School of medicine

School Notes: School of Medicine
March/April 2015

Nancy J. Brown | http://medicine.yale.edu

Alumnus confirmed as surgeon general

In December the US Senate confirmed the nomination of medical school alumnus Vivek Murthy ’03MD, ’03MBA, as the nation’s 19th surgeon general. Murthy completed his residency training in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he is an attending physician and an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School. After graduating from medical school Murthy founded TrialNetworks, social networking platforms that enhance communication, collaboration, and overall efficiency in clinical trials, and he is a cofounder of the 16,000-member Doctors for America. In 2011, President Obama appointed Murthy to the National Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health. The following year he was named cochair of the health care advisory committee for Obama’s reelection campaign.

Leader in cancer therapies to chair diagnostic radiology

Jean-Francois (Jeff) Geschwind has been appointed chair of the Department of Diagnostic Radiology at the School of Medicine, and chief of diagnostic radiology at Yale–New Haven Hospital. He will assume these duties in April. He is currently professor of radiology, surgery, and oncology, and vice chair of the Department of Radiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research focuses on cancer therapeutics that block tumor glycolysis in cancer cells, and in 2009 he founded a company based on this technology. Geschwind and colleagues have also improved therapies for patients with liver cancer, in particular such image-guided therapies as chemoembolization and radioembolization. He is recognized as a key opinion leader in the field of liver cancer and has received numerous foundation, industry, and federal grants for his research.

Mayo Clinic orthopedist to lead new musculoskeletal center

Mary I. O’Connor ’79 will become the inaugural director of the Musculoskeletal Center at the School of Medicine and Yale–New Haven Hospital in May 2015. The center will coordinate interdepartmental clinical and research programs at the medical school and hospital. It will provide a wide range of services—including joint replacement, pain management, and advanced treatment for arthritis, spine disorders, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and other conditions—by bringing together specialists in orthopedics, neurosurgery, neurology, rheumatology, rehabilitation, biomedical engineering, and other specialties.

O’Connor is professor of orthopedic surgery at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and program director of the adult reconstructive fellowship at Mayo Clinic in Florida. She earned her BA in biochemistry from Yale University and her MD from Medical College of Pennsylvania, then spent her internship and residency in orthopedics, and a fellowship in orthopedic oncology, at Mayo Graduate School of Medicine.

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