2023 Graduation
On June 27th we celebrated the graduation of Sara Doyle, MD, MPH and Jeremy Mihajlovich, DO, MPH! Sara is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas San Antonio in the Department of Neurology and the Biggs Institute. Jeremy is the Associate Medical Director at AllCare Health in Grants Pass, OR.
We also gave the following recognitions during our gathering:
Excellence in Teaching – Awarded by our residents for exemplary mentorship and teaching
Recipients: Dr. Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar and Dr. Jeff Huebner
Both graduating residents recognized Dr. Salisbury-Afshar and Dr. Huebner equally for their impact on their experience in our program.
Distinguished Service Award – Awarded by PMR program for
Recipient: Dr. Jon Temte
Dr. Temte is the SMPH Associate Dean for Public Health and Community Engagement, our Program Evaluation Committee Chair and overall champion of our program. He is always available to lend an ear and give advice, and support us in our efforts for fundraising.
Our New Residents Started in July!
Kandarp Shah, MD
After medical school, Kandarp founded and sold a startup to address the chronic disease epidemic. During the COVID pandemic, he realized the missing piece in tackling this challenge: prioritizing prevention and population health. This sparked his interest in pursuing a preventive medicine residency. To refine his skills in diagnosing and managing complex diseases, he completed an internship in Internal Medicine at San Joaquin General Hospital, California. Currently a PGY2 resident at UW-Madison, his clinical interests include metabolic syndrome, obesity, and lifestyle medicine. He also holds a keen interest in the intersection of clinical informatics, large language models (LLM), and health system innovation. His vision is to democratize prevention centric health care in America.
Ayanna Vasquez, MD, MS
Ayanna was born to Caribbean immigrants in NYC. She earned a BA in Biology and Society from Cornell University, where she started to connect her interests in health and the study of populations and societies. She deepened her knowledge and skillset with an MS in Epidemiology from The University of Iowa. After an MD from La Universidad Autόnoma de Guadalajara (Mexico), and two years at the Morehouse School of Medicine Internal Medicine Residency. Ayanna returned to population-level health at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She worked on a 100+ stakeholder citywide hypertension initiative coalition to address hypertension prevention, control, and disparities. Then in 2020, like so many public health professionals, Ayanna was activated for the public health front lines in New York City’s COVID-19 response: working in surveillance, evaluation, community outreach, health systems, and vaccination efforts. She obtained valuable experiences, which she carried with her to the CDC Foundation (CDCF). As an epidemiologist at the CDCF, she supported local and state health departments in COVID-19 contact tracing, substance abuse, and HCV disease surveillance.
Her research interests include disease surveillance, reversing health disparities, and increasing community ownership in health interventions. While in Wisconsin, Ayanna looks forward to expanding her tennis, bicycling, hiking, and ice skating interests.
Thank you Dr. Henry Anderson!
Dr. Henry Anderson is the former Wisconsin state environmental and occupational disease epidemiologist and chief medical officer in the Wisconsin Division of Public Health, Department of Health Services. After his retirement in 2016, Dr. Anderson has served as a faculty member for the residency and has provided invaluable mentorship and guidance to the program and our residents.
In addition, he has also generously provided funds to our program that support areas of need where our other grants do not cover. As most know, Preventive Medicine Residencies (ours included) are completely grant and donor funded, so the endowment that Dr. Anderson has established is both important and appreciated. The Henry A. Anderson, III, Endowment for the Advancement of Preventive Medicine has allowed us to offset the costs of resident board exams, MPH tuition, speaker honorariums, and travel. This year specifically, his funds were able to pay for Stu Berry’s (PGY-2) MPH Tuition as well as provide gifts to our graduating residents, Sara and Jeremy, to help pay the cost of the ABPM board exam. We are so grateful for his friendship and philanthropy over the years. Thank you, Dr. Anderson!
Alumni News
Maggie Nolan (PMR ’20), Lin Zhao (PMR ’22) and Pat Remington were published in the WMJ. Check out their paper, Mountain Bike Injury Incidence and Risk Factors Among Members of a Wisconsin Mountain Bike Club.
Faculty News: Dr. Maureen Durkin
The Department of Population Health Sciences Chair, Dr. Maureen Durkin, was featured in a CBS News story titled, Nearly 1 in 10 U.S. children have been diagnosed with a developmental disability, CDC reports
Pat Remington Retirement 2.0
Pat Remington began his second retirement in July! It still isn’t a complete retirement though; he will maintain a small role in the residency as a resident advisor and in other support roles where needed. We are so grateful for the leadership, service, mentorship he has provided to our program over the years. The program literally wouldn’t exist without him! Thank you to everyone who contributed to Pat’s retirement gifts. The Remingtons are enjoying their terrace chairs…on their terrace!