Program Update
This winter, we wrapped up our annual recruitment process and took part in the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP) on March 21st. We’re excited to welcome Kate Bell, MD and Josh Hood, DO to our team!
Kate is currently completing a transitional year at Henry Ford Jackson Hospital in Jackson, Michigan. Josh previously completed a year of Family Medicine at The University of Tennessee Health Science Center in St. Francis and is now working with the St. Louis County Department of Public Health.
More to come about come about them in our next update.
Wisconsin Environmental Health Network’s Annual Conference
On March 7, 2025, our program participated in the Wisconsin Environmental Health Network’s annual Making the Connection Conference, which focused on the critical connection between health and plastics. The conference featured outstanding speakers who covered topics ranging from the health impacts of plastics to policy strategies for reducing their use.
We were happy to have Dr. Henry Anderson join us for the day also. Thanks to his generous donation to our program, we were able to contribute to the conference as a sponsor.
Resident Plans After Graduation
Kandarp Shah, MD, MPH is excited to be joining Kaiser Permanente in California as a Clinical Occupational Medicine physician and Director of Lifestyle Medicine. In this role, he aims to integrate innovative clinical care models within Kaiser’s value-based healthcare system, where prevention remains at the core. He joined our program with a broad vision for healthcare, focused on democratizing prevention-centered care and integrating lifestyle medicine across medical specialties. During his MPH coursework, he developed a strong interest in Public-Private Partnerships and Systems Thinking to build and scale turnkey solutions within public health. Before embarking on this next chapter, he plans to travel to Nicoya, Costa Rica—one of the world’s Blue Zones—with his to be fiancée.
Ayanna Vasquez, MD, MS was accepted into the Veteran’s Affairs Advanced Fellowship in Women’s Health at the William S. Middleton Memorial VA Hospital. This clinical research fellowship trains clinicians “in clinical care, scholarship, practice, education and systems improvements related to the advancement of health care for women and women veterans.” During her time as a resident, Ayanna focused on women’s and maternal and child health while rotating through the Women’s Health Clinic at the VA and completing quality improvement, public health, and grant projects on cervical cancer, maternal health, and STIs at other sites. While as a fellow, she will leverage this experience to design a surveillance project related to hypertension among women veterans.
Faculty Update
Parvathy Pillai, MD, MPH will be presenting a poster at the 2025 AAMC Central Group on Educational Affairs Meeting “Advancing Medical Education: Empowering Healthcare Professionals for Future Success.” The title of her paper is “Baseline characteristics prior to implementation of an integrated curriculum for climate change and health.”
Pat Remington, MD, MPH has been selected as this year’s recipient of the ACPM Distinguished Service Award. This award recognizes a Fellow or member of ACPM for outstanding service to the College. Pat will be honored at the PM2025 Conference Fellows, Award Winners and Board Member Luncheon on May 5th, as well as the Awards on May 8th during PM2025 in Seattle.
Alumni Update
PMR Class of 2019 alumni, Lia Kostiuk, MD, MPH and Odi Ezewanne, MD, MPH, have been elected to the 2025 cohort of the Fellows of the American College of Preventive Medicine Fellows (FACPM).
Fellowship in ACPM recognizes these distinguished individuals for their service and engagement within the field of preventive medicine, and within the entirety of the College. They join alumni who were elected in the past, including Drs. Maria Mora-Pinzon (2021) and Maggie Nolan (2024), as well as our faculty Drs. Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar and Patrick Remington.
In addition, Odi has become board certified in Lifestyle Medicine. According to Odi, “I plan to pioneer a Lifestyle Medicine clinic within the FQHC dedicated solely to providing patients with evidence-based preventive lifestyle solutions by utilizing high-yield health behavior modification strategies. In contrast to the traditional clinical care model, the clinic will be prevention-focused, each clinical encounter will be allotted more time for patient engagement and individual treatment plans will be less prescriptive, and more tailored to accommodate unique life experiences.”