UVA School of Medicine

Medical Alumni Association and Medical School Foundation Executive Director Associate Dean for Medical Alumni Affairs Barry J. Collins Associate Director Linda Weldon Executive Assistant Harsha Solanki Associate Director for Marketing and Communications Liz C. Taylor Director for Constituent Relations Sarah Brown Rothschild Associate Director for Constituent Relations Hillary B. Cocke Constituent Relations Associate Andrea Wasiewski Constituent Relations Assistant Iris Hosey Luck Vitals Managing Editor Liz C. Taylor Contributors Josh Barney, Linda J. Kobert, Eric Swensen Photography Jackson Smith, Coe Sweet, Sanjay Suchak, Dan Addison, UVA Health System Marketing, UVA Medical Alumni Association Cover Jackson Smith Volunteer Editor Leah Gibbs Design © Anne Hilton Vitals is produced twice annually, in the spring and fall, by the University of Virginia Medical Alumni Association and Medical School Foundation. Deadline for submissions for the Spring 2019 issue is March 1, 2019. The MAA/MSF reserves the right to edit all submissions for length and content. Please send submissions and other correspondence to: Managing Editor Vitals University of Virginia Medical Alumni Association and Medical School Foundation PO Box 800776 Charlottesville, VA 22908-0776 434-924-1734 medalum @ virginia.edu UVAMedAlum.org ©2018 University of Virginia Medical Alumni Association Medical School Foundation On the Cover Myla Goldman, MD, is an associate professor of neurology specializing in multiple sclerosis. She directs UVA's James Q. Miller Multiple Sclerosis Clinic and serves as chief of the Division of Multiple Sclerosis – Neuro-immunology. Photo by Jackson Smith fromthedean A recent news headline may have caught your attention: Medical School Announces Free Tuition for Students. It certainly caught mine. The cost of training future clinicians is one of the biggest issues we face today in healthcare. How can we continue to attract the best and the brightest to a career in medicine, and to the University of Virginia, knowing that many will graduate with significant debt? In 2017, the average debt of a graduating U.S. medical student was $172,267. At UVA, the average debt of graduating students was lower at $162,379. We take this issue seriously at the School of Medicine. For example, we have entered our fourth year of a tuition freeze so, while tuition costs are still accruing, they are not rising. Scholarship assistance is also a priority. I am truly grateful to the UVA Medical Alumni Association and Medical School Foundation for its support in this area. In Fiscal Year 2019, the foundation will provide $3.1 million to the School of Medicine—the majority of those dollars will directly impact today's students by providing scholarship assistance and help reduce their debt burden. Thank you for your contributions that helped make that possible. Every gift counts—both large and small. However, if you have ever considered a large gift to the School of Medicine, now is a great time to act. Through matching funds from UVA's Bicentennial Scholars Program, contributions of $100,000 or more for new endowments fully paid within five years will be matched $1 for each $2 in gift funding for new scholarship endowments. Imagine the impact you can have on today's medical students with a new scholarship. You can learn more about the Bicentennial Scholars Program later in this issue and at UVAMedAlum.org/giving. Also in this issue, you'll read about the work of two research teams that are making headlines of their own. Myla Goldman, MD, and Nicholas Brenton, MD, are doing outstanding work with both adult and pediatric patients in our James Q. Miller Multiple Sclerosis Clinic. And tackling tick-borne diseases, we have Thomas Platts-Mills, MD, Jeffrey Wilson, MD, PhD, and Coleen McNamara, MD, leading the way. Thanks for taking the time to learn about what is happening at the School of Medicine, and as always, thank you for your support. David S. Wilkes, MD Dean, UVA School of Medicine James Carroll Flippin Professor of Medical Science The cost of training future clinicians is one of the biggest issues we face today in healthcare. How can we continue to attract the best and the brightest to a career in medicine, and to the University of Virginia, knowing that many will graduate with significant debt?

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