Alumni News
1960s
Phillip Gorden, MD’61, BA’57, received the John Phillips Memorial Award as well as Mastership from the American College of Physicians, a national organization of internists. The award was presented at ACP’s Convocation Ceremony in April. Gorden is a leading investigator in diabetes and lipid metabolism and former director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Kidney Diseases.
Walter Derryberry, MD, HS’66, was among five alumni of Tennessee Tech University honored for their service to their alma mater and their distinguished life’s work at the university’s 2018 Alumni Association Outstanding Awards and Recognition Banquet. Derryberry was among the first specialists to open a private practice in Cookeville, Tennessee.
1970s
Roy Meals, MD’71, is semi-retired as an orthopaedic hand surgeon. He occupies much of his time blogging at www.aboutbone.com and enjoys engaging in his specialty as it reflects on not only health and science, but also on art, history, business and engineering.
Rick Davidson, MD’72, HS’77, BA’68, a founding member of the Student Health Coalition, revisited some of the communities in East Tennessee where he and other members of the volunteer rural health coalition worked in the early ‘70s, particularly the community clinic they started in 1974. That clinic is now a five-clinic operation based in Oneida with 14 providers that sees 50,000 patient visits a year and provides care for 50 percent of Scott County.
J. Robert Polk, MD’76, MPH, HS’79, retired in January 2015 and is now helping out with suicide prevention for the State of Idaho. He and his wife live in New Meadows, Idaho, and have two sons and five grandchildren.
Steve Hines, MD’77, HS’80, was selected by the students of UT Southwestern’s Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society’s Gamma Chapter to receive its 2018 Volunteer Clinical Faculty award that recognizes a community physician who contributes with distinction to the education and training of clinical students.
Teresa Clark, MD’77, HS’78, was honored with the Jack A. Raines Humanitarian Award during a ceremony that took place in conjunction with the Medical Association of Georgia’s 163rd House of Delegates meeting in Savannah, Georgia, in October 2017. The award is given to a physician for outstanding humanitarian contributions beyond the normal practice of medicine.
Jay Harolds, MD, HS’79, was named a Lifetime Achiever by the Marquis Who’s Who, a publisher of biographical profiles. Harolds is a radiologist, residency director, medical student clerkship director and professor of Radiology at Michigan State University and Spectrum Health.
Aubrey Hough, MD’70, HS’75, FAC’81, was named a Lifetime Achiever by the Marquis Who’s Who, a publisher of biographical profiles. Hough is emeritus professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences where he served as vice chair of the Department of Pathology.
Deborah Smith, MD’78, HS’81, has been a pediatrician in Vicksburg and Warren County, Mississippi, for the last 37 years. Her practice began at the Street Clinic and continues at the pediatric clinic at Merit Health River Region.
1980s
Arthur Fleischer, MD, HS’80, FE’81, FAC, has published the 8th edition of “Fleischer’s Sonography in OB/GYN; Textbook and Teaching Cases,” the most widely used reference in the world on this topic, with more than 2,000 images and international authorship.
Sam DeMent, MD’82, serves as adjunct professor in the Natural Sciences Department at Montreat College in Montreat, North Carolina.
G. Alexander (Zan) Fleming, MD, FE’82, BA’71, is CEO of Tolerion, a platform company with an auto-antigen technology aimed at autoimmune diseases. He continues as chairman of Kinexum, a strategic advisory firm he founded in 2002 after 12 years at the FDA. The firm has helped over 400 companies. Fleming is a lay leader of his church, and he and his wife, Deborah, are both active in their historic village, Harpers Ferry, located 60 miles from Washington, D.C.
Tim Moore, MD’82, has been named chief medical officer for ADURO, Inc., the Human Performance company. With more than 20 years of health management experience, he will lead the innovation of ADURO’s evidence-based practices in support of patients’ journeys for total health and well-being.
Lee Payne, MD’83, is a Brigadier General in the United States Air Force, currently assigned as the Command Surgeon at Headquarters Air Mobility Command.
Sherry Galloway, MD’84, BA’80, is an emergency medicine physician at Saint Thomas Rutherford Hospital and the recipient of the 2018 ATHENA Award, which recognizes an individual who excels in her profession, gives back to the community and helps raise other leaders, especially women.
Howard Walpole Jr., MD, MBA, HS’85, is the vice president of Medical Affairs at Northeast Georgia Health System. He is also beginning a three-year term as treasurer of the American College of Cardiology.
Richard (Dick) Johnston Jr., MD’89, BA’85, was again voted one of the three most outstanding sports medicine orthopaedists in greater Atlanta. His daughter, Keillor, is a Vanderbilt University undergraduate.
Robert Means, MD’83, FE’89, dean of the Quillen School of Medicine at East Tennessee State University, and Bonnie Miller, MD, HS’86, MMHC’16, FAC, Senior Associate Dean of Health Science Education and Executive Vice President of Educational Affairs at Vanderbilt, were named by Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam to the Tennessee Commission on Pain and Addiction Medicine Education. The commission was established by executive order as part of the TN Together plan to help end the opioid epidemic.
Jenny Franke, MD’87, HS’94, has been named the new chief clinical officer by Lourdes Hospital for Mercy Health’s Kentucky Region. She comes to Lourdes from Jennie Stuart Medical Group in Hopkinsville. She is board certified by the American Board of Urology.
Thomas A.S. Wilson Jr., MD’87, serves as a member of the board of directors at ProAssurance Corp., where he served as director since 2012. Wilson is a board-certified neurosurgeon with Neurological Associates, P.C., in Birmingham, Alabama.
1990s
Jordan Asher, MD’90, HS’93, FAC’04, is the chief clinical officer of Ascension Care Management. He previously served as the physician network executive for Saint Thomas Health. Asher also writes the blog “The Positive Contrarian.”
Mark Earnest, MD’90, PhD, completed his 25th year on the University of Colorado School of Medicine faculty where he serves as division head of general internal medicine. He and his wife, Julie, have two high school-age children.
George Hutton, MD’96, was recently named vice chair for clinical affairs in the Department of Neurology at Baylor College of Medicine where he also holds the Linda and John Griffin Endowed Chair in Multiple Sclerosis.
M. Kevin Smith, MD’90, PhD’91, HS’97, MMHC’11, FAC, is the 2018 president of the Nashville Academy of Medicine and practices general internal medicine at Vanderbilt.
Jill Moses, MD’91, and Annie Nodestein Moon, MSN’03, were recognized by the Association of American Cancer Institutes, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Cancer Society, for exceptionally high rates of human papillomavirus vaccination (82.7 percent) in the Navajo Area Indian Health Service Unite in Chinle, Arizona. Moses is director of the Division of Public Health, Chinle Service Unit, Indian Health Service.
John Warner, MD’92, CEO of UT Southwestern’s University Hospitals, has been appointed to lead UT Southwestern’s patient care enterprise for the medical center. He will oversee the medical center’s clinical health operations including the medical group practice delivering care in about 80 specialties to more than 100,000 hospitalized patients, 600,000 emergency room patients, and about 2.2 million outpatients a year.
Greg Martin, MD’94, HS’98, FE’01, was elected secretary of the Society for Critical Care Medicine. He has served on its board for five years. He spoke at the Healthcare Innovation symposium in Atlanta and gave a keynote lecture in Lima, Peru. He designated Master Clinician for Emory’s Department of Medicine. Martin’s wife, Stephanie Martin, MD’94, HS’99, FAC’00, started a new medical practice in Atlanta: Performance Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine. Their son, Forrest, is a sophomore at Emory University.
Luke Moix, MD’94, lives in Marin, California, with his wife and three children and has a private psychiatry/psychoanalysis practice in San Francisco. He recently co-founded a health care company, This American Doc.
Patrick Denton, MD’95, has been appointed to the McLeod Health Board of Trustees. Denton is a sports medicine specialist in Florence, South Carolina. Denton serves as the orthopaedic team provider for Francis Marion University and Florence School District One.
Richard Hatchett, MD’95, BA’89, moved to the UK where he is serving as the CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a nonprofit organization funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and six sovereign nations to support the development of vaccines against epidemic diseases.
Henry Wilson, MD’96, recently completed a two-year term as president of the Virginia Society of Plastic Surgeons. Under his leadership, VASP has co-sponsored important Virginia health regulations promoting patient safety in office-based surgery and promoted ethical promotion of board certification.
Anderson Collier, MD’98, FAC’09, BS’94, professor of Pediatrics, has become the new division chief of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology at the University of Mississippi Medical center.
2000s
Stephen Parodi, MD, HS’00, has been elected chair of the board of the Council of Accountable Physician Practices, a coalition of visionary American multi-specialty medical groups and health systems. Parodi is the associate executive director of the Permanente Medical Group.
Paul DeFlorio, MD’01, is an active duty U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and has relocated from Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. He has assumed command of the 436th Aerospace Medicine Squadron. His and his wife, Amanda, have four children, Wyatt, Emmaline, Rhett and Dillon.
Wesley Abadie, MD’03, HS’04, remains active duty in the U.S. Air Force, recently deployed to Afghanistan to fill the otolaryngology/head and neck surgery billet at Craig Joint Theater Hospital.
Emily Graham Kurtz, MD, HS’05, FAC’16, has joined MPOWER Performance Institute, along with its affiliate Elite Sports Medicine & Orthopedics, as its medical director for MPOWER’s Concierge Wellness Programs. She and her husband, William Kurtz II, MD, have three children and live in Nashville.
Laura Green, MD’02, has been named to the ACGME Review Committee for Ophthalmology effective 2019. She also begins a five-year term as the chair of the Committee for Resident Education of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Boris Pavlin, MPH, MD’03, and his wife, Karien Stuetzle, recently welcomed their first child, Calla Aurora. They live in Versonnex, France, just across the border from Geneva, Switzerland, where Pavlin works as an epidemiologist for the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme.
Carl Schmidt, MD, MSCI’04, HS’06, a surgical oncologist specializing in cancers of the liver, pancreas and stomach, has joined the West Virginia University Cancer Institute as chief of surgical oncology and surgeon-in-chief.
Natalie Curcio, MD’04, FE’07, MPH’07, HS’10, BA’00, was named among the Nashville Business Journal’s 40 under 40 most influential people. Curcio is the president and founder of Curcio Dermatology. She also leads trips to Latin America to perform Mohs surgery to indigent people with skin cancer with no access to surgical care.
Benjamin Poulose, MD, MPH’05, HS’07, joined Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center in August to serve as division director for general and gastrointestinal surgery. He formerly served as an associate professor in the general surgery division at Vanderbilt. Poulose specializes in abdominal wall core reconstruction.
Mary Fleming, MD’06, spent six months on a volunteer assignment in Mutomo, Kenya, at Our Lady of Lourdes Mission Hospital where she provided both inpatient and outpatient services to the Mutomo community. She shares stories of her time in Kenya on her blog nomadobgyn.com.
Brenessa Lindeman, MD’09, is an assistant professor of Surgery and Medical Education at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where she also serves as an associate program director of the general surgery residency program and as the associate designated institutional official for the clinical learning environment in the GME office.
10s
Karl Bezak, MD’10, is pursuing a fellowship in hospice and palliative medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai for 2018-2019.
Michelle Kiger, MD’11, is working as an U.S. Air Force pediatrician at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and was promoted to major last year. She is a medical student clerkship director and started as the assistant residency program director this summer. She and her husband, Dave, welcomed their second son, James William, in September.
Brett Donegan, MD’11, BE’06, completed a fellowship in diagnostic neuroradiology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in June and accepted a fellowship in endovascular surgical neuroradiology there in July.
David Marcovitz, MD’12, and Sabrina Poon, MD’12, completed fellowships in Boston in June and have returned to VUSM to join the faculty. Marcovitz will be working in the Department of Psychiatry, helping develop integrated care models for addiction treatment, and Poon will be working in the Department of Emergency Medicine while doing health services research on a K12 award. Their daughter, Maya, turned 2 in May.
Meredith Sellers Pelster, MD’13, BA’09, started a hematology/oncology fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, in July and Michael Pelster, MD’13, BA’09, started a private practice as a Mohs surgeon and dermatologist in Pearland, Texas, a suburb of Houston.
Billy Sullivan, MD’13, M.Ed’13, HS, is chief resident in internal medicine at VUMC through June 2019.
Liz Berry, MD’14, HS’15, is joining the dermatology faculty at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland in September.