Class Notes for winter 2024

1960s

Ted Dodenhoff (M.D. 1960, Residency 1969) completed his residency with Reed Dingman (M.D. 1936, Residency 1945) in plastic surgery following medical school. Afterward, he settled in Phoenix, Arizona, and practiced for 30 years before retiring. His fondest memories and proudest moments were the times he spent on surgical missions to Mexico and Central and South America performing surgery on indigenous people living in poverty. 

John F. Selden (M.D. 1964) recently published Alaskacare: Maria and the Others (Austin Macauley, 2023), which recounts a partnership between the CDC and Alaska Department of Health in the 1960s to improve infectious disease and child mortality rates among indigenous people on the Bering Sea coast. He says, “Starting crisis care medical procedures and dialysis in Anchorage along with a medical evacuation to Moscow complete the narrative.”

Lance Talmage (M.D. 1964, Residency 1973) is now retired and has been appointed professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences. He splits his time between Toledo, Ohio; Siesta Key, Florida; and Devils Lake, Michigan, with his wife Dee.

Stewart Teal (M.D. 1964, Residency 1968, Fellowship 1971) just completed setting up the Stewart and Ann Teal Endowment to benefit the U-M Department of Psychiatry, with an emphasis on child psychiatry.

Glenn Geelhoed (M.D. 1968) ran the Marine Corps Marathon on November 4. He has completed the MCM all but two years since 1977.

Thomas Rowland (M.D. 1969), a retired pediatric cardiologist in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, recently self-published Gross Anatomy: Memoirs of a Medical Education. The book explores the experience of U-M Medical School students, with each chapter written from the perspective of a different persona. Although the personas are fictionalized, the recounted events are based on facts gleaned from historical accounts and Rowland’s experience. As an undergraduate at U-M, Rowland wrote about sports for the Michigan Daily and the Ann Arbor News. Later, he became chief of pediatric cardiology at the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, where his research interests involved exercise physiology in children. He has written 14 books and more than 200 peer-reviewed articles. To inquire about getting a free copy of his new book, email him at [email protected].

1970s

Thomas M. Flood, M.D. (Residency 1970) recently published Type 1 Diabetes: Where We Were, Are, Will Be: A Candid Doctor-Patient Conversation. Co-written with John H. Plunkett, the book explores what Flood has learned in his career of treating diabetes and how Plunkett has dealt with hav-ing type-1 diabetes for more than 50 years.

Steven Giannotta (M.D. 1972, Residency 1978) will step down as chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery at Keck Medicine of USC on June 30, 2024, after 20 years in that position.

Louis Rosati, M.D. (Residency 1971) published his third book (and first novel), The Boy in Abruzzo. Based on a true incident, it tells the story of a teenage boy who leads escaped POWs back to the British Eighth Army advancing along the Adriatic Sea during WWII. 

Kim Miller (M.D. 1975), MSHA, has retired from a half-century career in clinical and administrative medicine. After completing his residency at the University of Colorado, he joined the faculty of the U-M Medical School and then the Mayo Clinic. He did post-doctoral training in production-operations management at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill business schools and became chief medical officer of Mercy Health Plan and chief operations officer of Caprock Consulting Group. He has taught courses in dozens of post-doctoral medical education programs, taught health care management as director of the health care design section of the University of Oklahoma’s internal medicine department, and written books, including three textbooks on operations practice management in internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatrics. In retirement, he is working on the fourth volume of Making Sense of Managed Care.

David Chudwin (M.D. 1976) retired at the end of December after 41 years of medical practice, specializing in allergy and immunology, in the Chicago area.

1980s

Carolyn Coker Ross (M.D. 1980) is an African American writer, speaker, and integrative medicine practitioner, who specializes in food and body image issues and addiction. For the past four years, Ross has been an international speaker and consultant on issues of cultural competence, antiracism, and diversity in mental health, with an emphasis on the treatment of eating disorders in women of color. Ross gave a TEDxPleasantGrove talk on “Historical and Intergenerational Trauma” in January 2020. She was the co-chair of the African American Eating Disorder Professionals – Black Indigenous People of Color subcommittee of International Eating Disorder Professionals. She is the author of three books on eating disorders and a contributing author to Treating Black Women with Eating Disorders: A Clinician’s Guide. She is co-founder of the Institute for Antiracism and Equity in Mental Health, a consulting group for mental health care providers. She received an award for Outstanding Service in Addiction Medicine in 2022 from Friendly House Los Angeles and the Dr. Peter Hayden Diversity, Inclusivity and Racial Equity Award from the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers in 2023. She co-edited a forthcoming book, Antiblackness and the Stories of Authentic Allies: Lived Experiences in the Fight Against Institutionalized Racism (due June 2024, Oxford University Press).

Four classmates — Doug Etsell (M.D. 1980), Lindsey Thomas (M.D. 1980, Residency 1984), Ann Alpern (M.D. 1980, Residency 1981), and Rick Lemon (M.D. 1980) — and their spouses recently completed a bike and boat trip to Croatia. “We sailed among the beautiful Dalmatian Islands and biked from coast to coast across several of the inhabited islands,” says Lemon. “We swam in the Adriatic Sea and explored the villages along the coast.”

Nat Pernick (M.D. 1983, JD 1986) started a free online pathology textbook, www.PathologyOutlines.com, in 2001, inspired by his belief that medical information that physicians need should be free and easy to access. To date, they have 25 employees, 60 editors, and more than 300 active writers. They are also creating a worldwide directory of pathologists. Pernick is passionate about charitable giving, and his business provides scholarships to the U-M Medical School, U-M Law School, and the Wayne State University Department of Mathematics (where Pernick received his degrees), as well as the Detroit Public Schools (where his parents attended).

Robert Ike, M.D. (Fellowship 1985) completed his undergraduate degree and M.S. at U-M, as well as a postdoctoral fellowship at the Medical School. Afterwards, he joined the U-M faculty, where he remained for 34 years before retiring. Since then, he has been doing a lot of writing and has published 20 peer-reviewed publications, a book chapter, and two instructional videos. He also has a blog with nearly 400 posts, and he has written several books. “My dad always said I should be a writer,” he says. “Maybe it took 41 years of seasoning at U-M (and eight at some other institutions) for me to realize that.”

Michael D. Seidman (M.D. 1986) recently became chair of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at Advent Health in Orlando, Florida. He’s working on five research projects with medical students from University of Central Florida and Florida Atlantic University, and has created the eighth fellowship on Otologic/neurotologic/skull base surgery. Seidman also recently obtained a seaplane rating and flies jets professionally. “My bride still loves me most of the time, and we are going on 38 years of marriage,” he says. “We have three happy, healthy kids who are full-grown and crushing it in their careers (we are so proud), and our oldest son Jake and his bride Holly have blessed us with Asher Jade (our 2-year-old granddaughter) and Jude, our newest baby grandson!” 

Gus Garmel (M.D. 1988) received the National Emergency Medicine Faculty Mentor of the Year Award from AAEM/RSA in New Orleans. He is an adjunct professor of emergency medicine at Stanford University, and co-directed the Stanford/Kaiser EM Residency Program from its inception in 1991. He currently serves as executive mentor and physician advisor for Vital (vitaler.com), a startup that uses AI and similar technologies and algorithms to enhance the patient experience by improving communication; strengthening care delivery efficiencies in the ER, hospital, and after discharge; and providing patients with better understanding and control of their health.

Sriram S. Narsipur (M.D. 1988) was recently appointed assistant dean of undergraduate medical education at SUNY Upstate Medical University’s Norton College of Medicine in Syracuse, New York. Narsipur is the recipient of the 2023 President’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service. He was most recently the Edward C. Reifenstein Professor of Medicine, chair of the Department of Medicine, and professor of internal medicine, of surgery, and of pediatrics at SUNY Upstate.

Robert J. Wolf (M.D. 1988) has won four awards for his book, Not a Real Enemy: The True Story of a Hungarian Jewish Man’s Fight for Freedom (Amsterdam Publishers, 2022): the Nautilus Book Award, the National Indie Excellence Award, the Living Now Book Award, and a Readers’ Favorite Book Award. The book is a biography about his father’s story of living as a Jewish man in Hungary when the Nazis, and later the communists, seized power. Wolf is donating 10% of book proceeds to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

1990s

Toni Johnson Liggins (M.D. 1991), a psychiatrist with extensive experience in undergraduate and graduate medical education, joined St. George’s University School of Medicine in Grenada, West indies, as the associate dean for clinical studies. Johnson Liggins will conduct site visits with affiliated clinical programs throughout the U.S. to ensure students and faculty are meeting educational and accreditation standards. 

Swati Dutta (M.D. 1991) and her med school roommate Jennifer Miller (M.D. 1991) met Marilyn Bull (M.D. 1968) last summer on Bull’s family farm in west Michigan. Bull maintains a medical practice in Indiana. “Truly an inspirational woman!”Dutta says. 

Louito C. Edje (M.D. 1995, MHPE 2017) has been named the senior associate dean of medical education at the U-M Medical School. Prior to this appointment, Edje served as a professor of medical education and family and community medicine at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center and College of Medicine, where she also was associate dean for graduate medical education and designated institutional official. She has received numerous honors, including the Family Physician of the Year Award from the American Academy of Family Physicians and the Michigan Medicine Alumni Society Distinguished Humanitarian Award.

Sreek Cherukuri (M.D. 1998), a board-certified otolaryngologist, has spent the last couple of years researching and developing ClearCast, an FDA-registered personal assistive listening device that, he says, “helps people hear what they want, when they want (TV, family members, dinner conversations, etc.) without needing hearing aids.”

2000s

Allan Escher, D.O., (Residency 2001) was recently elected secretary/treasurer of the American Osteopathic College of Anesthesiologists. 

Nada Elbuluk (M.D. 2009) recently published Color Atlas and Synopsis for Skin of Color (McGraw Hill, 2023), co-written with Susan Taylor. “The book is meant to educate physicians and providers on how to accurately diagnose dermatologic conditions in different skin colors, an area which historically has had significant deficits in medical literature,” says Elbuluk, who is founder and director of the USC Skin of Color and Pigmentary Disorders Program at Keck Medicine of USC.

2010s

Alice Zheng (M.D. 2015) celebrated the birth of her second daughter, Juniper Chengjia Liang, in 2022. She spoke with Business Insider last September about her experiences with pregnancy, her education, and her role as a principal at RH Capital, which focuses on early-stage women’s health investing. Zheng was also named one of Business Insider’s “30 Under 40 in Healthcare” last year.