First Dual Fellow in Pediatrics Hematology / Oncology and Clinical Informatics Receives Top Honors, Job Offer
| Andrew Tran was halfway through college in Austin, Texas, waffling between a future in biochemistry and astrophysics, when he got a job as a cashier in the gift shop at Dell Children’s Hospital.
The cash register was a little difficult to operate, but the job was OK otherwise. Then one day, the hospital was short-staffed and asked if he could help triage patients in the emergency room.
“That’s when I decided I wanted to be a doctor,” says Tran, who now has an M.D. after his name, a residency in pediatrics under his belt and is completing a four-year dual fellowship in pediatric hematology/oncology and clinical informatics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).
The fellowship is the first at UAMS that combines three years of subspecialty training in pediatric hematology-oncology with two years of subspecialty training in clinical informatics, condensed into a four-year program with the approval of the American Board of Pediatrics and the American Board of Preventive Medicine.
Tran’s fellowship directors at UAMS and Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH) have been so impressed with his accomplishments, despite some serious health setbacks, that they recently awarded him the Samuel D. Smith, M.D., Outstanding Fellow of the Year Award. It is given annually to one graduating fellow in pediatrics, pediatric surgery, anesthesia, radiology or psychology, in honor of the former professor of surgery and chief of pediatric surgery at ACH. Additionally, Tran received the Arkansas Medical Society’s Best Fellow Award in 2024.
“What makes Andrew truly exceptional is his deep curiosity, drive for discovery and scholarly energy,” said Feliciano “Pele” Yu Jr., M.D., chief medical information officer at ACH and a professor of pediatrics, biomedical informatics and public health at UAMS.
“He’s intentional about his learning and absorbs mentorship eagerly,” said Yu, who directs the Clinical Informatics Fellowship Program. “From day one, he approached the fellowship with remarkable initiative and momentum. We have already recruited him as a future faculty member in the UAMS Clinical Informatics Division and as an assistant medical informaticist at Arkansas Children’s.”
Tran, 34, could not be happier. He said he is thrilled that when his fellowship ends June 30, he can stay in Little Rock and continue using technology to further his main goal: “taking care of really sick children.”
It was Joana Mack, M.D., an associate professor of pediatric oncology/hematology at UAMS who directs the clinical part of the fellowship, and Shelley Crary, M.D., a professor of pediatric hematology/oncology at UAMS, who suggested Tran talk to Yu about a possible dual-track fellowship.
Tran said he had never even heard of the relatively new field that encompasses data management, data analysis and the use of electronic health records.
“Clinical informatics fellowship programs are typically two years long, and applicants must have completed an ACGME-accredited residency,” Yu said. “Recently, we’ve seen increasing interest from fellows in other subspecialties who want to supplement their training with clinical informatics. To meet this demand, we created a dual fellowship track that combines their primary subspecialty fellowship with our informatics program.”
Yu said that by integrating the programs, “we reduced the total training time by one year compared to completing the two fellowships sequentially. I worked closely with Dr. Mack to develop a customized curriculum.”
In a letter nominating Tran for the Fellow of the Year award, Mack wrote, “From a clinical standpoint, Dr. Tran is one of the most thoughtful, skilled and compassionate physicians I have had the privilege of working with. His clinical acumen is outstanding, and he consistently provides nuanced, evidenced-based and family-centered care.”
She added, “His patients and their families adore him, and his colleagues trust him implicitly. He is the type of fellow who raises the bar for everyone around him — not through ego, but through excellence.”
“I have learned so much about how hospitals run and how to find solutions by thinking outside the box,” Tran said recently. “My goal is to look through safety tracker data and identify issues we can fix, and then figure out how to do it.”
He said he has already used a combination of his newfound skills to improve safety protocol in the infusion center and streamline insurance processes to reduce patients’ waiting time.
“He has learned and applied machine learning and artificial intelligence to real-world hospital and research settings,” Yu said. “He has an amazing academic output. His posters, abstracts, presentations and publications are fantastic! Beyond his academic and clinical experience, Andrew is a genuinely kind, respectful and humble person. His resilience in the face of health challenges only deepens his motivation and humanity as a physician-scientist. He is truly an ideal fellow.”
“What distinguishes him as truly exceptional is how he has not only met but exceeded expectations in every possible dimension: clinical care, research productivity, quality improvement, innovation, mentorship and leadership,” Mack said. “He is a transformational leader whose impact is already being felt well beyond the walls of our institution. He represents the very best of academic medicine — brilliant, compassionate, collaborative and relentlessly driven to improve health care.”
Tran’s persistent positivity, despite some major health problems that surfaced just as he landed the fellowship, have further amazed his mentors.
It started in March 2021, when Trans was working at a general pediatrics practice in Prosper, Texas, a suburb of Dallas.
“I started noticing that I was getting really bad headaches,” he remembered. “I looked in the mirror, and my eyes were yellow.”
As an athlete who was on the swim team in college, and regularly played tennis and pickle ball, he was puzzled.
A trip to the emergency room revealed that he had only about a third of the amount of blood in his body that he should have. Tran said he underwent blood transfusions on a Monday, was discharged the next day, and three days later, received a call from Mack inviting him to an interview in Little Rock the following Tuesday for the fellowship.
He agreed immediately, even though he first had to work a weekend shift at a local hospital, which he finished just in time to arrive at his clinic Monday morning before his first patient. After seeing 35 patients, he jumped in the car and drove to Little Rock, where the interview resulted in him receiving the pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship.
Then two days before the fellowship was to begin in July 2021, Tran’s hemoglobin level dropped to 5 — well below the normal range of 13.5 to 18 — due to autoimmune hemolytic anemia.
“I spent the first couple of months doing my fellowship with my hemoglobin around 6,” he said. “It was very difficult. I had to do a lot of sitting. But I worked hard, and I had a lot of people helping me. I felt a calling to take care of kids with cancer, so I pushed on with the fellowship.”
Tran said his health troubles continued in May 2023, when he had a heart attack and stroke, only five months after competing in an Iron Man competition that included a 1.2-mile swim, a 50-mile bike ride and a 13.1 mile run, and doctors placed a stent in his heart. He had a second heart attack in June 2023.
While recovering, he said, he started the informatics part of his fellowship, and “learned how to program while sitting in a hospital bed.”
Right away, he became hooked on artificial intelligence.
“It is very cool,” he said. “Over this past year, I’ve gotten to do so much with artificial intelligence — even teaching people around the country,” including at a recent academic conference in Hawaii.
Later in 2023, a UAMS immunologist diagnosed him with lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease that caused clots in his heart and brain, finally providing a medical explanation for his health problems.
Outside his fellowship life, Tran said he plays electric guitar at church while his girlfriend, Mary-Kaylin, sings.
“That’s one of my favorite things in the entire world,” he said.
Tran said he is looking forward to being on staff at UAMS in July.
“I’m just going to follow the path that God leads me on, so I can help as many people as I can,” he said. “I’m enthusiastic about everything because of God. My faith played a huge role in helping me find my passions.”