June/July 2023 Memphis Medical News

Knowing Where It Hurts

Neurologist Oleksandra Dryn specializes in occipital pain blocks

A doctor sometimes can’t put his or her finger on why patients experience shooting, and often debilitating, pain coming from the back of their head.

That’s when a neurologist like Oleksandra Dryn, MD, steps in to literally put her finger on the problem.

Article on page 5

AI May Be on Its Way to the Doctor’s Office, But It’s Not Ready to See Patients

What use could health care have for someone who makes things up, can’t keep a secret, doesn’t really know anything, and, when speaking, simply fills in the next word based on what’s come before? Lots, if that individual is the newest form of artificial intelligence, according to some of the biggest companies out there.

Article on page 6

See more local news in Grand Rounds on page 8

Hospital Websites’ Third-party Trackers Exposing Patients to Fraud and Hospitals to HIPAA Sanctions

Nearly all hospitals have them

By BECKY GILLETTE

Most people who use the internet are accustomed to getting unsolicited advertisements after shopping for a certain product. But what about being a patient diagnosed with a serious medical condition who starts receiving unsolicited online advertisements for “cures” for their condition? First, it is a violation of privacy for highly sensitive personal health information to be disclosed to an advertiser. Second, some patients may make the mistake of believing “snake oil” salesmen instead of their healthcare providers about the best treatments.

Shockingly, the potential for breaches of private health information through hospital websites is very common. According to a recent study by the University of

Pennsylvania published in Health Affairs, 99 percent of U.S. hospitals have thirdparty tracking on their hospital websites. By allowing third-party tracking of

confidential patient data on websites, hospitals are violating Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations exposing patients to (CONTINUED ON PAGE 4)

By JAMES DOWD

Growing up outside Minneapolis, Minnesota, Joseph Gleason never imagined that one day he’d move to Tennessee, much less to Memphis.

But for nearly a decade, Gleason – who specializes in general adult and pediatric urology at Conrad Pearson Clinic – has lived and worked in Shelby County and these days he can’t imagine being anywhere else.

“This is a real family affair. Our first son was born in Canada, but our second son was born in Memphis and my wife’s parents and grandparents moved here

(CONTINUED ON PAGE 3)

Joseph Gleason

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At Home in the Bluff City, continued from page 1 a few years ago,” Gleason said. “We love spending time with our family here and taking advantage of what Memphis has to offer. This is home.”

The route from Minnesota to Memphis was circuitous, Gleason said, beginning with his undergraduate studies at Notre Dame. After earning a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry, he entered medical school at the University of Minnesota. Gleason originally planned to specialize in trauma surgery, but the influence of a trusted mentor changed his career trajectory.

“My pathway into urology happened because of a mentor I had in med school who was a pediatric urologist,” Gleason said. “He suggested a rotation in pediatric urology, so I decided to try it out and ended up traveling around town with a urologist who got me plugged into all this. That’s when I realized this was what I was meant to do.”

Following a urology residency at Kaiser Foundation Hospitals in Los Angeles, Gleason moved to Canada for a urology fellowship in Toronto at the Hospital for Sick Children. His work in Toronto included treating children with cancer and that experience led to his arrival in Tennessee.

“At first I had some mild regret because I liked adult urology,” Gleason said. “We’d had our first child in Canada and it was a great opportunity, but at the end of my fellowship I signed with Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital because of its partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the chance to do amazing work with incredible people.”

Gleason moved to the Bluff City in 2014 and within a year was named Chief of Pediatric Urology at St. Jude. He spent seven years in the role before taking time off in 2022 to reassess career priorities and determine the next phase of his professional journey.

“Things were great there and we did innovative procedures that helped a lot of patients,” Gleason said. “Eventually I realized it was time for me to do something different, so I stepped away to spend more time with my family and figure it out.”

A conversation with a doctor at Conrad Pearson opened up a new career avenue for Gleason when he learned the group was looking to

expand. Because of Gleason’s experience with children and adults, he seemed to be a perfect fit and earlier this year joined the practice as a general and pediatric urologist.

At Conrad Pearson, Gleason specializes in general adult urology and pediatric urology, including neurogenic bladder and bowel, reconstructive procedures, hypospadias, hydronephrosis, undescended testicles, hernias and minimally invasive/robotic surgery.

“One of challenges with pediatric urology nationwide is transitional care,” Gleason said. “Many practices are limited to young patients, but when those patients reach their late teens to early twenties there are fewer facilities that provide quality care. That’s one of the beauties of Conrad Pearson because I can treat patients from infancy to senior adults.”

Gleason, who is certified by the American Board of Urology with a Certificate of Added Qualification in Pediatric Urology, joined eight adult urologists at the Conrad Pearson Group. Gleason’s credentials allow him to treat patients of all ages, including surgical procedures at Le Bonheur and area hospitals.

“In my opinion, it’s great for patients in Memphis and the MidSouth to have another option of where to go for treatment because of volume of those who need care,” Gleason said. “There’s a huge demand nationally for pediatric urologists, so having another outlet to see patients in our area means less waiting for tests and treatment. This is great for our community.”

The Conrad Pearson Group currently accepts young patients and Gleason anticipates the facility will offer surgical procedures in the future. Most work is performed on an outpatient basis and the clinic may eventually add another pediatric urologist if demand necessitates further expansion.

For Gleason, the opportunity to engage in meaningful work in a community he loves makes the move from Minneapolis to Memphis worth it.

“I love this area and being in private practice because it allows me to focus on clinical care and devote all my time to patients,” Gleason said. “Everyone at Conrad Pearson has been so supportive, and I looking forward to helping kids in the Memphis area. I feel destined to be here.”

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Hospital Websites’, continued from page 1

targeting by advertisements for fraudulent health cures while opening hospitals to liabilities that could include sanctions and the loss of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, said Marcus Schabacker, MD, PhD, president and CEO of the non-profit ECRI.

Schabacker said it is understandable there is third-party tracking on hospitals websites since that information can be used to determine what parts of the website are getting good traffic and provide information for improving websites. But he said third-party tracking allowing the transfer of sensitive health data to technology and social media companies, advertising firms, and data brokers should stop immediately. Schabacker said hospitals should also, if necessary, notify patients of a breach in security regarding their private health information.

ECRI, an independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is improving the safety, quality, and cost-effectiveness of healthcare, recommends updating HIPAA laws to address these violations of privacy that can allow nefarious, bad actors to target vulnerable people living with severe health conditions with advertisements for non-evidence-based treatments that are expensive and, at best, do nothing. At its worst, they can cause delays in proper treatment, injury or even death.

privacy, but what we are most concerned about is there is a potential for real harm,” Schabacker said. “It can expose patients who may be frightened and vulnerable to approaches from vendors who don’t necessarily provide approved remedies for a particular disease. Imagine someone in dire straits and trying to find as much information as possible for themselves or loved ones. This kind of tracking allows companies that don’t have an approved product for specific diseases to target vulnerable people who are desperate for additional information. Technically it is also a HIPAA violation because the government clarified in December 2022 that HIPAA applies to hospital websites and that IP addresses do qualify as a patient identifier—just as do names, birthdates and Social Security numbers. This could be considered a violation of HIPAA and hospitals might be sued.”

Why do hospitals allow this? Schabacker said he doesn’t think it is deliberate or that hospitals are getting a kickback. But hospitals may be getting their website services at a discount by allowing the tracking.

“Trackers charge hardly anything but hospitals don’t understand what is going on in the background,” he said. “The IT department and senior management probably are not even aware it is happening. Under HIPAA, there is a business associates’ agreement that clearly identifies what can be done with

confidential patient data and specifies that data must be protected. You need business protection agreements with vendors if you are going to use this third-party tracking service.”

Individual users can take action to prevent websites from tracking their information. But many people might not be sophisticated enough with their IT knowledge to know how to do block trackers.

In addition to legal exposure for lawsuits, ERCI sees other liabilities including penalties and even losing the hospital’s license with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“So, it is a serious issue,” Schabacker said. “It is not to be taken lightly.”

ECRI proposes a holistic overhaul of HIPAA laws to start addressing the state of IT today regarding the capabilities of data collections and analytics. A lot of HIPAA laws were created in 1996, which Schabacker refers to as “the stone age of IT.”

“The whole medical field is still behind in the IT consumer area,” he said. “It will take a concentrated effort for all involved — the healthcare industry, IT people and the government — to really review this and make sure patients are protected from advertising of unsolicited offers of remedies and products.

For more information about ECRI, visit their website at www.ecri.org

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“Illegal transfers of health information are annoying and an invasion of

Marcus Schabacker

Knowing Where It Hurts Neurologist Oleksandra Dryn specializes in occipital pain blocks

By TOM BAILEY

A doctor sometimes can’t put his or her finger on why patients experience shooting, and often debilitating, pain coming from the back of their head.

That’s when a neurologist like Oleksandra Dryn, MD, steps in to literally put her finger on the problem. The physician at the Neurology Clinic in Cordova presses two specific places at the back of a patient’s head. Patients sometimes jump because the condition has made the spots near the base of the skull extremely tender. “This is when you are certain it is occipital neuralgia,” Dryn said. “There are a couple of points where you press the nerve coming out from the neck.”

She’s also decisive about relieving the patient’s pain: She gives them occipital nerve blocks.

Injecting a combination of steroids and anesthesia into those nerves provides pain relief that lasts two to three months, on average, and for some, up to a year, Dryn said.

She estimates that fewer than 5 percent of her patients require a second injection. “Research shows it’s 15 to 20 percent who need a second injection; in my practice, about 5 percent need a second injection,” she said.

In a 2018 study published in Acta Medica Lituanica, researchers who followed 44 patients with occipital neuralgia found that 95 percent of them experienced satisfactory relief for an average of six months after receiving an occipital nerve block.

Shooting, throbbing burning …

The trapezoid-shaped occipital bone extends from the top of the neck halfway up the back of the head. The bone’s main functions are protecting the brain and providing a place for muscles and ligaments to attach.

The occipital nerves extend onto the occipital bone from the upper spine. Occipital neuralgia and its excruciating pain occur when those nerves are compressed or irritated.

It’s an intermittent or chronic pain that can be felt on one or both sides of the head. Patients experience a shooting, throbbing, burning or aching sensation that often begins at the head’s base and spreads along one or both sides of the scalp.

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Sometimes the scalp is so tender that just a light touch is extremely painful.

Physicians who have patients experiencing such pains should consider referring them to a neurologist, Dryn said. Occipital neuralgia is “hard to recognize sometimes.”

Possible causes may include injury, tight neck muscles, pressed or pinched nerves, or inflammation.

“Sometimes people have symptoms so bad they can’t sleep at night,” Dryn said. “It can be triggered by head movement, or the way they lay down on the pillow in bed.

Other causes can include degenerative changes or arthritis in the neck.

“Some patients experience shooting pains while others might say, ‘I have a headache on the back of my head,’” she said.

It’s not always a shooting pain; it could present differently.

“It’s common, but just not always recognizable, especially by primary care physicians. They tend to think neck pain or headache,” she said.

Dryn estimates she sees three patients a week with occipital neuralgia. Older patients tend to have it more than younger ones.

Under a minute

The occipital nerve block procedure typically takes less than a minute to complete. The anesthetic and steroid are injected into the pain trigger points. While there are three occipital nerves, the procedure usually targets two of them: The lesser and greater occipital nerves.

The injections are usually well tolerated, like any injection, Dryn says.

continued on page 6

When the market turns lower, sticking to a long-range plan can be a challenge to even the most seasoned investor. By arming themselves with information, though, investors may be better equipped to ride out tough markets, and even benefit from them.

Dollar-Cost Averaging

Regular contributors to a retirement plan already use a strategy called dollar-cost averaging, many without even realizing it. Dollar-cost averaging simply means investing a fixed amount regularly, regardless of market conditions.

Here’s how it works: Mutual funds are priced using share values. Investors buying shares of a mutual fund become partial owners of the fund. As contributions go into the fund each week or each pay period, more shares of the fund (full or partial, depending on the amount contributed) are purchased. If the market remained constant, the same weekly contribution would always buy the same number of shares.

But the market keeps moving, and dollar-cost averaging takes advantage of those ups and downs. In a down market, each share costs less, so the number of shares grows faster if the contribution amount stays the same.

While the goal of dollar-cost averaging is to lower the investor’s average portfolio cost, it does not ensure a profit or protect against loss.

Taking Advantage of Market Movements

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Chirag Chauhan, AIF®, CFP®

* Weighted average share price. This is a hypothetical example and is not representative of any specific investment. Your results may vary.

Oleksandra Dryn

Family’s 3rd generation physician

The practice of medicine is in Dryn’s blood. Growing up in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, she watched both her mother, now a retired neurologist, and her grandmother practice medicine.

“I was just fascinated about patients,” she recalled. “I did play being a doctor when I was little, all the time. It was so natural to me.”

Neurology wasn’t Dryn’s first specialty. After completing medical school in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1997 and her residency in 2001, she worked in Kiev as an ICU attending physician in anesthesia.

Her life took a geographic turn of 5,500 miles 20 years ago. That is when she became a post-doctoral fellow in transplant research, first at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and then at Methodist University Hospital.

She met her husband in Memphis, married him and decided to stay in the United States, and go through a residency again. “I chose neurology this

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time. The University of Tennessee (Health Science Center) didn’t have an anesthesia program. And I was interested in neurology since my mom was a neurologist,” Dryn said.

“And I do like procedures; I can do them in neurology.”

Dr. Dryn is among nine physicians and four nurse practitioners at the Neurology Clinic. The practice is just east of Shelby Farms at 8000 Centerview Parkway, Suite 500.

Besides occipital neuralgia, her expertise includes treating headaches and migraines, spasticity and dyskinesia, vascular neurology, neuromuscular disorders, and seizures.

As a team, the Neurology Clinic’s medical professionals encompass specialties that include muscle and nerve disorders, Botox for migraines and spasticity, sleep disorders, seizures, strokes, dementia/Alzheimer’s, and multiple sclerosis.

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Hurts, continued from page 5 Cybersecurity Threats Ransomware | Insider Threats

AI May Be on Its Way to the Doctor’s Office, But It’s Not Ready to See Patients

By DARIUS TAHIR , KFF HEALTH NEWS

What use could health care have for someone who makes things up, can’t keep a secret, doesn’t really know anything, and, when speaking, simply fills in the next word based on what’s come before? Lots, if that individual is the newest form of artificial intelligence, according to some of the biggest companies out there.

Companies pushing the latest AI technology — known as “generative AI” — are piling on: Google and Microsoft want to bring types of so-called large language models to health care. Big firms that are familiar to folks in white coats — but maybe less so to your average Joe and Jane — are equally enthusiastic: Electronic medical records giants Epic and Oracle Cerner aren’t far behind. The space is crowded with startups, too.

The companies want their AI to take notes for physicians and give them second opinions — assuming they can keep the intelligence from “hallucinating” or, for that matter, divulging patients’ private information.

“There’s something afoot that’s pretty exciting,” said Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in San Diego. “Its capabilities will ultimately have a big impact.” Topol, like many other observers, wonders how many problems it might cause — like leaking patient data — and how often. “We’re going to find out.”

The specter of such problems inspired more than 1,000 technology leaders to sign an open letter in March urging that companies pause development on advanced AI systems until “we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.” Even so, some of them are sinking more money into AI ventures.

The underlying technology relies on synthesizing huge chunks of text or other data — for example, some medical models rely on 2 million intensive care unit notes from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston — to predict text that would follow a given query. The idea has been around for years, but the gold rush, and the marketing and media mania surrounding it, are more recent.

The frenzy was kicked off in December 2022 by Microsoft-backed OpenAI and its flagship product, ChatGPT, which answers questions with authority and style. It can explain genetics in a sonnet, for example.

OpenAI, started as a research venture seeded by Silicon Valley elites like Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Reid Hoffman, has ridden the enthusiasm to investors’ pockets. The venture has a complex, hybrid for- and nonprofit structure. But a new $10 billion round of funding from Microsoft has pushed the value of OpenAI to $29 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported. Right now, the company is licensing its technology to companies like Microsoft and selling subscriptions to consumers. Other startups

are considering selling AI transcription or other products to hospital systems or directly to patients.

Hyperbolic quotes are everywhere.

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers tweeted recently: “It’s going to replace what doctors do — hearing symptoms and making diagnoses — before it changes what nurses do — helping patients get up and handle themselves in the hospital.”

continued on next page >

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But just weeks after OpenAI took another huge cash infusion, even Altman, its CEO, is wary of the fanfare. “The hype over these systems — even if everything we hope for is right long term — is totally out of control for the short term,” he said for a March article in The New York Times

Few in health care believe this latest form of AI is about to take their jobs (though some companies are experimenting — controversially — with chatbots that act as therapists or guides to care). Still, those who are bullish on the tech think it’ll make some parts of their work much easier.

Eric Arzubi, a psychiatrist in Billings, Montana, used to manage fellow psychiatrists for a hospital system. Time and again, he’d get a list of providers who hadn’t yet finished their notes — their summaries of a patient’s condition and a plan for treatment.

Writing these notes is one of the big stressors in the health system: In the aggregate, it’s an administrative burden. But it’s necessary to develop a record for future providers and, of course, insurers.

“When people are way behind in documentation, that creates problems,” Arzubi said. “What happens if the patient comes into the hospital and there’s a note that hasn’t been completed and we don’t know what’s been going on?”

The new technology might help lighten those burdens. Arzubi is testing a service, called Nabla Copilot, that sits in on his part of virtual patient visits and then automatically summarizes them, organizing into a standard note format the complaint, the history of illness, and a treatment plan.

Results are solid after about 50 patients, he said: “It’s 90% of the way there.” Copilot produces serviceable summaries that Arzubi typically edits. The summaries don’t necessarily pick up on nonverbal cues or thoughts Arzubi might not want to vocalize. Still, he said, the gains are significant: He doesn’t have to worry about taking notes and can instead focus on speaking with patients. And he saves time.

“If I have a full patient day, where I might see 15 patients, I would say this saves me a good hour at the end of the day,” he said. (If the technology is adopted widely, he hopes hospitals won’t take advantage of the saved time by simply scheduling more patients. “That’s not fair,” he said.)

Nabla Copilot isn’t the only such service; Microsoft is trying out the same concept. At April’s conference of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society — an industry confab where health techies swap ideas, make announcements, and sell their wares — investment analysts from Evercore highlighted reducing administrative burden as a top possibility for the new technologies.

But overall? They heard mixed reviews. And that view is common: Many technologists and doctors are ambivalent.

For example, if you’re stumped about a diagnosis, feeding patient data into one

of these programs “can provide a second opinion, no question,” Topol said. “I’m sure clinicians are doing it.” However, that runs into the current limitations of the technology.

Joshua Tamayo-Sarver, a clinician and executive with the startup Inflect Health, fed fictionalized patient scenarios based on his own practice in an emergency department into one system to see how it would perform. It missed life-threatening conditions, he said. “That seems problematic.”

The technology also tends to “hallucinate” — that is, make up information that sounds convincing. Formal studies have found a wide range of performance. One preliminary research paper examining ChatGPT and Google products using open-ended board examination questions from neurosurgery found a hallucination rate of 2%. A study by Stanford researchers, examining the quality of AI responses to 64 clinical scenarios, found fabricated or hallucinated citations 6% of the time, co-author Nigam Shah told KFF Health News. Another preliminary paper found, in complex cardiology cases, ChatGPT agreed with expert opinion half the time.

Privacy is another concern. It’s unclear whether the information fed into this type of AI-based system will stay inside. Enterprising users of ChatGPT, for example, have managed to get the technology to tell them the recipe for napalm, which can be used to make chemical bombs.

In theory, the system has guardrails preventing private information from escaping. For example, when KFF Health News asked ChatGPT its email address, the system refused to divulge that private information. But when told to role-play as a character, and asked about the email address of the author of this article, it happily gave up the information. (It was indeed the author’s correct email address in 2021, when ChatGPT’s archive ends.)

“I would not put patient data in,” said Shah, chief data scientist at Stanford Health Care. “We don’t understand what happens with these data once they hit OpenAI servers.”

Tina Sui, a spokesperson for OpenAI, told KFF Health News that one “should never use our models to provide diagnostic or treatment services for serious medical conditions.” They are “not fine-tuned to provide medical information,” she said.

With the explosion of new research, Topol said, “I don’t think the medical community has a really good clue about what’s about to happen.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF

Celebrating 25 years of Exceptional Care

Conrad Pearson is the largest and most experienced urology group in the Mid-South, providing a full-range of diagnostic and therapeutic services.

Certified Leaders in the Field of Urology

We are pleased to welcome two new providers –Dr. Joseph Gleason and Dr. Matthew Sims!

Dr. Gleason previously served as Chief of Pediatric Urology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He’ll be practicing general adult urology and pediatric urology. He is certified by the American Board of Urology with a Certificate of Added Qualification in Pediatric Urology. He will be seeing patients at the Southaven and Wolf River offices.

Dr. Sims completes his Residency on June 30, 2023 at the University of Missouri and will join the group on August 21, 2023. He will be seeing patients at the Cordova and Wolf River offices.

GrandRounds

MGMA and MMS Launch MidSouth Healthcare Leadership Institute

The Memphis Medical Society (MMS) and Mid-South Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) announce the new MidSouth Healthcare Leadership Institute (MHLI), a leading institution dedicated to aspiring healthcare leaders. MHLI aims to graduate cohorts of medical professionals with new skills and resources to help them excel in healthcare leadership. Ideal cohort members could be any individual who shows exceptional drive and purpose for healthcare leadership, whether they are a midlevel manager, medical assistant, nurse, etc. With the Memphis medical community in mind, the Institute hopes to positively impact the future of local healthcare leadership by nurturing individuals early in their careers.

Locally, Memphis has several opportunities for aspiring leaders to participate in leadership and growth opportunities, but there is no program explicitly dedicated to the needs of a healthcare professional. The inaugural MHLI cohort will attend 6 sessions dedicated to areas necessary to excel in healthcare leadership, such as Lean Six Sigma, emotional intelligence, reporting, and critical decision-making. MHLI has gathered several key leaders to teach these sessions, both locally and outsourced.

If you would like more information, please get in touch with us at 901761-0200 or msmgma@mdmemphis. org

Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare names Monica Wharton Chief Operating Officer

Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare recently announced the appointment of Monica Wharton, FACHE, to chief operating officer and executive vice president, assuming expanded roles and additional responsibilities within the $2 billion integrated healthcare system. Wharton joined Methodist Le Bonheur in 2017 as its senior vice president and chief legal officer and, in 2020, was promoted to chief administrative officer for the Memphisbased healthcare system.

Regional One Health Names Associate Vice President of Oncology to Lead Academic Oncology Services

Adrian Newson, DHA, FACHE, has joined Regional One Health as Associate Vice President of Oncology. Newson will lead academic oncology services at Regional One Health,

including the system’s medical and surgical oncology practices.

He is an accomplished health care leader with over 20 years of experience leading radiology teams, radiation oncology programs, ambulatory services and cancer center/oncology service lines at multiple Tennessee and Alabama hospitals.

Tennessee Medical Association Installs Dr. Andrew Watson as 69th President

Dr. Andrew Watson, a boardcertified cardiologist with St. Francis Cardiology Associates in Memphis, was formally installed as the 169th president of the Tennessee Medical Association, the statewide professional association for more than 9,500 member physicians.

Watson was sworn in at the organization’s annual meeting in Franklin where nearly 200 physician leaders from across the state gathered to affirm the nonprofit’s governance, annual slate of business and upcoming legislative positions.

UTHSC College of Nursing

Honors Nurse Heroes at Seventh Annual NightinGala

Six local nurses received awards for excellence in the nursing profession at the seventh annual NightinGala on May 5, hosted by the University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s College of Nursing. More than 230 nurses and supporters attended the event, which launched the local celebration of National Nurses Week.

“I am proud that nursing has been voted the most trusted profession in the U.S. by the Gallup Poll for 22 consecutive years,” said College of Nursing Dean Wendy Likes, PhD, DNSc, APRNBC, FAANP. “It is important for our college to take the leadership role in honoring nurses who exemplify the best of this important profession. It is our privilege to recognize their contributions.”

Marvia Balfour-Coleman, MSN, BSN, chief nurse of care in the community at the Lt. Col. Luke Weathers, Jr. VA Medical Center, received the Dr. John W. Runyan, Jr. Community Nursing Award. Established in 1979, the award recognizes a Registered Nurse who has made significant contributions to the development and promotion of community health nursing.

Balfour-Coleman has served the Veterans Administration for 28 of

her 30 years as a nurse. She is also an active member of the hospital Disaster Emergency Medical Personnel System (DEMPS). DEMPS members are VA staff who travel the nation to support health care systems during times of disaster.

Because of the overwhelming number of nominations, three nurses were recognized with the Bedside Nurse Hero Award, which honors nurses who spend most of their time providing direct patient care. The recipients of the Bedside Nurse Hero Award included:

• Leann Stafford, BSN, RN, who works at Baptist Memorial Hospital– Collierville in general surgery.

• Lindsey Kaiser, BSN, RN, who works for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in the bone marrow transplant unit.

• Carole Schuh, RN, CCRN, who was recognized posthumously for her contributions in four decades of nursing at Baptist Memorial Hospital – Memphis.

Stafford was recognized for her commitment to creating a caring environment and her willingness to help everyone from student nurses to surgeons. Kaiser was recognized for her dedication to quality improvement; she is part of a

team developing a device to prevent infection of patients’ central lines.

Schuh served as a critical care nurse for 42 years and was the head nurse for the intensive care unit at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis for many years.

The Advanced Practice Nurse Hero Award honored UTHSC alumna Sara Wilkinson, DNP, CRNA, CCRN, a nurse anesthesiologist at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital. She was recognized as the epitome of what a nurse anesthesiologist should be and as an excellent preceptor – a teacher of student nurse anesthesiologists in the clinical setting.

The Executive Nurse Leader Hero Award recognized Kim Muse, MSN, BSN, director of Clinical Quality and Safety for the West Cancer Center & Research Institute. An excellent problem-solver and nurse leader, Muse joined West 10 years ago as an infusion nurse and continued to grow in leadership, attaining her current role in 2020.

Funds raised from the event benefit the UTHSC College of Nursing’s Center for Community and Global Partnerships, which provides grant funding for clinical and community nurses in Memphis and the Mid-South working to improve clinical outcomes in their area of practice.

UTHSC College of Nursing Honors Nurse Heroes at Seventh Annual NightinGala

Monica Wharton

Adrian Newson

Andrew Watson

Lindsey KaiserBedside Nurse Hero

Robin Mutz, CNO of St. Jude, with the daughters of Carole Schuh; Dr. Jamie Rich and Caitlin White, winner of the posthumous Bedside Nurse Award.

Kim MuseNurse Leader Hero Award

Dean Wendy Likes with Marvia BalfourColeman, MSN, BSN, winner of the Runyan Community Nursing Award.

Sara WilkinsonAdvanced Practice Nurse Hero

Leann StaffordBedside Nurse Hero