Class Notes

Gail Ironson, M.D. ’86, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Miami, is the president of the American Psychosomatic Society. This year, she was honored with the Positive Psychology and Health Research Award from the International Positive Psychology Association.

Karen Koffler, M.D. ’89, is the medical director of the Osher Center for Integrative Health at the Miller School of Medicine. The Osher Center is one of seven centers nationally and internationally that provides integrative and functional medicine care, educating future physicians and conducting research.

Norman Abrams, M.D. ’65, is still working as a psychiatrist in private practice and notes that he has several patients that he has seen for more than 50 years.

Fred P. Swing, M.D. ’65, is a longtime anesthesiologist who also practices medical acupuncture in Port Charlotte, Florida.

Trisha A. Rothenberg Roth, M.D. ’69, is co-chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ California Chapter 2 Climate Change Committee. She lives in Santa Monica, where she enjoys time with her 11 grandchildren.

Jeffrey Phelan, M.D. ’73, and Torre Halscott, M.D. ’09, will publish the seventh edition of Critical Care Obstetrics, on the management of critically ill pregnant women, in 2023. Dr. Phelan has been an editor or editor-in chief for all of the prior editions dating back to 1987.

Charles Tate III, M.D. ’73, retired in 2015 after 33 years as an interventional radiologist at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He now lives on the Cumberland Plateau in south-central Tennessee.

Paul Alan Wetter, M.D. ’75, announced that his second scientific journal, CRSLS (Case Reports from the Society of Laparoscopic & Robotic Surgeons), has been accepted to MEDLINE’s scientific quality review by the Literature Selection Technical Review Committee of the National Library of Medicine. Dr. Wetter, a pioneer in minimally invasive surgery, is the founder and chair emeritus of the Society of Laparoscopic and Robotic Surgeons.

Stanley Glassman, M.D. ’76, has retired after a 45-year career and recently welcomed his first grandchild.

Uday Jain, Ph.D., M.D. ’81, is in private practice in anesthesiology. He lives in San Francisco.

Sheldon Ball, Ph.D., M.D. ’83, is employed part time at the Los Angeles Jewish Home for the Aging, where he provides care for residents in three skilled nursing facilities. He has also developed Aaushi.info, a web-based, intelligent medical reference for inpatient and outpatient diagnosis and management of patients in internal medicine and geriatrics.

Steven Louis Cooper, M.D. ’84, retired recently after 10 years in practice and then 22 years as a life insurance medical director for Lincoln Financial Group.

Gregg Friedman, M.D. ’85, has been the medical director of a private psychiatric practice serving South Florida since 1989.

Mario Werbin, M.D. ’85, has been practicing at General Practice Associates in Hollywood, Florida, for the past 28 years.

Doris Hamawy, M.D. ’92, is celebrating 21 years in private practice in Coral Springs, Florida.

Gladys Giron Newman, M.D. ’95, is partnering with two other alumni, Cristina Lopez Penalver, M.D. ’91, and Starr Mautner, M.D ’08, in a breast surgical oncology group at the Breast Center at Miami Cancer Institute.

Adam Ball, M.D. ’99, has maintained a solo private practice for 16 years focused on urology and urologic surgery along Florida’s Treasure Coast. He and his wife, Cristina, have children entering college and high school.

Suzanne Minor, M.D. ’99, is an assistant dean for faculty development at the Florida International University Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, as well as an associate professor there. She is active in the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, chairing the 2022 Conference on Medical Student Education as well as serving as an STFM Foundation trustee.

Vania E. Fernandez, M.D. ’04, is president-elect of the Broward County Medical Association, a member of the CME Committee for the Florida Medical Association and a board member of the Florida Society of Interventional Pain Physicians.

Lauren Hanff, M.D. ’05, lives in Dunedin, Florida, where she is caring for her three children. She published a book called hunger thirst nourish: poems under her pen name, Elle Michelle.

Allison Ruff, M.D. ’11, M.H.P.E., is a clinical associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan, with a focus on general medicine and undergraduate medical education.

Jo-Lawrence Martinez Bigcas, M.D. ’12, is the director of the Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery Residency Program at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is also an assistant professor at the school.

Chad Reihm, M.D. ’12, joined a radiology practice in Montana after finishing a breast imaging fellowship at the University of Utah. He says he spends every second outside of work exploring the mountains with his wife and two kids.

Nirav Joshi, M.D. ’13, is the new musculoskeletal radiology division chair at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of sports, soft tissue/muscle, and bone injuries and abnormalities.

Roma Mehta, M.D. ’13, is an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She is one of six women named as a Dallas County Medical Society Women in Medicine: Woman of the Year. She is also a member of the Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship Curriculum Committee, and co-chair of Lung Ladies: Female Pulmonary & Critical Care Fellows and Faculty, at UTSW.

Melissa Gans, M.D. ’15, and Jared Gans, M.D. ’15, are back in Miami after six years in New York City. Melissa completed pediatrics residency at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore and a fellowship in pediatric and adult allergy and immunology at Montefiore Medical Center. She was then on the faculty at Westchester Medical Center and New York Medical College. Jared completed a diagnostic and interventional integrated residency at Montefiore Medical Center. They now live in Miami Beach with their twin baby girls, Freya and Gabrielle. Melissa rejoined the University of Miami as faculty in July, and Jared will be at Aventura Hospital with Intellirad Imaging LLC.

Anam Mendha, M.D. ’15, started her practice as a neonatologist with Kidz Medical Services in Miami in August after completing a neonatal-perinatal fellowship from University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital, where she was a recipient of the Society of Pediatric Research’s Fellows Basic Research Award.

Mishka Peart, M.D. ’15, is starting her first post-training job at Kaiser Fontana Medical Center in San Bernardino County, California, as the only complex contraception and family planning-trained provider on staff. Following medical school, she completed an OB/GYN residency at Winnie Palmer/Orlando Health and a complex contraception and family planning fellowship at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She concurrently completed an M.P.H. in health policy at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Francisco Gortes, M.D. ’17, is an interventional radiology integrated PGY-5 resident at Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology in his second-to-last year. He completed his intern year at St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor Hospital in Michigan.

Miguel Montana Fernandez, M.D. ’19, is a PGY-3 internal medicine resident at Boston Medical Center and plans to work as a career hospitalist.

Jonathan Sheu, M.D. ’19, is a PGY-3 orthopaedic surgery resident at McLaren Flint Medical Center, which is affiliated with the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine.