Department of Internal Medicine - Highlights

The Department of Internal Medicine's annual End of the Year Updates and Awards was held on June 10, 2024. Congratulations to the following winners for their many contributions to the department at the University of Arizona College of Medicine—Phoenix.

• Faculty Mentor of the Year - Esa Rayyan, DO
• Faculty Clinical Investigator of the Year - Karn Wijarnpreecha, MD, MPH
• Faculty Translational Investigator of the Year - Guy Reed, MD, MS
• Faculty Advanced Practice Provider of the Year - Danielle Soza, AGACNP, MSN, MHI
• Faculty Support Staff of the Year - U of A College of Medicine - Phoenix Clinical Research Regulatory Support Team
• Outstanding Clinical Service - Suresh Uppalapu, MD
• Outstanding Efforts in Healthcare Advancement - Jayne Peterson, MD
• Outstanding Communication and Teamwork - Brandon Gardner, DO 
• Outstanding Community Educator - Lindsay Ackerman, MD
• Outstanding Inter-Departmental Collaboration - Christine Lovato, MD 
• Leadership Service Award - Nilda Franco, MD

Congratulations to Kristina Balangue, MD, for receiving the Excellence in Teaching Award in Graduate Medical Education for 2024. This honor recognizes her outstanding dedication to teaching and mentoring.

Congrats to all of the Internal Medicine faculty who were featured as Top Docs for 2023 in Phoenix Magazine!

• Nimit Agwarwal, MD, and Kristina Balangue, MD – Geriatrics.
• Harvey Hsu, MD – Internal Health.
• Wilbur Su, MD – Cardiac Electrophysiology (Celebrating 10 years in the issue).
• Gregory Chu, MD – Critical Care Medicine.
• Ruth Franks Snedecor, MD – Hospital Medicine.
• Joyce Lee-Iannotti, MD – Sleep Medicine.
• Trent Smith, MD – Rheumatology.
• Lindsay Ackerman, MD – Dermatology (Celebrating 10 years in the issue).

Awards

We would like to congratulate the following faculty (pictured above in the order listed) on the awards they received for their exceptional teaching and work within our Graduate Medical Education (GME) programs.

• Christina Bergin, MD, director of the Internal Medicine Clerkship, was honored with the Excellence in Teaching by a Clerkship for 2021–2022.
• Donna Holland, MD, program director for the Internal Medicine Residency, was awarded the Excellence in Teaching in GME for 2021–2022.
• The second-year medical students at the U of A College of Medicine – Phoenix selected Elise Barney, DO, as their Educator of the Year.
• Chirag Kapadia, MD, was selected as the Resident of the Year by American College of Physicians Arizona Chapter in October 2022.

• Congratulations to all the Department of Internal Medicine faculty, housestaff and students for their winning abstracts at the 2022 ROME Forum.
  • Interpreting Entrustable Professional Activity (EPA) Assessments Before, During, and After COVID-19 Pandemic – Jordan Coulston, MD, Chengcheng Hu, PhD, Adam Health, MD, Sheetal Shah, DO, Maria Castro, MD, Marícela Moffitt MD, MPH
  • Quality Improvement Projects in Undergraduate Medical Education: A Summary of Projects – Alvin Gibson Wong, MD, Janet Mauer, MD, Kimberly Bader, MD, Chelsea Carlson, MD, Jordan Coulston, MD.
  • Evaluating the Impact of Tactile Learning through 3D Models of Congenital Abnormalities on Understanding Complex Cardiac Pathology – Vrishti Shah, MS3, Elise Barney, MD, Kevin Vo, MS2.

Alvin Gibson Wong, MD, and Jordan Coulston, MD