Spring 2021 e-News About and For Alumni

May 19, 2021

STUDENT NEWS

The Broadway Haven Players—formerly known as the Bard Hall Players—staged their first online performance this month. Read more.

Match Day 2021 was not completely remote this year. Students received emails about their matches at noon but were invited to the Vagelos Education Center later in the day for a physically distanced celebration. Read more.

Read about this year’s graduation and read profiles of a few members of the VP&S Class of 2021.

The new two-year genetic counseling program graduated its first class. Read more.

VP&S students Kate E. Lee and Hueyjong Shih co-authored an opinion piece, “In light of anti-Asian attacks, medicine needs to listen to Asian American trainees,” for the STAT news site. Read more.

 

VP&S AND CUIMC NEWS

The stretch of 168th Street between Broadway and Fort Washington Avenue has been co-named Healthcare Heroes Way in recognition of the staff and faculty at the medical center who have worked on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and all health care workers who call Washington Heights and Inwood home. Read about the ceremony.

This year marks the 100-year anniversary of the first women to receive MD degree from Columbia. Read more.

The Community Wellness Center on Columbia’s Manhattanville campus held pop-up events to vaccinate community residents this spring. Read more.

The long successful SPURS program—the Summer Program for Underrepresented Students—is expanding to provide training in cardiovascular medicine. Read more.

The Department of Emergency Medicine has launched a lecture series to honor the memory of ED doctor Lorna M. Breen. Read more.

Columbia faculty and staff participated in a state public service announcement series to encourage people to get their COVID-19 vaccinates. Read more.

The U.S. News & World Report’s graduate school rankings came out in March. VP&S ranked No. 4—its highest ranking ever—among research-oriented medical schools. Read more.

Brian Fallon’85 will lead a new Lyme disease treatment center and clinical trials network. Read more.

 

OF HISTORIC INTEREST

Megumi Yamaguchi Shinoda’33 was the first Asian American woman to receive an MD degree from Columbia and the first person of Japanese ancestry to intern at Los Angeles County General Hospital. Dr. Shinoda served the Little Tokyo-Nihonmachi community in Los Angeles before and after World War II. She was honored as a pioneer by the Japanese American National Museum. Later training in psychiatry, she had a thriving psychiatric practice in Hollywood until retiring at age 88.

Read a New York Times book review that mentions the Apgar score, developed by Virginia Apgar’33.

 

A SELECTION OF CLASS NOTES

Read about the career of plastic surgeon Kenneth A. Marshall’64.

Karen Antman’70 will receive an honorary degree at the May 24 Muhlenberg College commencement. Read more.

Kenneth J. Tomecki’72 is president of the American Academy of Dermatology. Read more.

Adele Wolfson’79 PhD has been selected as a Fellow of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Read more.

The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions gave Ian C. Gilchrist’82 Master Interventionalist of SCAI designation. Read more.

Read a newspaper profile of Eugene Krauss’82.

Leon “Lee” Jones’83 has been appointed dean for medical education at Georgetown University School of Medicine. Read more.

Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts named Jeffrey Hoffman’85 chief medical officer. Read more.

Elliot Ehrich’86 was appointed president of Skyhawk Therapeutics. Read more.

David F.M. Brown’89, chief of emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, became interim president and CEO at Cooley Dickinson Health Care in Northampton, Massachusetts. Read more.

David L. Skaggs’89 has joined Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. Read more.

Jonathan Terdiman’89 is among 10 gastroenterologists profiled in Becker’s “10 GI leaders to know.” Read more.

View a video featuring Sharon Weissman’91, chief of infectious diseases at Prisma Health in Columbia, South Carolina.

Read a profile of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s Deborah Korenstein’93.

Susan Bukata’95 has been named chair of orthopedic surgery at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and UC San Diego Health. Read more.

Kathie-Ann Joseph’95 is the first Black woman appointed professor of surgery at NYU Langone/NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Read more.

Read a story about “American Ninja Warrior” co-host Matt Iseman’98.

Daniel Sciubba’02 has joined Northwell Health in several positions. Read more.

Michelle Au’03, who was elected to the Georgia State Senate in November, wrote an opinion piece published in the Washington Post. Read more.  

Megan Ranney’04 was one of several physicians who shared Match Day memories with AAMCNews and offered advice for the Class of 2021. Read more.

BioRestorative Therapies appointed Nickolay V. Kukekov’05 PhD to its board of directors. Read more.

Jenny Thompson’06 was featured in New Hampshire magazine’s Women’s History Month series that profiled three famous athletes from New Hampshire. Read more.

The New York Academy of Medicine named Julia Iyasere’08 to its board of trustees. Read more.

Juliet Morrison’09 PhD has been named to the Bard College board of trustees. Read more.

Read about Erica Farrand’10’s participation on an American Thoracic Society panel discussion about systemic racism in academia. Read more.

Rosemary Ku’10 has joined Better Health as vice president of medical affairs. Read more.

A Washington Post live event on May 10 on “Coronavirus: Vaccines & Variants” included Vin Gupta’11. Read more.

Read about orthopedic surgeon Geoffrey Konopka’11.

Three recent graduates—Norissa Haynes’13, Mili Mehta’16, and Benjamin Lee’17—are cardiovascular disease fellows at Penn Medicine. Read more.

 

IN MEMORIAM

Daniel Choy’49

Mary E. King’51

Edwin Maynard’53

Earl Wheaton’54

Edward R. Burka’56

Elliot Weser’57

Joseph Clevenger’61

Edward Coates’62

Mary Jeanne Kreek’62 Also read the notice in the Scientist and a recent Rockefeller University magazine story.

Roger Paul Christensen’67          

Stanley Novak’67

Thomas Allyn’74

 

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Note: External links are current at the time of this communication. The Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons is not responsible for the content of external websites.