UAMS College of Medicine Names Greenfield Chair of Neurology
| LITTLE ROCK – L. John Greenfield Jr., M.D., Ph.D., has been named chairman of the Department of Neurology in the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) College of Medicine, effective July 1.
Greenfield is a nationally known expert in the cellular mechanisms of epilepsy, the mechanisms and actions of antiepileptic drugs and the body’s regulation of sensitivity to those medications. He is board certified in neurology and clinical neurophysiology.
He comes to UAMS from the University of Toledo College of Medicine in Ohio, where he is a tenured professor and vice chair for research in the Department of Neurology and a tenured professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology. He also directs the school’s M.D./Ph.D. Training Program.
“We are extremely pleased to have such an outstanding expert as Dr. Greenfield to lead our Department of Neurology,” said College of Medicine Dean Debra H. Fiser. “Not only does he bring leading-edge knowledge of epilepsy and antiepileptic drugs, but experience in training future neurologists and researchers.”
Greenfield will replace Sami Harik, M.D., who decided to step down June 30 but will continue to see patients as a faculty physician.
Greenfield graduated from Yale University in New Haven, Conn., in 1980. He received his doctorate in neuroscience from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in 1988 and his medical degree at the school the following year. Greenfield finished a residency in neurology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1993 and served on the faculty of its Department of Neurology for six years. He also completed a fellowship in electroencephalogram (EEG) and epilepsy during this time.
In 1999, Greenfield was recruited to the University of Toledo College of Medicine (then known as the Medical College of Ohio) as an assistant professor in the departments of Neurology and Pharmacology. He was promoted to associate professor in 2003, then professor in both departments in 2009. He has served as associate director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center since 2001 and as vice chair for research in the Department of Neurology and Director of the M.D./Ph.D. Training Program since 2005.
Greenfield lectures nationally on the basic mechanisms of epilepsy and antiepileptic drugs and is active in several professional organizations including the American Epilepsy Society. He is a charter member of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Acute Neural Injury and Epilepsy Study Section.
Greenfield’s NIH-funded research is exploring the mechanisms underlying a decrease in brain inhibitory neurotransmission that occurs after hypoxia, a decrease in oxygen level associated with conditions such as cardiopulmonary arrest, stroke, asphyxiation, acute lung disease and high altitudes.
UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Related Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a 540,000-square-foot hospital; six centers of excellence and a statewide network of regional centers. UAMS has 2,775 students and 748 medical residents. Its centers of excellence include the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy, the Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, the Psychiatric Research Institute and the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 10,000 employees, including nearly 1,150 physicians who provide medical care to patients at UAMS, Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the VA Medical Center and UAMS’ Area Health Education Centers throughout the state. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com.