Alpha Omega Alpha, the national medical honor society, has elected Dr. Charles “Chipper” H. Griffith III, senior associate dean for medical education at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, as a councilor director on the Society's board. Griffith's three-year term begins at the AOA board of directors meeting in Portland, Maine, on Oct. 3. Alpha Omega Alpha is a professional medical organization that recognizes and advocates for excellence in scholarship and the highest ideals in the profession of medicine.
University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto today joined U.S. Rep. Harold "Hal" Rogers and Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), at a Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR) Health Impact Series to discuss health challenges in the region and announce two new UK initiatives to address them. "Our Commonwealth is only strong if every community is strong," said Capilouto. "And every community will only be strong when every community is healthy." One initiative announced was the UK Appalachian Cancer Patient Navigation Project.
Studies show that adults who received corrective surgery for the most common serious form of congenital heart disease as infants are susceptible to heart failure in adulthood. Researchers at the University of Kentucky are using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology to better understand the cause of heart failure in these patients, with the goal of eventually developing new therapies to reduce mortality. The team, led by University of Kentucky professor Dr.
From the New York Times to visits from the director of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, health disparities in Appalachia are receiving a lot of attention, and for good reason. The list is sadly familiar: life expectancy in the region is about five years lower than national averages; rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, obesity, diabetes, and unintentional injury are among the very worst in the country; and myriad socioeconomic and geographic barriers limit access to health insurance and care. Former University of Kentucky President Lee Todd Jr.
Becker’s Hospital Review magazine has listed the University of Kentucky Albert B. Chandler Hospital among the nation’s “100 Hospitals and Health Systems with Great Oncology Programs” in its recently released compilation of leading cancer care providers in the United States.

The Department of Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences is pleased to announce that Associate Professors Florin and Sanda Despa recently received tenure, and Dr. Kevin Pearson was promoted to the positon of associate professor with tenure. Before coming to the University of Kentucky in 2013, Florin and Sanda Despa had appointments at the University of California, Davis. Florin earned his Ph.D. from the Institute of Physics in Bucharest, Romania and did post-doctoral studies in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago. He was an assistant professor of research at U.C.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

The Directors of the NIH grant Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women' Health (BIRCWH) at the University of Kentucky are seeking applications from outstanding junior faculty interested in participating in this research training program focused on either

1) women’s health
2) sex/gender differences in health risk and/or disease.

University of Kentucky associate professor Dr. Matthew Gentry, a biochemist who studies the very basic makeup of living things, can count very few "Eureka!" moments in his scientific career.

With multiple concussions between the two of them, Dan Han and Lisa Koehl's latest research interest isn't surprising. "I played competitive soccer through high school and continue to play recreationally," says Koehl, a doctoral candidate in the University of Kentucky's Department of Psychology, "so I have firsthand experience with the dynamics that come into play when a teen suffers a concussion." As a former high school assistant principal in the Chicago public school system, Han was responsible for overseeing student-athletes' return to school after a concussion.