College Hosts 22nd Academic Excellence Day

Health care professionals from seven Phoenix-area hospitals gathered May 2 at the 22^nd annual Academic Excellence Day at the UA College of Medicine – Phoenix to present research designed to improve medical care.

Academic Excellence Day is an opportunity to focus on the magnitude and variety of clinical and bench research being done by residents, fellows, medical students, graduate students, clinical allied health staff and physician staff.

“Academic Excellence is probably one of the most important things we do as an institution,” said Guy Reed, MD, MS, dean of the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix. “We pay a lot of attention to humanism, emotion and compassion in our medical student and residency training, but our discipline of medicine is built on a foundation of science.”

The daylong program included an exhibit of 86 poster presentations and 20 oral presentations. Participating hospitals included Abrazo Central Campus, Banner – University Medical Center Phoenix, HonorHealth, Maricopa Integrated Health System, Phoenix Children’s Hospital, St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center and the College of Medicine – Phoenix.

“It’s really an honor and wonderful to see so much impressive scholarly activity from all of our learners,” said Brigham Willis, MD, associate professor in the Department of Child Health. “This is one of my favorite days of the year to see our young residents and fellows and all of the amazing work they are doing.”

Dr. Willis, who helped moderate the event, said Michael Grossman, MD, MACP, professor emeritus at the UA College of Medicine – Phoenix, was a driving force behind Academic Excellence Day.

“Academic Excellence Day was developed to provide a constructive and hopefully an enjoyable competitive venue to present original research projects or academically quality review of a given topic,” Dr. Grossman said. “It encourages resident participation in developing a research idea into a rigorous study, allowing trainees to gain firsthand information and experience in research.”

Dr. Grossman, former associate dean of Graduate Medical Education for the Colleges of Medicine in Tucson and Phoenix, founded Academic Excellence Day. He said the event allows residents and fellows to compete by presenting posters or full oral presentations in a relative low stress way to familiarize them with the process.

During his keynote presentation, Dean Reed discussed his own research journey. Dean Reed is known for his research on the mechanism of blood clots and vascular disease. Through grant support from the National Institutes of Health, he translated his laboratory research findings into an innovative, clot-dissolving therapy to treat patients with strokes and heart attacks, which is now in Phase II clinical trials.

“Research all comes back to our patients and mission as a medical school, which is really to cure disease and improve health,” he said.

• Academic Excellence Day 2018 Photo Gallery.
• More about Academic Excellence Day.

*Academic Excellence Day was sponsored by the Mutual Insurance Company of Arizona.