The University of Tennessee Health Science Center can proudly claim many of the winners of the Memphis Business Journal’s 2018 Health Care Heroes Awards.
The annual awards were bestowed Tuesday night during a ceremony at the Holiday Inn University. They celebrate the best in Memphis health care in several categories.
Anne Alexandrov, PhD, RN, AGACNP-BC, ANVP-BC, NVRN-BC, CCRN, FAAN, a professor in the UTHSC College of Nursing and the chief nurse practitioner on the UTHSC Mobile Stroke Unit since it launched in 2016, was the winner in the Health Care Provider, Non-Physician category. The Mobile Stroke Unit is a 14-ton stroke emergency room on wheels with hospital-grade CT equipment designed to speed treatment and improve outcomes. The nurse practitioner on board serves as the “stroke expert” in the field.
In the Health Care Provider, Physician category, the winner was Frederick Boop, MD, chief of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital and professor and chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at UTHSC.
Lisa K. Jennings, PhD, founder and CEO of Cirquest Labs, received the Health Care Heroes Innovations Award. Dr. Jennings is an alumna of UTHSC and was the director of the UTHSC Vascular Biology Center of Excellence and a professor of medicine at UTHSC.
The Lifetime Achievement Award went to Jewell Ward, MD, PhD, a geneticist with Le Bonheur Children’s
Hospital and UTHSC. She is the director of the Inborn Errors of Metabolism Clinical Laboratory.
A number of finalists representing the university were also honored at the event.
The Center for Healthcare Improvement and Patient Simulation was selected as a finalist in the Innovations category. The $39.7 million state-of-the-art simulation facility opened in May.
Kevin Foley, MD, FACS, FAANS, was also a finalist in the Innovations category. Dr. Foley, who is with Semmes Murphey, is a professor in the Departments of Neurosurgery and Orthopaedic Surgery and Biomedical Engineering at UTHSC.
Laura Detti, MD, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UTHSC and director of the Reproductive Medicine Center at Regional One Health, was named a finalist in the Health Care Provider, Physician category. Also a finalist in that category, was Ramasubbareddy Dhanireddy, MD, distinguished professor of pediatrics-neonatology at UTHSC and medical director of the Sheldon B. Korones Newborn Center.
Nia Zalamea, MD, an assistant professor of surgery at UTHSC and a founding member of the new UTHSC Global Surgery Institute in the College of Medicine’s Department of Surgery, was a finalist in the Community Outreach category. Dr. Zalamea’s family founded the Memphis Mission of Mercy, a 501(c)(3) non-profit. She and her family have done $17.2 million worth of free surgical procedures in the Philippines since the medical mission began.