Residency Team brings home 2008 Mind Games trophy
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Dr. Pedro Ruiz, interim chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, far left, and Dr. Anu Matorin, training director, far right, celebrate the first-place win of residency team Tanya Krolls, Magdalena Peixoto, and Peter Ly. |
The University of Texas residency team consisting of Dr. Tanya Krolls, PGY-I, Dr. Peter Ly, PGY-II, and Dr. Magdalena Peixoto, PGY-III, all residents in the General Psychiatry Residency Program in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, was the winning team in the national 2008 “Mind Games” competition at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. May 6.
“The questions, clinical, research, and educational, were rather difficult, but our residents were well prepared,” said Dr. Pedro Ruiz, interim chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. “Our team’s final score was quite ahead of the two other final teams.”
“What was most impressive and rewarding was the fact that all three residents were our own UT-Houston medical students as well,” said Dr. Anu Matorin, general psychiatry residency training director. “It made all of us involved in their education and training doubly proud of their academic accomplishments.”
The Medical School group competed against finalist teams from Carilion Health Center in Roanoke, Va., and New York Medical College in Richmond.
To make it as finalists, the group took an online test of 150 multiple-choice questions, which had to be completed in one hour.
“We took it as a team with all of us sitting at one computer,” Peixoto said. “Peter was the mouse operator. There are about 140 psychiatry programs in the country, and almost all of them chose to compete.”
Peixoto added that the team studied about three weeks for the online test and then for about the same amount of time for the oral exam.
“I attribute the win to having a very good foundation in psychiatry -- both from the courses we took in medical school and from our residency program -- all three of us are UT-Houston graduates,” Peixoto said. “We have an excellent psychiatry program here, and our attendings are great teachers. We also studied pretty hard, especially during the last few days before the competition.”
Ly said it was through the guidance of faculty and attendings that the team propelled to success.
“We were exceptionally pleased with our winning the 2008 American Psychiatric Association MindGames!” Ly said. “It is a great reflection of the training that we have received here at UT-Houston.”
“This is truly outstanding!” said Dean Giuseppe Colasurdo. “Congratulations to our champions!”
The APA is a medical specialty society with more than 38,000 U.S. and international member physicians working to ensure humane care and effective treatment for all persons with mental disorders, including mental retardation and substance-related disorders.
-D. Brown
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Herbert L. and Margaret W. DuPont Master Clinical Teaching Award — Cheves Smythe, M.D.
Cheves Smythe, M.D., clinical professor of internal medicine and the Medical School’s first dean, has been named the winner of the Herbert L. and Margaret W. DuPont Master Clinical Teaching Award.
Established in 2001 and made possible by a gift from the DuPonts, the award recognizes and preserves the essence and quality of the master clinical teacher, reflecting the Medical School’s top priority of quality clinical medical education.
“I was much involved with Walter Kirkendall in recruiting Bert and Peggy DuPont in 1972. They have been friends ever since,” Smythe said. “I’ve always thought highly of what he and his wife have stood for – scholarship, organization, supporting the American College of Physicians and the infectious disease society. That they put up money for the award is keeping with who and what the DuPonts are. I was delighted when I heard I received this award – I am pleased as punch.”
Smythe, who served as dean from 1970 to 1975 and dean pro tem from 1995-1996, was nominated and selected for the award by the Dean’s Teaching Excellence Award Review Committee, which is comprised of representatives of the Faculty Senate, the Curriculum Committee, and the GME Committee.
Smythe graduated cum laude from the Harvard Medical School and completed his residency at Harvard with a fellowship at Presbyterian Hospital in New York. Following medical school graduation, he served as a lieutenant in the medical corps of the U.S. Navy at the Naval Medical Field research Laboratory at Camp Lejeune, NC. He served as the first dean of the Aga Khan Medical College in Karachi, Pakistan, in the early 1980s and returned there, 1990-1991, to become professor and chair of the Department of Medicine. He returned to the Medical School faculty in 1991.
He currently teaches the clerkships for internal medicine at Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital, which is comprised of usually four third-year students and six residents.
“I think that learning should be fun, and I think that if one can create or carry out teaching in an atmosphere in which people are relaxed and enjoying themselves and feeling sufficiently secure that they can let their minds range and express themselves openly, they learn more,” he said “I try very hard for an interactive style in which the students feel at home.
“Although I’ve been a professor for 40 years, I think of myself as a high-grade vocational teacher – all I do is talk to people about how to do things,” he said.
Previous recipients of the award are Eugene Toy, M.D., 2007; John Sparks, M.D., 2006; Victor Lavis, M.D., 2005: Philip Orlander, M.D., 2004; Ian Butler, M.D., 2003; Patrick Brosnan, M.D., 2002; and Frank Arnett, M.D., 2001.
-D. Brown
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Khalil wins distinguished surgeon award
Dr. Kamal Khalil has been named the 2008 Distinguished Houston Surgeon by the Houston Surgical Society.
The society’s executive committee grants the award to one of its members who best exemplifies its mission and who has made significant contributions to the field of medicine.
Khalil, visiting professor in the Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, is the past president of the society, which is presently led by Dr. John Potts, professor of surgery.
“My reaction to winning the award was that I am extremely excited and grateful for recognition by the premier surgical society in Houston and will continue my activities in this area for the next several years,” Khalil said.
Khalil first joined the Medical School and M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in 1974. He then went into private practice in cardiothoracic and vascular surgery in the Texas Medical Center. He was recruited back to the Medical School in September 2007, and has been active in the Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery with Dr. Hazim Safi, chair.
Khalil graduated from the Cairo University Faculty of Medicine in 1961. He completed residency training in surgery and cardiothoracic surgery in Cairo university hospitals and spent two years in England in the same specialty. He then emigrated to the United States, where he did his general surgery training at State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. He did one year of fellowship in cardiothoracic and vascular surgery at Ohio State University, Columbus.
The mission of the Houston Surgical Society is to promote scientific knowledge in surgery, to stimulate advanced training in surgery, to improve the opportunities or training of surgeons and to encourage the highest possible standards of surgical practice in this community.
Khalil was presented with the award May 14 at the Houston Surgical Society meeting.
Other UT Medical School faculty members who have won previous Distinguished Houston Surgeon awards include Dr. Richard Andrassy, Dr. James “Red” Duke, Dr. Frank Moody, and Dr. O. H. “Bud” Frazier.
-D. Brown
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