Spring 2023 • Volume 107 • Number 4

Alissa Zingman, ’10, Living With and Treating E DS

Coming 2026

Groundbreaking cancer treatment in one convenient location. A better state of care. The University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center is changing how cancer patients and their families receive care with a new cutting-edge facility, the Roslyn and Leonard Stoler Center for Advanced Medicine. With six floors dedicated to cancer care, the new Center will offer: •

More private room options

•

Updated technology for evaluation and treatment

•

Exclusive bone marrow transplant and cellular therapy space

•

Healing garden and modern waiting areas

•

All new entrance for the University of Maryland Medical Center

Learn more at umgccc.org

UM GREENEBAUM COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CENTER

Affiliated with the University of Maryland School of Medicine

Bulletin Editorial Board Harry C. Knipp, ’76 Chairman Gary D. Plotnick, ’66 Vice Chairman Frank M. Calia, MD, MACP Joy W. Chang, ’12 Katherine E. Duncan, ’12 Neal M. Friedlander, ’81 Dean S. Glaros, ’85 G. Thomas Grace, ’83 Christopher Hardwick George C. Kochman III, ’08 Elizabeth M. Lamos, ’07 Jennifer Litchman Philip Mackowiak, ’70 Shavonne L. Massey, ’09 Carole B. Miller, ’84 Stanley L. Minken, ’63 Larry Pitrof Michael E. Reichel, ’74 Ernesto Rivera, ’66 Walker L. Robinson, ’70 Jerome Ross, ’60 Tuanh Tonnu, ’90 Marjorie K. Warden, ’91 Joseph S. McLaughlin, ’56 Chairman Emeritus Medical Alumni Association Board of Directors Walker L. Robinson, ’70 President Harry A. Oken, ’83 President-Elect George C. Kochman, III, ’08 Vice President Tuanh Tonnu, ’90 Treasurer Sachin D. Kalyani, ’03 Secretary Joy W. Chang, ’12 Katherine E. Duncan, ’12 Neal M. Friedlander, ’81 Dean S. Glaros, ’85 G. Thomas Grace, ’83 Elizabeth M. Lamos, ’07 Shavonne L. Massey, ’09 Carole B. Miller, ’84 Marjorie K. Warden, ’91 Directors Richard Keller, ’58 Regional Vice President Brad D. Lerner, ’84 Paul Tarantino, ’87 Madeleine Purcell, ’23 Dr. Mark T. Gladwin, Dean Ex-Officio Larry Pitrof Executive Director University of Maryland School of Medicine Board of Visitors Cynthia L. Egan, Chair Michael I. Greenebaum, Vice Chair Michael E. Cryor, Chair Emeritus Louis F. Angelos, Esq. Peter G. Angelos, Esq. Norman R. Augustine Kenneth R. Banks Alfred R. Berkeley, III Arnold Blaustein, ’66 Marc P. Blum, PhD, LLB, CPA Jocelyn Cheryl Bramble Calvin G. Butler, Jr. Marco A. Chacon, PhD Carolyn B. Frenkil William E. Kirwan, PhD Harry C. Knipp, ’76 Belkis Leong-Hong Patricia J. Mitchell Edward Magruder Passano, Jr. Abba David Poliakoff, Esq. Maurice Reid, ’99 Walker L. Robinson, ’70, Ex-Officio Richard L. Taylor, ’75 Paul Tarantino, ’87 Elizabeth Wurster

10 Cover story

A Rare Opportunity Once a renowned dancer, Alissa M. Zingman, ’10, confronted chronic health problems that took years to properly diagnose. Now she is channeling her Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome into work that improves the lives of others living with this misunderstood disease. On the cover: Alissa Zingman, ’10.

22 Alumnus Profile: George M. Boyer, ’83 Forging His Own Path Having a father and grandfather who were general practitioners, George M. Boyer, ’83, expected to follow in their footsteps once he graduated from Maryland. But life had other ideas for the pulmonology specialist whose passion is teaching and for the past 20 years has served as the chair of medicine at Mercy Medical Center.

24 Alumnus Profile: Merdad V. Parsey, PhD ’89 Delivering on Unmet Clinical Needs As an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland, College Park, Merdad V. Parsey, PhD, ’89, became enthralled with the potential of science to devise new treatments for improving patient outcomes. He was up for the task in 2019 as chief medical director for Gilead Sciences when the COVID pandemic hit.

Departments 2 Dean’s Message 4 News & Innovations 16 Faculty News

18 26 27 28

Medicina Memoriae Advancement Managing Money Student Activities

The University of Maryland Medicine Bulletin, America’s oldest medical alumni magazine, is produced by the Medical Alumni Association of the University of Maryland, Inc., with support from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the University of Maryland Medical System. The acceptance of advertising by this publication does not in any way constitute endorsement or approval by the Medical Alumni Association. Requests to reproduce articles should be directed to: Editor, Medicine Bulletin, 522 W. Lombard Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201-1636, or by email: [email protected]. Subscriptions are $20 per year (domestic) and $25 (overseas)

29 Class Notes 32 Recollections 33 In Memoriam

For information on advertising, please contact: The Medical Alumni Association of the University of Maryland, Inc. email: [email protected]

www.medicalalumni.org

Copyright © 2022 Medical Alumni Association of the University of Maryland, Inc. All rights reserved.

Spring 2023 • Volume 107 • Number 4

Editor-in-Chief

Larry Pitrof Design

grayHouse design Art Director

Jim Gray

DEAN’S MESSAGE I HOPE EVERYONE IS HAVING A GREAT YEAR SO FAR.

Investigation. Dr. Drake has a particular interest in mentoring and training physician faculty in research, especially faculty from groups underrepresented in medicine and is PI of a prestigious K24 mentoring award from the NIH. She will partner with programs such as the Center for Advanced Research Training and Innovation and Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation program to further enhance efforts in this area. Together with the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC), we named Heather Culp, JD as our new joint senior vice president and chief philanthropy officer. Heather brings more than 15 years of experience advising comprehensive fundraising campaigns for academic institutions. Most recently, she served at Johns Hopkins University where she led all aspects of fundraising for the department of neurology and brain sciences. In her new leadership role, Heather will provide overarching strategic guidance and vision for the fundraising efforts of UMMC Downtown and Midtown campuses, school, and the University of Maryland Rehabilitation & Orthopaedic Institute. She will represent both UMMC and school philanthropy efforts while strengthening the partnership and alignment across both organizations. You may have heard that Kevin Cullen, MD, the director of our program in oncology and the director of the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center, will step down from these roles by the end of the year. We recognize and appreciate Dr. Cullen’s historic leadership of our cancer center and thank him for continuing to serve as faculty, for helping with this important leadership transition, and for developing our strategy towards renewal of our NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center in two years. We are conducting a national search for these positions. I want to thank all of our alumni for your continued engagement with the school mission. A big part of that mission includes diversity and inclusion and we had an amazing Celebrating Diversity gala at the end of February with a record 350 guests, including many of you! Thank you for serving as active representatives of our vision to transform the scope of medicine and deliver excellent health care.

We’ve been very busy at the school and I want to update you on our exciting new developmens. In the last issue, I shared the good news about our new Institute—the University of Maryland—Institute for Health Computing (UM-IHC). We just named the co-director and director of scientific operations for UM-IHC—Bradley Maron, MD, who will also serve as the senior associate dean for precision medicine at the school. Dr. Maron is currently a cardiovascular medicine specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Harvard Medical School, and the co-director of the pulmonary vascular disease center at VA Boston Healthcare System. He’s also the medical director of the Cardiopulmonary Exercise Center at BWH, and he founded the faculty-fellow research advisory program there. He is the PI on three NIH R01s, with over $1.6 million per year in funding, and he has almost 200 publications. I’m excited to share more good news with you about a second new Institute—the University of Maryland— Medicine Institute of Neuroscience Discovery (UM-MIND). UM-MIND is the result of Dean Reece’s vision for a brain institute. As an institution, prioritizing our behavioral and neuroscience research ensures that we maintain the national expertise in neurodevelopment, the aging brain, neuroinflammation and injury, and even addiction. UM-MIND will integrate the diverse neuroscientists at the school under one cohesive umbrella that brings structure, organization, and recognition to the depth and breadth of our expertise. I am pleased to announce that Margaret McCarthy, PhD is serving as founding director. Dr. McCarthy’s collaborative leadership skills, demonstrated experience, and vision for UM-MIND will provide a strong launch of this new Institute. I’ve been discussing some fairly bold initiatives with our board of visitors, and I’m very encouraged by the support and energy from them. These efforts will offer more opportunities for faculty. They also require more space on and off campus, in the form of new buildings and renovations to existing buildings. We’re working with Wexford Science & Technology and UMB leadership to occupy an entire floor of the new BioPark IV building—that would give us 36,000 square feet dedicated to academic programming, research, and innovation, with a goal to be open for business by September 2024. We just recruited Wonder Drake, MD from Vanderbilt University Medical Center to serve as our senior associate dean for faculty affairs and the director of our new center of excellence dedicated to sarcoidosis, a disease of unknown origin that primarily affects African Americans in the U.S. and can cause lung damage, skin rashes, eye, heart and neurological disease and can affect almost every organ of the body. She is a member of the Association of American Physicians, the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, and the American Society for Clinical

‘‘

I want to thank all of our alumni for your continued engagement with the school mission.

Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023

’’

Mark T. Gladwin, MD University Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean, University of Maryland School of Medicine

[2]

Remembered Richard M. Susel, ’66 Richard M. Susel, ’66, a Baltimore ophthalmologist, Maryland clinical assistant professor, class captain, and philanthropist died on December 13, 2022. Born in Baltimore, Susel graduated high school at Baltimore City College and received a BS from the University of Maryland College Park. He married classmate Carolyn Pass after their second year of medical school. Upon graduation, he received training with the U.S. Public Health Service, interning in Baltimore with residency training that included time at the Gallup Indian Medical Center in New Mexico. From 1970 to 1971, Susel was a part-time fellow in ophthalmic pathology at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins. It was during this time that he began his private practice with Physicians Eye Care Center. Appointments included president of the medical staff as well as chief of the section of ophthalmology at St. Agnes Hospital, clinical assistant professor at Maryland, and instructor and lecturer at the Wilmer Institute. Susel served as medical director and board member for Tissue Bank International. He authored several publications on corneal preservation and keratoplasty evaluation. Susel and Pass served as alumni captains for the class of 1966, organizing their reunions every five years and volunteering for the alumni phonathon in Davidge Hall. In 2008, they established the Pass & Susel Academy of Medical Excellence at Maryland to promote and reward superlative teaching. In 2011, the Medical Alumni Association honored them as co-recipients of the Distinguished Service Award for their service to the school and MAA. They are members of the John Beale Davidge Alliance 1807 Circle, the school’s society for major donors. In 2014, he was inducted into the St. Agnes Hospital Healing Hands Society. Susel enjoyed playing golf and was an avid reader. Survivors include wife Carolyn, two children, and four grandchildren. Susel was 83 years old.

[3]

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

NEWS INNOVATIONS

Five Alumni Elected to AOA Five Maryland alumnae were elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) Honor Medical Society in spring through the school’s Beta Chapter. New members included Marjorie Warden, ’91, Seema A. Patil, ’05, Regina A. Macatangay, ’06, Sarah Dubbs, ’10, and Marissa Flaherty, ’14. The AOA seeks “the encouragement of a high standard of character and conduct among medical students and graduates, and the recognition of high attainment in the medical sciences, practice and related fields”. Members were inducted during the school’s annual ceremony on March 21.

Seema A. Patil, ’05

Artificial Blood One Step Closer The fall 2019 alumni Bulletin magazine cover story featured Allan Doctor, MD, who had recently opened a center for blood oxygen transport and hemostasis at Maryland with the goal of developing an artificial blood product. The professor of pediatrics is now heading a federally funded research program to develop and test a whole blood product, storable at room temperature, that can be used to transfuse wounded soldiers in the field within 30 minutes of injury, potentially saving thousands of lives. Maryland will manage the four year, $46.4 million research project administered by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, in collaboration with Maryland’s school of pharmacy and more than a dozen universities and biotech companies. “We have assembled an outstanding team to develop a bio-synthetic whole-blood product that can be freeze-dried for easy portability, storage, and reconstitution,” says Doctor, the study’s principal investigator. “It will be designed for easy use in the field by medics at the point of injury, and will perform like a traditional blood transfusion to, for example, stabilize a patient’s blood pressure or facilitate blood clotting.” To achieve this goal, the program will employ sophisticated artificial intelligence, state-of-the-art experimental platforms, and multiple complimentary animal models. The product will be tested for efficacy and safety in trauma victims who have complex multiple injuries including shock and traumatic brain injury. Bleeding is the most common cause of potentially survivable death in trauma, in both military and civilian settings. Whole blood transfusions remain the gold standard, but present logistical challenges such as the dependence on available donors, requirement for cold storage, and limited viability of about 40 days. Expedited evacuation of patients who are rapidly bleeding out due to a gunshot wound or other trauma is not always an option. For this reason, there is an urgent need for an artificial blood product with a long shelf life that is easy to transport. This product will consist of ErythroMer, the artificial blood product made by KaloCyte, a company co-founded by Doctor in 2016 with bioengineer and synthetic chemist Dipanjan Pan, PhD, MSc, Maryland professor of pediatrics and diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine, and Philip Spinella, MD, a military transfusion medicine expert at University of Pittsburgh.

Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023

[4]

Pooton Retires from Maryland’s Advancement Office Mary Pooton, a medical school development officer since 2005 who was named associate dean for development in 2018, retired in January. During her tenure as development head, she oversaw and directed all of the operational and strategic philanthropic initiatives for the medical school.

USM chancellor Jay Perman, and UMB president Bruce Jarrell unveil the painting

Perman Portrait Unveiled at UMB

Mary Pooton

Jay A. Perman, MD, president of the University of Maryland Baltimore from 2010 to 2019, returned to campus in February for a portrait unveiling ceremony recognizing his years of service to the university. The event was held on the second floor of the SMC Campus Center where the portrait will be on permanent display. Since 2020, the pediatric gastroenterologist has held the post of chancellor of the University System of Maryland. Before his presidential appointment at UMB, Perman served as chair of the medical school’s department of pediatrics from 1999 to 2004 and afterwards dean and vice president for clinical affairs at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. The rendering was painted by artist Jacqueline Jasper.

Culp Named Chief Philanthropy Officer The school and medical center hired fundraiser Heather S. Culp, JD, to head a combined fundraising effort for both institutions, the first such collaboration since the late 1990s. Her title is senior vice president and chief philanthropy officer. Culp brings more than 15 years of experience managing philanthropy teams and leading comprehensive fundraising campaigns for academic institutions. Most recently she served as executive director of development for The Fund for Johns Hopkins Medicine at Johns Hopkins University leading all aspects of fundraising for the department of neurology and brain sciences. In her new leadership role, Culp will provide overarching strategic guidance and vision for the fundraising efforts of the downtown and midtown campus (forHeather S. Culp, JD merly Maryland General Hospital), medical school, and University of Maryland Rehabilitation & Orthopaedic Institute. She will also partner with development leaders supporting philanthropic activity across the University of Maryland Medical System and its member organizations. Prior to her position at Johns Hopkins, Culp held previous fundraising roles at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law—where she earned her juris doctorate—and at Washington College.

[5]

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

NEWS INNOVATIONS

Mummies of the World Opens in Miami Mummies of the World: The Exhibition, featuring several University of Maryland School of Medicine artifacts, opens at the Frost Science Museum in Miami in late May. Recognized as the largest collection of real mummies and related artifacts ever assembled, the exhibition includes 11 pieces from the Medical Alumni Association Alan Burns Collection of Anatomical Specimens as well as the medical school’s Maryland Mummy. It also features mummies from South America, Europe, and ancient Egypt dating back 4,500 years. This begins the tenth year Maryland has participated in the traveling show. Denise Orwig, PhD The Burns Collection was first brought to Maryland from Scotland in 1820 by Granville Pattison, professor of anatomy and surgery who later served as dean. The pieces were used as teaching aids through the early 20th century. The Maryland Mummy is a cadaver mummified in 1994 by Ronn Wade, former director of the Maryland State Anatomy Board, using tools and techniques of the ancient Egyptians. The Miami showing is expected to run through Labor Day.

Return of the Rejuvenation Breakfasts The COVID pandemic didn’t halt medical education, but it did prevent a number of social events from being staged—activities designed to ease the stress of an intense education. One such event that returned in January was the rejuvenation breakfast started several years ago, underwritten by Steven J. Gross, ’73, and wife Enid. The breakfasts are staged in the MSTF Atrium during the month of January each year as students are returning from the winter break. Dean Gladwin speaks with Steven Gross, ’73, and wife Enid at the Rejuvenation Breakfast

Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023



[6]

School Launches Institute for Neuroscience Discovery

M

aryland is announcing plans to launch a new neuroscience institute that will accelerate translational research of the brain by facilitating interaction between basic and clinical scientists and enhancing collaborative research across the school and the entire University of Maryland, Baltimore campus. The institute, called the University of MarylandMedicine Institute for Neuroscience Discovery (UM-MIND), will recruit new talent to campus and leverage the more than 120 leading neuroscientists at Maryland under one umbrella and elevate the prominence of the school’s basic and clinical science research portfolio. “There is an urgent need to better understand how the brain develops and ages and responds to inflammation and traumatic injury,” says dean Mark T. Gladwin, MD. “Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, for example, currently afflict more than 5 million Americans and represent one of our great generational challenges associated with the aging of the world’s populations.”

“Our institution has tremendous strengths around neuroscience, with faculty scientists across our academic departments, center, institutes, and programs.”

Margaret McCarthy, PhD

through a partnership between the dean’s office and department chairs from physical therapy and rehabilitation science, neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry. The school is also drawing on the collaboration and leadership of additional chairs—all of whom are neuroscientists—including radiology, anatomy and neurobiology, and pharmacology with chair Margaret McCarthy, PhD, directing the institute. UM-MIND will leverage partnerships with programs at neighboring institutions such as the U.S. Veteran’s Administration Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center (GRECC), the University of Maryland Baltimore County and the University of Maryland College Park to further research collaboration and education opportunities in brain sciences. UM-MIND will be divided into three pillars of focus: brain development, aging and cognition, and brain injury and disease.

—Mark T. Gladwin, MD He adds: “Our institution has tremendous strengths around neuroscience, with faculty scientists across our academic departments, center, institutes, and programs. Now is the ideal time to form a partnership across these entities in the study of brain science, with the goal of accelerating the discovery and translation of novel therapies and offer new hope for patients.” Currently, the school has more than $65 million in research funding for neuroscience research projects. Overall, UMB has some $107 million devoted to studies of the brain, although the research is spread out across several schools, centers, and departments. Funds supporting UM-MIND are being provided

[7]

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

NEWS INNOVATIONS

Carpenter, Former Head of Physician Practice Plan, Dies Bernard A. Carpenter, Jr., executive director of the University of Maryland Faculty Physicians, Maryland’s clinical practice plan, died on January 17, 2023. Carpenter served in this capacity from 1992 to 2007, primarily under the leadership of medical school dean Donald E. Wilson, MD, MACP. In 2007 the plan changed names to Faculty Physicians, Inc. Carpenter is survived by wife Barbara, two sons, and seven grandchildren.

Bernard A. Carpenter, Jr.

Vaccines Prevented Three Million U.S. Deaths According to Maryland Analysis In the two years since the first COVID-19 vaccines were given to patients in the U.S., the vaccines had the cumulative effect of preventing 18 million hospitalizations and 3 million deaths. That is based on a new modeling analysis conducted by a Maryland researcher and her colleagues. Results of the analysis were published by the Commonwealth Fund. Researchers relied on a computer model of COVID-19 transmission to estimate the number of deaths and hospitalizations that were prevented from December 2020 through November 2022.  Since the vaccines were approved near the end of 2020, more than 655 million doses were administered, and 80 percent of the U.S. population had received at least one shot. Without vaccination, there would have been nearly 120 million more COVID-19 infections, according to the new analysis. In the U.S., the vaccination program also saved $1.15 trillion in medical costs that would otherwise have been Meagan Fitzpatrick, PhD incurred. “Our findings highlight the substantial impact of the U.S. vaccination program on reducing infections, hospitalizations, and deaths,” said study leader Meagan Fitzpatrick, PhD, assistant professor of medicine and a vaccine researcher at the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health (CVD). Researchers from Yale School of Public Health and York University were co-authors on this analysis.

Since the vaccines were approved near the end of 2020, more than 655 million doses were administered, and 80 percent of the U.S. population had received at least one shot.

Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023



[8]

Henry, ’85, Honored at Diversity Dinner Sharon Henry, ’85, the Anne Scalea Professor of Trauma Surgery at Maryland, was honored recently for her national and international efforts to promote diversity and inclusion in the profession. She received the Dean’s Alumni Award for Diversity and Inclusion during the school’s 16th annual Celebrating Diversity Reception and Dinner on February 25. Highlighted during the program was her work with the American College of Surgeons Advanced Trauma Life Support, where she led initiatives to ensure that trauma care is provided globally in ways which are inclusive, trauma-informed, patient centered, and represent the diversity of the patients that are provided care. Tanya J. Webb, PhD, a tenured associate professor in the department of microbiology and immunology at Maryland, received the Dean’s Faculty Award for Diversity and Inclusion. More than 300 faculty, staff, alumni, and friends attended the event at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Baltimore.

Sharon Henry, ’85, with medical school dean Mark T. Gladwin, MD

Mohiuddin Named to Nature’s Top Ten in 2022 The world-renowned journal Nature named Muhammad Mohiuddin, MD, DSc, program and scientific director of the cardiac xenotransplantation program at Maryland, to its annual list of 10 people who helped shaped science in 2022. His pivotal work over the past three decades transplanting genetically-modified pig hearts into non-human primates led to the historic xenotransplant of a pig heart into a human patient this past January. The surgery was led by Bartley Griffith, MD, the Thomas E. and Alice Marie Hales Distinguished Professor of Transplant Surgery and clinical director of the cardiac xenotransplantation program, who was also recognized by Nature for his ground-breaking efforts to move the field of transplantation into a new era. “In a year full of crises and stunning discoveries, this year’s Nature’s 10 list features an astronomer who helped open a window into the distant reaches of the Universe, researchers who had pivotal roles in confronting the COVID-19 Muhammad Mohiuddin, MD, DSc pandemic and the mpox outbreak, and a surgeon who pushed the limits on organ transplantation,” said Rich Monastersky, chief features editor at Nature, in a release announcing the 2022 list. “The stories of the people featured in Nature’s 10 provide unique glimpses into some of the biggest events in science during this extraordinary year.”

[9]

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

A Rare Opportunity Alumna Alissa Zingman is channeling her

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

diagnosis into work that improves the lives of

others living with this misunderstood disease. BY CHRISTIANNA McCAUSLAND

Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023



Growing up, Alissa Zingman, ’10, had chronic joint issues. But it didn’t get in the way of her having a successful career in modern dance. When she was 15, she toured Paris as a cultural ambassador for the arts and served as a demonstrator at a conservatory outside the French city. Within a year she was limping and couldn’t walk properly due to an ankle injury. It took a year of seeing “big name doctors” for that injury to be properly diagnosed. She finally underwent surgery under a physician in Columbia, Maryland, but when he completed the operation, he noticed something unusual. “He told me, ‘Your tendons should be shiny and smooth and yours were not,’” she says. “He said it in passing as a point of interest, and I’m so grateful for him as my doctor and mentor, but in retrospect it was a missed opportunity for me to have been referred to a geneticist. It could have saved me so much pain, heartache, and trauma over the years if his medical training had taught him what that meant.” In the coming years, Zingman, now 40, would experience numerous, often debilitating health issues—injuries and chronic dislocations, ruptured and herniated disks, vocal cord dysfunction so severe it presented as asthma attacks, daily emesis and bloating, lightheadedness—especially after the birth of her daughter in 2014. She was too sick to complete orthopaedic surgery residency, during which she had her fourth knee surgery, multiple shoulder dislocations, and herniated four discs, and came to Baltimore where she completed a residency at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in occupational and environmental preventive medicine. This despite requiring daily physical therapy and frequent doctor appointments for gastrointestinal and respiratory dysfunction.



[10]

[11]

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

While there are several types of EDS including vascular and cardiac, Zingman’s work is in hypermobile EDS and its related dysfunctions, including dysautonomia like postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and immune dysfunction.

Medicine Bulletin Winter 2022-2023 Alissa Zingman, ’10

It wasn’t until 2017 that she was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), and later with Hyperadrenergic POTS, MCAS and immunodeficiency. Now, as the founder and medical director of P.R.I.S.M. Spine and Joint and co-founder of the Ehlers-Danlos Research Foundation, she’s on a mission to save others with her condition from wasting years of their lives chasing a diagnosis and living in chronic pain. EDS is a collection of disorders that present in several phenotypes. While there are several types of EDS including vascular and cardiac, Zingman’s work is in hypermobile EDS and its related dysfunctions, including dysautonomia like postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and immune dysfunction. Currently classified as a rare genetic disorder, Zingman believes EDS is more widespread than we now know. “Diagnosis of the hypermobile type is based on a phenotype that is associated with abnormalities of connective tissue—collagen—and it results in a

[10]

wide array of multisystem dysfunction,” Zingman explains. “What is most commonly associated with EDS is joint, spine, and mitral valve dysfunction. What is less appreciated, but becoming more recognized is the role of having that same abnormal extracellular matrix in your gut, in the connective tissue that maintains proper orientation and barrier functions of the viscera and brain/blood-brain barrier and lining the peripheral nerves and blood vessels.” The challenges with obtaining an EDS diagnosis are that patients appear healthy and that it is a systemic disease. Too often physicians are looking merely at its parts. “The narrative presented to me was always ‘you’ve had years of wear and tear on your body from dancing, so you have neck pain and you have back pain and that’s why your knees and feet hurt,’” she says. Ironically it was in her second year of medical school that Zingman learned about EDS. “It was two or three slides in the middle of a lecture somewhere, and that was the only

A Rare Opportunity EDS education in medical school or residency” she says. Having already had multiple orthopedic surgeries, joint dislocations, and tachycardia, she states, “I remember seeing that and thinking ‘this must be me.’” She went to the family medicine clinic on campus, almost certain she finally had a diagnosis. Her lab results

needs. It’s a cycle of constantly proving your commitment to your profession, and one of the things you observe in that process is that health is often treated as a virtue,” she says. “Until we, as a society, stop treating good health as a virtue, as something earned or achievable for all, we probably will not get to the bottom of this

showed only non-specific inflammation, which is typical of EDS patients. Although she continued to push for a referral, especially given the effect her symptoms and frequent respiratory infections had on her ability to concentrate and study, she was instead diagnosed with ADD and, at times, was told she was a hypochondriac. Eventually she says, “I kind of gave up.” Zingman herself says she spent years in denial, buckling down and working harder, refusing to give in to the fact that she was ill, particularly when no one in the medical field believed that she was suffering. “Being in chronic pain was my shameful little secret,” she says. Medical training was a particularly difficult place to be chronically ill. “I think there’s something that happens to young doctors in training. We are conditioned to ignore our own physical

issue,” she continues. “I think medical education could add flexibility, strive to be more inclusive of those with disabilities, and we could produce more empathetic, whole doctors. There are plenty of amazing whole, caring doctors now, I’ve been privileged to work with many. But the system doesn’t foster this. And it’s easier to get through as reliable but uncaring than it is to obtain accommodations for illness.” When she was finally diagnosed in 2017, it did not come as a relief. Doctors told her the best she could hope for was a ten percent improvement in her symptoms, a scenario that would still preclude her from practicing medicine clinically or even going for walks with her daughter. What followed, she said, was several dark weeks. Then, “I said to my husband, ‘No, I’m not giving up. Just because no one else has figured this out doesn’t

[13]

mean I can’t try,’” she recalls. She had him bring all her anatomy books out of their basement and she committed herself to unraveling her own condition. What she discovered is that, unlike traditional medicine that often follows an algorithm and a treatment protocol, working with EDS requires a physician to look at a patient through a wide lens where they can see a constellation of symptoms and how they interconnect. In today’s specialty-centric medical environment, people who need multisystem thinking can get lost. “Everyone else is a four-door sedan,” she says, “and people with EDS are a Formula-1 race car. It has a totally different owner’s manual. You can’t expect it to take the same fuel as a Honda Accord or do the same mileage. And we live in a Honda Accord world.” She adds that like a racecar that needs a pit crew and constant tinkering and attention, so too do EDS patients. Although she says her orthopaedic residency informs her current work in musculo-skeletal preventative medicine, her residency in occupational and environmental preventive medicine and master’s in public health gave her the ability to paradigm shift, to see beyond medical convention. In 2019, she opened P.R.I.S.M. Spine and Joint in Silver Spring, Maryland (the acronym stands for prevention, rehabilitation, integrative sports medicine). It is a response to the difficulties she faced coordinating her own care. Once Zingman began to put together her “pit crew” to treat her EDS, she was traveling to multiple states for treatments and tracking down her own specialists. She realized that if it was this complicated for her to achieve—a person with resources and a deep understanding of medicine—it must be much harder for someone without her background. “P.R.I.S.M. is an answer to the question ‘How do we improve the life of people living with musculoskeletal or neuro-musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction that is not adequately addressed elsewhere,’” she says.

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Treatment at P.R.I.S.M. is very different from a traditional clinic. To begin, there are no fluorescent lights in the office. Everything is comforting and comfortable. The intake process takes two hours and patients articulate their three chief complaints—a significant shift from traditional specialty medicine that follows one chief complaint—and three chief goals. Treatment is then organized into four stages: organize, stabilize, mobilize and dynamize. Organize and stabilize are foundational to her treatment protocol. Many patients with EDS have poor body alignment that needs to be put into place to support proper joint resting position. This can be months of work. They also need neurological medical management, dynamic imaging, and inflammation control, which can require extensive immunologic care. Once organized, the patient needs stabilization to retain the organization. This is accomplished through any number of therapeutics including interventional regenerative therapies, specialized isometric exercise, neurological retraining, and bracing. In the mobilization phase, patients learn how to stabilize against moving lever arms (limbs) and are helped to get back to activity. In the dynamize phase (a word Zingman laughs that she made-up, but that articulates its goal well), patients begin to work toward remaining goals. Maybe it’s being healthy enough to walk through a museum or ride a bike with their child. The clinic uses mostly evidence-based western medicine, osteopathic techniques, and Zingman’s background in dance kinesiology and pilates, but also integrates some aspects of traditional Chinese and Indian Ayurvedic medicine. “I don’t argue with success,” says Zingman. “If things are working, I’m happy.” Zingman never expected her work to take on such a high profile, but when the clinic first opened the waitlist for an appointment rapidly ballooned to years. She’s since been able to bring the wait down to five months Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023

“On a human level I hope what I’m doing, aside from helping the limited number of people I can in my clinic, is raising awareness and I hope that because of me there will be people who get their diagnosis sooner and don’t go through all those years of not being allowed to be sick.” – Alissa Zingman, ’10

by recruiting and training pain management, sports medicine, and primary care physicians. Jennifer Berman, JD, MBA, was one of Zingman’s first patients. Like Zingman, she’d dealt with medical issues from childhood. “I spent many years trying to figure out what was going on and many other years trying to just survive,” says Berman, an attorney and mother of two. Going to P.R.I.S.M. was a revelation. “My first impression was that I finally met a doctor who believed what I was saying,” she says. “There was an immediate feeling that I was being heard.” Berman went through approximately eight weeks of intensive

[14]

rehabilitation therapy at P.R.I.S.M. She was taught some very basic things, like how to breath without hyperextending her thoracic spine and ribcage. She receives ongoing treatment including IV infusions, acupuncture, and physical therapy. “I’m like an entirely different person,” says Berman, who says she’s now able to better meet the demands of a busy career and raising two children. “I’m in so much less pain and able to be so much more functional.” Berman and Zingman have joined their respective legal and medical expertise together to create the EhlersDanlos Syndrome Research Foundation in an effort to further more in-depth examination of what they both say is a misunderstood disorder. Both recall being told that they couldn’t possibly have EDS because it is so rare and, even if they did had EDS, there was little treatment available to them. There’s quite a bit of argument even around how many people actually have EDS. This all hinders progress on therapeutics. “If you can’t define the problem, you can’t create a solution,” says Berman. “The goal is to ignite research, to create and fund enough research for EDS to stand on its own two feet so it can begin to be funded through the more traditional funding mechanisms,” she states. “I’m hoping we have a common understanding around diagnostic criteria, treatment protocols and education,” Berman continues, thinking about long term goals for the foundation. “I would love for there to be actual cures, but I think we’re far away from that.” The foundation is preparing to publish a study looking at nutritional deficiencies in EDS and they’re working on a survey study to send to EDS patients asking about their pathways to diagnosis and effectiveness of treatments they’ve received. Zingman says her hope is to make an economic case for taking care of this population so more resources will go toward its treatment.

“I want this to be a landmark study in the making that shows how many healthcare dollars we’re wasting by not diagnosing these patients sooner and by doing treatments that don’t even benefit them,” says Zingman. “And also how much opportunity we’re missing in terms of years of productive life lived by not recognizing this condition and taking better care of these patients.” This is all intensely personal for

Zingman, not only because of her diagnosis but also because her daughter appears to have inherited the genetic disorder as well. “On a human level I hope what I’m doing, aside from helping the limited number of people I can in my clinic, is raising awareness and I hope that because of me there will be people who get their diagnosis sooner and don’t go through all those years of not being

allowed to be sick,” she says. She notes that living with a chronic disease that is so often misunderstood makes life a difficult personal journey that impacts people with EDS in their relationships with others, in their careers—in every facet of life. She wants to lessen that burden. “Making life less hard for people is all I could hope to do.”

A Rare Opportunity

Alissa Zingman, with patient, at PRISM.

[15]

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

FACULTY

news Presentations, Lectures & Workshops Tiffany Beason, PhD, assistant professor;

Jill Bohnenkamp, PhD, assistant professor; and Katie Trainor, PhD, postdoctoral fellow; all with the department of psychiatry, hosted a virtual Youth Leadership Tiffany Beason, PhD Academy on November 29 and December 1, 2022. The event was part of a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Initiative to Advance Health Equity in K-12 Education. The two-part training brought together youth leaders from schools across the country participating in the oneyear Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Learning Collaborative. These youth leaders engaged with expert faculty from the National Center for School Mental Health and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning to learn about best practices in school mental health, social emotional learning, and health equity. Cara Felter, PT, DPT, MPH, NCS, PCS,

assistant professor, department of physical therapy & rehabilitation science, taught a two-part lecture series through Health Volunteers Overseas entitled, Cara Felter, PT, DPT, “Therapeutic MPH, NCS, PCS Technologies in Neuro-Rehabilitation” to therapists practicing at the Christian Medical College (CMC), held in Vellore, India, in December 2022. These lectures were part of a larger series of neurologic lectures shared with the therapists at CMC, which is a large teaching hospital serving patients with an array of neurologic and other conditions.

Roy Film, PT, DPT, OCS, FAAOMPT,

assistant professor, department of physical therapy & rehabilitation science, was an invited panel participant for an American Academy of Roy Film PT, DPT, Orthopaedic OCS, FAAOMPT Manual Physical Therapists webinar held in January entitled “Adding Social Determinants of Health & Health Disparities into an Already Jam-packed Curriculum.”

During the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) held in November 2022 in Chicago, a number of faculty members with the department of diagnostic radiology & nuclear medicine presented during a session entitled On Call Primer for Residents—Don’t Miss Diagnosis: Tricky Trauma That Keeps You Up at Night.” They included Omer Awan, MD, professor, who presented the national residency image case-based competition and delivered a talk on “Social Media: Case Based Opportunities for Career Advancement;” Uttam Bodanapally, MBBS, associate professor, presented, “Pearls of Chest Trauma;” Alexis Boscak, MD, and Matthew Dattwyler, MD, both assistant professors, discussed spine trauma; Kamyar Ghabili, MD, post doc, Yale/Maryland, and Nariman Nezami, MD, associate professor, co-authored “Percutaneous

Grants & Contracts* Rao Gullapalli, PhD, MBA, professor,

department of diagnostic radiology & nuclear medicine, was awarded a threeyear, $1,025,802 U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity/Geneva Rao Gullapalli, PhD, Foundation MBA Contract for “Comprehensive Assessment of Blast Traumatic Brain Injury in a Gyrencephalic Species: Biomechanical, MRI, Behavioral and Neuropathological Characterizations.” Piotr Walczak, MD, PhD, professor,

department of diagnostic radiology & nuclear medicine, was awarded a five-year, $2,986,702 R01 from National Institute on Drug Abuse for “Imageguided Intra-arterial Piotr Walczak, MD, Administration of PhD Antibody-releasing Glial Progenitors to Control the HIV CNS Reservoir.” *Grants & Contracts at $1 Million and above

Publications Uttam Bodanapally, MBBS Alexis Boscak, MD

Nariman Nezami, MD Clint Sliker, MD Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023

Combined Chemical and Mechanical Necrosectomy for Walled-Off Pancreatic Necrosis: A Retrospective Analysis;” Clint Sliker, MD, associate professor, presented “Blunt Cerebrovascular Injury—Findings, Outcomes and Controversies.”



[16]

Stewart Becker, PhD, associate professor, and Jason Molitoris, MD, PhD, assistant pro-

fessor, both with the department of radiation oncology, were among the authors of “How Many Brain Metastases Can Be Stewart Becker, PhD Treated with Stereotactic Radiosurgery

Before the Radiation Dose Delivered to Normal Brain Tissue Rivals That Associated with Standard Whole Brain Radiotherapy?” published in the Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics. Jill Bohnenkamp, PhD, assistant profes-

sor, division of child & adolescent psychiatry, was among the co-authors of “A Roadmap to Equitable School Mental Health Screening,” Jill Bohnenkamp, PhD published in the February 2023 volume of the Journal of School Psychology.

Andrea Buchwald, PhD, research associ-

ate, department of pediatrics; along with Matthew Laurens, MD, MPH, professor, departments of pediatrics and medicine, and Miriam Laufer, MD, professor, departments of pediatrics, medicine, and epidemiology & public health, all with the Matthew Laurens, Center for Vaccine MD, MPH Development and Global Health, were among the co-authors of “Artemetherlumefantrine efficacy among adults on antiretroviral therapy in Miriam Laufer, MD Malawi,” published in Malaria Journal in January. Wengen Chen, MD, PhD, professor, and

Vasken Dilsizian, MD, professor, both with the department of diagnostic radiology & nuclear medicine, were co-authors on an invited review article entitled Wengen Chen, MD, “Molecular Imaging PhD of Valvular Diseases and Cardiac Device Infection,” published in the January issue of Circulation Cardiovascular Imaging.

Lynda Coughlan, PhD, assistant profes-

sor, department of microbiology and immunology, Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, was among the co-authors of “Enhancing the Lynda Coughlan, PhD Protection of Influenza Virus Vaccines with BECC TLR4 Adjuvant in Aged Mice,” published in Nature – Scientific Reports in January. Alan Cross, MD, professor, depart-

ment of medicine, Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, was among the co-authors of “Short-Term Feeding of Defatted Bovine Colostrum Alan Cross, MD Mitigates Inflammation in the Gut Via Changes in Metabolites and Microbiota in a Chicken Animal Model,” published in Animal Microbiome in January. Derik Davis, MD, associate professor,

department of diagnostic radiology & nuclear medicine, was among the co-authors of “Combining Exercise, Protein Supplementation and Electric Derik Davis, MD Stimulation to Mitigate Muscle Wasting and Improve Outcomes for Survivors of Critical Illness - The ExPrES Study,” published in the December 2022 issue of Heart and Lung: The Journal of Critical Care. Jason Falvey, PT, DPT, PhD, GCS,

Jason Falvey, PT, DPT, PhD, GCS

assistant professor, department of physical therapy & rehabilitation science, was a coauthor of “Equitable Implementation of Innovations to Promote Successful Aging in Place,”

[17]

published in the Journal of American Geriatrics Society in December 2022. He also was a co-author of “Effect of Variation in Early Rehabilitation on Hospital Readmission after Hip Fracture,” published in the Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Journal in January. Saikrishna Gourishetti, MD, assistant

instructor, department of surgery, along with David Eisenman, MD, associate professor, department of otorhinolaryngology-head and neck surgery; Jonathan Ciriello, MD, PGY 4; and Prashant Raghavan, MD, associate professor, both with the David Eisenman, MD department of diagnostic radiology & nuclear medicine, were among the co-authors of “Posterior Fossa Volume in Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension: Prashant Raghavan, MD a Magnetic Resonance Imaging-based Study,” published in the January issue of Acta Radiologica. Kathleen Neuzil, MD, MPH, FIDSA, pro-

fessor, department of medicine, Myron M. Levine, MD, DTPH Professor of Vaccinology, and 

Karen Kotloff, MD,

professor, departments of pediatrics, medicine, and epidemiology & public health, Kathleen Neuzil, MD, both with the MPH, FIDSA Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, were among the coauthors of “Immune Correlates Analysis of the PREVENT-19 COVID-19 Vaccine Efficacy Clinical Karen Kotloff, MD Trial” published in Nature – Communications in January.

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Medicina Memoriae

By Wayne Millan

Not a Laughing Matter When the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts began awarding an annual Prize for American Humor in 1998, they named it in honor of Mark Twain. Born and raised as Samuel Clemens in Missouri during the generation prior to the outbreak of our Civil War, Twain died in 1910 yet remains, over a century later, a unique cultural figure, not only for his novels, journalism, and travel writing but also for his establishment of a recognizable “American” approach to humor. The first recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Twain prize was Richard Pryor, a choice that was perhaps a nod to Twain’s own cross-cultural creativity. Medicine was one of Twain’s frequent topics, or targets. Any statement from him became newsworthy, as when he testified, during a debate within the New York State Assembly regarding the licensing of osteopaths, that he supported a bill to allow for Doctors of Osteopathy (DOs) to practice medicine on a par with MDs:

I want the liberty of experimenting on my body as I please. Liberty is the supreme motto of this country. Liberty is all I have at stake … [and] every man should have the right to give his mental and physical system whatever treatment he pleases. In his testimony to the legislature, which was given in February of 1901, Twain went on to talk about his own mother’s “experimental nature” and her enthusiasm for an early form of hydrotherapy, which led Mrs. Clemens to pour two buckets of ice water over the young Samuel “every morning.” Yet he also spoke, and very tellingly, about how “the chief thing I like about osteopathy is that there is no medicine in it.” No frequent reader of Twain is likely to forget that his wry humor is always close to hand, yet neither should we ignore the personal trials he had already endured by the end of the 19th century. His only son had died young from diphtheria, and just one of his daughters outlived him. Another daughter, Olivia Susan, died as a young adult in 1896 from meningitis, for which there was then no effective treatment. Twain’s implied criticism of anything that smacked of “medicine” can be read as a sad reference to losing a child as did he and his wife, who was also named Olivia. The daughter’s death came a full decade prior to the announcement by Simon Flexner of effective use of antiserum in meningitis treatment.1 Well before that time the disease that left the Twains in such grief was understood to be at epidemic levels in many parts of the world. Osteopathy as a form of practice alternative to conventional or “allopathic” medicine had not long existed before Twain gave his testimony in Albany. It dates to the career of Andrew Taylor Still (1828-1917), whose eponymous, and accredited, university continues to operate in Twain’s home state of Missouri along with branch campuses in California and Arizona. Still was the child of a Methodist anti-slavery preacher, and he began his life in medicine as a (Union) hospital steward during the Civil War. The term osteopathy dates at least to the 1850s when it was first used in print to describe broadly, as its Greek roots suggest, disease or suffering in or of the bones; yet Still’s genius as both a teacher and a businessman was to promote this new form of practice as one that specifically rejected the heavy metals, “blue pills,” and patent medicines common to an older form of treatment. In a pre-regulatory setting, Still’s emphasis was on helping patients to find their own way to health, and that ideal continues to be emphasized by the 37 modern and accredited schools of osteopathy now operating in the United States.

Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023



[18]

—————————

In a pre-regulatory setting, Still’s emphasis was on helping patients to find their own way to health, and that ideal continues to be emphasized by the 37 modern and accredited schools of osteopathy now operating in the United States.

PHILADELPHIA COLLEGE OF OSTEOPATHIC MEDICINE

—————————

Not only did he reject a pharmaceutical-heavy approach: Still also distanced himself from “Christian Science, faith cure, and hypnotism” according to his own publicity issued not long after he began operating his college in 1892. Still’s public statements often employed metaphors from the early years of the industrial revolution, and he was of a mechanical turn. Before he gained success with his osteopathic teaching, Still was even credited with patenting a new butter churn. Like the Twains, and not uncommon even among elite families in the 19th century, Still and his wife lost children to infectious disease, at least two of them also victims of what appeared to be meningitis. Not long after Mark Twain’s birth, a young British sailor-turned-circuit-riding minister named Featherstone Osler migrated, with his wife Ellen Picton, to a small Canadian town near the modern city of Hamilton. Among their children was William, later Dr. Sir William Osler, as important a figure in the history of medicine as Twain became in literature. On top of doing as much as any one person did to create the scientific, and successful, business of health care in Andrew Taylor Still, D.O. the modern era, Osler was noted for his humor. Some of his practical jokes might today land him in professional hot water or even jail (as did one of his pranks These schools account for over a quarter of all current medical when he was a young student), while his frequent employment students at domestic institutions, and much of the growth in of the nomen iocosum “Egerton Yorrick Davis” became notorinew U.S.-produced physicians during the past two decades has ous. Osler clearly wanted others to find him funny, including come from osteopathic colleges. his students; yet like the Twains and the Stills, he and his wife, Still died at the then-great age of 89 in what seemed a a great-grandchild of Paul Revere, knew great familial sadness. good advertisement for his habits if not his scientific notions.

[19]

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Medicina Memoriae cal degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1967, by 1968 was a battlefield doctor in Vietnam, and gained board certification in internal medicine. Before becoming surgeon general, he was chief Featherstone Osler of medicine at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio and also had commanded (the original) Walter Reed hospital. In retirement, Lieutenant General Blanck has taught or was an administrator at several mainstream institutions as well as at the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, a state-supported program that opened in 1970. Full integration of osteopathy was not a seamless process, however, and it was not until the 1970s that all 50 states plus the District of Columbia accepted DOs at the same level as MDs. In 2015, a committee representing osteopathic programs was joined to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. Growth has continued, and the American Osteopathic Association asserts that there are likely to be around 150,000 DOs practicing in the United States by the end of the current decade. In Maryland’s own backyard, Morgan State University has gained state approval and initial funding to open a college of osteopathic medicine within the next two years.

Their only child to survive to adulthood was killed in action during the First World War. There is no evidence of any direct professional or personal connection between Osler and Still, yet contemporary osteopaths have embraced the former, as seen in a 2005 tribute by Leonard Calabrese, DO, of the Cleveland Clinic.2 According to Calabrese, Osler’s suspicion of the unregulated pharmaceuticals common to his day was only one shared trait: others included an emphasis on preventive medicine and the significance of learning at the bedside. Calabrese notes that advances in pharmacology plus the growth of evidence-based therapeutics were already considerable by the time that Still

—————————————————————

Osler’s suspicion of the unregulated pharmaceuticals common to his day was only one shared trait: others included an emphasis on preventive medicine and the significance of learning at the bedside.

—————————————————————

and Osler died just a few years apart. Improvements in pharmacology even led to the American Osteopathic Association (AOA, founded by Still) in 1929 to allow the teaching of pharmacology at its members institutions. In 1907, not long after Twain’s newsworthy testimony to them, the New York State legislature moved to combine various medical boards into one and to require that all licensed physicians be subject to it, regardless of their training. This allowed for the possibility that doctors of osteopathy could be accepted as equal colleagues. By 1916 the AOA, their primary professional group, had moved to require four years of study to earn a DO degree. This change in medical standards, like so many of that era, came not long after publication of the socalled Flexner Report (Medical Education in the United States and Canada, 1910), whose primary author was Abraham, a younger brother of Simon Flexner. As the degree they handed out gained greater acceptance, the emphasis on spinal manipulation as a treatment or even cure for disease gradually lost its central role in American osteopathy programs. By the middle years of the 20th century, curricula for programs in osteopathy and conventional or mainstream medicine were increasingly coming together, to the extent that, by the start of the 21st century, the chief distinction was that DO programs taught manipulation on top of preclinical scientific studies and clinical rotations. As far back as the immediate post-World War II era, DOs even began to practice in Federal Government medical facilities, and in a first, Ronald Blanck, DO, was named Surgeon General of the U.S. Army in 1996. Blanck’s career illustrates the degree of acceptance for osteopathic doctors. He earned his medi-

Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023



1. Rockefeller University provides this link for a summary of Flexner’s career, including his work on meningitis: Dr. Flexner’s Experiment: [Dr. Simon Flexner] (rockefeller.edu) 2. Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, vol. 105 no. 5, “Special Communication. Sir William Osler Then and Now: Thoughts for the Osteopathic Profession.” [This journal was renamed the Journal of Osteopathic Medicine in 2021.] Wayne Millan has served for many years as consultant to the University of Maryland Historical Clinicopathological Conference. Since 2010, he has been a Lecturer in Classics at The George Washington University, and in collaboration with Dr. Victor Weedn, also of GWU, he is at work on a first-ever translation of the Four Books on Evidence Given by Doctors published in 1602. The Four Books (“Libri Quatuor”) were written in Latin by Sicilian physician Fortunato Fedele and are considered to be the seminal treatise on legal medicine. Millan’s translation and commentary on Fedele is now under contract with Routledge with publication anticipated for the middle of 2022.

[20]

PLANNED GIVING | Charitable Gift Annuity

Your LEGACY... it’s

Personal

How will you inspire others with your legacy? Charitable Gift Annuities (CGA) are simple contracts between a donor and the University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation, Inc. (UMBF)* that benefit the University of Maryland School of Medicine. In exchange for a gift of cash or appreciated securities, UMBF pays fixed income for life to one or two beneficiaries. When the obligation to make life income payments ends, the balance of the account can be used for scholarships, faculty enhancement, or almost any other need of the School of Medicine designated by the donor.

Single Life Age

Rate*

65

4.8%

70

5.3%

75

6%

A deferred Charitable Gift Annuity allows the donor to defer the start of income payments for any number of years, thus making it both a retirement and charitable planning tool. A longer deferral period results in a higher annuity rate and a larger tax deduction.

80

7%

85

8.1%

In addition to Charitable Gift Annuities, donors also support the School of Medicine through estate gifts and other planning strategies that are customizable to changing financial situations. Whatever form your legacy gift takes, you can have an impact on the future of medicine.

90+

9.1%

Gift annuities generate a federal income tax deduction and pay beneficiaries partially tax-free income. Annuities funded with appreciated securities have additional tax and financial advantages.

For more information about CGAs, bequests, gifts that pay income for life, and other innovative ways to support the School of Medicine, please visit: www.umbfplannedgiving.org.

*Rates as of July 1, 2022 and are subject to change.

Or contact: Marjorie McDowell Executive Director of Development, Alumni University of Maryland School of Medicine 410-706-0418 [email protected]

*PLEASE NOTE: Legacy gifts should be made payable to the University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation, Inc., for the benefit of the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

ALUMNUS

profile George M. Boyer, ’83

Forging His Own Path

‘‘

And then I took my first  job here at Mercy and I found I enjoyed teaching, which led to some administrative duties and eventually, 20 years ago, to chairman of medicine.

’’

When George Boyer, ’83, talks about his love for medicine, one of the first things he’ll tell you is that his work is far from the doctoring duties he thought he’d be pursuing. When Boyer, 66, was growing up, his father, a doctor and a George Washington University graduate, told him stories about his grandfather, a small-town doctor in Damascus, Md., who graduated from George Washington in the early 1900s before the school was even called by that name.  “My grandfather made house calls in a horse and buggy because he didn’t have a car,” Boyer says. “The horse was named Old Deck. My grandfather and Old Deck would make house calls all over Damascus. Sometimes he would fall asleep in the buggy and the horse would know how to get him home. “Everybody in the northern part of the county knew my grandfather and the horse. When Old Deck died at 30, there was a little piece about him in The Washington Post.” A third-generation physician, Boyer had planned to follow his father’s footsteps into the same small-town practice, just as his father had followed his father. “That’s what I thought I was going to do when I came to medical school.” But life has a way of changing a person’s path. Boyer, a pulmonologist, has been doing medical administration work for nearly half his life now and is currently president of the Trustees of the Endowment of the University of Maryland, an independent 501 (c) (3), chair of the Medical Alumni Association Davidge Hall Restoration Committee, and chair of medicine at Mercy Medical Center. In May, he will receive the 2023 Maryland Alumni Association’s Distinguished Service Award. The Damascus High School grad who played soccer, tennis, and trumpet had barely started as a medical student at Maryland when he made what he calls “a 180 turn.” During his first semester Boyer’s father became ill and died. The opportunity to follow in those precious footsteps vanished. And instead of becoming a general practitioner in Damascus, he discovered a love for internal medicine, the ICU, and eventually his pulmonary specialty. “And then I took my first job here at Mercy and I found I enjoyed teaching, which led to some administrative duties and eventually, 20 years ago, to chairman of medicine,” he says.

Admin + Medicine = A Joyful Mix

Through all those years, he remained active at his alma mater, where in 2005 he was elected to the MAA Board of Directors and is a past president.  In 2006 Boyer joined the board for Trustees of the Endowment and has served as president since 2014. They are responsible for the endowment’s more than $140 million, which belong primarily to the medical school. Boyer, a historian at heart, easily tells the history of the Trustees, a unique group who “from the beginning” considered themselves “entirely independent of the authorities of the University of Maryland, as well as the Alumni Association,” which had established the Trustees in 1893. It was a view—that when challenged by UM’s Board of Regents in 1955—was reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023



[22]

By Sandra McKee

‘Green Acres’ Calls to Him

Today, Boyer says, the three independent groups (Trustees, university, Alumni Association) work “cordially” for the mutual benefit of the school. In 2022, the Trustees, who accept but “do not actively pursue” donations, made $4 million available to the school, including $500,000 in scholarships. “As a volunteer organization and a publicly supported nonprofit, we have been able to do all this with an expense ratio of less than 0.4% of the total fund,” Boyer says. All of it is a long way from the medical practice he had once planned. But the satisfaction is just as fulfilling. “Giving back is a joy, much like caring for patients,” Boyer says. “I learned that from my father. And recognizing that as hard as medicine is today, it’s still a privilege to do what we do. We get to work with a lot of successful, likeminded people who are interested in supporting good causes. And then, there is also the satisfaction of trying to help people and help the school that gave us the opportunity to do what you do.”  

A Reward to Remember 

Despite his workload, there has been time for a life outside of medicine. He knew his wife-to-be, Alicia, in high school. She was three years younger “and as she likes to say, ‘A senior in high school wasn’t going to talk to some little freshman girl,’” he says lightly. But 18 years later, while walking down the beach in Ocean City, they met again. Ultimately, they were married and bought a 50-acre farm in Western Howard County where they raised their son Aden, now 22 and an honors student at the University of Delaware. “It was a little bit like ‘Green Acres,’ the old television show,” Boyer says. “I mean, my wife isn’t Eva Gabor, although she had long blonde hair. She was a mortgage banker but did grow up on a farm. I’m not an attorney like Eddie Albert was, but the two guys who were helpers on the farm stayed on, just like ‘Green Acres.’” Farming isn’t easy for a farmer, let alone a full-time doctor, who liked to be out in the field helping to make the hay or tending to the horses. “I loved being out there,” he says. “I used to tell people it was my therapy.”  

‘‘

The Distinguished Service Award is not the first Boyer has received at Maryland. In 2019, he won the Theodore E. Woodward Award for major contributions to medical education. It brought special joy to Boyer, for Woodward was one of his mentors. “We feared and revered him,” Boyer says, a smile in his voice. “He officially retired at age 65, when I was a medical student. But he continued for years. One of the coolest things about my career was when I became chairman in 2002, Dr. Woodward, then about 90, was still teaching. He would come to Mercy on Friday afternoons for the conference we had for Junior medical students from Maryland, and what made it so gratifying to me, was that he and I taught the conference together.” As an adjunct associate professor at Maryland, Boyer continues to teach students at Mercy, where he is equally busy and appreciated. Besides being the chair of medicine, he is director of the Pulmonary Function Lab and has been named Physician Teacher of the Year by the Mercy residents multiple times.  

I never really envisioned Looking Ahead myself being chairman of the his early dream of working in department,” Boyer says. “I love Once the family practice ended, Boyer says goals were still to be a successful being in the ICU. I love working his physician and have a family. Now old enough for Social with the people here at Mercy. Security, he has achieved both those, I’ve had a wonderful career and but his future hasn’t yet come in to focus. a wonderful family.  “I never really envisioned myself

’’

being chairman of the department,” Boyer says. “I love being in the ICU. I love working with the people here at Mercy. I’ve had a wonderful career and a wonderful family.” These days he continues to lecture the Maryland students who come to Mercy to study pulmonary medicine. But for how much longer? He doesn’t know. “Yes, I’m thinking about retirement,” he admits. “Everyone says I’ll know when it’s time. And I know it’d be better to go out on my terms.” But for now he prefers to continue down the road he loves.

[23]

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

ALUMNUS

profile Merdad V. Parsey, PhD, ’89

Delivering on Unmet Clinical Needs

‘‘

I didn’t know anything from  anything. I was just a college student when I saw it. But that really got me excited about the potential to use science to come up with new treatments for people and that’s what piqued my interest.

’’

Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023

When he was a student at Largo Senior High School, Merdad Parsey, ’89, played guitar in a band that performed “lots of very loud, very bad rock music.” For years, as his band experience continued, he thought he was going to be a musician. Other than that, he knew only one thing for sure. “My dad was a family practice doctor,” says Parsey, who moved from Iran to Maryland with his parents when he was five. “I used to go work in his office when I was about 19, just doing reception and stuff like that. And I said, ‘The one thing I’m not going to do is medicine.’  “I really didn’t have any other plans. I mean, now I have a 17-year-old and a 15-year-old, and my 17-year-old has known that he wants to be an engineer for three or four years. Back in those days I was going to be a musician. I was having too much fun playing music.” Music still plays a big part in his life, but as the chief medical director at Gilead Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company in Foster City, Calif., so does solving the big mysteries of treating people with “unmet clinical needs.”  He started to become enchanted with solving these difficult, medical puzzles while working on his undergrad degree in microbiology and biochemistry at the University of Maryland, College Park, when one night he happened upon a Nova special on PBS about giving the drug IL-2 (interleukin 2) to cancer patients. “That show revealed how patients were improving with the use of IL-2,” remembers Parsey, who worked part-time in the UM labs for some cash. “I just thought that was the coolest thing because it was using the body’s own immune system to fight off the cancer. I didn’t know anything from anything. I was just a college student when I saw it. But that really got me excited about the potential to use science to come up with new treatments for people and that’s what piqued my interest.” Once excited, and with undergrad degree in hand, Parsey enrolled in a MD/PhD program at Maryland where he spent the next six years earning his MD in 1989 and his PhD in immunology in 1992. After a residency at Stanford, he did his fellowship at the University of Colorado Medical Center in the mid-1990s. It was there he met his future wife, Christina, a nurse, and realized he wanted to be the one writing protocols to improve patient health, not just the one executing them. “I really wanted to be the one asking the clinical question: ‘Can you make someone’s life better by bringing some new biology, new science to bear for patients,’” he says. “I found my passion. I lucked into it, finding that intersection of science and patient care—trying to find new treatments for patients.” It was a role that brought him to the top of the industry in November 2019 and put him in position to direct the development of the COVID-19 fighting drug remdesivir, Gilead’s antiviral medicine that had first been developed to treat Ebola.

[24]

By Sandra McKee drug was going to work. We had to invest at risk to make millions of doses to be able to treat people.” It was Parsey and his team who recommended the doses be made.  “It’s one of those things the CEO has to decide and I’m very lucky to be able to work with my CEO, Dan O’Day. There was no doubt that we should be putting as much effort into it as we could and making the investments. It was so important. This was something that impacted all of us, all of our families inside the company and the outside world. You’re in a position where you hope you have something that can help. For us, it was very much ‘We need to do this for everyone’s sake.’” Certainly, there was stress for Parsey, Gilead’s chief medical officer. But there was also peace at home with Christina, his wife of 25 years, and their two sons, Reza, 17, and Sam, 15. And Parsey still has his music. “I play my guitar as much as I can,” he says. “It allows me to think about something other than the job. I play pretty much everything from rock to jazz, but my go-to? I will play pretty much any Rush song you give me. That’s my go-to comfort food.”

“I never worked so hard in my life,” Parsey says. “I’ve done my residency, my internship, my fellowship. I worked hard, but I had never worked as hard, and I don’t think I’ve worked with a group of people who’ve worked as hard as the team here did.” He says it isn’t false modesty that has him always referring to his team and the work it did to study, get approval, and distribute remdesivir as one of the first drugs to fight and work against COVID-19. “My day job, usually, and what I did then, is to oversee,” he says, admitting he laid the road map for what had to be done. “Here’s how we should interact with the WHO [World Health Organization] or the United States government or things like that. At the end of the day, I’m accountable for making sure things go right. “I spent all those hours every day working with various groups, whether it was the team that was designing the clinical trials and running them, or interacting with investigators, coordinating all of those efforts to get there, and ultimately making the drug. I’m responsible and accountable for making a lot of those decisions, right? But I can’t say strongly enough how much of a team effort it is.” Without the expertise from so many people, without everyone working as a team, Parsey says, there can be no success. “I would say that’s something I learned as a critical care doctor in the ICU,” he says. “When you’re in the ICU you work with so many different people to help patients get through what they’re going through. It’s a team effort. And that really translated into this situation for me and for a lot of us. “So it was an extraordinary time. Like I said, I never worked so hard.” One of the hardest decisions was whether the company would make millions of doses of remdesivir before the testing was finished, before clearance was given by the CDC to make the drug available to the public. “You don’t just have the drug lying around, you have to manufacture it,” Parsey says. “I believe our medicine (remdesivir Veklury) was the first one to show efficacy in a very early NIH test. But we didn’t know if the

‘‘

I believe our medicine (remdesivir Veklury) was the first one to show efficacy in a very early NIH test. But we didn’t know if the  drug was going to work. We had to invest at risk to make millions of doses to be able to treat people.

’’

[25]

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Advancement Thomas Yau, ’93: Inspiring Others to Think and Act Locally and Globally Yau says receiving the scholarship ful,” says Reif, who credits the funding hen it comes to studyfor galvanizing her career path decision. also afforded him something else: “It ing and then practicing gave me the freedom to just go for it, to “My clinical experience abroad has medicine, there can be big reach for the field of my dreams and my reaffirmed my interest in global health benefits to thinking and acthigh aspiration, knowing that I didn’t and has motivated me to pursue similar ing locally as well as globally. have that big of a debt burden.” opportunities in residency.” That was certainly the case for The combination of all these experiA more recent recipient, Aline Thomas Yau, ’93, who with his wife, ences proved to be the right formula, Desmarais, ’22, a native of Salisbury, Linda, made a gift in 2016 to establish nearly three decades in the making, for Maryland, says the scholarship provided the Linda Yau, MD and Thomas Yau, Yau and his wife—also a physician—in some relief and it opened her eyes to new MD ‘93 Scholarship, which supports deciding how to establish a scholarship. possibilities. Maryland students who are committed “Our vision for the scholarship was “This scholarship allowed some of the to working on global health issues or to make a connection with and try to stress of student loans to be mitigated,” have a desire to work in underserved help people who were on the same path says Desmarais, currently attending areas, both at home and abroad. as me,” says Yau, who completed his resiNew York University for a pediatrics Yau says some of the inspiration for dency in ophthalmology at the MedStar residency, “and solidified a strong interstarting the fund can be traced back to Health/Georgetown-Washington est in global health and connecting my a foundational experience he had as a Hospital Center. “And we wanted to career in medicine with international medical student in Baltimore. communities, as well as with “During the summer between improving local, underserved first and second year, I went on communities.” a medical mission trip with the Yau, whose daughter, Christian Medical and Dental Susanna, is a member of the Society to the Dominican class of 2025, says he hopes Republic, serving on a plastic their gift will serve as an inspirasurgery team, where I got to see tion to more than just the how you can fix things in surgery, recipients of his scholarship. I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be great if I “In terms of my generation, could go into a field where I could my class, we have this great fix things?’ So I did,” says Yau, opportunity to help the genwho has been a practicing opherations who are behind us, to thalmologist and cataract surgeon Linda and Thomas (’92) Yau, with daughter Susanna, ’25 make it easier for them finanin Silver Spring, Maryland, since because the needs are so 1997. I’ve been extremely happy being a physician, and cially, great now,” he says. “And every Yau believes the time he spent overseas—he took an additional the University of Maryland gave me the opportunity to little bit helps, it doesn’t have to be a huge amount to be impacttrip for a rotation in Kenya as a attend medical school, which changed my life. ful for the students.” fourth year—not only helped him It’s a lot like thinking about focus his career plans but it also support students who are interested in the tomorrow and acting on it today. awakened in him a desire to help others working in the developing world, or “One of the challenges we face is findin need. with underserved populations.” ing people who are interested in staying A first-generation college stuAnd the impact of that vision began in the medical field,” Yau says. “So, we’re dent whose parents emigrated from to make a difference in the lives of others really investing in the future of a generaHong Kong when he was a small boy almost immediately—including scholartion of people who are willing to deliver and worked in restaurants, Yau had ship recipient Michaella Reif, ’20. care in Maryland.” limited resources to pay for medical “I received notification of this award To learn how you can support the future school. Fortunately, he was accepted at while I was on an infectious disease of medicine, please contact Wayne R. Hobik Maryland where in-state tuition, along rotation in Lusaka, Zambia, which I Jr. at 410.706.1925 or whobik@som. with a scholarship he received, allowed thought was fitting and very meaningumaryland.edu. the family to afford his education.

‘‘

Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023

’’



[26]

Managing

Money Philanthropy Trends: Supercharge Your Impact Advancing diversity, equity and inclusion. Philanthropy

hree trends have been gaining momentum across the globe—giving while living, collaborating with other donors and advancing diversity, equity and inclusion.  Our work with donors from San Francisco to St. Louis to Singapore leads us to expect these trends to keep going strong in 2023, as more philanthropists adopt these strategies. Might they inspire you to explore new ways of giving? See what you think.

has always played an important role in efforts to improve society’s diversity, equity and inclusion, as donors have long focused on helping groups that have been discriminated against, ignored and/or underserved.  Philanthropic support for racial equity, in particular, has increased in recent years. The number of funders supporting racial equity and justice in the United States grew fivefold in the last decade.3 A 2020 survey of 236 U.S.-based foundations found that more than 80% were planning to institute changes designed to incorporate racial equity into their grant-making or program strategies.4 Increasingly, donors are evaluating how their philanthropy might be more inclusive, reduce bias and promote equity. Many are examining how implicit biases might be affecting their grant making and how they might more effectively incorporate community perspectives into their decisions. For example, young adult “third-generation” family members active in a multi-generational family foundation raised a concern that the foundation’s grant making did not reflect the equity and inclusion the family was seeking. With advice from advisors in the Philanthropy Centre at J.P. Morgan, the third generation presented options to their relatives for enhancing the foundation’s DEI efforts. Their ideas included:

Giving while living. Traditionally, donors made their largest

contributions to charity in their wills and established private foundations or charitable trusts designed to exist in perpetuity.  Yet, in recent years, we have witnessed a shift: “Giving While Living” has become a frequent theme in our conversations with clients at the private bank. While most private foundations are still set up to be permanent, there are an increasing number of “spend-down” foundations. Indeed, a global survey of family philanthropies found that 32% had adopted a time-limited approach, with the majority seeking to spend the entirety of their foundations’ philanthropic assets in the next one to 15 years.1

Donor collaboration. Today, many donors are collaborating in an effort to amplify their impact and tackle complex issues and challenges. This collaboration can take many forms, including donors pooling their resources or aligning their grantmaking plans to advance common goals. Working together, donors can maximize their impact and efficiency, source innovative funding opportunities, learn from peers and experts, and expand their network and try out different funding approaches while spreading the risk among collaborators. Collaboration can be formally or informally structured. Giving circles, for instance, are a type of donor collaboration growing steadily, with more than 2,500 circles in the United States.2 Giving circles are comprised of like-minded donors at all wealth levels, who pool funds and collectively decide where to give their pooled donation. Some giving circles and donor collaboratives support communities in particular locations, for example to provide state- or city-focused COVID-19 relief funds. Others are designed to focus deeply on a specific issue or cause, such as early-childhood education. Collaboratives can attract a valuable mix of partners who do not normally sit at the same table, including families and individuals, institutional foundations and corporate philanthropy.

• Committing 25% of a family’s foundation funding to new, diverse organizations not previously supported • Training all family members in DEI principles • Establishing a process to include community leaders in the foundation’s grant selection After a healthy discussion, the family members agreed to start by training all members in DEI principles and to learn about potential grantees not represented in past giving.

We can help. Whether you want to explore new approaches or stick to the tried-and-true, our advisors in the Philanthropy Centre can help you optimize your philanthropic strategies. Your J.P. Morgan team is dedicated to helping you make a difference.

1. Global trends and strategic time horizons in family philanthropy 2020, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and Campden Wealth Limited, 2020.  2. https://philanthropytogether.org/directory/. 3. Malka Devich Cyril, Lyle Matthew Kan, Ben Francisco Maulbeck and Lori Villarosa, Mismatched: Philanthropy’s Response to the Call for Racial Justice, Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE), September 2021. 4. Foundations respond to crisis: Toward equity? Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), December 2020.

[27]

Scott D. Canuel, CFA, CFP© J.P. Morgan Private Bank [email protected] INVESTMENT PRODUCTS NOT FDIC INSURED NO BANK GUARANTEE MAY LOSE VALUE Disclosures: “J.P. Morgan Private

Bank” is a brand name for private banking business conducted by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its subsidiaries worldwide. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and its affiliates (collectively “JPMCB”) offer investment products, which may include bank-managed accounts and custody, as part of its trust and fiduciary services. Other investment products and services, such as brokerage and advisory accounts, are offered through J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (“JPMS”), a member of FINRA and SIPC. JPMCB and JPMS are affiliated companies under the common control of JP Morgan Chase & Co.

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

studentactivities Return of Phonathon After a three-year pandemic-related absence, the student phonathon in Davidge Hall returned in February. Students gathered in Chemical Hall during the week of February 20, reaching out to recently graduated classes to gather updated contact information and as well as speaking with classes celebrating milestone reunions in spring. First-year student volunteer callers included (clockwise from left) Aiden Wiley, Hima Konduru, Grace Padgett, Kerrigan Dougherty, Bolutife Olagunju, Magdi Elghannam, Syrus Razavi, Nawal Sahams, and Claudia Wong.

A School-Based Financial Aid Office

Wilson Scholar Kaela Kuitchoua, ’24

Financial aid and financial literacy are two topics that can intimate students. As part of the school’s commitment to the overall wellness of its students, it has established the Office of Financial Aid and Wellness—an extension of the office of student financial assistance and education—to help students establish and maintain financial wellness. It is the only school at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and the University System of Maryland to have its own program-based financial aid office. Although a relatively new initiative, the office has already hosted programs ranging from networking and personal branding to investing in the stock market and assessing employment benefit packages. Through one-on-one meetings with councilors, students can obtain advice and guidance on creating a budget, identifying ways to reduce expenses, creating alternative spending plans, as well as getting assistance with debt management, loan repayment, and organizing finances. Since the hiring of Sofia Cascio, MBA as director of the program in 2021, the school has brought on an assistant director, Juanita Simmons during the current school year. She joins the medical school with eight years of experience in financial aid administration, most recently serving as associate director of financial aid at the University of Baltimore.

A crowd of more than 300 faculty, staff, alumni, and friends of the medical school had an opportunity to meet Kaela Kuitchoua, ’24, at the 16th annual Celebrating Diversity Reception and Dinner in February. Kuitchoua is recipiKuitchoua with dean emeritus Donald ent of the Donald E. Wilson, MACP E. Wilson Endowed Scholarship, created to honor the legacy of Donald E. Wilson, MACP, who served as dean of the medical school from 1991 to 2006. The fund supports the school’s efforts to recruit a bright and diverse student population that helps ensure quality health care for all populations. Kuitchoua is planning a career in psychiatry, having joined Maryland’s Combined Accelerated Program in Psychiatry. She attended Emory University, receiving a bachelor of science degree in neuroscience and behavioral biology.

Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023



[28]

classnotes classnotes 1950: Miriam S. Daly of Chelsea, Mich., recently turned 98 and remains in good health. 1957: Joseph C. Laughlin of Rancho Mission Viejo, Calif., recently turned 90 and thinks 1957 was a long time ago. 1959: August D. King, Jr., and wife Netta of Lutherville, Md., celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary last October. George S. Trotter of Jacksonville, Fla., retired from the practice of hematology/oncology at age 90. He is founder of WeCareJax, a non-profit organization formed in 1993 to improve access to specialty health care for low-income and uninsured patients. Trotter also founded the Jacksonville Community Nutcracker Ballet and currently serves as its emeritus president.

1950s

1961: George E. Bandy of Paradise, Ariz., sadly reports that wife Shirley Ann passed away on December 5, 2022. They were sweethearts since high school and had been married 67 years. They have three children, six grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. 1964: Eric D. Schmitter of Santa Monica, Calif., has retained his medical license since retiring 10 years ago from the practice of orthopaedics, working as an expert witness for Social Security. He enjoys pickleball, tennis, cycling, an occasional skiing. He and wife Marilyn have been married for 55 years. 1965: Sig L. Sattenspiel of Manalapan, N.J., is pursuing his passions of playing jazz piano, studying military and biographical history, playing golf, spending time with family, and travel since retiring after 49 years of being enamored by the art and science of medicine and plastic surgery. 1966: Henry S. Crist has retired from the department of pathology at Penn State College of Medicine after a rewarding 15 years in academic medicine. He’s moved to Colorado to be near one of his daughters. 1968: Elliot Cohen of Colorado Springs, Colo., is retired from the private practice of psychiatry as well as 24 years with the Navy, Army, and finally the US Air Force holding the rank of lieutenant colonel.

1960s

1970: David H. Berman of Mill Valley, Calif., is enjoying retirement with gardening, reading more than ever, cooking, and wine tasting with good friends. He misses working with patients but was glad to retire on his terms rather than by a tap on the shoulder by an administrator. John H. Poehlman of Dalton, Ga., is fully retired from his cardiology practice. He and Sally have been married for 50 years, have two grandchildren, and he enjoys woodworking, photography, travel, and reading. 1971: Maury L. Fradkin reports that he and wife Janice are active and happy living in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Michael J. Maloney of Cincinnati is grateful to Maryland for giving him a career that he still enjoys doing. 1972: Jed S. Shapiro of Boulder, Colo., sits on the board of the Colorado Foundation for Universal Health Care, where he works to create a single payer, non-profit system to pay for health care in Colorado and the U.S.A. He believes it will result in improved health care for all. Deborah M. Shlian of Boca Raton, Fla., published her second book profiling women scientists entitled Lessons Learned: Stories from Women Leaders in STEM. Contributing authors include Maryland’s Claire Fraser, PhD, Ronna Hertzano, PhD, and Aisha Iyer, MD/PhD. The book is published by the American Association for Physician Leadership. Brian J. Winter of Ellicott City, Md., is again practicing part time in ophthalmology. He says it was wonderful seeing classmates at last year’s reunion and hopes the upcoming “redo” will go off without a hitch. 1973: Michael Zimring of Ellicott City, Md., is retiring from his primary care practice but continuing with travel medicine, providing vaccinations and consultations to international travelers. 1975: Darvin L. Hege of Atlanta retired from the practice of psychiatry after 44 years of practice. Charles F. Hoesch of Havre de Grace, Md., recently published an article on Dr. Joseph Warren, a revolutionary war hero who died on Breeds Hill in 1775. Havre

1970s

[27][29]

de Grace has roads named after heroes of the revolution, including Warren Street. Edward L. Morris of The Villages, Fla., is enjoying retirement since December 2021, playing golf and pickleball, woodworking, traveling, and spending more time with his children and grandchildren. 1976: Michael L. Jefferies of Williamsburg, Va., is a Locum Tenens psychiatrist providing outpatient psychiatric and addiction services at the Arlington County CSB, Virginia. William D. King of Coos Bay, Ore., recently retired from the practice of internal medicine. Martin Sheridan of Baltimore is section chief of pulmonary and director for the MMG Pulmonary and Sleep Clinic at MedStar Baltimore North at Franklin Square. 1977: Dahlia Hirsch of Abingdon, Md., is teaching pickleball and, in doing so, is raising money for those in need of food and for the arts. She has won gold in numerous national tournaments including Outdoor Nationals in California at the 4.5/5.0 level, Indoor Nationals, and the National Senior Games of America in doubles and mixed doubles. She is certified as a coach and instructor and teaches clinics at their home (with husband Barry Wohl), where their students donate money to the Hirsch-Wohl Fund benefitting the Community Foundation of Harford County. 1979: Burt I. Feldman of Rockville, Md., is semi-retired from the practice of internal medicine and is enjoying spending more time with wife Flora and his son who lives in Norfolk, Va. Alan R. Gaby of Concord, N.H., is working on the third edition of his textbook Nutritional Medicine which should be in print in 2024. He wishes classmates good health and happiness. Glenn M. Koteen of Bend, Ore., retired in 2022 after 38 years in clinical gastroenterology. His plans include travel, family, and time for relaxation to smell the roses. Richard Lebow of Selbyville, Del., reports that son Hunter will be graduating from Bucknell University in spring with a degree in business analytics and computer science.

1980s

1980: Craig A. Dickman

of Potomac, Md., announces his retirement from vice chair of Capital Women’s Care. He plans to spend more time with his six grandchildren, fishing, skiing, and boating. Paul Driscoll of Indianapolis retired from the practice of family medicine with the Franciscan

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

classnotes Physician Network after 38 years. During the last eight years he was also executive medical director of his private group. Louis W. Solomon continues practicing psychiatry at the University of Florida Gainesville doing inpatient, outpatient, and ECT. He adds that the residents and students continue teaching him a lot. Solomon enjoys collecting art, has been a season ticket holder for Gator baseball for 15 years, and always boasts about his alma mater. Ladd Spiegel of New York City continues to practice child, adolescent, and adult psychiatry in Manhattan with some teaching at Weill-Cornell Medical School. He adds that the pandemic has been a difficult but also a great time to be a child psychiatrist. 1982: Robert J. Fadden of Sewickley, Pa., has reduced his work in internal medicine, allowing himself time for reflection, music, and travel. Laura L. Stephenson and husband Joseph have sold their B&B and perennial plant nursery after her retirement from OB/GYN in 2019. They now spend summers in Montana and winters at their

home in central Pennsylvania.1983: Mark E. Richards of Rockville, Md., published Nobody Wants You Healthy, fulfilling Dean John Dennis’s prophecy that one half of what was taught in medical school was wrong! Ronald H. Schuster and wife Phyllis of Lutherville, Md., are enjoying their two grandchildren Logan and Skylar. Eric W. Scott of Gainesville, Fla., continues in the solo practice of neurological surgery with focus on lumbar and cervical spine. Wife Jenny runs the practice. Two of their children live in Oregon and Iowa with their two grandchildren, and their oldest moving back to Gainesville last year. Lee Kleiman, and wife Laura, ’85, of Severna Park, Md., are busy traveling and hanging out with daughters Hannah, ’18, Sasha, and Eliana. Hannah is an attending ER physician at Anne Arundel Medical Center. Lee continues as medical director at Severn River MediSpa and Anne Arundel ENT Facial Plastic Surgery. 1986: Lisa A. Scheinin of Redondo Beach, Calif., remains happily retired. She’s recently vis-

ited Mongolia, Australia, New Zealand, and Ethiopia to ride every roller coaster in each country. Egypt and Madagascar are next. 1987: C. Patrick Fitch of Clarksville, Tenn., is teaching public health at his local university, following retirement from ophthalmology practice. He and wife Ruth are enjoying travel, painting, hiking, and working at the local food kitchen. 1988: Raymond Wittstadt of Glen Arm, Md., retired from surgery after 34 years with the Curtis National Hand Center and Greater Chesapeake Hand to Shoulder. 1989: Neri M. Cohen of Baltimore is president for the non-profit foundation Center for Healthcare Innovation. He is focusing on innovations that leverage technology to activate and engage patients to participate more fully in their journey to better health and wellness and leverage clinicians so they can spend more of their efforts on why they went into medicine—human touch, empathy, hope, and healing. Personally, Cohen recently welcomed another grandson and a daughter-in-law into the family. Steven

1990s

1983: Members of the class dined with Maryland’s new dean Mark T. Gladwin, MD, in Baltimore on January 12. They included Richard F. Neville, G. Thomas Grace, Christopher M. O’Conner, George M. Boyer, Dr. Gladwin, and Harry A. Oken.

Medicine Bulletin Fall Spring 2022 2023



[30]

Daviss of Baltimore is chief medical officer for Optum Maryland (Medicaid), Baltimore City Medical Society Board, and an editorial board member for the upcoming 4th edition of The ASAM Criteria. Daviss is a past president of the Maryland-DC Society of Addiction Medicine and recently started a collaborative care interest group for MPS).

1990: Jeffrey Rosenfeld of Yucaipa, Calif., is professor of neurology and associate chair of neurology at Loma Linda University Health where he is medical director and founder of the Center for Restorative Neurology. 1991: Angela S. Guarda of Baltimore is professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. 1992: Virginia Powel of Roanoke, Va., is in her 14th year as medical director of the PICU at Carilion Children’s Hospital. Desiring more of a wellness focus, she obtained her obesity medicine board certification in 2020 and this year started the Pediatric Healthy Lifestyle Clinic with Carilion. 1993: Mitra Ahadpour of Potomac, Md., is principal deputy director of the Office of Translational Sciences at the Food and Drug Administration. While at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, she and her team developed the Rapid Opioid Alert and Response (ROAR), which the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program is now using to develop the Overdose Mapping and Application used nationwide to decrease overdoses. 1994: Jeremy P. Finkelstein of Houston reports that he and wife Caroline are empty nesters, with one child at UVA and another at Texas A&M. He continues adjusting to the change of pace as he continues practicing emergency medicine. Beth Hogans of Pikesville, Md., published her third book, Pain Medicine at a Glance. She is currently creating an App to help veterans and others with pain self-management. 1996: Eric J. Carr of Owings Mills, Md., has joined classmate Ellie Goldbloom at her practice PartnerMD. This follows 14 years as lead physician at GBMC Health Partners in Timonium. Mary G. Ripple has moved to Florida and is a medical examiner for Volusia County—Daytona Beach. 1999: Lisa M. Soule of Bethesda, Md., retired from her career at the FDA and is doing some consulting, learning Italian, and

1990s

spending time with friends and family—this following the sudden passing of husband Bart in April 2022.

2000s

2000: Joanne Saxour of Daytona Beach, Fla., is the family medicine education director at the Florida State University College of Medicine, in charge of coordinating the family medicine training and curriculum for third- and four-year students across all campuses of the College of Medicine. Matthew Sedgley of Frederick, Md., continues working with Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles and the Baltimore Running Festival in sports medicine. 2001: Camille Hammond of Reisterstown, Md., reports that her triplets are seniors in high school. Commander Elizabeth Thomas Reeves recently retired from active duty with the U.S. Navy after 20 years of service in the fields of family and preventive medicine and has returned home to Maryland, living in Silver Spring. 2002: Col. Matthew Keysor of O’Fallon, Ill., chief medical officer at the Scott Air Force Base Military Treatment Facility, is retiring from the military this summer after 21 years of service. He, wife Beth, and daughters Laura, age 14, and Megan, age 10, are excited to start the next chapter of their lives in Colorado Springs, Colo., where Keysor will be joining a medical practice. 2005: Danica Novacic of Fulton, Md., works in the undiagnosed diseases program of the National Human Genome Research Institute at NIH. 2006: Nadia Chaudhri has moved to McLean, Va., to ease her husband’s commute and allow for more family time together. She joined the FDA and volunteers at a free clinic to keep up her clinical skills. 2009: Erin I. Martin of San Diego is an anesthesiologist at UCSD who serves as the OB anesthesia fellowship director. She and husband Andrew, have three sons ages eight, six, and four. 2014: Verdrana Hodzic is director of fellowships, mentorship, and medical education at the American Psychiatric Association Foundation in Washington, D.C. 2016: Laura Bomze Royal of Colton, Calif., welcomed her first baby in July 2022.

2010s

[3131]

Our Medical Alumni Association Mission: The Medical Alumni Association of the University of Maryland, Inc., in continuous operation since 1875, is an independent charitable organization dedicated to supporting the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Davidge Hall. Board Structure: The MAA is governed by a board consisting of five officers and nine board members. Each year more than 100 alumni participate on its seven standing committees and special anniversary class reunion committees. Membership: Annual dues are $85. Dues are complimentary the first four years after graduation and can be extended until the graduate has completed training. Dues are waived for members reaching their 50th graduation anniversary or have turned 70 years of age. Revenues support salaries for two full-time and two part-time employees, as well as general office expenses to maintain the alumni data base, produce the quarterly Bulletin magazine, stage social events for alumni and students, administer a revolving student loan fund, and oversee conservation of Davidge Hall and maintain its museum. Annual Fund: The association administers the annual fund on behalf of the medical school. Gift revenues support student loans and scholarships, lectureships, professorships, capital projects—including Davidge Hall conservation—plus direct support to departments for special projects and unrestricted support to the dean. The Morton M. Krieger, MD, Medical Alumni Center is located on the second floor of Davidge Hall, located at 522 W. Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD, 21201-1636, telephone 410.706.7454, fax 410.706.3658, website www.medicalalumni.org, and email [email protected].

UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF OF MARYLAND MARYLAND

Recollections

A look back at America’s fifth oldest medical school and its illustrious alumni

200 Years Ago }

In 1823, Maryland became the first medical school in America to build its own hospital for clinical instruction. As most schools were placing more emphasis on classroom instruction, instructors believed it was critical to provide clinical experience as part of a medical education. The 60-bed Baltimore Infirmary was financed by members of the faculty at a cost of $14,109 with another $2,520 for furnishings. Nurses were provided by the Mount St. Mary’s Sisters of Charity in Emmitsburg.

In 1893, James R. Brown, class of 1875, the first head of the genitourinary clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital, became the first physician to catheterize the male ureter. The procedure was performed at its outpatient clinic and is regarded as a pioneering procedure in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the kidney. Brown died two years later of tuberculosis.

{ 130 Years Ago { 30 Years Ago

In 1993, 150 years after his death, the Medical Alumni Association placed a marker at the grave of Nathaniel Potter, MD in Greenmount Cemetery. From 1826 until 1839, Potter fought the state to return control of the University of Maryland to its independent board of regents. The legal battles to accomplish this depleted Potter’s fortune, and the founder and former dean of the medical school had been buried in an unmarked grave.

Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023



[32]

Franklin E. Leslie, ’41 INTERNAL MEDICINE

Towson, Md. December 21, 2022

Dr. Leslie interned at the Hospital for the Women of Maryland in Baltimore and received residency training at Union Memorial Hospital. Afterwards he entered private practice, retiring at age 72. In retirement, he volunteered at Shepherd’s Clinic and joined colleagues from Union Memorial Hospital to treat the uninsured. Leslie enjoyed jogging and tennis which continued into his late 90s. Preceded in death by wife Mazie and daughter Elizabeth, he is survived by two daughters, three granddaughters, and five great-grandchildren.

Roger D. Scott, ’51 SURGERY

Fort Myers, Fla. January 21, 2023

Maryland was the location of Dr. Scott’s internship and residency training, although residency was interrupted by two years of service in the U.S. Air Force. He moved back to his home state of Florida, setting up a private practice in Fort Myers. Scott had privileges at Lee Memorial Hospital, Fort Myers Community Hospital, the Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center, HealthPark Medical Center, and Jones Walker Hospital. Retiring in 2005, he spent the next nine years working at Hope Hospice and supported cancer specialists. In retirement Scott also cofounded the Museum of Medical History at Edison State College, now Florida Southwestern State College. Preceded in death by wife Dorothy, Scott is survived by three children.

Irving I. Kramer, ’52 PEDIATRICS

Silver Spring, Md. January 20, 2023

Upon graduation, Dr. Kramer interned and received residency training at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore. He practiced privately in Baltimore and, in retirement, worked part time with the State of Maryland evaluating child disability

Richard F. Leighton, ’55 claims. Kramer enjoyed reading, walking, playing tennis, and travel. Preceded in death by wife Miriam, Kramer is survived by two children, four grandchildren, and two great-grandsons.

Robert H. Ellis, ’54 INTERNAL MEDICINE

Fort Collins, Colo. November 22, 2022

After an internship at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Dr. Ellis entered the U.S. Army and was stationed in West Germany. He was discharged in 1957 with the rank of captain. Ellis received one year of residency training at St. Luke’s Hospital and then returned to the University of Utah for the balance of training. He maintained a private internal medicine practice in Fort Collins from 1963 to 1995 while serving on the staff of Poudre Valley Hospital with an affiliation with Malcolm Baldridge Hospital. In retirement, Ellis continued part time at Poudre Valley Hospital doing ECG interpretation until completely retiring in 2014 after 51 years of service. In 2016, he traveled to Scotland to research his ancestry. Ellis was an enthusiastic supporter of Colorado State University and University of North Dakota athletics. He remained active with biking, yardwork, and woodworking. Survivors include wife Grace, two daughters, one son, and one granddaughter.

Vernon M. Gelhaus, ’55 OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY

Catonsville, Md. January 18, 2022

Bon Secours Hospital in Baltimore was the location of Dr. Gelhaus’s training in obstetrics and gynecology. After 25 years of private practice in Baltimore, he joined St. Agnes Hospital as a physician advisor to the quality and utilization department for another 22 years. Gelhaus was a member of the John Beale Davidge Alliance 1807 Circle, Maryland’s society for major donors. He enjoyed reading and travel. Survivors include wife Leona, two children, and five grandchildren.

[33]

CARDIOLOGY

Savannah, Ga. February 5, 2023

Dr. Leighton remained at Maryland for internship, followed by three years with the U.S. Navy where he graduated from the School of Aviation Medicine and served as a flight surgeon with Airborne Early Warning Squadron One based in Hawaii and later Guam. Upon discharge, he completed residency training and a fellowship in cardiology at Ohio State University Hospital in Columbus. Leighton remained at Ohio State where he directed the coronary care unit from 1968 to 1969 and from 1970 to 1974 directed its cardiac catheterization laboratories. He moved to the Medical College of Toledo in 1974, serving as professor of medicine, chief of cardiology, vice president of academic affairs and, from 1990 to 1996, dean of the medical school. Relocating to Savannah, Ga., in 1998 to join the faculty at Mercer University School of Medicine, Leighton chaired the Memorial Health University Medical Center Institutional Review Board for 20 years. Appointments included professor of medicine and medical director of the center for heart disease prevention at St. Joseph’s Candler Health System until retirement in 2015. The author of more than 90 publications in the field of cardiovascular medicine, Leighton also published six books reflecting on his career, family history, and poetry. He enjoyed swimming, biking, kayaking, golf, tennis, travel, and French cooking. Leighton was a member of the John Beale Davidge Alliance Silver Circle, Maryland’s society for major donors. Preceded in death by wife Frances, he is survived by one daughter, two sons, three grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter. Leighton was preceded in death by brother Herbert, ’53.

James P. Neeley, Jr., ’55 SURGERY

Logan, Utah November 30, 2022

After graduation, Dr. Neeley interned at Salt Lake General Hospital and received residency training at University of Utah Medical School and Associated Hospitals. He practiced surgery in the

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Salt Lake City area, serving as president of the Cache Velley Medical Society. Neeley also served as president of the Sons of Utah Pioneers. He enjoyed participating in sporting activities including tennis, golf, swimming, skiing, jogging, and basketball. He is survived by wife Betty.

Ann M. Ward, ’55 PEDIATRICS

Williamsburg, Va. October 11, 2022

Dr. Ward was one of four women in her medical school class, and upon graduation trained at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, N.Y. She practiced for 39 years in Long Island while raising seven children. Ward retired as medical director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Clinic in Wyandanch which served the surrounding underserved community. In 1997, she relocated to Williamsburg, Va., to enjoy travel to Ireland, tending to her dogs, and reading. In addition to her seven children, Ward is survived by husband Gerald, 18 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

John Z. Williams, ’56 ANESTHESIOLOGY

Aurora, Ill. November 24, 2022

While in high school, Dr. Williams joined the U.S. Navy as an electronics technician. Upon medical school graduation, he trained in Joliet, Ill., and afterwards enjoyed a career at Copley Memorial Hospital in Aurora. Photography, classical music, and all kinds of electronic gadgetry consumed his free time. Preceded in death by wife Barbara, Williams is survived by two daughters.

Richard C. Reba, ’57 INTERNAL & NUCLEAR MEDICINE

Frederick, Md. December 30, 2022

Upon graduation, Dr. Reba served in the U.S. Army, interning at Tripler Army Hospital in Honolulu and later serving on active duty at an evacuation hospital in Vietnam. He completed residency

Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023

training at Maryland and was a fellow in nuclear medicine at Johns Hopkins from 1961 to 1962. Appointments included associate professor at Johns Hopkins University for four years; chair of the department of nuclear medicine at Washington Hospital Center for six years; professor of nuclear medicine at George Washington University 20 years; professor of radiology at the University of Chicago for 11 years; and professor of nuclear medicine at Georgetown University for 12 years. He retired in 2014. Survivors include wife Diane and one son.

Ayland M. Ottinger, ’58 INTERNAL MEDICINE

Wilsonville, Ore. December 19, 2022

Dr. Ottinger interned in Portland at Oregon Health & Science University, followed by residency training at the Portland VA Medical Center. He served in the U.S. Air Force as an officer and physician stationed at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. Ottinger returned to Portland in 1964, practicing privately in northwest Portland until retirement in 1996. He enjoyed hiking, gardening, camping, birding, and mushroom hunting. He also enjoyed classical music and regularly attended the Oregon Symphony. Survivors include wife Judy, two children, and four grandchildren. He was preceded in death by daughter Katie.

Gerson Asrael, ’59 UROLOGY

Atlanta November 17, 2022

The Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago was the location of Dr. Asrael’s internship, followed by residency training at Baylor University in Houston. For the next two years he served in the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant commander at Bethesda Naval Hospital. He practiced privately in Charlotte at the Nalle Clinic for 31 years, retiring in 1998. Asrael served as the unofficial mohel of the local Jewish community, working with a rabbi on hundreds of circumcisions across multiple generations. He enjoyed classical music, golf, travel, and hiking. Survivors include wife Wilma, four children including David, ’99, and seven grandchildren.



[34]

Mark E. Bradley, ’62 OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE

Bethesda, Md. October 4, 2022

Commissioned in the U.S. Navy upon graduation, Dr. Bradley was among 54 officers, enlisted personnel, and civilians selected to serve as aquanauts and explore the mysteries of “inner space.” His military career was dedicated to submarine and diving medicine as he conducted investigations of human ventilation under pressure as well as studies relating to Sealab III and the Deep Submergence Systems Project. Published papers included topics such as decompression sickness and air embolism, as well as the clinical aspects of hyperbaric oxygen treatment. In 1990, he was awarded the Albert R. Behnke Award of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Society for exceptional accomplishments in medical and scientific research. Retiring as a captain after 22 years of service, Bradley practiced occupational and environmental medicine for the balance of his career. He was preceded in death by wife Patricia and survived by one daughter and one grandchild. He was the son of J. Edmund Bradley, MD, chair of Maryland’s department of pediatrics from 1948 to 1965.

Jon B. Closson, ’62 PHYSICAL MEDICINE & REHABILITATION

Rochester, Minn. December 3, 2022

Dr. Closson interned at Akron City Hospital in Akron, Ohio, and received residency training in internal medicine at Naval Hospital Philadelphia. He remained with the U.S. Navy until 1971 when he joined the Multi-Special Clinic in Defiance, Ohio, as an internist. In 1981, he moved to Rochester, Minn., to receive residency training in physical medicine & rehabilitation, and from 1983 until retirement in 2002, he was a consultant at the Mayo Clinic in this department. During his career, Closson organized and led four medical teams to work in a small hospital in rural Haiti and led nine trips to China to teach in a rehabilitation department at a provincial hospital in Nanjing. He enjoyed volunteer work, enrolling in enrichment classes, travel, golf, and tennis. Closson is survived by wife Diane, three children,

three stepchildren, nine grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his first wife Bonnie.

Herbert Gaither, ’62 INTERNAL MEDICINE

Camp Hill, Pa. December 16, 2022

After a rotating internship at Harrisburg Hospital in Pennsylvania, Dr. Gaither spent two years as a captain and general medical officer with the U.S. Air Force. Upon discharge, he returned to Harrisburg Hospital to complete training in internal medicine. Gaither practiced privately for more than 30 years in the Harrisburg/Camp Hill area, serving as president of the staff at Harrisburg Hospital and board member there and at Harrisburg Psychiatric Institute. He was a clinical associate professor of medicine at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center. Gaither retired in 1998. He was a member of the John Beale Davidge Alliance Elm Society, Maryland’s society for major donors. He enjoyed watercolor painting and duplicate bridge. Survivors include wife Kathryn and one son; he was preceded in death by son Herbert.

Paul A. Kohlepp, ’62 OPHTHALMOLOGY

Naples, Fla. February 10, 2023

Dr. Kohlepp’s internship was served while in the U.S Air Force at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, with a later assignment at RAF Bentwaters located along England’s eastern coast. After four years of military service Kohlepp completed residency training in ophthalmology at Maryland before opening the Baltimore Washington Eye Center in Anne Arundel County. He later expanded his practice to include the region’s first ambulatory ophthalmic surgery center. Kohlepp retired in 1997 to enjoy sailing, golf, and travel. He was a member of the John Beale Davidge Alliance Elm Society, Maryland’s society for major donors. Survivors include wife Margaret, three children, three stepchildren, and 13 grandchildren.

Donald D. Pet, ’62 PSYCHIATRY

East Hartford, Conn. December 22, 2022

After an internship at York Hospital in York, Pa., Dr. Pet received residency training in psychiatry at Johns Hopkins and served in the U.S. Public Health Service in Lexington, Ky. He relocated to the northeast, working for the State of Connecticut where he started an alcohol and substance abuse residential treatment program that trained exaddicts to become counselors. Pet also entered private practice and developed a community center providing individual and group counseling. His second career was in real estate ownership and management. Pet enjoyed collecting art in the form of wood, glass, rugs, and minerals. Survivors include wife Marilyn, three sons, seven children, and great-grandchildren.

John C. Dumler, Jr., ’65 DERMATOLOGY

Easton, Md. January 9, 2023

Dr. Dumler remained at Maryland for internship, then spent one year at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate Division for residency training before completing training back at Maryland. He became the first full-time dermatologist to practice in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in 1970 where he remained until retirement in 2011. For a number of years afterwards he volunteered at a local free clinic. Dumler was a member of the John Beale Davidge Alliance Silver Circle, the school’s society for major donors. He enjoyed travel and model trains. Survivors include wife Barbara, three children, and nine grandchildren. Dumler was the son of John C. Dumler, ’32.

George Peters, ’65 RADIOLOGY

Thousand Oaks, Calif. October 14, 2021

The University of Southern California Medical Center was the location Dr. Peters’ internship and residency training in radiology. From 1970 to 1974,

[35]

he pursued an additional residency in diagnostic radiology at UCLA Medical Center. Peters was licensed to practice in New York, California, and Arizona. He last practiced in Los Angeles, affiliated with the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. Peter was a member of the John Beale Davidge Alliance Silver Circle, Maryland’s society for major donors.

Louis E. Grenzer, ’66 CARDIOLOGY

Cockeysville, Md., January 3, 2023

Dr. Grenzer interned and received the first year of residency training at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore. Completion of his residency and a subsequent fellowship in cardiology occurred back at Maryland. Grenzer spent six years with the Maryland Army National Guard from 1967 to 1973, but began a private practice in Baltimore in 1971. He had a five-year stint with MidAtlantic Cardiovascular from 2005 to 2010 and then returned to individual practice until retirement in 2021. During his career, Grenzer wrote a study and review guide for the cardiology board exam and served as clinical dean at Spartan Health Sciences University in St. Lucia. He coached youth basketball and softball and was a member of the Towson Chess Club. Grenzer was an accomplished banjo player and enjoyed videography. Survivors include wife Jeanne, two sons, four daughters, and 16 grandchildren.

Albert T. Miller, ’66 GENERAL PRACTICE PRINCESS

Anne, Md. December 16, 2022

Upon graduation, Dr. Miller trained at South Baltimore General Hospital. He practiced as an emergency room general practitioner at Prince Georges General Hospital, Peninsula Regional Medical Center, and Kings Daughters Hospital. Miller enjoyed outdoor water activities, bird watching, singing, and classical music. Preceded in death by wife Marilyn, he is survived by three children and four grandchildren.

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Jon M. Valigorsky, ’68 HEMATOLOGY PATHOLOGY

Pittsfield, Mass. October 3, 2022

Dr. Valigorsky remained at Maryland for training in hematology. In 1976, he was named associate professor of pathology for the University of Massachusetts teaching program at Berkshire Medical Center. He served as the local medical examiner and was a board member for Berkshire Health Systems before retiring in 2008. Valigorsky enjoyed collecting Caucasian rugs, rhododendrons, and automobiles. He was a member of the John Beale Davidge Alliance Elm Society, Maryland’s society for major donors. Preceded in death by wife Helga, he is survived by one daughter.

James J. Welsh, ’68 PEDIATRICS

Mooresville, N.C. January 1, 2023

Prior to medical school, Dr. Welsh earned a pharmacy degree from Maryland. Upon medical school graduation, he was commissioned in the U.S. Army serving as a pediatrician at Brooks Army Medical Center in Texas and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where he was head of pediatrics. After discharge he entered the private practice of pediatrics in Montgomery County where he remained until retirement. Welsh was an avid tennis player, winning several club championships at Congressional Country Club. Survivors include wife Geneale, one daughter, and two stepchildren.

Edward J. Young, ’68 INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Houston December 28, 2020

Washington Hospital Center was the location of Dr. Young’s internship. He entered the U.S. Army in 1969, serving until 1976, with residency training occurring at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Young was a fellow afterwards at Georgetown University Medical Center. He was chief of the infectious disease unit at William Beaumont Army Medical Center from 1972 to 1976, and spent the remainder of his career at the

Medicine Bulletin Spring 2023

Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston. Appointments included staff physician, chief of staff, and chief of infection control. Edwards enjoyed astronomy—particularly tracking solar eclipses—and book collecting. He was preceded in death by wife Janice.

Susan T. Strahan, ’79 PSYCHIATRY

Baltimore December 28, 2022

Upon graduation, Dr. Strahan remained at Maryland for training including a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry. She joined Maryland’s faculty as a clinical assistant professor, although her primary role was directing psychiatric training for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Strahan also had a private practice in Towson and was a member of the staff at the Baltimore Veterans Medical Center. For more than a decade, she served on the Maryland Board of Physician Quality Assurance. Strahan played golf and enjoyed all sports. She was preceded in death by father John F. Strahan, ’49.

FAC U LT Y Joseph W. Burnett, MD DERMATOLOGY

Baltimore March 2, 2023

Joseph W. Burnett, MD, was chair of the department of dermatology from 1977 to 2003. Born in Oil City, Pa., and raised in Lancaster, Dr. Burnett received an undergraduate degree from Yale College in 1954 and medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1958. He completed two residencies—internal medicine at Johns Hopkins University and dermatology at Harvard Massachusetts General Hospital where he also served as a virology research fellow. During his tenure as chair of dermatology at Maryland from 1977 until 2003, he elevated the division to department status by developing research laboratories and began recruiting full-time physicians to teach in the program. Upon his retirement an endowed professorship was established in his honor. A gifted swimmer who later enjoyed exercising in the Chesapeake

[36]

Bay, Burnett was an expert in marine venoms—particularly Jellyfish toxins— authoring more than 300 papers on the subject. His interest in virology also led to the advances in an antiviral herpes therapy and development of a herpes vaccine. He was the co-author of Clinical Dermatology for Students and Practitioners, Dictionary of Dermatological Therapy, and Venomous, Poisonous Marine Animals. Burnett served as editor-in-chief of Cutis. Survivors include wife Kitsie, three sons including Henry, ’89, and Mark, ’98, and six grandchildren.

Mark J. Cowan, MD PULMONOLOGY

Baltimore January 31, 2023

Mark J. Cowan, MD, was an associate professor in the department of medicine since 2002. He joined Maryland after completing his pulmonary and critical care fellowship and research training at the National Institutes of Health and the University of Michigan. Cowan was regarded for extensive research collaborations, teaching, and mentoring. He was active at the Baltimore VA Medical Center where he served as director of the MICU and chair of the VAMC Critical Care Committee. His key interests were in the management of sepsis and ARDS, and his translational research resulted in key discoveries related to the role of aerosols in viral lung infection and the epigenetics of lung cancer. Cowan was a sports enthusiast who played basketball and tennis, enjoyed watching football and coaching his son’s lacrosse team. Survivors include wife Lauren, and two sons.

IN MEMORIAM

Memorial gifts are warmly received by: Medical Alumni Association of the University of Maryland, Inc. 522 West Lombard Street Baltimore, Maryland, 21201-1636, or for more information simply call 410.706.7454.

Leaders in cancer-eradicating radiation for pancreatic tumors. A better state of care. A team from the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) is participating in clinical research with the potential to reimagine the standard of care for patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). The first-in-the-world study is currently under early feasibility to evaluate a new, noninvasive device that delivers heat energy in conjunction with standard chemotherapy for the treatment of PDAC with and without metastatic disease. Studies suggest that hyperthermia boosts the efficacy of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in several ways. At UMMC, deep-tissue thermal therapy can be especially useful in difficult-to-reach cancers in the abdominal and pelvic regions, including cancer of the bladder, rectum, cervix, ovaries, pancreas, and soft tissues. Studies have found that adding thermal therapy to standard treatments can significantly shrink tumors and can improve survival for some patients. Thermal therapy — in the range of 104° up to 110° F — sensitizes tumor cells to chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Additionally, heat has been shown to enhance the anti-tumor immune response.

Learn more at umm.edu | Visit our Physician Resource Channel at physicians.umm.edu

For More Information: 410-328-6080 [email protected]

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND MEDICAL CENTER

Affiliated with the University of Maryland School of Medicine

Nonprofit U.S. Postage PAID Baltimore, MD Permit No. 3800

Medical Alumni Association OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, INC.

Morton M. Krieger, MD, Medical Alumni Center 522 West Lombard Street Baltimore, MD 21201-1636 www.medicalalumni.org

Return Service Requested

Bu etin Spring 2023

www.medicalalumni.org CLASSES ENDING IN 3s AND 8s

148th

MEDICAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

REUNION

2023

MAY 5-6

REGISTER NOW ONLINE AT