The winner of UAB’s Grand Challenge research competition at UAB has been announced! The Department of Medicine’s Mona Fouad, MD, MPH (Professor and Director, Preventive Medicine) will lead the charge to raise Alabama’s key health measures out of the bottom 10 in state rankings in the next ten years. With soaring rates of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, the challenge is indeed “grand.”
Fouad’s plan will promote practical individual health behaviors—like choosing more fruits and vegetables, increasing exercise, and smoking cessation—along with public policy initiatives. The Department of Medicine is elated to support this effort to improve health among all Alabamians.
Congratulations to all the worthy finalists, especially Dr. Eric Wallace (Associate Professor, Nephrology) who proposed the “REACH — Reengineering Equal Access to Comprehensive Healthcare” project to advance telehealth in Alabama.
Pictured: Drs. Seth Landefeld, Mona Fouad, and Eric Wallace
More Good News for May 1, 2019
Members of the residency programs at UAB recently visited Philadelphia to represent UAB at the Student National Medical Association Annual Medical Education Conference. Representatives from internal medicine, emergency medicine, anesthesiology, pediatrics, and radiology joined forces to attract recruits from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine. #DiversityMatters
Meagan Gray, MD (Assistant Professor, Gastroenterology and Hepatology) will direct UAB’s first non-alcoholic fatty liver disease clinic. Located at UAB Highlands campus, the clinic operates in collaborative partnership with UAB Weight Loss Medicine to help patients access the very best treatment for their disease.
Paul Sanders, MD (Professor, Nephrology) and colleagues have published a study in JCI on the the pathogenesis of kidney failure in the setting of multiple myeloma. Their work demonstrates that immunoglobulin light chains generate pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrotic kidney injury, which offers a novel approach to preventing kidney failure in patients with multiple myeloma.
John Mountz, MD, PhD (Professor, Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology) has been invited to serve as chairperson of the Hypersensitivity, Autoimmune, and Immune-Mediated Diseases Study Section. This study section of the NIH Center for Scientific Review evaluates applications that address basic and clinical mechanisms of autoimmunity and immune-mediated diseases. Congratulations on this prestigious appointment, Dr. Mountz!
Congratulations to Denise Stanford (Researcher III, Gregory Fleming James Cystic Fibrosis Research Center) who has received a career development award from American Association of University Women (AAUW) Educational Foundation. This is a highly competitive award that supports working professionals who are pursuing graduate studies across diverse fields.
Rich Godby, MD (PGY-2) was recently published in The Pharos discussing medical education and the fourth-year of medical school. The magazine is Alpha Omega Alpha's quarterly journal of scholarly essays addressing a wide array of nontechnical medical subjects, including medical history, ethics, and medical-related literature. Kudos, Dr. Godby!
Coming next week to Medical Grand Rounds. Dr. Jean Anne Larson, FACHE, LFHIMSS, FIISE, Leadership Development Officer for UAB Medicine will present, “Building the Plane While Flying: Balancing Leadership Strategy and Intervention” at noon on Wednesday, May 8, in Margaret Cameron Spain Auditorium.