Renal Pathology Society, USCAP, International Society of Urological Pathology, American Pathology Foundation, American Society of Clinical Pathology, Association of Directors of Anatomic and Surgical Pathologists

Surgical pathology: 1-2 weeks per month (2002-present)
Renal pathology: full time
Autopsy pathology

7/05-7/2015 Director, Histology and Immunohistochemistry
laboratories in Surgical Pathology,
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

7/05-7/2012 Director, Immunohistochemistry
laboratory in Surgical Pathology,
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

7/05-7/06 Associate Director of Surgical Pathology, UAMS

7/06-6/30/15 Director of Surgical Pathology, UAMS

7/08-6/30/14 Associate Professor of Pathology and Urology, UAMS

7/14- present Professor of Pathology and Urology, UAMS

7/13-6/30/15 Anatomic Pathology Director, Arkansas Children’s
Hospital

9/15-7/2017 Anatomic Pathology Director, UAMS

7/17-present Vice Chair for Faculty Affairs, Dept. of Pathology, UAMS

7/17-7/2023 Vice Chair for Faculty Affairs, Dept. of Pathology, UAMS

7/17-7/2023 Chair of Pathology Department P&T committee

I take an active part in education of medical students, pathology and urology residents, nephrology and surgical pathology fellows. I am the director of the genitourinary block and renal pathology lectures for sophomore medical students. In addition to teaching genitourinary and renal pathology in the spring course, I did clinicopathologic correlations and morphology reviews in each course, I have volunteered for additional lectures for sophomore year medical students on general transplant pathology in the fall course. My training and experience in genitourinary and renal pathology enables me to provide the students with the essentials of these topics. I also volunteered for renal pathology review lectures for the USMLE step I examination for sophomore year medical students. I am available through e-mail, phone, and one-on-one interaction if students need additional clarification on any subject. Most of the medical students preferred using e-mail to clarify any points made in the lectures throughout the years.

In our department, I am actively involved in resident and surgical pathology fellow teaching. In the daily sign out, patient care is carried out through close collaboration between trainee and attending. During this interaction, I provide the trainee with a model on how the pathology routine is done, as well as guidance on study skills, recommendations on learning tools, and the art of diagnostic pathology. I give feedback to residents and fellows on a regular basis. I believe getting feedback is the most important part of their training. I take part in the departmental year-round conference activities including series of didactic lectures, several unknown conferences, journal clubs and elective rotations. I also do comprehensive reviews in my specialty areas to help our trainees prepare for in-service exams and pathology board exams. I have also designed renal pathology elective rotation objectives, a web-based question bank with detailed answers for board preparation, and prepared gross description templates for genitourinary specimens for residents.

As part of an academic program, we need to provide our trainees with the opportunity to learn about doing, reading, and understanding research, as well as inspire them to do research. Therefore, I make an extra effort to involve residents and fellows interested in genitourinary and renal pathology in my research projects. Most of these are clinical translational research projects and are presented at local and national meetings, creating opportunities for all residents and fellows to expand their horizons by attending these meetings.

As a genitourinary pathologist and adjunct Professor of Urology, I am actively involved in the teaching of urology residents. This is done through formal lectures every other month, board reviews, during GU oncology multidisciplinary case conferences, and one-on-one interaction. I provide my expertise and guidance with their clinical projects as well.

As a renal pathologist I take part in the education of renal fellows. This is done through several formal lectures a year, during monthly renal pathology case conference discussions, and one-on- one interaction. I also help them with their research projects when they need a pathologist’s expertise. In addition, I do comprehensive review of renal pathology to help pathology and renal fellows prepare for their boards.

I contribute to the teaching pathology at the local and national level through courses and formal presentations I am invited to present.

In conclusion, education is an important and integral part of my activities and constitutes an important component of my academic life. Above all, I consider my educational role to be guidance, offering trainees both specific study methods, and knowledge as well as inspiration.

I have had many collaborations with researchers in other departments, especially researchers in the Nephrology and Pharmacology/Toxicology divisions at UAMS and other institutions at both nationally and internationally. In such cases, I contributed to the funded basic research by providing diagnostic evaluation and clinical skills, providing guidance for histology, immunohistochemistry and electron microscopy use in research projects by taking full responsibility for ensuring rigorous quality control and quality assurance on all samples processed by the histology core laboratory.

The majority of my research relates to genitourinary and renal pathology.

- I worked on kidney and prostate cancer in collaboration with Dr. Graham Greene and Dr. Rabi Madi in Urology Department at UAMS, and Dr. Jesse McKenney at Stanford University, CA and Dr. Kiril Trpkov at University of Calgary, Canada. I have been awarded one of our departmental research grants for one of my own projects.

- In renal pathology, I work on myeloma-related kidney diseases because of the large number of kidney biopsies coming from myeloma patients at the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy. My completed projects as PI were in collaboration with Dr. Bart Barlogie at UAMS, Dr. Helen Liapis at Washington University in Saint Louis, MO, and Dr. Patrick Walker at Nephropath Laboratory in Little Rock, AR. They included exploring morphologic heterogeneity of light chain deposition disease and cast nephropathy in a large series of cases. Our results have been published in prestigious, high impact journals.

- In collaboration with the program project grant in our nephrology division which was funded by NIH and VA grants, work on kidney lipoprotein lipase, the role of renal tubule triglyceride accumulation in cisplatin-mediated acute renal failure, and the renal survival pathway in ischemia/reperfusion injury has been completed. Our results were published in several prestigious journals.

- I have a long standing collaboration with Dr. Phillip Mayeux in the Pharmacology/Toxicology Department. Our completed projects included looking into hemodynamic changes in the kidney in a pediatric rat model of sepsis-induced acute kidney injury, the effects of resveratrol for improving renal microcirculation, protecting the tubular epithelium, and prolonging survival in a mouse model of sepsis-induced acute kidney injury. We also looked into the protective effects of Actinonin in the renal microcirculation during sepsis. Our collaborations were fruitful and several articles were published, one of which made the cover of the journal Kidney International.