We are pleased to announce that the department has named Catherine Chen, MD, MPH, and Elizabeth Whitlock, MD, MS, as Severinghaus Assistant Professors for academic years 2018 - 2020. Named for Professor Emeritus John Severinghaus, MD, this title honors two Assistant Professors in the Department whose research shows exciting promise, particularly in areas related to Dr. Severinghaus’ primary interest in applying physiological understanding to problems in human medicine. Recipients are selected annually.
Dr. Chen is the first of our research scholar track residents to join the faculty. During the course of her research training, she received a FAER resident research award and a contract from the NIH Loan Repayment Program. She has since won a grant from the Mt. Zion Health Fund and a FAER mentored research award, Unintended Consequences of Routine Preoperative Testing in Cataract Surgery Patients. Her paper Preoperative Testing in Patients Undergoing Cataract Surgery, published in 2015 in the New England Journal of Medicine, received national news coverage. Dr. Chen is mentored by R. Adams Dudley.
In May of this year, Dr. Whitlock became our second research scholar track resident to join the faculty, after spending two years on our NIH training grant and receiving an NIH Loan Repayment contract. She has already begun work on her new FAER mentored research grant, Cognitive Trajectories Before and After Coronary Revascularization in the Elderly. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine in 2017, her article, Association Between Persistent Pain and Memory Decline and Dementia in a Longitudinal Cohort of Elders, received extensive news coverage. Her primary mentor is Alexander Smith.
Please join us in congratulating Drs. Chen and Whitlock for this achievement.