DFM Research and Integrative Medicine Fellows

Please welcome the 2006 Department of Family Medicine postdoctoral Research and Integrative Medicine fellows! New research fellows this year include:

John Wilson, MD, our own Department of Family Medicine residency graduate, will be working with Mike Fleming, MD, MPH, Kathleen Carr, MD and faculty in Sports Medicine. John hopes to build an academic career in Primary Care and Sports Medicine. He began his research as a Madison resident with an ongoing randomized trial of manual physical therapy and water exercise as compared with the standard exercises prescribed for patients who have a diagnosis of arthritis of the knee.

Troy Kleist, MD comes to the Research Fellowship Program from the University of Wisconsin Department of Pediatrics. He has had previous research experience studying childhood asthma. He will be working with Dr. Fleming and with Dr. Robert Lemanske of Allergy and Immunology, and is planning to continue his focus on allergy during his fellowship.

Luke Fortney, MD is a Wisconsin native and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and the University of Wisconsin Madison Family Medicine Residency, and is the most recent Integrative Medicine (IM) fellow. Among his many interests are spirituality and health, meditation, and homeopathy. He began course work for the fellowship in January during his third year of residency. Luke will be working with Adam Rindfliesch, MD, the director of the IM fellowship program and David Rakel, MD. He joins Rian Podein, MD who began the IM fellowship in 2005.

The Department of Family Medicine research fellowship is supported by two National Institute of Health (NIH) T32 grants which focus on training Primary Care physicians to become NIH funded scientists. We have a total of 8 funded positions for 2005 and 9 for 2006. The academic fellowship is funded through the Department of Family Medicine Chair discretionary funds, and is currently funding two fellows.

Postdoc research fellows are expected to conduct 1 to 2 research studies, publish several papers, and prepare an NIH grant application during their 2 to 3 year fellowship. Fellows are encouraged to take courses in epidemiology, statistics and research methods. A Masters degree in Public Health is also an option. Fellows spend at least 80% of their time doing research, writing papers and writing grants, and the MD fellows spend 20% of their time doing clinical work. Our hope is, by the end of the fellowship, each Research fellow will have obtained an NIH grant they can take with them to an academic faculty position.

Academic fellows spend more time in clinical practice, while enhancing their teaching, scholarly and leadership skills. The two-year program allows each fellow to develop expertise in a chosen educational topic, and to participate in a variety of educational and professional opportunities that best meet his/her professional interests and career goals.

Research fellows continuing in the program for the coming year include:

• Tara LaRowe, PhD in nutritional science, who works with the research team of Alexandra Adams, MD, PhD studying nutrition and childhood obesity in the population of American Indian children;
  
  
• Bhushan Bhamb, MD, a family physician from India and England, who is working with Dr. Mike Fleming on alcohol research;
  
  
• Tanya Jagodzinski, PhD, a pediatrician interested in rural health and access to care who is working with Dr. Ellen Wald Chair of Pediatirics;
  
  
• Aleksandra Zgierska, MD, PhD who is working with Dr. Mike Fleming on a systematic review of meditation as an adjunct treatment for addiction, and will be writing a K grant application on the same topic;
  
  
• Nancy Pandhi, MD, a family physician working with Maureen Smith, PhD from the Department of Population Health on health systems research;
  
  
• James M. Davis, MD, an internist and hospitalist at Meriter Hospital who is working with Richard Davidson, PhD studying meditation and its effect on addiction.