Classes of 2017 and 2018
Sarah Donohue (MD ’17) and Dana Ley (MD ’18) co-founded the Women in Leadership and Development (WILD) Certificate Program in the Department of Medicine at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. WILD is a trainee-led program that provides women fellows in the department with a toolkit for career advancement and skills to negate gender bias and inequities in academic medicine. The two work with a dedicated team in their department to implement the program.
Class of 2018
DeMarco Bowen received the 2023 Ray E. Helfer Innovation in Pediatric Education Trainee Award from the Academic Pediatric Association (APA). This award — established for Helfer, an esteemed pediatric educator, child advocate, and past-president of the APA — is granted to the best medical education abstract submitted at the Pediatric Academic Societies meeting. Bowen is a second year pediatric hospital medicine fellow at the University of California, San Diego. He will begin practicing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in fall 2023.
Class of 2014
Laurel Bessey was honored by the Wisconsin Medical Society Foundation with the 2023 Kenneth M. Viste Jr., MD, Young Physician Leadership Award. The award is bestowed upon a peer-nominated physician who demonstrates activities and values that promote Viste’s commitment to patients, the community, and the profession of medicine. Bessey is a psychiatrist at UW Health’s Wisconsin Psychiatric Institute and Clinic and an assistant professor in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health’s Department of Psychiatry. She also is the associate program director for the Psychiatry Residency Program.
Class of 2010
Matthew Harer received the 2023 Ellen R. Wald Award in the Department of Pediatrics at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. The award honors Wald’s distinguished career in pediatrics research, academics, clinical practice, and education. It is given to an assistant or associate professor of pediatrics in recognition of outstanding research accomplishments and demonstrated potential for future contributions in clinical, health services, or quality improvement research. Harer is an associate professor in the Division of Neonatology and Newborn Nursery in the Department of Pediatrics. He leads the UW Renal Investigative Neonatal Network, which focuses on neonatal kidney issues, and he is recognized nationally for his expertise in neonatal acute kidney injury. Recently, he was elected to co-lead the Research Committee of the International Neonatal Kidney Collaborative, for which he also serves as a board member. He is studying how kidney oxygenation changes in preterm neonates who experience acute kidney injury, and evaluating whether common neonatal intensive care therapies, such as caffeine, can improve kidney oxygenation and subsequently prevent kidney injury.
Class of 2007
Pasithorn Amy Suwanabol’s most recent work has been aimed at the well-being of surgeons and survivorship among patients with colorectal cancer. Suwanabol is an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Michigan (U-M) Medical School, and she has a colorectal surgery practice at the Ann Arbor Veterans Administration Hospital. She also is a core faculty member at the U-M Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Policy. Her research focuses on improving palliative care for surgical patients.
Class of 2006
Dan Sklansky was elected to a three-year term on the Program Directors Executive Committee of the Association of Pediatric Program Directors after being selected as an inaugural member in 2022. He is an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics’ Division of Hospital Medicine at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. He also is the director of the Pediatrics Residency Program.
Class of 1995
Suzanne Norby joined the UW School of Medicine and Public Health’s Department of Medicine as the new head of the Division of Nephrology and the Flesch Family Faculty Fellow in Kidney Transplant Research. Norby moved her career to UW–Madison from Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where she was an associate professor and vice-chair of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension in the Department of Medicine, as well as the assistant dean of student competency and professional standards at the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine.
Bryant Karras has been appointed as one of seven new members of the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Karras is the chief medical informatics officer and senior epidemiologist with the Washington State Department of Health, where he guides informatics and health information interoperability efforts. He has led various state efforts, including those related to promoting widespread adoption of health information technology, early detection of disease outbreaks, prescription-drug-usage monitoring, patient-immunization-history tracking, and notification of COVID-19 exposures. Previously, Karras was a research scientist and assistant professor with the University of Washington and an internal medicine physician at hospitals in Connecticut, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Class of 1994
Sabina Singh is a founder and the chief medical officer of Anovia Health. The independent, unaffiliated primary care provider was founded in 2020 with a mission to deliver high-quality, accessible, and affordable primary care to patients throughout Wisconsin. The organization operates six community-based clinics around the state and serves the employees and dependents of more than 30 partner companies. Anovia focuses on making primary care a platform for diagnosis, treatment, and health management rather than being a referral mechanism. Previously, Singh was a physician-executive at Bellin Health in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Class of 1981
Sandra Kamnetz received the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health (DFMCH) Chair’s Award in recognition of her long career supporting and caring for patients, as well as her many years serving in administrative roles as a champion for physicians in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health’s DFMCH. A clinical professor in that department, she has practiced full-scope family medicine at the UW Health Yahara Clinic for more than 30 years. Until recently, she also served as the vice-chair for clinical care, a role in which she advocated for clinicians and acted as their ambassador to the UW System.