Featured Announcements

Inside Newsletter Featured Announcements

May 20, 2019

UAMS Graduates 864 Health Care Professionals

Spencer Watson

Sharanda Williams (center), director of Academic Affairs in the UAMS College of Medicine, stands as marshal with students ready to receive their diplomas.

Degrees and certificates were awarded to 864 graduates of the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences’ (UAMS) five colleges and graduate school May 18 during a commencement ceremony at Verizon Arena in North Little Rock. Degrees were presented to 165 in the College of Medicine, 229 in the College of Nursing, 111 in the College of…

May 16, 2019

UAMS Celebrates National Nurses Week

Spencer Watson

A decorated table offers cupcakes for dessert during a lunch and learn panel held during Nurses Week.

A week of educational talks, events, awards and discounts marked the many ways in which UAMS celebrated National Nurses Week May 4-10 including weekends, nights and off-site clinics. “Nursing requires a tremendous amount of compassion, spending your entire day attending to the needs of others,” said Trenda Ray, Ph.D., RN, associate vice chancellor for patients…

May 13, 2019

Arkadelphia Man Strikes Out Stroke by Bowling

Ben Boulden

After treatment at UAMS for a stroke, Timothy Raines found bowling helped him recover from its effects.

May 13, 2019 | Timothy Raines didn’t have any rehabilitation or physical therapy after experiencing a stroke. Instead, after UAMS treated his stroke, he turned to bowling for his recovery.

May 10, 2019

Culinary Class Offered to Patients During Infertility Awareness Week

Katrina Dupins

Student chops parsley in class.

A group of women gathered inside a commercial kitchen in Little Rock recently for a UAMS-led culinary medicine cooking class. Culinary medicine is the practice of helping patients use nutrition and good cooking habits to restore and maintain health. UAMS is developing a culinary medicine program for health profession students, but this is the first…

May 8, 2019

Community Scientist Academy Graduates First High School Class

David Robinson

Students in the Little Rock School District's Excel Program were the first high school students to graduate from the Community Scientist Academy.

Shanell Young, a senior at Little Rock Parkview, wasn’t sure what to expect during the spring 2019 UAMS Translational Research Institute Community Scientist Academy. After receiving her graduation certificate at a UAMS ceremony, she went to the lectern to share her takeaways. “What people actually refer to as research nowadays is really just googling,” she…

May 3, 2019

FCC Commissioner Impressed by UAMS Digital Health Initiatives

Ben Boulden

May 3, 2019 | UAMS’ pioneering work in bringing health care to those who need it through digital health applications has drawn the attention of a top federal official who traveled from Washington D.C. to UAMS recently to see for herself. Jessica Rosenworcel, a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, visited April 29 with UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA; guests of the university; and leaders of UAMS’ new Institute for Digital Health & Innovation, including institute director Curtis Lowery, M.D. “We are 46th out of 50 states in health outcomes,” Patterson said. “UAMS needs to change that for the better, and we won’t do it just by staying in Pulaski County.” Telemedicine allows health professionals to diagnose and treat patients not physically present by using telecommunications technology, such as live video. It allows UAMS to extend its presence beyond its main campus and regional campuses. The creation of the institute, under the leadership of Patterson and Lowery, was announced in February and builds upon several telemedicine programs already in place, including ANGELS for high-risk pregnancy, AR SAVES for stroke, STAR for rural School-Based Health Centers and more. The institute connects the majority of hospitals and clinics across the state with telemedicine through interactive video and other digital services. Lowery gave a brief presentation to Rosenworcel about the history of digital health and telemedicine at UAMS. Lowery, Tina Benton, B.S.N., and a small team of clinicians and staff in 2003 founded ANGELS to bring maternal-fetal medicine to women with high-risk pregnancies who did not live near such a specialist. ANGELS (the Antenatal and Neonatal Guidelines, Education and Learning System) is an innovative consultative service for a wide range of physicians including family practitioners, obstetricians, neonatologists and pediatricians in Arkansas. An ANGELS obstetrician can talk to a pregnant mother via a live video connection and watch an ultrasound image of her baby from a local hospital so she can avoid traveling to Little Rock hours away. Lowery said the institute is doing a pilot study to see if ANGELS’ live video consultations can help during an emergency labor-and-delivery. “That’s the only way you’re going to do anything about it,” Lowery said. “By the time you transfer a mother from that smaller hospital, we might lose her because of excessive bleeding. I think in the next year we’re going to explore the idea of delivering blood by using drones. It could make a real difference when a hospital doesn’t have the blood for a massive loss.” Rosenworcel said she was intrigued by the idea of using drones to facilitate the transportation of blood and transplant organs. During her visit, she observed a live ANGELS consultation with a pregnant mother in another Arkansas town and toured the 24-hour call center that routes calls for ANGELS and other telemedicine programs like Arkansas Stroke Assistance through Virtual Emergency Support (AR SAVES). Renee Joiner, B.S.N., AR SAVES director, briefed Rosenworcel about the stroke telemedicine program. UAMS started AR SAVES in 2008 to provide telemedicine consultations with stroke neurologists at any time via live video. Through this service, almost 2,000 patients have received a clot-busting drug that often restores complete function to the patient. Arkansas recently fell to seventh in the nation in the number of stroke deaths per capita after many years in first place, a huge improvement credited in part to the efforts of AR SAVES. “I went down to Crossett on Friday and met a 27-year-old gentleman who had a stroke and went to the Ashley County Medical Center,” Patterson said. “He was treated through AR SAVES. Without this, he probably would have been a paraplegic and unable to work.” Rosenworcel learned about the trauma telemedicine program and the School Telemedicine in Arkansas (STAR) program, the first-ever effort to bring telemedicine care to Arkansas’ rural School-Based Health Centers. STAR two years ago rolled out the Healthy Now initiative for obesity reduction and prevention. Graduate students from the University of Central Arkansas and a UAMS nutritionist engage the students in one-on-one telemedicine encounters. “We piloted the program in the Magazine School District,” said Alan Faulkner, a program manager for the institute. “With two groups of participating students, 51% in one group reduced their weight, and 66% in another group reduced their weight.” Rosenworcel said she found those numbers to be very impressive. She was also given an overview of the Arkansas e-Link network by network director Roy Kitchen. The network was created from a $102 million grant awarded in August 2010 to UAMS and partner institutions through the federal Broadband Technology Opportunities Program Comprehensive Community Infrastructure grant. Led by UAMS, e-Link uses high-speed data transmission lines to connect about 400 community institutions for videoconferencing between medical professionals, patients and doctors and others along with the real-time exchange of patient data and readings. “Your approach has been great,” Rosenworcel said. “Instead of building a network and then finding problems to solve with it, you identified many real problems in public health and specific ways a digital health network can be used to solve them.” Rosenworcel especially enjoyed being able to meet an ANGELS patient via live video and observe the patient’s telemedicine consultation. “We are becoming one of the most connected states in the nation, and we believe with that we can use digital health to improve the health and quality of life of Arkansans,” Lowery said.

UAMS’ pioneering work in bringing health care to those who need it through digital health applications has drawn the attention of a top federal official who traveled from Washington D.C. to UAMS recently to see for herself. Jessica Rosenworcel, a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, visited April 29 with UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D.,…

April 30, 2019

UAMS Celebrates Grand Opening of New Pine Bluff Regional Campus

Spencer Watson

Mark Deal and Chancellor Cam Patterson use oversized scissors from the Pine Bluff Regional Chamber of Commerce for the official ribbon cutting at the South Central Regional Campus.

After an eight-month construction project, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) South Central Regional Campus in Pine Bluff celebrated its grand opening in a spacious facility on the Jefferson Regional Medical Center campus. The 33,000-square-foot space on the bottom two floors in the Jefferson Professional Building II provides room for the merger of…

College of Medicine Dean’s Day Celebrates Faculty and Staff Excellence

News Staff

Dr. Smith at podium

Service. Innovation. Selflessness. Gratitude. These were some of the words used as the UAMS College of Medicine honored faculty and staff members for exemplary service and accomplishments in education, research and clinical care at the ninth annual Dean’s Honor Day ceremony on April 24. “For me, this is one of the most rewarding events of…

April 22, 2019

U.S. Sen Tom Cotton and Family Tour UAMS NICU

Katrina Dupins

UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D. greets the Cotton family as the prepare to tour the NICU.

U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton visited the UAMS neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) April 19 to get a glimpse of the life-saving environment that takes care of babies born prematurely, some who have to stay weeks and months separated from their families.

April 17, 2019

Former Preemies Return to UAMS NICU for Fun and Games

Katrina Dupins

Hundreds of families attended the annual NICU Reunion held April 13 at UAMS Medical Center.

Nurses and neonatologists who work in the NICU say it’s an exciting time for them to see how much the children have grown since they left the NICU, whether it was 3 months ago or decades ago. About 200 families and UAMS staff attended the annual NICU Reunion held April 13 at UAMS Medical Center….


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