Archives of Family Medicine News

In the December Minnesota Medicine, Pat Fontaine, MD, MS, was interviewed by her daughter Caitlin Conboy, a first-year University of Minnesota medical student, about balancing a medical career with raising a family.

Jon Hallberg, MD, spoke on MPR’s “All Things Considered” Dec. 14 about the Mitchell Report on baseball and steroid use and was featured in an article in the December AAMC Reporter describing his role as medical analyst on MPR. On Dec. 4, he and Kerri Miller, host of MPR’s “Midmorning,” discussed physicians and the arts. 

Dwenda Gjerdingen, MD, MS, spoke on “Postpartum Depression: Recommendations for Screening and Treatment” at the Powell Center Noontime Lecture Series, Dec. 6. 

Jennifer Welsh, MD, and David Power, MD, MPH, presented at the November 2007 annual meeting of the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington, DC. Dr. Welsh spoke on how the chronic illness care grant provoked changes in residency training at Smiley’s Clinic, and Dr. Power spoke on the impact of race on student well-being. 

David Power, MD, MPH, and colleagues have pioneered a reflective exercise for third- and fourth-year medical students in the Primary Care Clerkship in which students share stories from their rotations. 

Therese Zink, MD, MPH, wrote an article in the November Minnesota Medicine about difficulties physicians and patients of different cultures may have communicating about treatment options. 

Lyle Munneke, MD, a long time friend of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, died of pancreatic cancer November 10 (remembrance on Duluth Web site). He was preceptor in the Rural Physician Associate Program from 1972 until his retirement in 2002, served on various Medical School and department committees during those years, and was a past president of the Minnesota Academy of Family Physicians. The family requests memorials go to the Lyle Munneke Scholarship at the University of Minnesota Medical School Duluth Campus. 

David Satin, MD, was interviewed by the Pioneer Press about pay-for-performance and spoke on the topic November 16 to the Ramsey Medical Society. On November 10 Dr. Satin was interviewed on the AM 1570 radio show “Kings Corner.” The interview, Canadian Medical and Rx, is #10 on the Web site’s list of programs. King and Company hosts the radio show which provides education about insurance options and health care dollars. 

Carole Bland, PhD, moderated a panel of mentoring experts at the AHC’s Fall Faculty Forum “Creating Successful Mentoring Relationships” November 2. 

Carolyn Torkelson, MD, MS, has been named medical director of the Women’s Health Center at University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview. 

Jack Verby, MD, founder of the University of Minnesota Rural Physician Associate Program, died October 23 (StarTribune obituary). He was a mentor to many and a pioneering and creative clinical medical educator for all. RPAP remains his most notable contribution to medical education. It is viewed by many to be among the best longitudinal clinical educational experiences in the U.S. and was recently noted internationally for being among the most exciting and enduring educational innovations ever created by the University of Minnesota Medical School. 

Jon Hallberg, MD, was one of the keynote speakers at the 2007 American Medical Student Association Region 8 Conference in October. Also participating were Nicole Chaisson, MD, John McCabe, MD, Kola Okuyemi, MD, MPH, Jim Pacala, MD, MS, and William Roberts, MD, MS. Approximately 150 medical and premedical students from Minnesota, the Dakotas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa attended the conference. 

Michelle van Ryn, PhD, received $100,000 from UCare Minnesota to develop and evaluate an interactive training module for reducing unconscious bias in health care providers’ clinical decision-making. 

Ruth Westra, DO, MPH, Duluth chair, participated in a Resource Exchange International family medicine trip to Vietnam in September. The eight-member team of physicians spent two weeks working in clinics with Vietnamese physicians and giving lectures on family medicine topics.

Ray Christiansen, MD, Duluth, received the Physician Communicator Award at the September 2007 annual meeting of the Minnesota Medical Association. 

Bill Roberts, MD, MS, director at St. John’s residency program, will receive an American College of Sports Medicine Citation Award recognizing his significant contributions to sports medicine and exercise science. The award will be presented at the May 2008 ACSM annual meeting in Indianapolis, IN.

Tai Mendenhall, PhD, received $49,732 from UCare Minnesota and the University of Minnesota’s Program for Health Disparities Research to evaluate the Family Education and Diabetes Series, a health promotion program engaging low-income, urban-dwelling American Indian families in education, fellowship, and support.

Jennifer Welsh, MD, received $50,000 from UCare Minnesota to study how to protect children from arsenic contamination in the Phillips/Seward neighborhoods.

Michele Allen, MD, MS, received a $195,000 American Cancer Society grant for a three-year pilot study to help immigrant Latino parents prevent their adolescent children from beginning tobacco and other substance use, as well as to promote positive parenting practices.

Sharon Allen, MD, PhD, has received $1,676,004 from the NIH for a four-year study on menstrual phase and depression in smoking abstinence and a $25,000 pilot grant from the University’s Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center to study physical activity intervention for smoking cessation in older women.

Kola Okuyemi, MD, MPH, has been awarded a four-year $2.8 million grant by the National Institutes of Health to study homeless smokers.

Mustafa al’Absi, PhD, Duluth, and a team have received a four-year NIH grant of $1.6 million to study the relationship between stress and stress-related illnesses, including addiction. Dr. al’Absi was recently named founding director of Duluth Medical Research Institute and has edited Stress and Addiction: Biological and Psychological Mechanisms.

Jim Boulger, PhD, Duluth, has been named interim head of the Department of Behavioral Sciences at the University of Minnesota Medical School Duluth.

Jon Hallberg, MD, discussed the image of doctors in popular culture with Kerri Miller, host of MPR’s “Midmorning,” September 27.

Dwenda Gjerdingen, MD, MS, and Carolyn Torkelson, MD, MS, received awards for excellence in women’s health research at the fourth annual Women's Health Research Conference 2007 on September 17. They were among four recipients selected from 60 abstract/poster submissions. Dr. Gjerdingen's presentation was “Validation of Two Depression Screens in a Sample of Postpartum Women,” and Dr. Torkelson’s was “The TU025 Keishi Bukuryo Gan Clinical Trial for Hot Flash Management: Outcomes and Lessons.”

Jim Boulger, PhD, and Ruth Westra, DO, MPH, Duluth, are the principal investigators for a HRSA grant of more than $710,000 for training in primary care medicine.

Wayne Caron, PhD, former therapist in the FMCH geriatrics program, died August 21. Obituaries in the StarTribune and The Minnesota Daily note his compassionate work with family caregivers of patients with diseases such as Alzheimer's.

Eli Coleman, PhD, director of the Program in Human Sexuality, was elected president of the International Academy of Sex Research on August 11. In May Dr. Coleman was named to the University of Minnesota’s first Chair in Sexual Health. 

Tai Mendenhall, PhD, was deployed to the emergency room at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview, after the I-35W bridge collapsed August 1. He was quoted on the MPR web site about disaster survivors and presented at the Emergency Readiness Rounds September 5. Under Dr. Mendenhall's leadership, the University's Medical Reserve Corps Mental Health Crisis Response Team was recently accepted into the international registry of Critical Incident Stress Management Teams. 

Joy Dorscher, MD, Duluth, director of the Center of American Indian and Minority Health, received the University of Minnesota President’s Outstanding Service Award for her efforts at promoting diversity in medical education. In July Dr. Dorscher spoke at a workshop for pre-medical undergraduate students in Nashville, Tennessee. The workshop was sponsored by CAIMH and the Association of American Indian Physicians, of which Dr. Dorscher is the immediate past president. In the August-September issue of The Woman Today, she was featured on the cover and in an article about her career in medicine.

Jen Welsh, MD, Smiley’s program director, appeared in the summer 2007 MMA Quality Review in an article called “Building Medical Homes in Minnesota.”

RPAP students, including Heather Hamernick, MD, currently a St. John’s resident, and their community health assessment projects are featured in “A Sense of Community” in the Minnesota Medical Foundation’s spring 2007 Medical Bulletin.

Our Whole Lives, a sexuality education program for fifth and sixth graders, co-taught by Nicole Chaisson, MD, Smiley’s, was discussed in a June article in Lavender magazine.

In July’s Minnesota Medicine Jon Hallberg, MD, Kathy Brooks, MD, MBA, MPA, and Mary Faith Marshall, PhD, are mentioned in an article on the Center for Arts and Medicine; Glenn Nordehn, DO, is co-author of an article on a teaching tool to educate medical students about humanism as it relates to medicine; and Dr. Hallberg wrote an article on films medical students should see.

Carole Bland, PhD, has been appointed assistant dean for faculty development in the Faculty Affairs office of the Medical School. She will promote an improved faculty culture along the lines recommended by the University’s faculty culture task force report.

Ray Christensen, MD, Duluth, assistant dean for rural health at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth campus, was named Minnesota’s Rural Health Hero.

Dwenda Gjerdingen, MD, MS, describes postpartum depression and how it can be treated in “Health Talk & You.”

April 2007

On behalf of the University of Minnesota Medical School, Macaran Baird, MD, MS, accepted a Top Ten Award from the American Academy of Family Physicians at the 2007 annual conference of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine in April. Ten U.S. medical schools received the award, which recognizes medical schools’ efforts to foster student interest in family medicine and produce graduates who enter the specialty.

Jon Hallberg, MD, recommends some books in “UReads 2007.”

Gwen Halaas, MD, MBA, has been named director for the Academic Health Center’s new Center for Interprofessional Education.