CAREER PULSE – Sep 18

 

 

 

EAST LONGMEADOW — Facial Cosmetic & Maxillofacial Surgery, P.C. announced that Dr. Steven Nguyen, an Atlanta native, has joined the oral-surgery practice.

Nguyen earned his DMD degree at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in Boston. He also completed a general practice residency at Jacobi Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y. Afterward, he was accepted into the six-year MD integrated Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Residency Program at the Mount Sinai Downtown/Jacobi Medical Center in New York City, and received his MD degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Nguyen practices the full scope of oral and maxillofacial surgery procedures, including repair of oral-facial trauma, orthognathic surgery, general anesthesia and IV sedation, wisdom-teeth removal, bone grafting and dental implants, management of oral pathology, treatment of temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disease, minimally invasive salivary gland procedures, as well as traditional dentoalveolar surgery. He maintains certifications in BLS, ACLS, PALS, and ATLS.

 

PITTSFIELD — Berkshire Health Systems announced the appointment of Dr. Adam Bowling to the medical staff of Berkshire Medical Center and the physician staff of Berkshire Surgical Services of BMC.

Bowling is accepting new patients in need of general-surgery services and is teamed with Drs. Michael Cohn, Eugene Curletti, Michael DiSiena, Andrew Lederman, Christian Galvez-Padilla, Clayton Peterson, Elie Semaan, Christopher Touloukian, and George Veinoglou at Berkshire Surgical Services of BMC. 

Bowling received his medical degree from Touro University College of Osteopathic Medicine in California and completed residencies in general surgery at Palisades Medical Center in New Jersey and Berkshire Medical Center, where he was chief resident. 

 

CHICOPEE — Wegrzyn Dental Group Inc. announced the appointment of Dr. Elle Donnelly, DMD. She will offer a full range of dental services for the entire family, including on evenings and Saturdays, and is accepting new patients at both the practice’s Chicopee and Westfield locations.

Donnelly is a recent graduate of the university of New England College of Dental Medicine in Portland, Maine. She is also a member of the American Dental Assoc., the Academy of General Dentistry, and the Massachusetts Dental Assoc. 

“My desire to become a dentist began when I shadowed my own family dentist,” she said. “I realized what a great connection to patients can be developed while making a tangible difference in a patient’s health. During my time at school, I was able to get hands on training from day one and ended my time at school with a chance to work in clinics in rural Maine and Vermont as a student provider. I hope to continue to expand my education and devote time to those in need by volunteering my efforts to a variety of organizations.”

 

HOLYOKE — Holyoke Medical Center’s Dr. Yannis Raftopoulos, a board-certified bariatric surgeon and weight-management specialist, has been selected to give a podium presentation at Obesity Week 2018 in Nashville, Tenn. in November.

Obesity Week is an international event focused on the basic science, clinical application, surgical intervention, and prevention of obesity. By combining both the American Society for Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) and the Obesity Society (TOS) annual meetings, Obesity Week is the largest obesity meeting in the world, bringing together world-renowned experts in obesity to share innovation and breakthroughs in science. 

Raftopoulos will present his findings on effectively assisting patients in losing 10{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of their body weight before bariatric surgery. With a sample size of nearly 1,400 patients, out of which 190 patients were from Holyoke Medical Center, patients who are able to lose more than 10{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of their body weight before bariatric surgery had substantially better results after two years post-surgery than those who did not lose weight or lost less than 10{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} of their body weight. This is the first time that such effective weight loss prior to surgery has been reported and additionally has been linked to better weight loss after surgery long-term.

The HMC Weight Management Program is the only site in the Northeast participating in an FDA trial assessing the efficacy of the revolutionary intragastric balloon. The device is swallowed as a pill and requires no endoscopy, sedation, or anesthesia to be placed or removed. This trial began in early 2018 and will be completed in early 2019.

 

WILBRAHAM — The Gaudreau Group’s Amanda Mercier recently achieved the registered employee benefits consultant (REBC) designation from the National Assoc. of Health Underwriters (NAHU), which views this designation as the highest form of recognition in the health-insurance industry, demonstrating Mercier’s commitment to educational leadership within the insurance profession.

The REBC designation distinguishes Mercier as an elite practitioner in her field. The program analyzes group benefits with respect to the ACA environment, contract provisions, marketing, underwriting, rate making, plan design, cost containment, and alternative funding methods. The largest portion of this program is devoted to group medical expense plans that are a major concern to employers, as well as to employees.

 

 

SPRINGFIELD — New England Orthopedic Surgeons recently announced that Dr. Connor Ziegler joined its team.

Ziegler is an orthopedic surgeon specializing in operative and non-operative treatment of the shoulder, elbow, hip, and knee, including open and arthroscopic surgery. He has specialized training in multi-ligament knee injuries and complex shoulder surgery, and will be the only fellowship-trained hip-arthroscopy specialist in the region.

 

HARTFORD — Dr. Syed Hussain has officially begun his role as senior vice president and chief medical officer of Trinity Health Of New England.

Hussain will report directly to Dr. Reginald Eadie, president and CEO of Trinity Health Of New England, as he works to drive a standardized delivery of care system.

Hussain will be responsible for the oversight and direction of the clinical and medical aspects of the Regional Health Ministry within Trinity Health Of New England. This includes advancing regional hospital clinical integration, the establishment of clinical practice standardization, the regionalization of clinical service lines, as well as direct responsibility for patient safety, quality outcomes and patient experience, regional medical and clinical education, and risk management.

Hussain most recently served as chief medical officer at both the regional and hospital level. He was featured in Crain’s Business magazine as a ‘40 Under 40’ leader in 2017. Board-certified in internal medicine, he completed his graduate medical education training in internal medicine at Detroit Medical Center/Wayne State University and was subsequently a fellow in the GME Physician Leadership Fellowship Program at Tenet/Detroit Medical Center.

 

HOLYOKE — Holyoke Medical Center affiliate Western Mass Physician Associates (WMPA) recently opened a new family medicine practice with the addition of two new providers: Dr. Katherine Jarrell and Cheryl Gorton, DNP, FNP-BC, CNP. The office is located at 10 Hospital Dr., Suite 104, Holyoke.

Jarrell received her undergraduate degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology before attending Tufts University School of Medicine. She completed a family-medicine residency through the Brown Family Medicine Residency at Memorial Hospital in Rhode Island,then completed a global-health and faculty-development fellowship at Brown Family Medicine Residency and a maternal-child-health fellowship at Landmark Medical Center, also in Rhode Island.

Jarrell is currently enrolled in a master of public health degree at Brown University School of Public Health. She joins Holyoke Medical Center most recently from the clinical faculty at Brown Department of Family

Medicine and Thundermist Health Center in Woonsocket, R.I., where she was a practicing family physician with a focus on maternal and child health. She is a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the Rhode Island Academy of Family Physicians, and the Society for Teachers in Family Medicine. 

Gorton completed her bachelor’s degree in nursing, as well as a doctor of nursing practice, at Elms College. She joins Holyoke Medical Center most recently from Baystate Health, where she worked in labor and delivery for 33 years. Her experience also includes being a member of the adjunct clinical faculty at Elms College and Holyoke Community College. She is a member of the American Assoc. of Nurse Practitioners, the American Nurses Assoc., and the Assoc. of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses.

 

SPRINGFIELD — Springfield College announced that Tracey Matthews, dean of the School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation, is one of 45 mid-level administrators in higher education nationwide selected by the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) to participate in the 2018-19 Senior Leadership Academy.

Individuals chosen for the year-long program are administrators in higher education who have been identified by their institutions as having the potential for senior leadership positions in independent colleges or universities.

Matthews will participate in an opening seminar in St. Louis on Nov. 2-4 and a closing seminar in Washington, D.C. on June 20-22. She also will undertake a mentoring program, work with experts, participate in webinars, and engage in a series of readings and case studies during the academic year.

The academy is designed to prepare prospective leaders to assume positions as the chief officers in any division — including academic affairs, student affairs, finance, enrollment management, and advancement — in independent higher education. 

Matthews was appointed dean of the School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation in 2014. Prior to her current role as dean, Matthews served as a faculty member at Springfield College starting in 2002, and she also served six years as chair for the Department of Exercise Science and Sport Studies.

Matthews earned a doctor of physical educational degree from Springfield College in 1997, and received a master’s degree in physical education from the college in 1995.

 

AMHERST — Jianhan Chen, a computational biophysicist at UMass Amherst, recently received a four-year, $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study a newly recognized class of proteins with highly flexible 3-D structural properties, in particular some extra-floppy ones called intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs).

Proteins are macromolecules that control nearly all aspects of cell function from response to external stimuli to control of cell-cycle and cell-fate decisions, Chen explained, adding that IDPs are unusual because, while most proteins adopt stable 3-D structures to do their work in the cell, IDPs instead remain structurally disordered, that is, extremely flexible. They are believed to account for about one-third of all eukaryotic proteins and are key components of cellular signaling and regulatory networks.

Scientists now believe that, by staying flexible, IDPs have an advantage in interacting with other proteins and each other, perhaps because the floppy state lets them respond faster than a more rigid structure, or lets them interact with a wider variety of molecules, or both, Chen said.

His project will develop computational methods for simulating flexible proteins and their interactions to explore the fundamental principles of how their structural disorder affects function. Because traditional high-resolution structural determination techniques such as X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance are helpless in describing these floppy states, he added, computer modeling and molecular simulation are required to describe these states.

New computational tools developed by Chen’s lab will be made available to the broad scientific community and can be applied to study biomolecular dynamics and interactions in general.

 

HOLYOKE — Holyoke Medical Center recently expanded its Sleep Lab services with the addition of two new providers, Dr. Rani Athreya and nurse practitioner Kristie Harrington.

Athreya, a board-certified sleep-medicine specialist, attended Madras Medical College in India. She then completed a residency in internal medicine at Brookdale University Hospital & Medical Center in Brooklyn, a residency in neurology at State University of New York in Brooklyn, and a fellowship in movement disorders at UMass. In addition to sleep medicine, she is also board-certified in psychiatry and neurology, and is a member of the American Academy of Neurology, the Movement Disorder Society, and the Massachusetts Medical Society.

Harrington received her nurse practitioner degree from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Boston and has specialized in neurology and sleep

health since 2016. She is a member of the Academy of Neurology and the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

Holyoke Medical Center has offered sleep studies for 20 years and provides both home studies and studies in the sleep lab. The studies monitor patients while they sleep and help technicians gather information about the quality of sleep, heart rate, breathing, and oxygen levels. That information gives the providers the data necessary for an appropriate diagnosis and treatment plan.

Athreya will present a program about sleep apnea on Wednesday, Oct. 17 at 5:30 p.m. in the HMC Auxiliary Conference Center. Anyone having difficulty sleeping at night is invited to come learn about the different causes of sleep apnea and find out what treatment options are available to sleep soundly. To register, call (413) 534-2789 or visit www.holyokehealth.com/events.