For immediate release: August 4, 2008
Contact: Anne McMillin, APR, Communications Office
Office 775-682-9254
Mobile 702-292-4247
amcmillin@medicine.nevada.edu

Two School of Medicine faculty members, Class of 2010 honored as Healthcare Heroes by Nevada Business Journal

Ceremony recognizes those making significant contributions
to northern Nevada healthcare

RENO, Nev.— University of Nevada School of Medicine faculty made up one-third of the 10 healthcare professionals honored at the Nevada Business Journal’s third annual Northern Nevada Healthcare Heroes awards and banquet on July 31. Trudy Larson, M.D., Catherine McCarthy, M.D. and the School of Medicine’s Class of 2010 were nominated by a committee of healthcare experts for their efforts in helping evolve northern Nevada into a budding, major medical region.

           The awards, which were also presented to nine southern healthcare professionals in a separate banquet in Las Vegas, were given to northern honorees at a banquet ceremony at the Silver Legacy Resort and Casino. Proceeds from both banquets benefit students pursuing careers in healthcare education at the University of Nevada School of Medicine.

           Larson, a professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine since 1984, was honored with a Lifetime Achievement award. She currently serves as director of the Nevada Organ Donor program and is chair of the School’s Faculty Council. She helped found the HOPES clinic, a non-profit, specialty clinic that provides outpatient medical care, education, support service and healthy living programs for HIV positive individuals. During her tenure at the School, she has served as chair of the pediatrics department, associate dean of outreach, UNR faculty senate chair and a one-year appointment as assistant chancellor to the Board of Regents.

           McCarthy, an assistant professor of family medicine at the School, was recognized with the educator honors. She is director of the obstetrics fellowship program and associate residency director at the School of Medicine’s Department of Family and Community Medicine in Reno. She conducts research on obesity, access to healthcare and osteoporosis and is a volunteer preceptor at the Student Outreach Clinic in Reno. She is a member of the biomedical internal review board, the emergency operations committee and scholarship committee at the School of Medicine.

           The Class of 2010 collectively earned the honors for entrepreneurism for their efforts to help the medically underserved. The class took charge of the fledgling Student Outreach Clinic, invigorating the program and increasing by seven-fold the average number of patients seen at each of the three monthly clinics throughout the academic year. On their own initiative, class members organized a sign-up web page for clinic appointments, arranged for access to low-cost lab tests, free X-rays, and immunizations for children. The Class of 2010’s entrepreneurial spirit is not confined to local activities: they organized and ran a benefit to raise nearly $8,500 for life-saving scoliosis surgery for two teenage sisters from the Southeast Asian nation of East Timor.

           Other recipients, including School of Medicine alumnus, Louis Bonaldi, M.D., and Charles Bullock, M.D., former dean of the UNR College of Health and Human Services, were honored for their work in administration, care providing, community partnering, humanitarianism, innovation, non-profit and technology/research at the awards dinner.

As the state’s only public medical school, the University of Nevada School of Medicine has been a leader in healthcare, medical education and research in Nevada since 1969. The School of Medicine includes 16 clinical departments including family medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine, surgery, and psychiatry and behavioral sciences, and five nationally recognized departments in basic science including microbiology and biomedical engineering. The more than 185 doctors of University Health System, the school’s clinical practice, offer care in more than 40 medical specialties and subspecialties with eight physician offices in the Reno/Sparks area and seven in Las Vegas. The school is committed to a best practices approach to medicine and is dedicated to exceptional healthcare for Nevada now and in the future. For more information visit www.medicine.nevada.edu.