Sidney Kimmel Medical College - Alumni Bulletin Fall 2014/Winter 2015

Alumni Bulletin

Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University • Fall 2014/WINTER 2015

Medicine without

walls Telehealth Initiatives

Empower Jefferson Patients

Help Define the Future of Jefferson Consider a Bequest for Sidney Kimmel Medical College Stephen Slogoff, MD ’67, and his wife, Barbara, are already making a difference for the next generation of medical students by designating a gift to Jefferson in their estate plans. Through a charitable bequest, the Slogoffs have set up an endowed scholarship fund that will change future students’ lives in ways they will never forget. Their gift — and all future earnings resulting from it — will become a permanent source of income for Jefferson, giving back literally forever.

A bequest through your will or trust is a simple way to support research, education and patient care. Giving by bequest costs you nothing now and provides the satisfaction of knowing your contribution will shape the Jefferson community in the years to come.

To learn more about bequests and other planned giving opportunities, contact: Fritz Ruccius Chief Philanthropy Officer, Planned Giving 215-955-8733 frederick.ruccius@jefferson.edu Or visit jefferson.plannedgiving.org.

“Almost 50 years ago, physicians at Jefferson gave me a great education — and in 50 years I know they will still be doing the same. Every institution needs funds from resources other than tuition to support teaching programs.

Providing those resources for Jefferson through my estate is my way of giving back for the superb education I got years ago.”

– Stephen Slogoff, MD ’67

Contents Features 6 Telehealth at Jefferson: Game On for Anytime, Anywhere Care 12 Researchers Sniff Out a Cure for Smell Loss

Departments 2 DEAN’S COLUMN 4 FINDINGS Jefferson Cardiologists Underscore Long-Term Risks for Patients with Coronary Stents Who Discontinue Medications

16 ON CAMPUS 18 FACULTY PROFILE Zvi Grunwald, MD

20 DEVELOPMENT NEWS 22 Alumnus Profile Alfred P. Spivack, MD '54 – 2014 Alumni Achievement Award Recipient

24 ALUMNI WEEKEND 2014 28 CL ASS NOTES 31 IN MEMORIAM 37 BY THE NUMBERS

Jefferson Alumni Bulletin Fall 2014/Winter 2015 Volume 63, Number 4 Executive Vice President: Elizabeth A. Dale, EdD Editor: Karen L. Brooks Design: Jefferson Creative Services Bulletin Committee William V. Harrer, MD ’62 Chair James Harrop, MD ’95 Cynthia Hill, MD ’87 Larry Kim, MD ’91 Phillip J. Marone, MD ’57, MS ’07 Joseph Sokolowski, MD ’62

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The Dean’s Column On Nov. 17, 2014, nearly 1,000 people joined together at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown to honor Sidney Kimmel and his wife, Caroline, at the 12th Annual Jefferson Gala. The Sidney Kimmel Foundation’s landmark $110 million gift is enabling Jefferson to build the infrastructure that will deliver the curriculum of the future and raise our medical college to the next level.

SKMC Dean Mark Tykocinski, MD, shared the following comments at the event, which raised a record $1.2 million for Jefferson.

In “The Kite Runner,” a film that Sidney Kimmel produced in 2007, the protagonist Amir expresses his deep gratitude to the young son of his deceased half-brother — his kite runner, his protector: For you, a thousand times over. Sidney, we now say these iconic words to you as well: For you, a thousand times over.

This evening, three remarkable individuals come to mind. For us, their names are now intertwined: George McClellan, founder of our medical college, almost two centuries ago. Thomas Jefferson, an American Founding Father, namesake of our institution. And now, Sidney Kimmel, founding a new future for our storied medical college.

6ABC’s Jim Gardner acted as master of ceremonies for the 12th Annual Jefferson Gala.

These three founders share a special quality — they are all impatient visionaries.

In establishing Philadelphia’s second medical school, McClellan pioneered an entirely new education model. Medical training, he believed, should be more than just sitting through lectures and taking notes. McClellan taught his students to look patients in the eye, to touch them, physically and emotionally. To give life to this paradigm, his medical college boasted the first ever mini-hospital, situated inside an education building.

Post-surgical patients were to recover just steps away from the surgical amphitheater and lecture hall. McClellan placed students at the patient’s bedside to hasten the healing process. Two centuries later, this deep physician-patient connectedness remains at the heart of Jefferson’s culture.

Jefferson too was an impatient visionary. His key vision was to eliminate religious intolerance. And his crowning achievement? The repeal of a carryover English law that limited property rights of Jews and dissenters and banned them from holding public office. In its place, he pushed hard and quick to pass the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, the precursor of the Bill of Rights.

Kimmel has also been the impatient visionary. First, and in record time,

reimagining women’s retail through the Jones Apparel Group. Then, naming two cancer centers to craft a future for combatting cancer. And now, endowing a medical school to pave the way for new and creative paradigms for medical training, discovery and care.

All impatient visionaries, yes. They share another quality as well. Each is a multi-tasker of the first order — possessing diverse talents and interests.

Each is able to connect the dots, to bridge concepts and people across different spheres.

On the side, McClellan, surgeon and medical school pioneer, established the nation’s first free eye clinic.

On the side, Jefferson, intellectual polymath, developed into an accomplished architect, designing his home in Monticello and other architectural gems.

And, just on the side, Kimmel, founder of a retail empire, has enriched the culture of both our city and nation, producing films of universal significance and making realities of icons like the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.

Impatient innovators. Multi-taskers who operate in diverse and sometimes conflicting spheres. This is how we envision the Sidney Kimmel Medical College student of tomorrow — a student who can traverse multiple knowledge domains, with facility.

Sidney and Caroline Kimmel with Jefferson President and CEO Stephen Klasko, MD, MBA.

FALL 2014/Winter 2015 3

One example — training creative, design-oriented MDs of the future.

Empowered by Kimmel funding, we are, for the first time, launching a co-curricular track that nurtures “design thinking” among our students — space design, process design, smart-clothing design. We are simultaneously launching a linkage program with Princeton to serve as a pipeline for this track, by guaranteeing SKMC admission to select Princeton undergraduates who major in architecture and design, engineering and computational science.

When thinking about Kimmel funding, think bridges — bridges between concepts, bridges between institutions.

Just two weeks ago, the prostate cancer programs at Jefferson’s Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center and Johns Hopkins’ Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center hosted their second annual joint conference on our campus, showcasing impressive collaborative studies — a Kimmelempowered Amtrak Alliance, if you will. The name “Kimmel” derives from the German word Kümmel, meaning caraway, a spice that has healing power.

How appropriate for a philanthropist who builds bridges to healing.

In addressing Jefferson students in 1836, George McClellan concluded with the following belief:

But the wealth you may acquire from the most brilliant success, will be nothing; the reputation which you may hope to gain, throughout the whole civilized globe, by a long life of industry and genius, will be nothing; in comparison with the heart-cheering satisfaction which you will experience, in being conscious of your usefulness. You will serve the deepest interest of humanity.

Sidney Kimmel, you continue to serve the deepest interests of humanity. On behalf of our medical college, I thank you from the heart. Yours is a momentous gift that has generated an enduring shot of adrenaline among students, faculty, alumni and the entire region. I assure you that we will steward your gift well. With it, we will continue to build a faculty of the future for a medical student of the future.

Sidney: For you, a thousand times over.

Mark L. Tykocinski, MD Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Thomas Jefferson University Anthony F. and Gertrude M. DePalma Dean Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University

Surprise guest Paul Anka brought Sidney Kimmel onstage for a duet of “My Way,” but they changed the words to reflect Kimmel’s generosity and love for Caroline.

Photos by Susan Beard.

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Findings Jefferson Cardiologists Underscore Long-Term Risks for Patients with Coronary Stents Who Discontinue Medications Jefferson cardiologists have issued a warning for physicians and patients about an alarming trend they are witnessing firsthand — very, very late stent thrombosis. By following a series of patients encountered in recent years, they have concluded that the risk of heart attack from stent thrombosis persists beyond five years after implantation of a drug-eluting stent (DES), particularly among patients who have stopped taking their medication.

Their findings were published in the September 2014 issue of the Journal of Invasive Cardiology.

“These sobering findings underscore the importance of long-term clinical vigilance in these patients and reinforce current guidelines which recommend continuing aspirin indefinitely after having a stent implanted,” said Michael Savage, MD, the Ralph J. Roberts Professor of Cardiology.

Drug-eluting stents have been an important advancement in the treatment

Drug-eluting stents are coated with medication that is slowly released (eluted) to help prevent the growth of scar tissue in the artery lining.

This helps the artery remain smooth and open, ensuring good blood flow. However, these types of stents have been found to delay formation of a new endothelium cover over the stent, making clot formation within the stent persist for a longer period of time.

of heart disease and have helped many patients avoid coronary bypass surgery.

However, to reduce potentially serious complications, patients are prescribed antiplatelet medication (lifelong aspirin and clopidogrel for at least one year).

Stent thrombosis (ST), which occurs when a platelet-rich blood clot forms on the surface of the stent, usually results in a myocardial infarction (heart attack) and has a high mortality rate. ST more than one year after the implantation procedure is classified as very late ST. Until the current study, it was unknown whether the risk of ST eventually abates over time or persists indefinitely.

In their paper, Jefferson cardiologists reported seven cases where patients experienced major heart attacks from ST more than five years post-stent implantation. The average interval between stent implantation and ST was six years, with the latest case being more than seven years. None of the patients was taking clopidogrel and only two were taking

aspirin. Therefore, five of the seven patients were on no antiplatelet therapy prior to ST. Importantly, six of the seven patients were active smokers at the time of their heart attacks.

The published case series serves as a warning for patients and physicians that ongoing follow-up and adherence to recommendations can mean the difference between life and death. In addition, as the 10-year anniversary of FDA approval for DES has come and gone, additional long-term research is needed to guide medication recommendations.

“The essential point from a publichealth perspective is that these complications can be prevented by patients complying with their prescribed medication and practicing a heart-healthy lifestyle long after their procedures. The silver lining of the study is that we did not observe a single case of very, very late stent thrombosis in patients who both took their aspirin and didn’t smoke,” Savage said.

Drug-Eluting Stent

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The main function of platelets is to contribute to hemostasis, or the process of stopping bleeding at the site of interrupted endothelium.

The drug-eluting stent, being a foreign substance in the artery and acting as a prohibitor to endothelium growth, attracts platelets to the site to perform their job of healing the artery.

Platelets

Therefore, patients are treated with antiplatelet medication to offset the formation of blood clots in the stented area of the artery.

The images below illustrate how a blood clot can form in the stent, causing stent thrombosis and ultimately a heart attack.

Findings revealed that drug-eluting stents have been associated with delayed arterial healing and the prevalence of latent thrombus after seven years, suggesting patients who no longer are taking their antiplatelet medications may continue to be at risk for stent thrombosis for an extended period of time.

Stent Thrombosis

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Telehealth at Jefferson Game on for anytime, anywhere Care

Photo by Karen Kirchhoff

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By Jessica Stein Diamond

N

ow that you can shop, socialize, transact business and be entertained basically anytime and anywhere, many people have similar expectations for virtual access to health care.

Jefferson is racing toward that future with transformational initiatives using mobile devices, laptops and personal computers and other technologies to offer patients remote access to care.

“We’re working to take the lead on where medicine is going,” says Judd Hollander, MD, associate dean for strategic health initiatives at Jefferson. “Our goal is to figure out how to create the health care of the future.”

Story Summary • Patients increasingly expect to receive medical care 24/7 via mobile devices and computers, a new practice environment often referred to as telehealth, telemedicine or virtual medicine.

• This shift promises to improve access to care within and beyond Jefferson’s inpatient, outpatient and transitionalcare settings.

• Newly recruited clinician-scholars at

Sang H. Woo, MD, clinical associate professor of medicine and division director of hospital medicine, leads rounds for patient Lily Chen. Chen’s daughter participated virtually from California and was able to meet her mother’s care providers and ask them questions about her condition.

Jefferson will lead research on virtual medicine outcomes to identify best practices likely to shape public policy and influence insurance reimbursements. They will likewise shape innovative new training and certification programs for virtual medicine.

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" Jefferson will be at the forefront of building the interactive patient experience of the future." – John Kairys, MD ’88 Jefferson’s current and planned enterprise-wide telehealth endeavors reflect extensive input from patients, patient advocates, physicians, allied health professionals and senior health system leadership. “We began with a blank slate to find out how to provide the right level of care anytime and anywhere the patient wants it,” says Hollander, who joined Jefferson in 2014 to help direct implementation plans for telemedicine, otherwise known as telehealth or (his preference) “medicine without walls.” “Medicine has been too often focused on what doctors and nurses want and not on what patients want. At Jefferson, the medicine of the future is definitely going to be patient centered.”

Beyond the Built Environment Leveraging Jefferson’s clinical expertise beyond its bricks and mortar presence will take many forms and will incorporate evolving technologies as these emerge. A subset of plans underway includes: providing remote access to medical care for Jefferson employees; offering virtual access to multi-specialty rounds for off-site family members of hospitalized patients; enhancing communication among patients and care providers during and after hospital discharge; and expanding the reach and breadth of Jefferson’s remote stroke care network to serve patients with other critical care conditions. Concurrently, Jefferson’s new National Academic Center for Telehealth is pioneering critically needed research and training to

A patient follows instructions given by Robert Rosenwasser, MD, during a virtual exam.

Photo by Karen Kirchhoff

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improve telemedicine healthcare practice methods and outcomes.

“This initiative is still in its early phases yet truly will be transformational,” says John Kairys, MD ’88, senior vice president and chief medical information officer. “The changes underway reflect a convergence of mobile technologies, video conferencing, mobile health devices and integration of electronic medical record systems — plus an agreement among all parties that we need to find a better way to do things. Jefferson will be at the forefront of building the interactive patient experience of the future.”

Tipping Point Kairys points to an analysis by the consulting firm Deloitte that identifies 2014 as the likely tipping point toward adoption of virtual health care due to widespread use of mobile technologies, especially among older patients, and continued pressure to improve care and reduce medical costs. Deloitte projects there will be 75 million virtual U.S. doctor visits in 2014, an estimated one-fourth the potential U.S. market for electronic doctor visits (and just a sliver of the many ways patients will access medical care remotely).

In keeping with Jefferson’s philosophy of friends and family first, Jefferson will begin offering its more than 17,000 employees and dependents virtual access to unscheduled medical care in 2015. This service will be available through an app accessible on any internet-capable device. Employees

will be able to access virtual clinical guidance and care around the clock and obtain referrals, when needed, for in-person primary care, specialists and urgent or emergency care. “We’re happy to begin our roll-out by offering our employees the ability to tap into this system,” says Hollander. “We plan to expand this service in the future beyond employees to other patients regionally and ultimately nationally.”

Fan Favorite Jefferson has also begun a pilot program that offers virtual access to multi-specialty rounds for hospitalized patients. Family members click on an app or link on a smartphone, tablet or computer when rounds begin, listen to the discussion and have a designated period of time when they can ask questions. “We refer to this as the ‘fan favorite’ among virtual medicine opportunities,” says Hollander.

While this virtual access is likely to affect pacing for rounds, the additional time needed will be factored in, says Hollander. “We believe this is something patients and family members will love.

The physician response has been ‘this is great’ as well, because they recognize this will reduce the number of phone calls and questions they need to answer later in the day from patients’ family members.” Virtual rounds are also expected to reduce hospital readmissions because families will be more aware of the progress and course of a patient’s treatment. This pilot began

on an oncology floor where a team of engaged physicians and nurses assessed workflow and technology issues; they are now refining this new, more patient-friendly virtual rounds process, addressing issues iteratively as they emerge.

“We want to make sure we’re doing this well before we scale it up,” says Hollander. “It would be great to reach a point where every patient who comes into the hospital could have their family members present at virtual rounds.”

Virtual appointments to make sure surgical incisions are healing properly are another way Jefferson is using technology to improve access. Kairys, a practicing endocrine surgeon, sees patients in his office up to two weeks after a surgery. He typically offers a second post-operative visit six to eight weeks later. “That visit is primarily for reassurance and takes just three to five minutes,” he says. “I’m amazed at how many people will take the day off from work, drive into the city, pay $25 or more for parking and wait in the waiting area and patient room for that. Technology gives us a wonderful opportunity to offer that reassurance in a more time- and cost-effective way. This also potentially opens up more appointment slots so we can then see additional patients and further grow the practice.”

Jefferson neurosurgeons recently began offering similar virtual follow-up post-operative visits to check incision healing after surgeries such as craniotomies. “If we can make this work safely and successfully for a

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specialty like neurologic surgery, which is resource intensive, high-acuity and high-risk, then intuitively this should work for other areas of medicine,” says Robert Rosenwasser, MD, the Jewell L. Osterholm Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery and steering committee member for the telehealth program.

Bridge Communication Gaps

Family members click on an app or link on a smartphone, tablet or computer when rounds begin, listen to the discussion and have a designated period of time when they can ask questions.

Virtual house calls and virtual discharge rounds are also being developed and will likely be offered by Jefferson within a year to improve post-transition care after hospitalization or surgery. Using a yet-to-be-determined technology, this would bridge communication gaps among primary care doctors, home healthcare workers and family members for instance for heart failure and other high-risk patients. Anticipated outcomes include improved community-based care, better medication and medical records continuity and decreased readmission rates.

Parallel to these transformative telemedicine initiatives, Jefferson’s Board of Trustees has approved implementation of Epic software to replace the majority of its enterprise-wide medical records systems. “This is an exciting and challenging time,” says Kairys, noting that each virtual medicine use case integrates with both the current and the future infrastructure, which will also eventually integrate data from mobile health devices such as Apple’s HealthKit. “Our greatest challenge is to learn how to extract the value of the truly important data from the background noise,” he says. “The winners in this game will be those organizations that recognize data and present it to caregivers and patients in ways that are meaningful and actionable.”

In this changing environment — with new technologies and corporate alliances also evolving — Jefferson’s

commitment to providing highquality patient care remains constant.

Jefferson’s new National Academic Center for Telehealth has recently recruited several clinician-scholars, including Kristin Rising, MD, and Brendan Carr, MD, who will lead foundational research to identify best practices in virtual medicine and amass the solid base of evidence needed to shape delivery and funding justification for this emerging mode of healthcare delivery.

Recruiting Advantage Jefferson’s Institute for Emerging Health Professions is likewise rapidly developing training programs, fellowships, certificate and continuing medical education programs, apps and online resources.

“Our expertise in the education needed for virtual health care is emerging as a major recruiting advantage for Jefferson,” says Hollander. “We’re confronting the question head-on of whether our people will be trained in the medicine practiced in 1985, 2014 or 2025.”

Amid this rapid pace of change, “the major challenge is to take the 8 million ideas flying at those of us leading this effort and decide which ones we do when,” says Hollander. “You just can’t sit in your office figuring out your corporate strategy based on what you want to do or make decisions based on current technology. Academic medical centers, hospitals and private practices have long existed in an environment that said, ‘you play by my rules and come see me when I want to see you.’ That’s just not going to work anymore.”

“The bottom line is that if you want to be practicing medicine, provide better care for your patients and be the entity people want to go to for health care 10 years from now, you have to move the needle,” he says. “Everybody realizes this is the Jefferson of the future.”

Jefferson alumni who would like to explore opportunities to provide care virtually may contact Kate Fuller, program manager, at kate.fuller@jefferson.edu for additional information.

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Jefferson Neuroscience Network: Inspiration for Virtual Expansion Charlyn Kiley, 68, remembers the onset of her acute stroke in February 2014.

Moments after finishing a Spam sandwich, a cup of coffee and a cigarette, she noticed that her speech sounded garbled and her left side felt heavy.

A resident of East Stroudsburg, Pa., she lives more than 100 miles from an accredited primary stroke center.

Soon after, Kiley arrived at Pocono Medical Center and spoke through a screen to an attending physician with Jefferson’s Neuroscience Network who assessed and directed her care team virtually so that she received timely treatment for an acute ischemic stroke with clot-busting tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA. Less than a year later, she is relieved to have regained her ability to speak clearly, put curlers in her hair, walk her dog and enjoy her favorite pastime, fishing. “It would be misery to not be able to walk or talk,” Kiley says. “And it wasn’t bad talking to a doctor through a screen. That was pretty cool.”

Kiley is among the more than 5,000 stroke patients at 30 participating regional hospitals in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware who have received care virtually through the Jefferson Neuroscience Network.

Established in 2009 by Robert Rosenwasser, MD, chair of neurological surgery, the network serves acute stroke patients who live hours away from hospitals that offer 24/7 stroke care.

“This has been nothing but a tremendous success for the patients, our partner hospitals and Jefferson,” says Rosenwasser, medical director of the network, which is staffed around the clock by 11 attending vascular neurosurgeons, vascular neurologists and neuro critical care specialists who routinely save lives and prevent disability. They are virtually present at the bedside in participating hospitals through a robot-like device with a screen.

Ninety-seven percent of Jefferson Neuroscience Network’s eligible patients received tPA within the recommended window of three hours from stroke onset — a vast improvement over the 3 to 5 percent of eligible patients who receive this therapy nationally. Because the ability to distinguish between an ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke is a life-and-death matter, an estimated 65 percent of physicians nationally feel uncomfortable prescribing tPA without a specialist consultation: use of tPA for a hemorrhagic stroke would increase bleeding and brain damage.

Responding to requests from the network’s participating hospitals, in 2015 Jefferson will begin offering additional critical care specialty expertise services at some of these hospitals, which collectively log more than 1.5 million emergency room visits annually (not just for stroke). This expanded network will be staffed by senior, board-certified attending physicians who will speak directly to patients and on-site medical teams at the bedside. This strategic expansion will allow Jefferson to amass foundational evidence and experience for a possible future virtual Jefferson emergency department.

According to Rosenwasser, an appointee to the Pennsylvania Telemedicine Roundtable, expertise in remote specialty consults is of keen interest in Pennsylvania, where Medicaid spending on transportation alone is $90 million annually. “When you treat the patient, keep them in their community cared for by their local physician and hospital and still deliver a high level of care, everybody wins,” he says, noting that the network has already helped seven participating hospitals become accredited as primary stroke centers.

Jefferson neuroscience specialists can evaluate acute stroke patients at community hospitals virtually using robotic devices like this one.

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Researchers

Sniff Out

a cure for smell loss

By Karen L. Brooks Story Summary • A nosmia, or the inability to smell, seriously affects quality of life and currently has no cure.

• J efferson’s Edmund Pribitkin, MD, is partnering with researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center to examine ways to treat anosmia using regenerative medicine.

• T he team aims to grow nasal stem cells in the lab, engineer them to function as olfactory nerve cells and transplant them into patients’ noses.

Next time you sit down to a meal, pinch your nose before taking a bite. Keep it pinched the entire time you’re chewing and swallowing. What do you taste?

Maybe you’ll detect notes of sweetness, sourness, saltiness or bitterness — but you won’t be able to distinguish flavors.

This is what Sherri Geller tells people to do when trying to show them what her everyday life is like. Geller has anosmia, or the inability to smell. And since sense of smell plays a powerful role in sense of taste, losing the former means also losing the latter.

Even after the nose-pinching exercise, “I still don’t think anyone understands,” Geller says. “My daughter tries to cook for me ...

‘How about garlic?” she’ll ask. ‘No? Then

how about Tabasco sauce?’ But everything smells and tastes the same: like nothing.”

Estimates on the incidence of anosmia vary, but experts believe two to five million Americans suffer from a smell disorder.

Hundreds of medical problems — from the common cold to nasal polyps to head trauma — and some medications have been associated with olfactory loss. Sometimes the condition improves over time, but for those whose sense of smell fails to return on its own, no cures exist. Edmund A. Pribitkin, MD, professor and academic vice chair of Jefferson’s Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, hopes to help change that.

Stop and Smell the… Danger?

In collaboration with researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in West Philadelphia, Pribitkin is studying new ways to treat smell loss. Living without a sense of smell might sound more like an inconvenience than an urgent health concern, but he says anosmia is far more serious than most people realize, and a cure would save lives.

“We’re quick to correct anyone who says, ‘Big deal, it’s not like it kills people’ — because, in fact, it has,” Pribitkin says.

“People can become very sick from eating spoiled food they could not smell. People have died in their homes because of fires or gas leaks they didn’t detect.”

Research has shown that people lacking a sense of smell are at least three times more likely to experience a hazardous event

than those without olfactory problems. In addition to causing physical danger, the condition affects general quality of life.

Smell is tied to the limbic system, the part of the brain that governs emotions and memory. The inability to taste takes the joy out of eating and can interfere with appetite, and people with chronic anosmia can’t draw pleasure from scents others take for granted.

“If I had never smelled or tasted before, maybe I wouldn’t realize what I’m missing,” says Geller, who mysteriously lost her sense of smell two years ago. She sustained a traumatic brain injury in a car accident in 2001 but didn’t lose the sense for more than a decade, and while her injuries could have sparked a delayed reaction, physicians believe a virus might be the real culprit.

“Now, when I cook, I have no way of knowing if something I make is wonderful or terrible. My husband took me to dinner for my birthday, and the food looked delicious, but there was no flavor,” she says.

“He buys me flowers, but I cannot smell their beautiful aroma. I only know I’m near freshly cut grass when I start sneezing.”

Missing out on sensual experiences can devastate patients, who feel disassociated from the “real world” and often develop anxiety.

“There is a very high correlation between smell loss and clinical depression,” Pribitkin says. “You can treat the depression itself, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could instead treat the cause?”

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What Causes Anosmia?

Most people who lose their sense of smell have experienced a recent illness or injury, but a variety of circumstances can induce temporary or permanent anosmia.

Causes include: • Aging (sense of smell generally declines after age 60) • Allergies • Sinus and other upper respiratory infections • Viruses, like the flu or common cold • Smoking • Growths in the nasal cavities, like polyps or tumors • Head injury • Brain tumors • Radiation therapy for head and neck cancers • Exposure to certain chemicals, such as insecticides and solvents • Various medications, including some antibiotics and antihistamines • Hormonal disturbances • Dental problems • Conditions that affect the nervous system, such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and multiple sclerosis

Looking to Regenerative Medicine Treating anosmia requires understanding how sense of smell works.

High inside your nose, at the back of your nasal cavity, lives a small patch containing hundreds of special receptors called olfactory sensory neurons. Different from other neurons because they come into direct contact with air, olfactory sensory neurons have hair-like projections called cilia.

Odors are caused by microscopic molecules that are emitted by an object and float through the air into your nose. These molecules bind to the cilia and activate the neurons, which transmit a signal to your brain, enabling you to perceive a smell.

Each neuron is encoded by a different gene to recognize a specific odorant. The environment has more smells than the nose has receptors, and any given molecule can stimulate a combination of neurons to produce a unique representation that the brain identifies as a particular scent.

When the system is working correctly, a human can distinguish more than 1 trillion smells. But if the genes that should be encoding neurons — or the neurons themselves — are missing or damaged, a person becomes unable to detect some or all smells.

Pribitkin and his Monell colleagues are hoping olfactory stem cell regeneration holds the key to solving this problem. They aim to engineer stem cells in the laboratory and grow them into functional olfactory sensory neurons that can be transplanted into patients’ noses.

First, Pribitkin harvests nasal tissue from healthy volunteers and sends it to Mridula “Meera” Vinjamuri, PhD, a geneticist at Monell. Vinjamuri then works to isolate stem cells in the tissue and coax them into producing odor-detecting neurons.

“We lose nerve cells all the time because nasal tissue is so close to the air that we breathe — so the nerve cells die pretty quickly from toxins and pollution. Our nasal stem cells regenerate whatever is lost,” Vinjamuri says. “We want to replicate this process in a petri dish.”

Because neurons in the nose are coded individually to recognize specific odors, Vinjamuri says the goal is more complex than it seems. “We really need to create subsets of neurons that will send the right signals to the brain and distinguish vanilla as opposed to strawberry or coffee or something else.”

If Vinjamuri succeeds in doing that, the next phase would involve finding a way to place the stem cells into the noses of anosmic patients, which would lead to clinical trials.

Pribitkin acknowledges these ambitions are lofty.

“This is what we call a ‘swinging for the fences’ approach,” he says. “Because there are so many research steps we have to complete incrementally, it’s a long process.

We’ve only just gotten to the point in terms of stem cell research and growing neurons that we can envision the possibility of this whole method actually working.”

Monell researchers Liquan Huang, PhD, and Meera Vinjamuri, PhD. Photo by Claire Fishkow.

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Edmund Pribitkin, MD, academic vice chair of Jefferson’s Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery.

“There is a very high correlation between smell loss and clinical depression,” Pribitkin says.

“You can treat the depression itself, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could instead treat the cause?”

- Edmund Pribitkin, MD

Big Ideas Lead to Big Impact

Three Decades of Teamwork The anosmia stem cell study is not the first collaboration between Jefferson physicians and Monell scientists but rather the latest of many projects generated by a nearly 30-year partnership.

In 1986, the Monell-Jefferson Chemosensory Clinical Research Center (CCRC) — for many years the only center of its kind funded by the National Institutes of Health — was founded to advance discovery related to smell and taste disorders through clinical research projects. The CCRC no longer exists as a formal entity, but collaborative studies continue and have built the foundation for today’s stem cell research, Pribitkin says.

“Just one example of a past study we’re relying on today involved olfactory cells we harvested and that a colleague at Monell, Dr. Nancy Rawson, blew odors over to see if the cells depolarized. She was able to show when and how a particular cell responded to, say, the smell of a rose,” Pribitkin explains. “This informs our research now because as Meera (Vinjamuri) is growing neurons, she needs to be able to tell not only that they look like olfactory neurons, but also that they work like olfactory neurons.”

Pribitkin is optimistic that continued Jefferson-Monell teamwork will eventually provide the first real cure for anosmia.

“The beauty of this sense of community is that every scientist involved has provided a little piece of the puzzle, and now we’re positioned to frame the puzzle so all the pieces fit together into a solution for a very difficult problem.”

However long this project will take, Pribitkin, Vinjamuri and their colleagues are committed to sticking with it. Pribitkin finds motivation in the progress he has seen in repairing another sense — hearing — throughout his career.

“When I was a medical student and resident, cochlear implants were crude and controversial. Now, cochlear implantation is accepted as the primary form of treating deafness around the world,” he says. “Within my short career, we’ve gone from having generations of deaf children to having generations of children who can hear. If you would have asked me 20 or 30 years ago if cochlear implantation would be as far along as it is today, I would have said probably not.”

The fact that smell is a chemical sense — not a physical one, like hearing — complicates the process, and this study promises to span decades.

“These kinds of big ideas make big differences in science and in people’s lives if they pan out,” Pribitkin says. “It doesn’t matter that we have a ways to go, because this has the potential for changing millions of lives, and that means it’s worth it.”

Jefferson and Monell are partnering to raise funds for their anosmia research collaboration.

To learn more or to make an investment in this project, contact Jonathan Agree, director of development, clinical departments, at 215-503-6058 or jonathan.agree@jefferson.edu.

16 Sidney Kimmel Medical College Alumni Bulletin

OnCampus Tykocinski Named NAI Fellow SKMC Dean Mark L. Tykocinski, MD, was one of 170 innovators to achieve National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellow status in 2014. Election as an NAI Fellow is awarded to academic inventors who have created or facilitated inventions that have made a significant impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. There are currently 414 total NAI Fellows, who together hold nearly 14,000 U.S. patents.

Gomella Inducted into Clinical Society of Genitourinary Surgeons Leonard G. Gomella, MD, chairman of urology and the Bernard W. Godwin, Jr.,

Professor of Prostate Cancer, has been inducted into the Clinical Society of Genitourinary Surgeons. This is considered one of the most prestigious societies in the field, with active membership limited to 25 of the top academic urologists in the United States.

Laskowski is AAMC Chair-Elect Robert J. Laskowski, MD, has been named chair-elect of the Association of American Medical Colleges. An internist specializing in geriatric medicine, Laskowski is a professor of clinical medicine at SKMC, a senior fellow at the Jefferson School of Population Health and an adjunct professor at the College of Health Sciences at the University of Delaware.

Cardeza Foundation Marks

Brent Honored by Health Physics Society Robert L. Brent, MD, PhD, was the 2014 recipient of the Health Physics Society Distinguished Public Service Award in recognition of his “service to the general public that significantly contributes to the relationship between the public and the health physics profession.” Brent is the Distinguished Louis and Bess Stein Professor of Pediatrics, Radiology and Pathology at Jefferson and emeritus chairman of pediatrics and director of the clinical and environmental teratology laboratories at the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children.

75

th

anniversary

On Sept. 19, the Jefferson community celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Cardeza Foundation for Hematologic Research, whose members study diseases of the blood and have conducted innovative clinical trials for new therapies for many of these disorders.

The event also served to recognize the contributions of Farid I. Haurani, MD, whose 30-year career at the Cardeza Foundation led to groundbreaking discoveries including the feasibility of human bone marrow transplantation and an understanding of iron and B12 metabolism. Haurani recently established the Leandro M. Tocantins, MD-Farid I. Haurani, MD Directorship in the Cardeza Foundation, which will support hematologic research in perpetuity and honors former Cardeza director and Haurani’s mentor, the late Leandro Tocantins, MD. Sadly, Haurani died Nov. 11, 2014, less than two months after the 75th anniversary celebration. Jefferson faculty and staff members will continue to draw inspiration from his achievements and generosity for many years to come.

PICTURED ABOVE: Paul F. Bray, MD, the first holder of this esteemed directorship; Haurani; and SKMC Dean Mark L. Tykocinski, MD. Photo by Karen Kirchhoff.

FALL fall 2014/Winter 2014/WINTER 2015 2015 17 17

'Next Stop, Jefferson Station!'

On Sept. 5, that’s what Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) Regional Rail riders began hearing as their trains pulled into the former Market East Station.

Jefferson President and CEO Stephen Klasko, MD, MBA, has made forging new partnerships a priority since he joined the institution in September 2013 — and one of those important partnerships is with SEPTA. The station’s name change resulted from a contract

between Jefferson and Titan, which sells advertising at SEPTA stations and on vehicles and other properties.

The naming of Jefferson Station sends a message to the community that Jefferson is committed to making it easier for people to access comprehensive care and high-quality education. Jefferson selected Market East because of its proximity to campus — Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Thomas Jefferson University, the Jefferson Hospital for

Neuroscience, the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center and many Jefferson physicians’ offices are located just blocks away from the station.

“We’re transforming ourselves and we’re creating bold new partnerships that deliver a very exciting and different future for Jefferson, for our patients and students,” Klasko said. “We want everyone to know it and see it every day when they pass through this station.”

Referring a Patient to Jefferson?

Meet Our Physician Liaison Team

T

he members of Jefferson’s physician liaison team serve as a direct line of communication between Jefferson and the broader physician community, helping physicians across the region navigate the referral process and facilitating interactions between referring physicians and Jefferson specialists in cardiovascular medicine, gastroenterology, oncology and neurology/neurosurgery.

Our liaisons strive to ensure the referral process goes as smoothly as possible. They welcome inquiries from you and your staff to help you maintain a meaningful relationship with Jefferson while connecting your patients with the best care available. Call or email them at any time: Ellen Doubet Service area: South Jersey ellen.doubet@jefferson.edu 215-200-9193

Laurie Geosits Service areas: Center City Philadelphia; South Philadelphia; Main Line, Pa.; Delaware County, Pa.; Chester County, Pa.; Lehigh Valley, Pa.; Montgomery County, Pa. (northwest of Norristown); Scranton, Pa.; State of Delaware laurie.geosits@ jefferson.edu 215-200-9458

Vicki Jones Service areas: Northeast Philadelphia; Bucks County, Pa.; Montgomery County, Pa. (up to the Main Line); Mercer County, N.J. victoria.jones@ jefferson.edu 215-200-4889

18 Sidney Kimmel Medical College Alumni Bulletin

Jefferson Faculty Zvi Grunwald, MD

Developing Innovations across Two Countries Zvi Grunwald, MD, the James D. Wentzler, MD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology, confesses to being an enabler. “Patients don’t come to Jefferson for their anesthesia,” he explains. “They come to this institution for the surgeons and other specialists. Our role is to enable and support these experts so that they may provide their unique and highly valued services.” The department delivers anesthesia care for 60,000 procedures system-wide each year. Under Grunwald’s direction, the transition of anesthesiology services at the Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience has been completed, and an electronic, paperless anesthesia information management system has been implemented.

Grunwald received his medical degree from Hadassah Medical Center at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, which he followed with a residency in pediatrics. “When the first children’s hospital in Israel was constructed, an urgent need for pediatric anesthesiologists was realized. I decided to go to the United States to learn more about anesthesia and the specialized anesthesia requirements for pediatric patients.”

Thus began a distinguished career in anesthesiology that led to his current position at Jefferson. Grunwald is the fourth chair of the department, which was established in 1956.

Why did you come to Jefferson?

In 1989, after a residency in anesthesia at Penn and a fellowship in pediatric anesthesia at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, I joined Jefferson as a junior faculty member.

It was my best clinical year ever; I loved it. With the late Dr. Phillip Wolfson I helped build the 24/7 practice of surgery for neonates born with complex congenital anomalies, and we established an emergency surgery service. This successful program still exists today.

A year later, I returned to Israel, never dreaming I’d come back to the States. But then I returned to CHOP as a member of the organ transplant anesthesia program. I then went back to Israel to serve as chair of anesthesia at the Rabin Medical Center. In 1997, Dr. Joseph Seltzer (MD ’71) asked me to come back home to Jefferson. I had worked in several medical centers and hospitals by then, but none of the other institutions talked about family — I was happy to return to the Jefferson family.

Why anesthesia?

Some of the most significant strides in medicine and surgery are directly attributable to anesthesiology’s advances in patient monitoring, improved anesthetic agents and new drug therapy.

It is especially evident in the most complex types of surgery: transplantation of the heart, pancreas or liver or microsurgery of the brain, or the very small premature baby. It is the art

of anesthesiology to skillfully titrate a number of agents and maintain vigilance using sophisticated monitors for each of these patients.

Anesthesiology transformed itself from a highly dangerous medical specialty when it started in 1846 to one of the safest practices in medicine. Anesthetic death in the OR is now extremely rare, less than one in 200,000 or 300,000 patients. The constant presence of a qualified member of the anesthesia care team throughout the surgical procedure is a major driver for the safety record of the profession.

What would you do if you hadn’t become a physician?

I would be involved in innovation, trying to advance medical technology, and teaching.

Here at Jefferson, we have a history of innovation. In 1998 we founded the Jefferson Artificial Pancreas Center, the first of its kind in academic medicine. Now we are working on exciting projects like the development of implantable sensors and “closing the loop” that is glucose sensing with automated insulin delivery. Imagine the profound impact on population health when patients’ vital signs — heartbeat, breathing, blood pressure or glucose levels — are continuously fed to data systems and physicians. High-risk patients with chronic heart failure or severe diabetics can be more effectively managed through adjustment of medications, reduce unnecessary emergency room visits or even be prompted to go to the emergency room. I believe that real-time physiologic data for patient management is the future direction of healthcare delivery.

Our knowledge has expanded dramatically, down to the molecular level in many subspecialties of medicine, but the central nervous system is still a mystery. That’s the site of action of our anesthetics. As I am intrigued by the way barriers are broken in many fields of medicine, I hope to see the mysteries of the brain unfold during my professional life time.

Why is teaching important to you?

I am committed to educating the next generation of physicians and anesthesiologists. It is truly satisfying to see the high quality of medical students we train here at Jefferson. Every year for our residency program, we review more than 1,000 applications, interview about 120 candidates and accept 12.

They are among the best graduates of medical schools in the U.S. and abroad, and it is a privilege and pleasure to be a part of their training. I find it challenging and a mutual learning endeavor to groom and mentor these physicians at a time when medicine and technology, especially the technology of anesthesiology, are changing at a fast pace.

FALL 2014/Winter 2015 19

Photo by Ed Cunicelli

What does the future hold for anesthesia?

I am excited to share a few innovations crafted by members of our department.

Innovations in information technology will change how we care for patients. For example, we created an iPhone app that translates every step of anesthesia management for non-Englishspeaking parturients who are about to deliver. It plugs into an earphone piece and the patient is able to understand and participate in her own care.

Another development is addressing drug diversion. We developed an algorithm for the drug dispensing system and the Anesthesia Information Management System that can pick up

deviation from normal usage, allowing us to avert a potential lethal outcome among the anesthesia personnel.

The technology of pain management is evolving as well.

Imagine preoperatively testing patients’ genetic profiles, and when they are in the operating room, they receive a pain medication that will not cause respiratory depression, change their mood or cause nausea or vomiting.

The impact of genetics and genomics in anesthesiology is where I believe we will see many innovations and breakthroughs.

Greater understanding of the central nervous system and the mechanisms of general anesthesia are also promising areas for innovation and improvements in perioperative care delivery.

20 Sidney Kimmel Medical College Alumni Bulletin

Development News A Family Commitment to Family Medicine Newton E. Kendig II, MD ’84, Establishes Legacy Fund • A commitment to providing compassionate clinical care.

and intend to practice in similar regions after graduation.

• A commitment to serving the underserved.

“A common theme for Kendig physicians from any generation has been serving the underserved, mostly through practicing family medicine,” says Kendig, explaining his interest in programs “for clinicians who are willing to serve where others are not.”

• A commitment to educating tomorrow’s healthcare leaders.

• A commitment to shaping the future of medicine.

This list echoes the basic tenets emphasized across Jefferson’s campus every day. It also encapsulates the values shared by Newton E. Kendig II, MD ’84, and his loved ones.

Six Generations, Seven Jefferson Physicians Studying at Jefferson has proved a Kendig family tradition since 1872, with seven members having enrolled over six generations.

Those physicians include:

The sixth of seven relatives to study at Jefferson, Kendig recently strengthened his family’s ties to the University by establishing the Kendig Family Legacy Fund in the Department of Family and Community Medicine. The fund will primarily support JeffHOPE, Jefferson’s student-run organization for treating underserved Philadelphians, and the Physician Shortage Area Program, which recruits and trains medical students who were raised in rural areas or small towns

Although he broke the family trend by pursuing a career in infectious diseases rather than family medicine, Kendig still focuses on treating underserved individuals. As medical director and assistant director of the Health Services Division for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, he oversees care for a patient population in which mental illness and chronic infectious disease are over-represented and under-treated.

Kendig’s professional path was determined partially by chance.

After earning his MD, he completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Rochester’s Strong Memorial Hospital and went on to train

• Benjamin Emmet Kendig (student from 1872-1873) • Jerome Stauffer Kendig, MD 1889 • Harry Charles Kendig, MD ’30 • Newton Emerson Kendig, MD ’54 • James Willis Kendig, MD ’70 • Newton Emerson Kendig II, MD ’84 • Marshal Newton Miller, MD ’12 (currently a third-year family and community medicine resident) Miller’s wife, Kirsten, is also part of the Jefferson community. A 2010 graduate of the Jefferson School of Health Professions, she now works as an occupational therapist at Jefferson.

Newton Kendig, MD ’84, and members of his family visited Jefferson’s campus Oct. 8, 2014.

Pictured are Kirsten Miller; Dixon Miller, PhD; Marshal N. Miller, MD ’12; Kendig; Gail Miller; and Sue Kendig (wife of the late James W. Kendig, MD ’70).

Marshal and Newton are holding framed medical course tickets used by the first Kendig family member to attend Jefferson, Benjamin Emmet Kendig, who enrolled in 1972. Instructors at that time included renowned physicians John Barclay Biddle, MD; J.M. DaCosta, MD; Joseph Pancoast, MD; and Samuel Gross, MD.

Photos by Karen Kirchhoff

FALL 2014/Winter 2015 21

in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins, where he accepted a faculty appointment in 1991 — as the HIV/AIDS epidemic was continuing to peak. The governor of Maryland reached out to Johns Hopkins for help managing care for imprisoned AIDS patients, and Kendig’s mentor recommended him for the job. Kendig went on to serve as medical director of the Maryland Department of Corrections and Public Safety for five years.

“I felt like I was on the cusp of medicine during that time and realized I wanted to dedicate my career to public health,” Kendig says.

An admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service, Kendig serves as an assistant surgeon general of the United States. He joined the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in 1996 as chief of infectious diseases, and three years later he was appointed medical director — a title he still holds today, along with a second that came in 2006: assistant director of the BOP’s Health Services Division.

His role is complex; he oversees a billiondollar healthcare system covering 200,000 inmates. Based in Washington, D.C., he travels all over the nation to visit the 121 prisons in the federal system.

“I make decisions on everything from who gets an organ transplant to who gets compassionate release,” Kendig says. “And I do a lot of teaching, including writing clinical practice guidelines on everything from hepatitis to hypertension to preventive care.” He also remains a faculty member at Johns Hopkins.

Kendig says the best part of his job is the opportunity to collaborate with healthcare professionals all over the country: “I am a big proponent of team medicine. We have therapists, pharmacists, nurses, social workers and many others trying to tackle issues together collectively, and I get to meet them in all of our prisons, even in very rural areas.”

Seeing family practitioners as the anchors of health care, Kendig is concerned that medical students’ interest in primary care is decreasing as tuition — and therefore debt upon graduation — continually rises and more lucrative specialties draw

attention. He is proud that his nephew, Marshal Newton Miller, MD ’12, has stayed at Jefferson to do a residency in family and community medicine with a focus on serving the underserved, particularly through participation in JeffHOPE, which he joined as a first-year student.

The sixth-generation Kendig family member to attend Jefferson, Miller has pledged to carry on his predecessors’ tradition of caring for those with limited resources and, like his uncle, recognizes an urgent need for philanthropic support for primary-care programs.

“As family doctors, with our intimate knowledge of our patients and our pulse on the fabrics of our communities, we’re in a position to have great impact. This is not just about supporting existing student and resident initiatives, clinical experiences and research experiences of the department, but about finding ways to support the next student who has a big heart and a brilliant idea and can make the same kind of change as other giants at Jefferson,” Miller says.

Kendig calls his establishment of the Kendig Family Legacy Fund a “jumpstart,” hoping it will grow over time through contributions from fellow alumni to provide the very foundation for the Department of Family and Community Medicine’s activities involving the underserved.

“This is so much less about the Kendig name and so much more about helping to ensure that academic family medicine at Jefferson builds upon its proud history to graduate future primary care physicians, who in the spirit of the Kendig family will serve the underserved whether in rural America or the inner city,” he says.

“Those who give to the fund don’t even have to know who the Kendigs are. They just have to be committed to our mission.”

To learn more about JeffHOPE or Jefferson’s Physician Shortage Area Program or to support the Kendig Family Legacy Fund, please contact Michael Sutton, associate director for regional giving, at 215-503-7677 or michael.sutton@jefferson.edu.

“This is so much less about the Kendig name and so much more about helping to ensure that academic family medicine at Jefferson builds upon its proud history to graduate future primary care physicians, who in the spirit of the Kendig family will serve the underserved whether in rural America or the inner city.”

- Newton E. Kendig II, MD ’84

22 Sidney Kimmel Medical College Alumni Bulletin

Alumnus Profile 2014 Alumni Achievement Award Recipient

Alfred P. Spivack, MD ’54 Fine Art, Good Medicine Little did he know it then, but one of the first visits Alfred P. Spivack, MD ’54, made to Jefferson’s campus 65 years ago would shape his 50-plus-year career in medicine.

In the office of Dean William Harvey Perkins, MD, in 1949, Spivack was told the upcoming first-year class was full, but there was a strong likelihood he would be admitted the following year.

“Dean Perkins said, ‘You get good grades, and you’re a swimmer. I’m a father and a grandfather, and I’m going to teach my grandchildren to swim this week. If you were in my position, how would you teach them the backstroke?’”

Spivack went on to describe the swimming stroke, something he knew well as a member of the Temple University swim team. Perkins wasn’t only interested in passing along this lesson to his grandchildren. Spivack later realized the dean wanted to observe how well he could teach, as the mixture of practicing and teaching medicine was at the core of his education at Jefferson and career.

“To this day, my meeting with Dean Perkins was one of the best interviews I’ve ever had,” he says. “All of my professors at Jefferson were teacher-practitioners, and that is very much how I’ve patterned my medical career.”

Spivack received Jefferson’s 2014 Alumni Achievement Award in recognition of his lifelong desire to care for patients and to teach the next generation of clinicians.

A True Pioneer Spivack began his career in cardiology at Stanford University Medical Center, Palo Alto, Calif., in 1959. Five years later, he was asked serve as founding director of Stanford Hospital and Medical School’s coronary care unit, one of the first of its kind in the country.

“We were pioneers,” Spivack says.

“Bedside defibrillation was developed in the early 1960s, and physicians and nurses had to be trained in this lifesaving procedure.”

Always primed to find opportunities to educate, Spivack wanted to create a way to teach other physicians and nurses to use defibrillation at the bedside. He met with Bill Hewlett of Hewlett-Packard about his idea and developed for the company the Arrhythmia Trainer, a patented defibrillator-teaching device.

Spivack was director of the coronary care unit at Stanford through 1975, when he returned to private practice. His love of learning led him to train with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in diving medicine, or hyperbarics. While there, he realized something was missing from Stanford’s curriculum.

“I spoke with the chairman of the department of medicine about why hyperbarics wasn’t in the medical school program. We both agreed if there were a sports medicine program, that would be one course where it would fit. I found

myself volunteering to start the sports medicine program.”

He stayed on to teach in the sports medicine program through 1995, when he retired from Stanford. His work in medicine, though, continued when he joined VIVUS Inc. as director of medical services.

He still consults for the drug-development company.

Artist at Heart The stresses and challenges of medical practice led Spivack in new meditative and creative directions — underwater photography, then ceramics. Many of his underwater images were later translated to ceramics and ceramics/glassworks.

With his passion for innovation, Spivack developed a new artistic technique in 2007 — fusing clay and dichroic glass (glass coated with a thin film of metallic oxides, which have been vaporized by an electronic beam). His work has appeared in many galleries and exhibitions in the United States and Asia.

“Creating art is a very meditative process and allows me to be alone and let my thoughts flow,” he says. “It helped me to be a better listener and observer and to understand my patients better. I practiced in a glorious era — there was more time to observe a patient than a computer screen.”

Throughout his life, whether it’s in medicine or art, Spivack has always wanted to contribute, to add something new and not

FALL fall 2014/Winter 2014/WINTER 2015 2015 23 23

Photo by Karen Kirchhoff

live off someone else’s successes.

“I feel like that was the lesson Jefferson taught me; it’s what I tell my grandchildren. ‘When you go somewhere, leave it better than you found it.’ It was something I have tried to follow through with all of my life.”

— Stacey Miller Examples of Spivack’s artwork

alumni weekend 2014

SKMC Welcomes

Top: Sandy May Kestner; Ted Kestner, MD '68; and John Schiro, MD '69.

Top Middle: Guy Stofman, MD '84, and his wife, Lori.

Bottom Middle: Francis Colangelo, MD '84, and his wife, Georgia.

Bottom: Suzanne Freitag, MD, and Karen Moffett, MD – Class of 1994.

Time changes everything — except true friendships and the fondness Jefferson graduates feel for their alma mater. Alumni returned to campus to reconnect with each other and the institution during Alumni Weekend Oct. 24 and 25. Attendees celebrated their lifelong ties to Jefferson at various events including a “Jefferson Pride”-themed welcome reception open to all class years; the annual “Taste of Philadelphia” luncheon hosted by Dean Mark Tykocinski, MD; and class dinners for all ’4s and ’9s at the Union League of Philadelphia.

Save the Dates! • Alumni Weekend 2015 • October 16–17, 2015 Celebrating the classes of: 1945, 1950, 1955, 1960, 1965, 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015.

If you would like to assist the Office of Alumni Relations with contacting your classmates about reunion events, call 215-955-5570 or email alumni@jefferson.edu.

fall FALL 2014/WINTER 2014/Winter 2015 25

Back ’4s and ’9s

Above: Anita Shapiro; Richard Shapiro, MD '64; Leroy Clark, MD '64; Bobbie Clark; Eli Meltzer, MD '64; and Susie Meltzer.

Right: Dean Kinsey, MD '69, presents the Alumni Achievement Award to Al Spivack, MD '54.

Far Right: Dean Mark Tykocinski, MD, with Gerald Marks, MD '49.

26 Sidney Kimmel Medical College Alumni Bulletin

alumni weekend 2014

Attendees from the Class of 2004.

Lois Downing; Edwin Downing, MD '64; and Dean Tykocinski.

Walter McConnell, MD, and Herbert Somers, MD – both Class of 1959.

Jesse St. Clair, MD '79; his wife, Carolyn; Mary Stoner, MD '84; and Scott Kelley.

Ann Alexander; Jean Beauchamp; David Kessler, MD '89; and Joseph Beauchamp, MD '64.

Terry Bachow, MD '79 and his wife, Barbara.

fall FALL 2014/WINTER 2014/Winter 2015 27

Top: James Delaplane, MD, and Irvin Keller, MD – both Class of 1964.

Middle: Michele Davis Thomas, MD; David Anderson, MD; and Maria Melli, MD – all Class of 1989.

Bottom: Linda Lane Izquierdo, MD; K. Ellen Frank, MD; and Elizabeth Bussard, MD – all Class of 1969.

Photos by Karen Kirchhoff.

Several attendees from the Class of 1989.

28 Sidney Kimmel Medical College Alumni Bulletin

ClassNotes ’48

Bent G. Boving reports that he is “showing signs of age” and that his wife, Renee, recently suffered a stroke but is recovering. The couple has moved to a retirement facility in Lewes, Del., to be closer to their son.

’64

John T. Dawson, Jr., writes that he is enjoying his “second retirement.” Dawson and his wife, Judy, split their time between Lewes, Del., and St. Petersburg, Fla.

’67

Elliot J. Rayfield received the 2014 Sidney H. Ingbar Distinguished Service Award during the annual Endocrine Society meeting on June 21. Teresa Woodruff, MD, Endocrine Society president, presented the award, which recognizes distinguished service in the field of endocrinology. During the past decade, Rayfield has served as the driving force in establishing the Clark T. Sawin Memorial Library and Resource Center, which preserves historical endocrine literature.

Rayfield lives in New York City.

’69

Walter J. Gadkowski has retired from medical practice and devotes much of his time to his grandchildren, Lara, Caleb and Grace. Gadkowski lives in Centerville, Mass.

’71

Arthur E. Brown has been elected to Mastership in the American College of Physicians. ACP Masters are selected for their “personal character, positions of honor,

contributions toward furthering the purposes of the ACP, eminence in practice or in medical research or other attainments in science or in the art of medicine.”

Brown’s Mastership will be presented April 30, 2015, at the convocation ceremony during the ACP’s annual internal medicine meeting in Boston. He is chief and medical director of Employee Health & Wellness Services at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and an infectious disease specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

’77

Ronald M. Fairman was elected vice president of the Society for Vascular Surgery, an international medical society with 5,000 members, at the society’s annual meeting in Boston in June 2014. Fairman is vice chairman for clinical affairs in the Department of Surgery and chief of the Division of Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. He also is the Clyde F. Barker-William Maul Measey Professor of Surgery.

He lives in Ardmore, Pa.

Physicians, a division of Healogics, Inc., the largest provider of advanced wound care and hyperbaric medicine in the country. Ise’s work includes recruiting physicians to this new and growing field. She lives in Saint Petersburg, Fla., with her husband and two sons.

’90

P. Kurt Bamberger and Michael Brown (’86), joined their general surgical and surgical oncology practices in June 2014 to create Surgery Consultants of Berks County, Pa. Brown has been practicing in Berks County since completing his fellowship in surgical oncology at Jefferson, and Bamberger has been in Berks County since 2000 after training at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and fulfilling his military obligation.

’95

Michael Breslow has retired after 25 years practicing psychiatry with the State of Arizona. He lives in Tucson and spends his time doing yoga, gardening, making pottery, running and hiking.

Allen J. Orehek recently received a patent for his “Method for the Prevention of Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease,” which is currently in use in two locations in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Orehek presented his method and the data behind it at the 2014 International Neuroscience Conference in Tokyo in March and at the 2014 Alzheimer’s Disease Congress Event in London in June. The method identifies reasons for brain damage and shows how mitigating them allows a natural healing process to take place. He lives in Waymart, Pa.

’88

’02

’82

Charleen Ise recently was promoted to regional medical director of Healogics Specialty

Basil M. Harris is founder and president of Basil Leaf Technologies, one of 10

finalists for the $10 million Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE, a three-and-a-half-year global competition sponsored by the Qualcomm Foundation for teams to develop a consumerfocused, mobile device capable of diagnosing and interpreting a set of 16 medical conditions and capturing five vital health metrics. Basil Leaf Technologies is building DxtER (pronounced Dexter), a portable, consumer-level device that can collect and interpret large amounts of data to accurately diagnose medical conditions, provide users with real-time insight regarding their health and guide them to appropriate action. Harris is an emergency department physician with Lankenau Medical Center and lives in Paoli, Pa.

’08

Katie M. Hawthorne joined the Lankenau Heart Institute in Wynnewood, Pa., in August 2014 as a non-invasive cardiologist and is initiating a cardiac MRI program. Hawthorne completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and a fellowship in cardiovascular medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where she served as chief fellow of cardiology in 2013-2014.

Brian and Aimee (Packer) Ostick live in Woodland Hills, Calif., with their children, Siena, Madelaine and Luke.

Brian recently was named director of emergency services at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys, Calif. Aimee is a

FALL 2014/Winter 2015 29

What’s

New? To submit a class note or obituary for the Bulletin, contact the Office of Institutional Advancement: • By phone at 215-955-7751; • By email at alumni@jefferson.edu; or • By mail at 125 S. 9th St, Suite 700, Philadelphia, PA 19107

Janice E. Nevin, MD '87, Named President and CEO of Christiana Care Health System Janice E. Nevin, MD ’87, has been appointed president and CEO of Christiana Care Health System, the largest health system in the State of Delaware.

Nevin most recently served as Christiana Care’s chief medical officer and chief patient safety officer and is known for her leadership in improving care quality and safety on the network’s Wilmington, Del., campus by directly involving patients and families as partners in their care. In her previous role she also oversaw Christiana Care’s medical education programs, including the Delaware Branch Campus of SKMC and 280 residents and fellows.

Before joining Christiana Care in 2002, Nevin was residency program director in SKMC’s Department of Family and Community Medicine. She completed her residency at Jefferson and received a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. She also served a two-year facultydevelopment fellowship in family medicine at St. Margaret Hospital in Pittsburgh and has completed a program in executive education at Harvard Business School and a fellowship in physician executive leadership at the Health Management Academy.

Nevin is married to Charles A. Pohl, MD '87, who is SKMC's senior associate dean for student affairs and career counseling. They live in Wilmington.

family medicine physician at Kaiser Permanente Woodland Hills Hospital, where she sits on the faculty and serves as research coordinator for the family medicine residency.

’09

Hugh Razo is an emergency medicine physician at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., and recently was featured in the second season of ABC’s reality show “NY Med,” which examines the lives of emergency room personnel in the New York City area. Filming took place during Razo’s last year of residency at University Hospital in Newark, N.J. He was one of nearly 20 emergency room employees who participated, including television personality Dr. Oz.

“

To meet these challenges, the Alumni Association has entered a new era of partnering with the Office of Alumni Relations in the collegial exchange of ideas and the implementation of programs.

Alumni Association President’s Message Hello from Jefferson! I would like to talk with you about some of the challenges facing our Alumni Association and how I see us addressing them and moving forward.

Thirty years ago, the majority of our alumni would be found living in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

Recently, the Office of Alumni Relations did a survey and found a significant shift in alumni geographics. Fifty percent of our alumni still live in those aforementioned states — but, interestingly, the remaining 50 percent are found across our country, with California and Florida making up the fourth- and fifth-most alumni-populated states.

Overall participation in alumni events has seen a decline over the past decade.

Attracting younger graduating classes to participate in events has been and continues to be a constant concern. How, then, can we reach and engage more of you? How can we increase participation in alumni events such as reunion weekend?

How can we develop the next generation of alumni leaders?

To meet these challenges, the Alumni Association has entered a new era of partnering with the Office of Alumni Relations

in the collegial exchange of ideas and the implementation of programs. I find great hope and promise in this professional relationship. For both of our groups to succeed in their mission and goals, we must acknowledge the fact that we need each other.

Meetings of the alumni executive committee will soon be broadcast in real time so any alumni can call in to listen.

Potential programs being considered include the development of regional alumni programs where alumni can come together for social events. Recently, Dean Tykocinski and I traveled to Pittston, Pa., where we had a chance to meet with our alumni. It was a pleasure to speak with them and in particular to talk with a few of my former students. Such meetings in the tri-state area will continue.

We need now to start to develop the next generation of alumni and Alumni Association leaders. To do so, I firmly believe that we must engage our students and residents while they are here. Each year our Alumni Association purchases and hands out white coats to incoming first-year students. This year I have made the student council representatives to the Alumni Association a formal committee of our alumni executive committee that will give reports on their projects to enhance student engagement with our association.

I am also very mindful of the fact that

”

our association comprises different classes, each of which will have varying tastes. To address this, we are exploring the possibility of expanding the reunion weekend experience so it not only includes the traditional format but additional venues and activities that would attract younger classes at a low cost.

These are our first steps. They are by no means our last. The journey will be long but we shall not falter. We must and shall succeed, always being mindful of Jefferson’s noble past and always moving forward to secure our Alumni Association’s future for the generations of Jeffersonians that will follow. Until we talk again, thank you for your true devotion and love of this wonderful medical college!

Joseph F. Majdan, MD, CV '81 Associate Professor of Medicine Director of Professional Development President, Sidney Kimmel Medical College Alumni Association joseph.majdan@jefferson.edu 215-503-4226

FALL 2014/Winter 2015 31

In Memoriam ’37

Maurice Abramson, 103, formerly of Elkins Park, Pa., died Oct. 24, 2014, at his home in Plantation, Fla. After serving an internship at Philadelphia General Hospital, Abramson set up a family practice in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. In 1942, he joined the U.S. Army Medical Corps and became one of six surgeons with the 100th General Hospital, operating in northern France and the Rhineland. He was awarded the European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with two Bronze Stars and honorably discharged in December 1945 with the rank of captain. Upon returning to Philadelphia, he expanded his practice to include obstetrics and gynecology. He joined the staff of the Kensington Hospital for Women and served as chief of obstetrics and gynecology from 1959 until 1974. He also was affiliated with Northeastern Hospital in Kensington and St. Mary's Hospital in Fishtown. He was a founding member of the Philadelphia Academy of Family Practice.

In retirement, he sculpted, played the violin, golfed, and traveled with his wife, Gilda, who preceded him in death in 2000.

Abramson is survived by a daughter, Joan, and a son, Scott. Another son, Eric, died in August 2014.

’44

William “Bill” Wasnick, 95, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., died at home Nov. 27, 2013.

Following medical school, Wasnick served two years as a captain in the U.S. Medical Corps at Fort Lewis,

Wash. He then worked as a family physician, practicing in Hanover Township, Pa., for 59 years before retiring at 87 in 2005. In the early years of his career, he “did everything,” including delivering babies. As he and his patients aged, he focused more on geriatrics. Wasnick’s son and grandson are both Jefferson alumni; in the year leading up to his retirement, three generations of Wasnick physicians practiced medicine simultaneously. Wasnick enjoyed spending time with family and particularly looked forward to celebrating Thanksgiving, since turkey was his favorite food.

He is survived by his wife of 67 years, Eleanor; a son, Robert (’74); two daughters, Carol and Diane; four grandchildren, Robert Jr. (’04), Michael, Lauren and Eric; a great-grandson, James; three nephews; and numerous cousins and grandnephews and one grand-niece.

He was preceded in death by his brother, Jack.

office during their family medicine rotations. After his retirement, Benson worked with an organization called CompHealth, through which he traveled around the United States to fill in for physicians who were on vacation or attending meetings. His wife, Natalie, often traveled with him. Benson was a licensed pilot, and his love of animals brought several Great Danes, two capuchin monkeys, a toucan, a mynah bird and other pets into his family.

In addition to Natalie, Benson is survived by his son, Miles (’72); a daughter, Anna; four grandchildren, Arthur, Nathaniel, Isaac (’09) and Eric; and four greatgrandchildren, Natalija, Wyatt, Yannick and Aubrey.

ophthalmoscope and one of the leading scleral bucklers in the Delaware Valley, he helped to train more than 120 retina specialists, many of whom have become leaders in the field. He was a charter member of the Retina Society.

After retiring, he enjoyed watching his grandchildren play sports and golfing at the Philadelphia Country Club, where he was a member for 50 years, and at Turtle Creek Club in Florida.

Annesley is survived by his four children, William III, Barbara, Margaret and Joan; eight grandchildren; three step-grandchildren and two great grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife of 43 years, Nancy.

Frank Mattei, 95, died June 20, 2014. Mattei served as a captain in the U.S. Army during World War II. He practiced orthopaedic surgery in Philadelphia until his retirement. He is survived by his son, Frank, and was preceded in death by his wife, Bea.

’45

’48

Stuart Wallace Hamburger, 90, of Detroit, Mich., died Aug. 6, 2014. Hamburger was a world-renowned thyroid surgeon and clinical professor at the University of Michigan.

He is survived by his wife, Sylvia; a son, Harry (’79); a daughter, Janie; and four grandchildren, Brandon (’11), Devin, Jordan and Joshua.

Benson Krieger, 92, died May 16, 2014, in Philadelphia.

While at Jefferson, Benson was president of Phi Lambda.

He completed an internship at Jewish Hospital (now Einstein) before serving two years of active duty in the U.S. Navy. He began practicing as a full-service family physician in 1948 and remained in the Naval Reserves until 1958. His medical practice included emergency care, house calls, deliveries, geriatrics, minor surgery and more, and over the years many Jefferson students passed through his

William H. Annesley, Jr., 89, of Bryn Mawr, Pa., died Oct. 24, 2014. Annesley was co-founder and director of the retina service at Wills Eye Hospital, where he served as director of ophthalmology from 1972 to 1989. He also served as chief of ophthalmology at Lankenau Hospital. He was an attending surgeon at Wills Eye Hospital and a professor of ophthalmology at Jefferson and was best known for his expertise in macular photocoagulation and retinal detachment.

A master of the indirect

’49

’50

Aaron Rosenthal, 92, died Nov. 29, 2013. He is survived by his wife, Anne; a son, Saul; two daughters, Barbara and Sharon; nine grandchildren, Ellen, Joanne, Rebecca, Emily, Abigail, Jocelyn, Andrea, Rachel and Sarah; a sister, Rhoda; and several nieces, nephews and great-grandchildren.

Herbert A. Yantes, Jr., 93, of Newtown, Pa., died July 16, 2014. Yantes had served as chief of medicine at Frankford Hospital in

32 Sidney Kimmel Medical College Alumni Bulletin

Philadelphia and assistant professor of clinical studies at Jefferson. He received the Chapel of Four Chaplains Humanitarian Award in 1975 for his work in the community.

Yantes is survived by his wife, Adele; son, Edward; and grandchildren, Keith and Robyn.

’53

David Michael Carberry, 91, of Pelham, N.Y., died April 17, 2014. Carberry served in Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army and was awarded two Bronze Star Medals for acts of heroism during the Battle of the Bulge.

After a general residency at Buffalo General Hospital, he completed a surgical residency at Roosevelt Hospital, where he began his thoracic surgery practice in 1961. He was chief of thoracic surgery at Harlem Hospital from 1976-1994. Also an associate clinical professor of surgery at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, he practiced at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center from 19791994. During the Carter Administration, Carberry was designated thoracic surgeonon-call during presidential visits to New York City. An American College of Surgeons Fellow, he served as in-house physician for Rockefeller Center. He was issued a Police Surgeon’s Shield by the New York City Police Department and, upon his retirement in 1994, was presented with a Certificate of Meritorious Service in recognition of 25 years of dedication and outstanding service from Police Commissioner William J. Bratton.

Carberry was preceded in death by his wife of 55 years, Joan. He is survived by his

children, Marcella, Jeanne, David Michael, Jr. and Maggie; and his grandchildren, David Michael III, Ryan and Reilly.

John H. Deam, 87, of Bradenton, Fla., died April 21, 2013. Deam served two years in the U.S. Navy as a pharmacist's mate, second class, and received the Victory Medal.

He established his medical practice in Anna Maria Island, Fla., in 1960. He became chief of staff for Manatee Hospital in 1975 and was a member of Roser Memorial Church, the Anna Maria Island Historical Society, the Key Royale Club, Sons of the American Revolution and the Manatee Medical Society. He was an avid golfer and fisherman.

Deam was predeceased by his wife of 61 years, Alice. He is survived by four children, David, Donna, Douglas and Debra; six grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and his sister, Dorothy.

Philip F. Dunn, 89, of Huntingdon, Pa., died Oct. 24, 2014. Dunn served in World War II with the 66th Infantry Division of Gen. Patton’s 3rd Army. In 1953 he opened his practice of general medicine in Huntingdon. He served for many years on the medical staff of J.C. Blair Memorial Hospital and retired from medical practice in 1994.

He was a member of the Pennsylvania Medical Society and the American Medical Association and served on the Huntingdon Board of Health for more than 30 years. He was an active member of the Huntingdon Rotary Club and a recipient of the Paul Harris Fellow Award and served as a member and past chairman of Huntingdon County Children’s Services Advisory Board. He was a longstanding member of the Huntingdon Men’s

Community Chorus and enjoyed working on his farm.

Dunn is survived by his wife, Dorothy; their children, Philip and Patricia; and two sisters, Carolyn and Barbara. He was preceded in death by his three brothers, Lewis, J. Malcom and the Rev. Stanley Dunn.

’53

Joseph W. Simpson, 92, of Blue Bell, Pa., died Sept. 5, 2014. Simpson served as a bombardier captain in the U.S. Army/Air Force during World War II and completed 50 missions from Italy. He worked with the Pennsylvania Railroad and retired in 1985 as medical director for ConRail.

He is survived by two sisters, Dorothy and Jeanne; a brother, Hank; and several nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by a sister, Karen.

Frank A. Wolf, Jr., of Phillipsburg and Mountain Lake, N.J., died Oct. 23, 2014.

Wolf completed an internship at Allentown Sacred Heart Hospital and a surgical residency at St. Luke's before serving in the U.S. Navy as a medical officer stationed in Long Beach, Calif. He was deployed aboard the USS Kearsarge and the USS Worcester from 1955 to 1957. Upon his return from military service, Wolf joined his father in the general practice of medicine in Phillipsburg and later worked as an orthopaedic surgeon in Warren County for 25 years. Wolf enjoyed sailing, trains, gardening, reading, movies, travel, family and his many loving pets. In 2014 he was honored for his 40 years of service as the volunteer board president of Abilities of Northwest Jersey, Inc., an organization that improves the employability and quality of life for people with disabilities. He also volunteered as a coach with

the ski program and assisted with the social programs of the ARC of Warren County.

Wolf is survived by his wife of 58 years, Carolyn; four children, Lisa (’84), Julia, F. Andrew and Christopher; and four grandchildren, Niklas, Selena, Jonas and Eric. He was predeceased by his infant brother, Francis.

’54

Francis M. Kopack, 84, of Annapolis, Md., died Nov. 14, 2013. Kopack completed his pediatrics residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army in 1964 after serving as a pediatrician for eight years. During this time, he served as chief of pediatrics at Dewitt Army Hospital in Fort Belvoir, Va., and then at Bassett Army Hospital in Fort Wainwright, Alaska. After retiring from the Army, Kopack established a solo pediatric practice in Annapolis, expanding the practice to include several associate physicians. Today, the practice is known as Chesapeake Pediatrics. Kopack practiced for 42 years before retiring in 2006. During his retirement, he enjoyed rooting for the Baltimore Orioles and Baltimore Ravens.

Kopack is survived by his wife of 38 years, Deborah; five children, David, Laura, Alan, Angela (’04) and Ashley; nine grandchildren; four greatgrandchildren; and a sister, Mary.

Edward M. Podgorski, of Haddonfield, N.J., died Sept.

17, 2014. Podgorski practiced obstetrics and gynecology in the Philadelphia and South Jersey region for more than 60 years before retiring in December 2013. A veteran of the U.S. Navy, he maintained

FALL 2014/Winter 2015 33

radio beacon equipment and served on a communications vessel in the South Pacific during World War II, rising to the rank of chief petty officer. He also was a master engraver with a keen interest in electronics and watch repair.

Podgorski is survived by his children, Cathy and Edward Jr. (’83); four grandchildren, Jennifer, Kristen, Edward III and Amy; a great granddaughter, Rowen; and two brothers, Joseph and Richard.

He was preceded in death by his wife of almost 50 years, Miriam.

’55

Leo J. Hastings, Jr., 89, of Allentown, Pa., died Sept. 11, 2014. A U.S. Navy veteran of World War II, Hastings worked in private practice for many years and was affiliated with Sacred Heart Hospital in Allentown. He was a member of the Lehigh County Medical Society. Hastings is survived by his children, Frances, Susan, Leo III, Valerie and Mary; nine grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife, Frances, and three siblings, Charles, Frances and Mary Emma.

Joseph Aloysius Heaney II, of Cumberland, Wisc., died Oct. 14, 2014. Heaney completed his internship at Misercordia Hospital in Philadelphia. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1956-58 as a captain and flight surgeon and was stationed in Germany during the Cold War. Heaney practiced psychiatry for more than 40 years in a variety of settings including public and community psychiatry, private practice and numerous locum tenens assignments in multiple states and facilities. He spent most of his career working with the severely mentally ill and

was a gifted clinician in the pharmacologic management of serious and persistent mental illness.

Heaney is survived by six children, Joseph, Kathleen (’01), Stephen, Clare, Michael and Patrick; 12 grandchildren, one sister and eight nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his wife of 53 years, Mary.

Joseph Ignatius Maguire, 84, of Stone Harbor, N.J., formerly of Drexel Hill, Pa., died Aug. 19, 2014. Maguire practiced obstetrics and gynecology for 33 years at Fitzgerald Mercy Hospital and Riddle Memorial Hospital. He is survived by his wife of 59 years, Mary; a niece, Mary Pat; and three nephews: Leo, David and Joseph.

’56

Brian Scott Harrold, Sr., 83, of Powell, Ohio, died Sept. 15, 2014. A longtime pathologist, Harrold made a career of diagnosing diseases and even appeared on an episode of “American Justice” to help solve a crime. He was a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. Harrold is survived by the mother of his children, Cynthia; their children, Brian Jr., Diane and Shawn; his children from his marriage to his late wife, Barbara: Michael, Michelle, James, Jill and Lindsay; 13 grandchildren; six greatgrandchildren; and many nieces and nephews. He also leaves behind his beloved dog, Bear. He was predeceased by his siblings, Milton, Robert, Bruce and Lois.

Edward W. Luczynski, Jr., 84, of Williamstown, Mass., died Sept. 11, 2014. A U.S. Army veteran, he served from 1958 to 1961 with the rank of captain, completing a three-year tour of duty at the U.S. Army Hospital in Bremerhaven, Germany. He was a solo practitioner in Dover,

Karen Moss Glaser, PhD, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Karen Moss Glaser, PhD, 65, of Philadelphia, died Nov. 12, 2014, after being struck by a vehicle.

A faculty member for 30 years, Glaser served as SKMC’s senior associate dean for academic affairs and held a dual appointment as an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and the Department of Family and Community Medicine. She developed the behavioral health curriculum for the family medicine residency and clerkships and coauthored and published several research papers examining the impact of physician empathy on clinical outcomes. In addition, she served as Jefferson’s affirmative action officer from 1994-2013.

“Dr. Glaser’s service to Jefferson was characterized by her passionate commitment to equity and concern for the well-being of the community,” SKMC Dean Mark Tykocinski, MD, said. “She was a trusted adviser to me and a compassionate listener and academic adviser to students in need. She was extremely active in all phases of curriculum planning and implementation, and her wisdom, empathy and good humor will be greatly missed.”

Glaser graduated from Cornell University in 1970 and earned a master's degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971. She completed a doctoral degree in educational psychology at Penn in 1981. She loved sports, including horseback-riding, rowing and softball; playing the guitar; and taking active vacations.

She is survived by her husband, Richard; two sons, Simon and Zachary; a daughter, Lena; her mother, Ruth; four grandchildren; and a sister.

34 Sidney Kimmel Medical College Alumni Bulletin

N.J., from 1963 until 1994 and specialized in internal medicine with a sub-specialty in arthritis and rheumatoid diseases. After retiring to Williamstown, he became an active member of the Parish of Sts. Patrick & Raphael and was a Eucharistic minister.

He volunteered for the former VNA & Hospice of Northern Berkshire for 18 years and was a longtime contributor to the Williamstown community.

He loved reading, athletics and the outdoors.

Luczynski is survived by his wife of 60 years, Sarah; three sons, Edward III, David and Kenneth; two daughters, Jan and Missy; a sister, Rita; 11 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

James Elmer Nix of Jackson, Miss., died Aug. 9, 2014. Nix completed his orthopaedic training at Hermann Hospital in Houston, where he was honored as “intern of the year” and received the Hermann Hospital Violet Keller Award for Outstanding House Staff Member. He was co-founder and past president of the North American Spine Society and received the Dr. David Selby Award for his contributions to the art and science of spinal disorder management. He also served as president of the Clinical Orthopedic Society, the MS Medical Association and the University of Mississippi Medical Alumni Association.

He was a delegate to the American Medical Association and secretary of the Board of Counselors of the National Academy of Orthopedics. He loved golf, music, reading, poetry and the Ole Miss Rebels.

Nix is survived by his wife of nearly 58 years, Rosemary;

his daughters, Georgia and Susie; his sons, James and Bobby; 13 grandchildren; seven great-grandchildren; his brother, Jack; and many nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews. He was predeceased by his daughter, Rosemary; his brothers, Wayne, Hall and Paul; and his sister, Lou.

’57

Arthur C. Krepps II, 82, of Griffin, Ga., died Oct. 3, 2014.

After graduating from Jefferson, Krepps was commissioned by the U.S. Navy and worked at the Philadelphia Naval Hospital, where he spent a year in a rotating internship. He initially planned to be a heart surgeon, but after completing a rotation in obstetrics and gynecology, he changed his mind and became an ob-gyn resident at both the Philadelphia Naval Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. He later continued his Navy tour of duty for three years at the Naval Hospital in Beaufort, S.C., retiring as a Lt. Commander. In 1964, he and his family moved to Griffin, where he delivered more than 10,000 babies before retiring in 2008. He served as chief of staff of the Spalding Hospital and president of the Spalding County Medical Society. He was honored to serve president of the Georgia Ob-Gyn Society from 1991-1992.

Krepps is survived by his wife of 60 years, Donna; three sons, Arthur III, Douglas and Bryan (’86); five grandchildren, Coleman, Anne, Powell, Katherine and Cody; two step-grandchildren, Hamilton and Adam; four great-grandchildren, Isabelle, Epp, Amelia and Stella; and a sister, Donice. He was preceded in death by another sister, Joan.

’58

Don B. Weems, Jr., 81, of Wenonah, N.J., died July 29, 2013. Weems joined his father in family practice at Wenonah Medical Association right after graduating from Jefferson and stayed there for 46 years, retiring in 2004. He also was on staff at Underwood-Memorial Hospital (now Inspira), serving as medical director of Shady Lane Nursing Home for 38 years and as medical director for Gloucester County Vocational-Technical School for 28 years. He was an active member of the Wenonah Fire Company and a member of Deptford Elks #2708 and several boating clubs. He enjoyed retirement homes in Venice and Cape May, N.J. Weems is survived by his wife, Judy, and son, Lawrence.

He was predeceased by his son, Don III, and two grandsons, Robert and Jesse.

’59

Steven First, 80, of Northborough, Mass., died Aug. 21, 2014. First served his internship at the Albert Einstein Medical Center, then worked as the practicing physician at Eastern State Penitentiary while operating his own practice in Pennsylvania before moving to Massachusetts. In 1978, he opened a practice in Marlborough, Mass., and worked there until his retirement in 2007. He was a veteran of the U.S. Army, having served as a physician in Okinawa during the Vietnam Conflict and achieving the rank of Major.

First was predeceased by his wife, Nance. He is survived by two daughters, Anne and Ruth; three stepdaughters, Stacy, Diane and Suzi; two sisters, Elaine and Caro; six grandchildren; three

step-grandchildren; three step-great-grandchildren; and several nieces and nephews.

’60

John Joseph Coyle, 81, of Hazleton, Pa., died Oct. 13, 2014. Coyle completed an internship at Jefferson and a residency at Wills Eye Hospital. He then returned to Hazleton, where he practiced ophthalmology for 35 years.

During his career, he was an associate professor at Wills Eye Hospital and served as chief of staff at the former Hazleton General Hospital and president and chief of medical staff at the former Hazleton St. Joseph Medical Center. He was a past president of the former Hazleton branch of the Luzerne County Medical Society and held memberships in the Wills Eye Hospital Society, American Medical Association, American Academy of Ophthalmology, Pennsylvania Academy of Ophthalmology and Luzerne County Medical Society. He was an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed hunting, fly-fishing and competitive trapshooting.

After retiring, he enjoyed yearly fall trips with friends to many countries abroad.

Coyle is survived by his wife of 52 years, Ann; a daughter, Kathleen (’02); three sons, John, Kevin and Brian (’03); a brother, William; a niece, Margaret; and five grandchildren, Connor, Ian, Megan, Aidan, Finn and Katie.

’63

Wilfred T. Morioka, 80, of La Jolla, Calif., died Oct. 14, 2014. Morioka trained as a pilot in the U.S. Navy, with duties on the USS Shangri-La

FALL 2014/Winter 2015 35

until 1959. After finishing his MD, he rejoined the Navy to train as a flight surgeon and was assigned to a squadron at the First Marine Brigade in Kaneohi, Hawaii. He completed a residency in otorhinolaryngology at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., in 1972 and then joined the ENT staff at Balboa Naval Hospital, San Diego. He became a member of the ENT staff at Kaiser Permanente Hospital and retired in 2001. In retirement, he enjoyed golfing, playing tennis, working at the USS Midway Museum as a docent and spending time with his family.

He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Jean; four children, Leigh, James, Tim and Peggy; three grandchildren, Travis, Allison and Tyler; and three brothers, Thomas, William and Howard.

Joel J. Nobel, 79, of Gladwyne, Pa., died at home Aug. 13, 2014. Nobel was founder and president emeritus of ECRI Institute, formerly the Emergency Care Research Institute, a nonprofit organization that researches approaches to improving healthcare safety, quality and cost.

Nobel conceived of the organization, which he led for 34 years, in the early 1960s during his surgical residency at Pennsylvania Hospital. While there, he developed MAX, a selfcontained cardio-pulmonary resuscitation system that radically reduced the time and number of clinicians needed to start and maintain life support measures.

MAX was featured in LIFE and TIME magazines, and 600 units were deployed at hospitals around the United

States, including one in the White House Dispensary. The MAX prototype is now at the Smithsonian Institution.

Nobel went on to set up an evaluation of 18 manual resuscitators and found nine to be ineffective; their manufacturers took them off the market. In 1968, he set up the ECRI Institute, and when he could find no one to publish his findings, he did it himself in the Health Devices Journal, which he created and which became the medicaltechnology equivalent of Consumer Reports. Hospitals worldwide use ECRI research data to decide what medical equipment to buy and how much to spend on it, which best practices and new procedures to implement, and which clinical trials are effective.his son, Joshua, shared a hobby of restoring World War II vehicles, rebuilding engines, gun mounts and transmissions.

In addition to Joshua, Nobel is survived by his wife, Qingqing Lu; daughter, Erika; son, Adam; a brother; a sister; and a granddaughter.

’74

John Hermanovich, Jr., of Reading, Pa., died Sept. 14, 2013. Hermanovich spent 30 years as an interventional cardiologist with Cardiology Associates of West Reading at the Reading Hospital and Medical Center. He was an early pioneer in interventional cardiology at the University of California and spent 25 years as director of the catheterization lab at Reading Hospital. He also enjoyed a successful “second career” as a coach for his sons’ Wyomissing youth baseball teams for 10 years, followed by many memorable summers spent in Avalon, N.J.

He is survived by wife of 38 years, Jean; three children, Greg, Marisa and Mark; and two granddaughters, Olivia and Cecelia.

’76

Joseph R. Kreiser, Jr., of Millersburg, Pa., died April 14, 2014. Kreiser completed his internal medicine residency at the Harrisburg Polyclinic Hospital in 1979. He then had a family practice in Millersburg from 1979 until his retirement in 2012. He is survived by two aunts and nine cousins.

’78

Neal J. Zimmerman, of Woodbury, Conn., died Aug 31, 2014. Zimmerman interned at Hahnemann Medical College, then completed his residency in ophthalmology at the West Virginia University Eye Institute and a retina fellowship at the New York Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical College. He was head of the retina service at West Virginia University School of Medicine and an assistant professor of ophthalmology.

He practiced in Waterbury and Prospect, Conn. He was past president of B’Nai Israel and of the former Temple Israel. As an active member of the Jewish community, he sat on the grants committee of the Jewish Federation Foundation.

Zimmerman is survived by his wife, Pauline, and his children, Max and Alexis.

’81

Andrea Grace Jordan, 58, of Chadds Ford, Pa., died June 15, 2014, of complications from a fall on the stairs at her second home in Delaware.

Jordan was in the second class of women to graduate

from Dartmouth College after the traditionally all-male school went coed, and after receiving her medical degree she returned to Dartmouth to serve a residency. A specialist in cell pathology, Jordan was a published expert in the subspecialty of cytopathology.

After completing a fellowship in the field, she became a clinical professor at Jefferson and later served on the staff at Graduate Hospital and CrozerChester Health System. She specialized in interpreting the results after patients underwent fine needle aspiration or biopsies of the breast or reproductive system.

In addition to spending time with her family, she loved writing poetry, drawing, gardening, caring for her whippet, Spoofer, and decorating the Christmas tree. She is survived by her husband, Gerald; two daughters, Deirdre and Brigid; her parents; a brother; three sisters; and nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by one sister.

’89

Robert Alan Medve, 49, of Glen Gardner, N.J., died Oct. 25, 2014, following a sudden heart attack. Medve was a graduate of the Penn StateJefferson accelerated BS/MD program. He was a specialist in pain management, an area to which he brought many new medicines and in which he held numerous leadership roles with companies including Cara Therapeutics, Nektar Therapeutics, NeurAxon Inc., Lifetree Clinical Research and Johnson & Johnson. Medve loved traveling, cooking, sharing and simply being with the ones he loved. Though his home was in New Jersey,

36 Sidney Kimmel Medical College Alumni Bulletin

in recent years he developed an affinity for the beautiful landscape of Utah, where he loved to hike, ski, cycle and enjoy the outdoors with his family. He was laid to rest amid the Utah mountains.

Medve is survived by his wife, Cari; their sons, Collin and Cooper; his children from a previous marriage, Christopher, Matthew and Madeline; his mother, Ethel; and his brother, Paul.

’92

Christopher M. Brian, 49, died June 30, 2014, after a nearly three-year fight with brain cancer. Brian served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps before returning home to Colorado, where he was a hand surgeon and a partner at Panorama Orthopedics & Spine Center. He is survived by his wife of almost 27 years, Missy; three children, Robbie, Caleigh and Will; his parents, Kitty and David; two sisters, Jennifer and Meredith; a brother, Michael; and many aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins.

POST-GRADUATE

’62

Lewis A. Dalburg, Jr., of Orleans, Mass., died July 29, 2014. Dalburg served a fellowship at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, England, concentrating on tear duct and plastic surgery of the orbit. He was an assistant clinical professor at Yale University School of Medicine and at the University of Connecticut

School of Medicine. Prior to his retirement, he was senior attending ophthalmologist and chief of ophthalmology at New Britain General Hospital (now the Hospital of Central Connecticut) and a consultant at the University of Connecticut Health Center and New Britain Memorial Hospital. An avid golfer, he also enjoyed tending to his vegetable garden, fishing the waters of Cape Cod, attending local baseball games and rooting for the Red Sox and Patriots.

Dalburg is survived by his wife, Joan; his son, Lewis III; a granddaughter, Lydia; two sisters, Eleanor and Doris; his nieces and nephews, David, Beth, Laura, Nancy, Kristen and Karin; and numerous grand-nieces and grandnephews. He was predeceased by his daughter, Kathy.

’94

Jeffrey Joseph Ericksen, 53, of Ashland, Va., died June 27, 2014. Ericksen completed a residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Jefferson, where he served as chief resident for education.

After four years of private practice in Boston, he joined the faculty of the Medical College of Virginia, part of VCU Medical Center, and practiced there for 15 years as an academic physiatrist — a nerve, muscle and bone expert who treats injuries or illnesses that affect how people move.

Because McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center is a teaching hospital for VCU, he also served as chief of the

center's physical medicine and rehabilitation department.

After injuring his hand, he tried prolotherapy, an injection treatment for musculoskeletal pain. He later became a nationally recognized expert in prolotherapy and cellular regenerative injection therapies and worked as director of McGuire’s Interventional Pain Clinic and Polytrauma Network Site. He also explored techniques with

nutrition, exercise and stress management and took medical mission trips to Honduras.

In 2013, he left VCU for the Kaplan Center for Integrative Medicine in McLean, Va. Soon after, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Ericksen is survived by his wife, Julie; a son, Gregory; a daughter, Devon; his parents, Grover and Anne; and three brothers, Kevin, Michael and David.

Jussi J. Saukkonen, MD, Longtime Jefferson Faculty Member Jussi J. Saukkonen, Sr., MD, 83, of Newton, Mass., and Boynton Beach, Fla., died Oct. 3, 2014. A native of Helsinki, Finland, he was a lieutenant in the Finnish Army as a reserve medical officer until 1957. He then moved to New York City to conduct postdoctoral research as a Fulbright scholar at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. His research focused on molecular biology and DNA replication.

One of the longest-tenured graduate school deans in the United States, Saukkonen served as dean of the Jefferson College of Graduate Studies (now the Jefferson Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences) and University vice president for science policy, technology development and international affairs from 1981–2003. He traveled extensively for Jefferson, helping to build many international collaborations. He was a founder of the technology transfer program and a professor of microbiology from 1972–2006.

Saukkonen served as teacher and mentor to many graduate students and also was instrumental in revamping the medical college curriculum, serving as chair of the Medical School Curriculum Committee for many years.

He was a governor of the American Finnish Society Museum in Philadelphia and established the Finnish-American Society of the Delaware Valley. He loved travel, photography, tennis, concerts and his family. He is survived by his wife, Leah; two sons, Jussi (’85) and Kai (’88); four grandchildren, Julia, Daniel, David and Amy; two sisters; and a brother.

Fall 2014 37

The

By Numbers Class of 2018: At a Glance From an Olympic weightlifter to an aerospace engineer to an intern at the Philadelphia Zoo, the first-year students who began classes at SKMC this fall are diverse in their backgrounds and come from all over the world. On August 1, 260 aspiring physicians participated in the 2014 White Coat Ceremony, symbolizing their induction into the medical profession. The College’s current M1 class includes a set of twins, a married couple and a Fulbright Scholar. Here are some additional facts:

Students applied:

Students accepted:

Students enrolled:

10,204

423

260

Legacy students:

Average MCATS:

Average GPA:

42

(national Average: 30)

(national Average: 3.5)

32

3.8

Number of men:

Number of women:

Age range:

130

130

19-37

Countries outside the United States represented:

Students from the tri-state area:

Number in the Penn State BS/MD program:

(Canada, India, Spain, Cambodia and South Korea)

88 25 22

21

5

from Pennsylvania from New Jersey from Delaware

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