D. students by supplying funding for the first two years of graduate school along with Barbour's advice for navigating the choices and challenges of an advanced degree.

Now a few months into the program, Owens soon will be faced with choosing his field of study. To prepare, he is rotating through three labs in different departments. He's finding that not only do the areas of study differ, so do the labs' size, atmosphere and even the techniques that are routinely used. He'll take all of that into consideration when he chooses his home lab.

A critical mass

As home to six different programs that are opening opportunities for underrepresented minorities, VCU offers an unusual concentration of students who share similar goals and challenges. Because the programs support different stages of a student's training, it is possible for a student to advance from one program and enter another, much as Owens did. The programs reside under a single umbrella, VCU's Center on Health Disparities, providing opportunities to build a sense of community and camaraderie. That's what happened last fall when more than 20 students from different programs traveled to St. Louis for the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students - the largest professional conference for students studying biomedical and behavioral sciences.

Barbour and Lloyd are also on the lookout for opportunities for the more advanced students to mentor their junior colleagues. Barbour says that there's a real sense of momentum building, as the programs bring a critical mass of students onto campus.

Barbour and her colleagues highlight these programs as instruments of institutional change. According to Barbour, "Our programs have come along at just the right time to be a cornerstone of VCU's Quest for Distinction. As a result of our programs, we've seen the emergence of a Student Research Organization, a new position in the Department of Biology for an undergraduate research coordinator and the Laboratory Skills Bootcamp, a hands-on workshop to develop research skills. Thus, the programs will leave a legacy that impacts more than just the students who receive direct support."

Barbour measures the programs' success by the nearly 200 students, who've hailed from 19 states, including Virginia, North Carolina, California, Alaska and Hawaii. Some of the earliest participants are starting to secure positions in their chosen fields. A graduate from the year-round training program for postdocs known as IRACDA has gone on to a faculty position at Howard University's medical school. This May, the first two MARC Scholars will earn their undergraduate degrees with plans to enter Ph.D. programs. Another measure of success is the continued involvement of research mentors, more than 50 at VCU and nationwide - many of whom have trained students year after year.

"At present, one out of two undergraduates in China is majoring in a discipline that could lead to a career in biomedical research. In the U.S., the number is less than one in five," says Barbour. "Given the changing demographics of our country, with nearly a third described as minority, any response we make has to include increasing the numbers of African American, Hispanic and other minority undergraduate students in STEM disciplines. VCU has positioned itself to meet this challenge, and I'm honored to work with some of the talented trend busters who represent the first wave of our country's response."

U.S. News has spotlighted the MCV Campus' approach to interdisciplinary training that has been made possible through grants from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation and Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation.

"At VCU and a growing number of medical schools, the push is on to ensure true collaboration," reports U.S. News.

The story describes a daylong, hands-on workshop in the simulation center through which students from the MCV Campus' different schools learn what skills the different professionals bring to the table. A recent training scenario teamed up six medical, nursing and pharmacy students who worked together to respond to a simulation situation in which a patient suddenly goes into cardiac arrest.

Read more of the U.S. News story, Medical Schools Push Teamwork.

Joan Barrett, the long-time right hand of medical school deans, has announced her retirement.

Through her 44-year career in the School of Medicine, she worked with a succession of leaders, including a 26-year stint in the Dean's Office that spanned the school's four most recent leaders: Drs. Steve Ayers, Hermes Kontos, Dickie Newsome and Jerry Strauss.

Joan Barrett with one of the bouquets of flowers that arrived in the weeks leading to her retirement.
Photo courtesy of Joy Sanders

"We all relied on Joan extensively," said Strauss. "Her wealth of knowledge about the workings of the school as well as those who work in the school combined with her judgment and genuine love for the MCV Campus made her invaluable."

To show their gratitude for Barrett, and to ensure her service to the school is remembered far into the future, Strauss and his wife Cathy have made a gift in Barrett's honor to the medical school's ongoing campaign. To recognize their generosity on her behalf, the Assistant to the Dean's Office will be named in Barrett's honor.

"You've been a constant at a time when there's been a great deal of change," Dean Strauss said to Barrett when he announced the gift at a March 9 celebration that was attended by more than 100 guests. "I wanted to ensure a lasting tribute to you in our new medical education building."

Barrett's career on the MCV Campus began in 1967 as assistant to the chair of nuclear medicine. She also served as assistant to the chair of diagnostic radiology before being named Assistant to the Dean in 1986.

With Barrett's departure, Debbie Weir, who joined the Dean's Office over five years ago, has been promoted to the position of Assistant to the Dean.

For nearly three decades, Richard M. Costanzo, Ph.D., professor of physiology and biophysics, has made an annual trip from VCU's MCV Campus to third grade science classrooms.

Richard Costanzo, Ph.D., with students on a previous visit to Goochland County's Randolph Elementary School.

March 8, 2012, marked his 29th year of getting kids excited about science and, specifically, neuroscience. "I bring in props, including a human brain in a jar, and give an age-appropriate lesson, which for third grade is mostly about the five senses," Costanzo said. "I also work in concepts about nutrition, like healthy food builds a better and smarter brain, and about safety, wear helmets and seat belts to protect your brain from injury."

This year's trip took him to Goochland County's Randolph Elementary School. This was just his eighth year at RES, but his tradition got its start back in 1983 when his own children were in third grade. After his children moved on, "the third grade teacher invited me back each year, and I have continued to do this for third graders every year since. When my wife and I moved to Goochland, I contacted Randolph Elementary and they were interested in having me continue the tradition at their school."

In recent years, educators have increased efforts encouraging students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math disciplines, the so-called STEM fields. Costanzo's yearly commitment was a forerunner to many formalized programs that have sprung up more recently.

About 20 years ago, for example, the Society for Neuroscience and the DANA Foundation started Brain Awareness Week as an international effort to educate the public about neuroscience. Since then, Costanzo has timed his visits for March to coincide with Brain Awareness Week, which this year was marked March 12-18.

A number of other School of Medicine faculty members make school visits including Anatomy's Ruth Clemo, Ph.D. and Otolaryngology's Kelley Dodson, M.D. This kind of outreach supports VCU's Quest for Distinction priorities of becoming a national model for community engagement and enhancing efforts to attract diverse K-12 students to health-related careers.

While Costanzo doesn't know what has become of the hundreds of students over the years who've marveled at the brain in a jar, he does occasionally get stopped by children who recognize him as "that guy with the brain." And he knows of at least one student who has gone on to earn a medical degree - interestingly, a student from the very first third-grade classroom he visited. "So who knows," Costanzo said, "there may have been others who eventually became physicians or scientists?"

Costanzo's commitment to future scientists has been honored by the medical school repeatedly, most recently in 2010 with its Distinguished Mentor Award. Known for his ability to develop a personal connection with students and support them as they grow into a higher level of professional performance and accomplishment, Costanzo has advised on nearly 40 graduate student thesis committees in addition to maintaining over 30 years of grant funding from the National Institutes of Health.

When first-year student Jennifer Harvey enrolled in the medical school last fall, she also stepped onto the VCU women's volleyball team.

She's believed to be the first person at VCU to try juggling the responsibilities of both a Division I athlete and medical student. Her accomplishment is featured in the December issue of VCU Athletics' Ram Report.

Despite four years away from the game, first-year medical student Jennifer Harvey joined the VCU Volleyball team last fall.
Photo courtesy of VCU Athletics

Student athletes are given five years to compete in four seasons of any given sport. During her undergraduate studies at Virginia Tech, she played soccer, accumulating 44 career points and being named Academic All-America in 2010.

Though Harvey had used up her four years of soccer eligibility, as long as she was in college this year, she was eligible to play any other sport during the 2011-12 academic year. She chose volleyball, which she starred in at Cave Spring High School.

VCU Volleyball Coach James Finley said "It was great having somebody with that kind of commitment and that kind of work ethic because that's such a great influence on our team as a whole, academically and athletically."

Her medical school schedule forced her to miss certain practices and games, but Harvey always showed up ready to play as often as she could. She appeared in eight matches for the Rams and averaged 1.46 digs per set, a reasonable mark given her limited playing time.

"She absolutely shocked us that her skill level was as high as it was because it was like she's been playing for three years," Finley said. "She just has such a natural ability to read and know where the ball's going to go and she's a phenomenal athlete."

The volleyball season ended with the team posting an 8-6 record in conference play. Read the full story of how Harvey handled the responsibilities of her fall schedule in the Ram Report.

More than 110 medical and pre-medical college students visited the MCV Campus on February 4 for the regional meeting of the Student National Medical Association. The VCU Chapter of the SNMA hosted the meeting, putting together a program that drew participants from around Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

First-year student Audra Stone speaks with pre-medical and medical students from D.C., Virginia and Maryland.

To maximize the day's potential, the medical student organizers packed opportunities into the daylong program. In the morning, medical students headed into clinical workshop sessions where they tried their hand at techniques in a variety of specialties including innovative robotic surgery, anesthesiology and cardiology. Meanwhile, pre-med students benefited from individualized advising sessions on applying to medical school.

"This unique experience gave students the chance to interact one-on-one with inspiring physicians from the VCU Medical Center," said Maria Stevens, a second-year student in the VCU School of Medicine. "Having the opportunity to help organize this event as well as be a participant in the sessions was an extremely rewarding and unforgettable learning experience."

The afternoon's policy panel was a reflection of the SNMA's goal to address the needs of medically underserved communities as well as increase the number of underrepresented minorities in medicine. Organizers invited physicians to sit side-by-side with elected representatives and discuss current topics like health disparities in minority populations and the impact the Affordable Care Act could have in Virginia and America at large.

Rep. Bobby Scott, Sheldon Retchin, M.D., Del. Jennifer McClellan, Jack Lanier, Dr.PH., and Sheryl Garland, M.H.A., answer questions from medical students during the health policy panel.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that panelist Del. Jennifer McClellan encouraged physicians to make their voices heard. "How many doctors do you think come to the committee meetings and talk to their legislators on a regular basis?" the representative of the 71st House of Delegates District was reported as asking. "You have public policies that are being made by people about health care who don't fully understand the impact of what they are doing."

Other speakers included PonJola Coney, M.D., senior associate dean for faculty affairs in the medical school and director of the Center on Health Disparities; Sheryl Garland, M.H.A., VCU Health System vice president of health policy and community relations; Jack Lanier, M.H.A., Dr.PH., CEO of the Richmond Behavioral Health Authority; Sheldon Retchin, M.D., CEO of the VCU Health System; and Virginia Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott, D-3rd. Wally Smith, M.D., the science director of the Center on Health Disparities, moderated the panel.

VCU medical students during the lunch meet-and-greet with pre-medical and medical students from D.C., Virginia, and Maryland.

"The unlimited support of senior administrators and staff in helping us execute this event strongly affirms the university's overall commitment to increasing the diversity of medical students here at the VCU School of Medicine," said second-year student Priscilla Mpasi, who serves as president of the VCU chapter of the SNMA.

Mpasi's impression of the day was that "it reflects the commitment of our local chapter to uphold the mission of the SNMA to develop clinically excellent, culturally competent and socially conscious physicians through programming that focuses on academic enrichment, clinical skill development and education on important health care policies."

Read the Richmond Times-Dispatch's coverage of the daylong program.

Photos courtesy of Tu Nguyen, second-year med student, and Mohamed Abbamin, legislative assistant to Congressman Scott.

Richmond's McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center has built the reputation as the VA system's premiere program for treating polytrauma patients, those soldiers who come from the battlefield with multiple disabling injuries including traumatic brain injury.

From left to right: Director of the Richmond VA Medical Center Charles E. Sepich, U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki, Virginia Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott, D-3rd, Dean of Medicine Jerome F. Strauss, III, M.D., Ph.D., and network director of the region's Veterans Integrated Service Network Daniel F. Hoffman.

The polytrauma unit at McGuire tests approaches for these difficult to treat patients and then shares what works throughout the VA system. On February 3, Eric K. Shinseki, the U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, visited McGuire for a first-hand view of the work.

Visits like this do a tremendous amount for patients' recovery, according to Shane McNamee, M.D., who is medical director of McGuire's Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center. "The patients are buoyed by seeing their senior leadership on site, caring about them as individuals."

McNamee led Shinseki on a tour that included meeting patients and test driving a backhoe simulator that prepares patients for real-world jobs. As an assistive technology Center of Excellence, the McGuire VA is among the first to get new equipment that is useful in rehabilitation.

McGuire is one of few VA medical centers in the country that treat active duty service members in addition to veterans. Because of that, they see a large number of patients with recent, acute injuries. Shinseki told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that seeing the service members' hard won improvement made him proud of the VA's work.

Like many of the VA's physicians, McNamee holds a joint appointment in the medical school. Now an assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation, he also completed his housestaff training on the MCV Campus.

The medical school's longstanding partnership with the nearby McGuire VA was spotlighted by the Jan. 11 visit of First Lady Michelle Obama when she came to Richmond to announce the Joining Forces initiative.

Dean of Medicine Jerry Strauss, M.D., Ph.D., toured the unit with Shinseki and was reminded of the importance of the VA's relationship to the medical school and its faculty. "When we visited the unit, we met a number of polytrauma patients who are working hard on their recovery. They have earned our country's gratitude, and I was impressed to see the team approach to world-class care that the polytrauma program provides for our service men and women."

Photo courtesy of the McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center

LINKS:
Read the Richmond Times-Dispatch coverage of Shinseki's visit.

Each year, Match Day looms as the milestone moment when fourth-year students learn where they’ll complete their residency training. In a process overseen by the National Resident Matching Program, tens of thousands of students from around the U.S. are matched to specialty training programs at medical centers nationwide. But students interested in the highly competitive specialties of ophthalmology and urology have traditionally participated in an Early Match process. With much less fanfare, these students learn two months early what city they’ll call home for the next several years of their lives.

For our Class of 2012, it's shaping up to be a remarkable year. Nearly all of our students who were aiming to match into these highly competitive specialties have made excellent matches.

Seven students matching to ophthalmology — five from this year’s graduating class and two from last year’s — are heading to stellar programs like Boston University, the Mayo Clinic and Mount Sinai. The three would-be urologists — two from the Class of 2012 and one 2011 graduate — have been matched to the Universities of Michigan, Chicago and Louisville.

The military medical students also get an early look at what the future holds. The Air Force, Army and Navy coordinate their own residency matching program and, as a result, about a dozen students learned in December that they’re headed to programs stretching from Walter Reed to San Diego. They'll be training in fields ranging from family medicine and pediatrics, to emergency medicine and anesthesiology, with four students opting for surgery.

A total of 14 fourth-year students have participated in a variety of military scholarship programs, which cover medical school tuition and fees. In exchange, after graduating, the students will serve one year of active duty for each year of scholarship support received. This year, three of the students elected to take a civilian deferment.

The remainder of the Class of 2012 is eagerly anticipating Friday, March 16 when, at noon, they'll receive envelopes that contain the names of their residency programs. In a change from past years, Match Day has moved to the third Friday of March, instead of the traditional Thursday. This was done to accommodate another change in the Match Program that creates a standardized process for the yearly Scramble of unmatched students to find an unfilled program in their specialty. This will be the inaugural year of what is known as the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program that aims to institute a fair process for students who need to obtain a post-match appointment.

Van S. Hubbard, M.D., Ph.D., has been awarded the 2012 Barney Sellers Public Policy Award from the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (A.S.P.E.N).

Hubbard, who earned both a Ph.D. in biochemistry and a medical degree on the MCV Campus in 1974, is director of the National Institutes of Health’s Division of Nutrition Research Coordination. He also serves as associate director for nutritional sciences at the NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. He is responsible for development of research initiatives and management of research programs related to the nutritional sciences and obesity, coordinating over $1 billion in NIH Nutritional Sciences research activities.

As a Commissioned Corps Officer within the U.S. Public Health Service, Hubbard achieved the rank of Rear Admiral and served as an Assistant Surgeon General. He retired from uniformed service in October 2010 and transitioned to civilian service.

Hubbard has received many honors and has been awarded the USPHS Outstanding Service Medal as well as three Meritorious Service Medals. He is a diplomat of the National Board of Medical Examiners and fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. His major research interests are clinical nutrition, obesity, cystic fibrosis and nutritional modulation of disease risk.

The Barney Sellers Public Policy Award is given annually to an A.S.P.E.N. member who has significantly contributed to advancing the society’s advocacy goals. It carries the name of a former A.S.P.E.N. executive director who had a tremendous impact on public policy and advocacy during his 15-year tenure.

Read more about Hubbard’s recognition.

John Saliba entered the University of Colorado with plans to go into the Air Force, like his father. But the discovery that he was color blind led to his leaving aeronautical engineering for a chemistry major, with no definite ideas on a career.

It wasn't until 1962 that, flipping through a Life magazine, he came across an ad for A. H. Robins pharmaceutical company. A photo showed medical students perched in the theater-style rows of the Memorial Hospital surgical amphitheater. Accompanying copy described the rigors of medical training as frightening but essential groundwork: "For all through a doctor's life, there are medical crises that give no warning. And only the most thorough preparedness can meet them."

The ad went on to tout medicines developed in the Robins labs through a similar process of rigorous testing. But it was the notion of the medical field's inherent challenges that sparked Saliba's imagination. He'd found his calling.

By 1965, Saliba had accumulated enough credits to enter medical school, even without an undergraduate degree. With acceptances from three schools in hand, he opted for his first choice: MCV.

The in-state tuition was the right choice for his family's finances, and he was impressed with its advanced technology and opportunities. "I remember seeing the modern four-channel polygraph machines in the physiology lab at MCV, at a time when old smoked kymographs were still in use at U.Va."

He says "My experience at MCV was every bit as challenging and exciting as my fantasies were when I first saw the Life magazine ad."

An interesting twist in his third year brought Saliba the opportunity to star in his own Robins ad. "It must have been fate," said the member of the Class of 1969. "I felt like I had come full circle."

In 2010, the Class of 1969's John Saliba retired from a fulfilling 30-year career as an emergency medicine physician at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare. He now enjoys a new passion in metal sculpting. Pictured: The Heron

His 15-minutes of fame placed him in the May 24, 1968 issue of Time magazine that featured a Roy Lichtenstein illustration of Bobby Kennedy on the cover. The Robins ad describes the burden of costly medical training that medical students face - and this at a time when an in-state student like Saliba would have paid less than $2,000 in yearly tuition and fees.

Fast forward forty-plus years to an era when graduating students face an average debt of more than $156,000. Though approximately 87 percent of the student body received financial assistance last year, only 17 out of 177 students from the Class of 2011 graduated debt-free.

Saliba has been led to address that need for many years, making regular leadership-level gifts to the Annual Fund in support of student scholarships.

Last year, he was inspired to leave a permanent legacy with the creation of the Dr. E. John Saliba, Jr. Scholarship Fund. "I expect to add to it every year as conditions allow," says Saliba, "so that it will be truly helpful to students in need."

Read more about how scholarships help medical students.

Richard P. Wenzel, M.D., M.Sc., was presented the John P. McGovern Compleat Physician Award by the Harris County Medical Society on Jan. 13.

A professor and former chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine, Wenzel is an internationally renowned expert on antibiotic resistance. The HCMS described him as an innovative and tough-minded individual with deep humanity who has been a champion in his discipline, training more than 50 fellows.

The organization recognized a number of his accomplishments and credited him with "boldly refocus[ing] the country's smallpox vaccination debate from patriotism to risk-benefit when he achieved national recognition for being the first academic policy director opposing the premature vaccination of hospital workers."

The medical society also noted his "stringent epidemiological methods have yielded path-breaking insights to the control of hospital infections" and that the journal he founded, Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, continues to thrive after 30 years.

The Harris County Medical Society is the largest county medical society in the nation, with a membership of nearly 11,000 physicians and medical students. Along with the Houston Academy of Medicine, which is the scientific and charitable organization of HCMS physicians, it annually awards the prestigious John P. McGovern Compleat Physician Award.

The national award recognizes a physician who exemplifies the ideals of Sir William Osler — medical excellence, humane and ethical care, commitment to medical humanities and writing, research and harmony between the academic and medical practitioner. The award is named after its first recipient, John P. McGovern, M.D., who founded the American Osler Society. Past recipients of the award include Michael E. DeBakey, M.D.

Read more about Wenzel’s recognition.

In the traumatic brain injury field, the work of Jeff Kreutzer, Ph.D., and Emilie Godwin, Ph.D., is well-known. Particularly as the two Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation researchers travel around the country conducting training for health care professionals, as well as for patients and their families. They share the approaches that have proven successful on the MCV Campus for addressing the emotional, behavioral and cognitive changes that occur with brain injury.

Now their work is coming to the attention of a much wider audience through a front-page story in the Science section of the Jan. 10 edition of the New York Times. Taking a look at marital relationships after TBI, the article shares the challenges that couples face as they realize the brain injury has wrought permanent and dramatic personality changes in the injured spouse.

“Dr. Kreutzer and other psychologists at VCU are among the few therapists in the country trying to develop marriage counseling techniques tailored to couples dealing with brain injuries,” reports the article.

Read the NY Times article, When Injuries to the Brain Tear at Hearts.

Professor of internal medicine John N. Clore, M.D., will be honored by the Virginia Chapter of the American College of Physicians with its 2012 Laureate Award. He will receive the award during the awards luncheon at the chapter’s annual meeting on March 17 in Charlottesville.

John N. Clore, M.D., will be honored by the Virginia Chapter of the American College of Physicians with its 2012 Laureate Award at the chapter’s annual meeting in March.

Each year, the ACP’s Virginia Chapter presents a single Laureate Award, honoring a fellow or master of the ACP who has demonstrated an abiding commitment to excellence in medical care, education or research as well as service to their community, their Chapter and the American College of Physicians.

Clore, whose research and clinical interests are in the field of diabetes, is also associate vice-president for clinical research and director of the VCU Center for Clinical and Translational Research. He led VCU’s successful application to join the nationwide consortium of research institutions working to turn laboratory discoveries into treatments for patients. The $20 million grant from the National Institutes of Health — the largest federal award in the university’s history — made VCU the only academic health center in Virginia to be included in the national network.

Clore is also an accomplished teacher, having received the medical school’s Distinguished Mentor Award in 2008 for his significant contributions to the career development of others.

Greg Miller, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Pathology, has begun his 12-month term as president of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry.

With a membership of nearly 9,000, the international scientific and medical society works to advance the practice and profession of clinical laboratory science and its application to health care. AACC is best known for the journal Clinical Chemistry, the most cited in the field, and for its annual meeting, the world's largest lab medicine conference with about 17,000-19,000 registrants from more than 100 countries.

Miller is director of Clinical Chemistry and Director of Pathology Information Systems in the School of Medicine. He has been active in AACC since 1974, having served on its Board of Directors and on the Annual Meeting Organizing Committees in 2002 and 2007. He is currently an Associate Editor of AACC's flagship publication Clinical Chemistry and, in 2007, received AACC's Award for Outstanding Contributions to Clinical Chemistry.

Miller has also been active in other professional organizations, including serving as chair of the Laboratory Working Group of the National Institutes of Health's National Kidney Disease Education Program. He has contributed to training 26 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in clinical chemistry and has published 140 papers, book chapters and monographs in areas of analytical measurement procedures and inter-laboratory standardization and harmonization.

Read more about Miller's career and AACC presidency.

Two medical students recently attended the 24th Annual Southern Region Burn Conference to present their research.

The Class of 2013’s Joseph D. Roderique and the Class of 2014’s Leahna Haldeman were responsible for a total of three presentations and two scientific posters on topics ranging from inhalation injury in a pregnant patient to a new use of a wound dressing for burn patients.

Roderique, an ensign with the U.S. Naval Reserve’s Medical Corps, took second place out of 84 oral presentations over the course of the weekend for a presentation that was a summary of a larger paper that has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Burn Care and Research. His interest in the field was piqued during his first year when he had the opportunity to shadow burn fellow Abel Gebre-Giorgis, M.D., three hours a week. After several months of observing in the clinic and OR, Roderique was asked to help out with several of Gebre-Giorgis’ ongoing research projects. “That partnership became so fruitful, that I began taking on projects of my own in addition to helping him with his,” said Roderique. “Eventually, we had so much going on that we realized we needed more help.”

Roderique recruited three fellow medical students as well as several undergraduate students who formed a research team. Now interest has snowballed into the creation of a medical student and undergraduate interest group that act as a “farm team” for finding additional motivated students to participate in the research effort. “This offers not only hospital exposure and experience, but also the opportunity to do real research with real results that can translate into better clinicians.” Roderique is strongly considering caring for burn patients as a part of his future career goals. He describes the field as one of the most rapidly changing in medicine, with products and procedures that have proven to have wide-ranging impact on many areas beyond burn care.

Haldeman, who worked as a critical care burn nurse for three years prior to medical school, aspires to a career as a burn surgeon. Her oral presentations focused on hair braiding burns, which are a little-known cause of scald injuries, and a compilation of data comparing pediatric patients who are admitted directly versus admitted through the emergency department.

Presented by the Southern Medical Association and hosted by the Burn Center at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, the Dec. 1-4 educational event is intended for all burn care disciplines at any level of experience.

Thirty-two medical students went scruffy for a month to raise money for local children.

A group of second-year medical students inspired their first- and second-year classmates to participate in a No Shave November competition, a challenge to stop shaving for a month that raised more than $300 to support local children with cancer. No Shave November challenges have become popular traditions on campuses and in offices throughout the country, and students Aaron Schatz, David Zuelzer and Alex Skidmore brought the trend to the MCV Campus in 2011.

Their idea for the No Shave November competition created a fun opportunity to connect with classmates and give back to a local organization: the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU. Students were excited about the competition and responded with a strong turnout. Since the event's organizers were second-years, Zuelzer said he especially was thrilled with the first-year students’ participation.

First-year student Mark Korenke was No Shave November's winner for best beard. He's pictured here with his 4-month-old, mustachioed son, Jack.

On Nov. 1, the competition got underway with 32 participants. Unshaven students started appearing in classes across campus, and fundraising numbers were increasing despite an awkward phase that competitors had to endure when their faces began to show a shadow.

“My favorite part of the challenge was the first couple of weeks,” said Schatz. “It was very awkward, because not all hair grows at the same rate. It was a common time to get a question like: ‘What's going on with your face?’“

But, as the stubble grew, many of the participants’ classmates were impressed by the beards that appeared. At the end of the month, seven confident gentlemen entered their photos in No Shave November’s finale: a competition for the best beard.

More than 150 students voted, and first-year Mark Korenke was selected the winner. Schatz, Zuelzer and Skidmore will hold a trophy presentation ceremony after their winter break to celebrate Korenke’s victory. Event organizers believe Korenke’s win was aided by his toddler’s appearance in their contest photo wearing a paper mustache.

“The trophy is of a man with his fist in the air like Rocky, and it’s dedicated to the most manly man,” Zeulzer said.

Korenke also will have the honor of presenting a check of more than $300 to the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU. The students were excited to donate the money to a local cause, and they hope that the money will be used to buy hair replacements for children who are undergoing chemotherapy.

“In essence, we thought of it as giving our hair to them in an indirect manner,” Schatz said.

With No Shave November behind them, the participants took the opportunity to shave their beards into what Zuelzer called “socially unacceptable facial hair.” There was a brief proliferation of handlebar mustaches, goatee and Mohawk combinations, and long sideburns connecting through the mustache. They each took their new look with them to class on Dec. 1, amusing their classmates. Then, the participants were free to return to their clean-shaven appearances.

“After a month of not shaving, we were literally itching to get rid of the facial hair,” Schatz said.

Juan Carlos Arango, Ph.D.

Juan Carlos Arango, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, received the Early Career Award from the National Academy of Neuropsychology. The award was presented at the NAN's annual conference on Nov. 18 in Marco Island, Fla.

The award is given to someone who is nominated by the academy membership and judged by the awards committee and the Board of Directors to have made substantial early career contributions within 10 years of receiving his or her doctoral degree, particularly regarding scholarly activity.

Read more about Arango’s work.

For medical students Michael L'Heureux and Taylor Gilmore, running has been a part of their lives since high school. This year, both decided to tackle a bigger athletic challenge: the SunTrust Richmond Marathon on Nov. 12.

Taylor Gilmore crosses the finish line of the Richmond marathon. Running alongside her is her sister and enthusiastic supporter, Courtney.

L'Heureux ran for his high school track team and occasionally jogged during college. He picked up the distance after arriving on the MCV Campus. After completing a 10K race in the spring, he signed up to compete in the marathon. Gilmore began the sport with her high school cross country team and has made running a lifelong activity.

Both students are in the middle of a busy M-2 year, but they carved out time in their schedules each week to train for the 26.2-mile race. Each runner's weekday training runs take less than an hour, making them fairly easy to schedule. Longer runs are slated for weekends when they have more free time.

"Making time for training is all about sticking to a schedule," Gilmore said. "I set my schedule at the beginning of the week. That ensures that I get my studying and running done."

She used to eliminate workouts when work piled up, but she found exercise contributes to her overall academic performance. A set training plan encouraged her to get outside and log miles.

Second-year student Michael L'Heureux says that the regular runs that made up his marathon training helped him clear his mind and come back to his studies with a fresh approach.

As L'Heureux and Gilmore embarked on the months-long and oftentimes solitary journey of training for a marathon, each had experiences that made them stronger students. L'Heureux said the regular runs helped him clear his mind and come back to his studies with a fresh approach. The training also forced him to focus on accomplishing something other than schoolwork.

"I wasn't exactly following the healthiest lifestyle while I was in college and felt that as a medical student I needed to change that. Since I have started running I have lost weight, decreased my resting heart rate, improved my sleep patterns and noticed other general improvements."

Gilmore's success in conquering the physical and mental challenges of long distance running inspires her as she works to master difficult course work.

"The challenge of a marathon has also made me mentally stronger, which is very helpful as the material gets more and more difficult in medical school," Gilmore said. "If I'm having trouble getting through material, I just think, 'Wow, if I can run 16 miles like I did last week, I can definitely do this.'"

With the race just days away, L'Heureux and Gilmore were looking forward to crossing the finish line, and both hope to apply the lessons they learned while training to their future careers as physicians.

"I've heard people say that training for a marathon is hard, but I don't think I realized how difficult it would be until I was actually doing it," Gilmore said.

Second-year student and marathoner Amanda P. Ulrich at the SunTrust Richmond Marathon.

Her commitment to the training process taught her patience. She benefited from the journey and felt fulfilled after working for months to achieve something so special. She'll look to translate that to help her patients mentally prepare for the journey of battling long-term diseases.

After dramatically increasing his fitness levels and becoming a healthier eater, L'Heureux believes he will understand patients' challenges better.

"If I am going to be asking my patients to make drastic lifestyle changes in the future, then I should be prepared to do so myself and should be aware of the challenges they will face," he said. "I do not believe that every person can or should run a marathon, but everyone can make improvements in their lifestyle to benefit their health."

Other students who are training for the SunTrust Richmond Marathon and McDonalds Half-Marathon include: Nick Erdle, Dee Monroe, Allison Pagano and Amanda Ulrich.

Emergency Medicine’s chief resident, Veronica Sikka, M.D., Ph.D., MHA, MPH, has been selected to serve on the Board of Directors of the American College of Physician Executives. She was chosen for the one-year term following the ACPE’s national search for a chief resident training in any specialty.

Emergency Medicine’s chief resident, Veronica Sikka, M.D., Ph.D., MHA, MPH, has been selected to serve on the Board of Directors of the American College of Physician Executives.

In November, Sikka stepped into her responsibilities at the ACPE annual meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz. Though she does not have voting powers, she represents the interests and needs of medical students and residents in the board’s activities, discussions and deliberations.

“ACPE has been instrumental in improving patient healthcare through physician leadership,” said Sikka, whose goal is a career in health administration and health policy. “I’m looking forward to this year of interacting with dynamic physician leaders and learning how they use their skills to impact the delivery of patient care at a local and national level.”

Representing nearly 10,000 members, the ACPE is the nation’s largest health care organization for physician executives. The College aims to provide its members with leadership skills and encourages them to assume more active roles in the management of their organizations.

Sikka gained practical experience in the field of health policy in 2006 when she worked with the Virginia Secretaries of Health and Human Services and Technology to spearhead projects at a statewide level related to electronic medical records and improving access to healthcare for the indigent. The Virginia secretaries have since been named to positions in the Obama Administration: Aneesh Chopra as Secretary of Technology, and Marilyn Tavenner was recently nominated to serve as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“I can think of no one better than Veronica to serve in this role,” said Timothy C. Evans, M.D., the residency program director in the Department of Emergency Medicine. “Given her background and past work, she has a very bright future in academic emergency medicine and leadership. She will be a strong representative of the interests and needs of residents and medical students across the country.”

Sikka currently serves as chair of the GME Housestaff Council at the VCU Medical Center with Mary Alice O’Donnell, Ph.D., and has published manuscripts on health leadership topics as well as on her work with cancer diagnosis and health screening in emergency departments. She recently returned from India where she presented research findings related to anesthesia in the emergency department setting, placing first internationally at the INDO-US Emergency Medicine Summit.

Sikka is a four-time VCU graduate, beginning with a bachelor’s degree in biology in 2001. In addition to the medical degree that she earned in 2009, she completed a doctorate in health policy from VCU’s School of Allied Health Professions that same year. She also earned a master’s of health administration from VCU’s School of Allied Health Professions in 2003 and a master’s of public health from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2003.

Sikka is anticipating another interesting opportunity in May when she will go on assignment with ABC News’ medical unit, working with well-known correspondents Drs. Oz, Schneiderman and Johnson.

Read more from the ACPE.

On a day when Tadataka "Tachi" Yamada, M.D., H'74, was recognized as an Alumni Star for his remarkable contributions to the field of medicine, he also spent time on the MCV Campus connecting with current students and discussing his passion for global health.

He told School of Medicine students, internal medicine residents and faculty that he was happy to return to MCV Campus where, he said, he learned to be a physician. He noted the great discoveries that have been made here, but that many of those advances are not available to much of the developing world.

And with that, Yamada, the past president of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Global Health Program, launched into a discussion of how students can apply their medical educations to solve global health concerns.

"We have to have great advances in science, systems and thinking, and you have to be the engine that drives the innovation in health care."

In addition to encouraging students to develop innovative solutions, Yamada shared four key lessons he learned from leading the Gates Global Health Foundation that students can apply to build successful medical careers.

First, he said, health care professionals must work with a sense of urgency for curing global health epidemics.

"Seven million children under the age of 7 die each year from preventable illnesses. The sense of urgency is very real," he said.

He used the example of the Gates Foundation recognizing the 350 million people who suffer from malaria and setting a goal to eradicate the disease. Though other scientists have created mathematical models to show that it is impossible to eliminate malaria completely, the Gates Foundation believed differently. The foundation invested $1.5 billion in a vaccine, and the 14-year-old organization is already saving millions of lives.

"We can create ambitious goals," Yamada told students, encouraging them to look for solutions that improve the lives of patients worldwide.

Second, Yamada told students, doctors and scientists can't resolve problems the traditional way. He called for revolutionary innovation, which he described as thinking about something completely differently than the traditional way.

To inspire what he calls an ecosystem that supports innovation, the Gates Foundation provided grants to scientists looking for new ways to eliminate malaria. One submission included an idea to create an electrical field between two posts that kills mosquitos by lasers. "I saw it," Yamada said, telling students of the innovation. "I've got to say that there's nothing so satisfying as watching a mosquito explode in midair."

Third, Yamada explained, measurement in global health is essential to success. He told the students a former colleague was fond of saying, "If you're not keeping score, you're just practicing." Yamada said doctors and scientists are not making the right kind of impact when they are not tracking the success of their work.

Fourth, doctors must work in partnerships to make great accomplishments. Yamada told a personal story of his involvement in stopping the spread of meningitis in central Africa, where it causes painful deaths for thousands of Africans each year. Yamada went to Burkina Faso to be part of the launch of a vaccine to prevent meningitis and witnessed the great partnership between several organizations that brought the vaccine to reality.

"I gave a 7-year-old girl a shot, and she had a big smile on her face. I thought, 'that's why I wanted to go into medicine.' The young girl was excited about preserving her health and creating a future for herself."

Yamada, who completed residency training on the MCV Campus, is now executive vice president of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.

The university celebrated the inauguration of Michael Rao, Ph.D., as VCU's fifth president with two weeks of activities drawing attention to key priorities. Through various events, the president drew attention to the importance of research, student success, human health and community engagement to the university's missions.

Two events hosted by the medical school gave Dr. Rao a first-hand view of our students' commitment to those same priorities.

Jamie Friedman, Bobby Salazar, Dr. Ike Wood, Dr. Chris Woleben, Theo Woodson, Monica Rao, Dr. Mike Rao, Mohamed Hassanein, Sarah Elfeky, Chris Ray, Ran Lee and Drew Long.

Medical Students Lead Health Screenings

Students in the medical school regularly make the trek from the MCV Campus to the activity room at the Conrad Center. There, they organize health screenings that provide blood pressure and glucose checks as well as information on height and weight. For some attendees, it provides a way to track their high blood pressure or diabetes. For others, it sometimes provides a first warning of a potential problem. With oversight from medical school faculty, the students provide basic counseling and the occasional referral to a local health clinic such as CrossOver or the Daily Planet.

President Rao and his wife Monica were on hand for October's health screening to witness medical students making a difference for the community. Organized by the Medical Student Government, the health screening is a welcome chance for students to get pre-clinical experience in a relaxed atmosphere. Some of the first-year students who participate do so through a program in the medical school called Learners Involved in the Needs of Communities — or LINC for short — that requires first-year students to perform a minimum of 20 hours of service to the community.

President Rao speaks with Ph.D. candidate Yves Falanga, who is studying the involvement of Immunoglobulins G (IgG) in anaphylaxis as part of VCU's Integrative Life Sciences program.

Research on Display

On Oct. 18, President Rao attended the 28th Annual Daniel T. Watts Research Symposium where he spoke with graduate students and post-doctoral scholars about their poster presentations. The two-day symposium featured nearly 100 different presentations of research with a total of 18 units represented, including students from the School of Medicine, the School of Pharmacy, VCU Life Sciences and the College of Humanities and Sciences.

The symposium was established to honor Watts, a nationally recognized pharmacologist who was the first Dean of School of Basic Sciences and Graduate Studies. Each year, the symposium is an excellent opportunity for reviewing ongoing research in the bioscience community at VCU. Coordinated through the medical school's Office of Graduate Education, it also provides a venue for networking with colleagues and for faculty to encourage the students and support the breadth of basic science training programs offered at the university.

In Style Weekly's latest edition of its 40 Under 40 listing, you'll find Stephanie N. Crewe, M.D., M.H.S., assistant professor of pediatrics.

The newspaper's annual compendium of 40 "young men and women who lead, inspire and serve Richmond" features Crewe, a specialist in adolescent medicine who knew from the time she was 5 that she wanted to be a doctor.

A Richmond native, she told Style Weekly that "I represent the antithesis of what a 1994 public health official would have predicted, and strive to empower, uplift, and encourage the generations behind me to do the same."

Read more about Crewe's career and accomplishments.

The American College of Physicians has chosen Craig Cheifetz, M.D., as the recipient of its 2012 Walter J. McDonald Award for Young Physicians. Nominated by the ACP's Virginia Chapter, Cheifetz will accept the award at the ACP national meeting in New Orleans in April 2012.

The McDonald Award is the ACP's national award for outstanding achievement by a young physician who is within 16 years of graduating medical school. Cheifetz, 42, is associate dean for medical education and student affairs on the medical school's Inova Campus.

Cheifetz has a record of significant contributions in medical leadership, teaching and mentoring at the local, regional and national levels. He has overseen the development of the VCU School of Medicine's Inova Campus since its earliest stages and now serves as chair for the Association of American Medical College's Group on Regional Medical Campuses. The GRMC is the national group that represents regional medical campuses throughout the United States and Canada.

Cheifetz has been active in the Virginia Chapter of the ACP, serving for six years on the governor's council. He also chaired the chapter's Council of Young Physicians in its first three years and developed its highly successful program for the professional growth of young physicians.

As a young physician himself, Cheifetz recognized the lack of resources for early-career physicians who were navigating life after residency training. To fill that need, Cheifetz won the Virginia ACP Chapter's support of a professional development series that helps equip young physicians for the career choices they face as well as on issues like personal finance and time management.

The ACP's McDonald Award for Young Physicians was established in 2003 to honor Dr. Walter J. McDonald, a former ACP governor and regent, who served as its executive vice president from 1995 to 2002.

Prior to this most recent honor, Cheifetz was named the School of Medicine's 2011 recipient of the Enrique Gerszten, M.D., Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, which is the School of Medicine's highest recognition for teaching. Read more about Cheifetz's accomplishments.

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has selected Stephanie A. Call, M.D., MSPH, to receive its 2012 Parker J. Palmer Courage to Lead Award. This is one of the highest awards bestowed by the ACGME, with just 10 program directors across the country honored for their innovative ways of teaching residents to provide quality health care. The ACGME is the accrediting body for post-M.D. medical training in the United States.

Call is the Department of Internal Medicine's associate chair for education as well as the director of its residency program. She will accept the honor at an awards luncheon on March 2, 2012 at the 2012 ACGME Annual Educational Conference in Orlando. "Teaching is Dr. Call's raison d'etre," said John E. Nestler, M.D., the William Branch Porter Professor and chair of the Department of Internal Medicine. "She has brought the department's educational training program to national prominence. Under Dr. Call's expert leadership we can boast that our residency program's internship match has filled for the past three years, whereas other prestigious programs around the country have not."

Mary Alice O'Donnell, Ph.D., associate dean and director of graduate medical education describes Call as "a magnet for faculty and residents alike when it comes to teaching and talking about medical education." Call is a sought-after lecturer by internal medicine programs around the country, and a side benefit of her invited lectures, O'Donnell says, is that "we have a much more diverse applicant pool for our internal medicine program. So many people want to train here because their faculty advisors have told them what a great education they will get with her."

O'Donnell emphasizes that in addition to establishing innovative educational programs, Call's strength lies in how she personalizes the educational process, inviting trainees to her home to work through career issues or arriving at the hospital in the pre-dawn hours to meet with a trainee ending an overnight shift.

Considered a national expert on faculty development training, Call has held leadership roles in the Association of Program Directors in Internal Medicine. Prior to this latest honor from the ACGME, she has received teaching awards from all three of the medical universities with which she has been associated as well as from the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine.

Nestler sums it up: "I am delighted and not at all surprised that Dr. Stephanie Call has received the 2012 ACGME Parker Palmer Courage to Teach Award. Simply said, Dr. Call is the greatest."

Learn more about Call's contributions.

Lenore M. Buckley, M.D., has authored an essay published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

In the piece, she writes compellingly about her interactions with a 9-year-old patient diagnosed with a life-altering chronic condition. Buckley chronicles their visits together, illustrating how she tries to build "a protective wall around him and his parents to hold back the wave of fear, vulnerability and loss of control that is rushing in as they realize something serious has occurred."

She describes the doctor-patient relationship as a team that is formed in those critical moments and in which the patient is the most important member. Buckley challenges her readers "to remember the personal impact of the diagnoses we make and our ability and obligation to soften the blows, to build that protective wall."

A professor of internal medicine, Buckley is one of the medical school's stellar faculty and has been honored for modeling for our students the kind of compassion, communication and wisdom that is described in the NEJM essay.

She has served as medical director of the Rheumatology Teaching Clinic for 16 years and has been honored four times with the Department of Internal Medicine Teaching Excellence Award. In 2006, she received the VCU Health System's highest honor for a physician when she was nominated by her fellow clinical faculty for the Distinguished Clinician Award. This fall, she received the Women in Science, Dentistry, and Medicine Professional Achievement Award.

Read Buckley's Critical Moments — Doctors and Patients, one of four essays by well-known experts in the Oct. 6 issue's Perspective section.

With recent passport stamps from Mexico and Haiti, you have to wonder what's up with the Class of 2009's Vincent Roddy who, last we checked, had headed north for an emergency medicine residency.

Now a third-year resident in Mount Sinai's emergency medicine department, Roddy spent much of his summer doing humanitarian work in Oaxaca, Mexico and Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Roddy traveled first to Haiti with Project Medishare, a non-profit organization that operates a hospital staffed by volunteer physicians from around the world. "Many areas of the country lack basic utilities, let alone health care," said Roddy, who saw tent neighborhoods and evidence of earthquake damage during his week-long stay. When he arrived, he learned that he'd be staffing the nightshift as the sole physician on duty. Assisted by nurses from the United States and a few volunteers, he was responsible for patients in the inpatient ward, ICU and Emergency Department as well as assessing and triaging any who arrived overnight. Nevertheless, he says "I can see why people like working there: you really have to put your knowledge to the test."

His month-long stay in Mexico took him to the largest hospital in Oaxaca, where patient care and supervising less experienced residents served as a daily training ground for his admittedly limited Spanish.

While in Oaxaca, he had his first encounter with neurocysticercosis, a parasitic disease of the nervous system that, while rare in the United States, is the most common cause of acquired epilepsy in developing countries. "The doctors did not have readily available access to MRI scanners or CT scanners with IV contrast. As a result, we ultimately made the diagnosis via the clinical history and suspicion as well as seeing very small, calcified lesions on the head CT. It was really interesting and somewhat thrilling to see how other physicians work and make use of the resources available to them." Due to immigration from Latin America in recent years, the U.S. is seeing an increase in cases of neurocysticercosis, which is acquired from contact with carriers of the adult tapeworm.

Back in New York City, Roddy is active with the non-profit leadership program New York Needs You. Last year, he was one of 50 mentors to the program's inaugural class of first generation college students. He currently serves on the Junior Executive Board of the non-profit as well as on the Mount Sinai School of Medicine's Admissions Committee.

Read Roddy's profile on the New York Needs You website.

The Class of 1975's Domenic Sica, M.D., provided perspective for an ABC News Web story that reported new findings on hypertension. Published in the journal Neurology, the findings revealed that study subjects with prehypertension also have an increased risk of stroke.

Sica, now a professor in the medical school's Department of Internal Medicine, directs the Hypertension Clinic and works closely with free-standing clinics and health care providers in the greater Richmond area to provide both education and treatment in the area of hypertension.

"Quantifying risk may be useful [to] guide the clinician on selecting a drug therapy in someone in whom lifestyle measures are inadequate," Sica told ABC News. After earning his medical degree in 1975, Sica remained on the MCV Campus to complete his internal medicine residency training. In 2009, he was honored with the MCV Physicians' Distinguished Clinical Award.

Read ABC News' online coverage.

The Movers and Shakers began as a breakfast group of friends touched by Parkinson's disease. They've grown into a grassroots movement that culminated last week in the opening of a $10-million comprehensive center for the research and treatment of the disease.

A story on the front of the Sept. 26 edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch Metro section chronicles the effort: Parkinson's Sufferers Mix Humility With Clout.

Last winter, the Pediatric Emergency Department opened amid much fanfare. The rainforest-themed state-of-the-art facility was designed to provide the region's highest level of pediatric emergency care in spacious treatment areas that allow patients and families privacy and comfort in the most stressful of times.

Designed by the architectural firm HKS, the $4.2 million pediatric emergency room has now won kudos from the design field. It has earned the Grand Prize in the 2011 awards competition for the Virginia and West Virginia chapters of the International Interior Design Association and the American Society of Interior Designers. The Interior Design Excellence Awards -- or IDEA Awards -- honor projects in multiple categories, from healthcare and corporate to residential. The Grand Prize, known as the Brightest IDEA Award, is selected as the best of the best from all categories. The Pediatric Emergency Department project also won its Contract Healthcare Category.

When the department opened in December, Robin Foster, M.D., director of pediatric emergency services with Children's Hospital of Richmond, said, "It is a privilege to serve the children of the greater Richmond area, and these children and their families deserve to receive care in a facility of this caliber."

Read more about the Pediatric Emergency Department and watch a video that spotlights its unusual design.

In the wake of three recent deaths caused by Naegleria fowleri, CNN relied on Microbiology and Immunology Professor Francine Marciano-Cabral, Ph.D., for information on the organism that is sometimes described as the brain-eating amoeba.

Marciano-Cabral offered perspective for CNN's online coverage on why the amoeba infects only a fraction of those who swim in a particular body of water. "The incidence of this disease is very, very small, but when it happens it's tragic," she told CNN.

This electron microscopy image shows a Naegleria fowleri cyst attached to an immune cell in the brain. N. fowleri, sometimes described as the brain-eating amoeba, is rapidly fatal, causing inflammation of both the brain and the membranes surrounding the central nervous system. The image was captured by Microbiology and Immunology Professor Francine Marciano-Cabral, Ph.D., at the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology's NIH-supported microscopy facility.

On a day when temperatures reached 97, the Class of 2015 made its way to the Egyptian Building courtyard for its official class photograph.

Class of 2015

They climbed the risers, gathered around Hippocrates, perched on the cement wall. And sweated.

It was the halfway point in an Orientation Week that would introduce the students to the history and traditions of the MCV Campus as well as the ins and outs of financial planning and study schedules.

The August 10 photo shoot introduced them to what summer feels like in Richmond. Their enthusiasm - and heat tolerance - was unflagging, despite temperatures that climbed with the late morning sun. As proven by these outtakes from the half hour photo shoot: