Newsletter vol 1 July 2008 4 pages (3) summer - Department of ...

Department of Rehabilitation Medicine
Volume 1, Issue 1 Summer 2008
Notes from the Chair
I would like to thank our faculty and staff for making the last
year such an exciting one, as we move further along in reaching
our goal, providing excellent care and becoming a top
department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R).
We have added many new faculty to the department at the
University of Miami (UM) during the last two years that I
have been at the helm.
In musculoskeletal medicine, we have added
Robert Irwin, M.D., who is in a leadership role with the Problem
Based Learning curriculum for the second year
UM medical students, and Erin Wolff, M.D., who is developing
the department’s Sports Medicine program. In addition, soon
to join our musculoskeletal group is Jose Mena, M.D., who will
spend part of his time at the UM Deerfield Clinic north of
Miami. These three new physiatrists, along with Andrew
Sherman, M.D., Vice Chair, bring our total of interventional
physiatrists to four.
Other new faculty include Seema Khurana, D.O., who is
fellowship trained in Multiple Sclerosis. She is actively involved
in a number of research studies, as is another new
faculty, Elizabeth Felix, Ph.D. Dr. Felix is studying pain in
persons with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI), an area that has been a
keen interest of mine as well. Tamar Ference, M.D., who
spent many years teaching residents in Baltimore, joined the
faculty last summer. She is an expert in many areas,
including stroke, amputation, neuromuscular diseases, musculoskeletal
pain, and cancer rehabilitation.
Diana Cardenas, M.D.
Professor and Chair
Rehabilitation Medicine
Erin Wolff, M.D.
Seema Khurana, D.O.
Elizabeth Felix, Ph.D.
Tamar Ference, M.D.

In July, Kevin Dalal, M.D., joined us. He completed an
SCI fellowship with us at Jackson Memorial Hospital/UM/VA.
Kevin completed his PM&R training at Tufts and will be working
alongside Kresimir Banovac, M.D., Ph.D., who provides spinal
cord injury care for the acute patients in our CARF-accredited
SCI rehabilitation service and serves as Associate Vice-Chair. Our
SCI patients are cared for at JMH, a 1550-bed county hospital with
a Level 1 Trauma Center , known as the Ryder Trauma Center.
Within the Ryder Trauma Center, we have a 28-bed Neurorehabilitation service
directed by Zoraya Parrilla, M.D., a physiatrist who is fellowship trained in brain
injury. The program is CARF-accredited in Traumatic Brain Injury. We also have a
large CARF-accredited comprehensive rehabilitation service at JMH directed by
J. Andres Restrepo, M.D., as well as a pediatric rehabilitation service. Altogether
our in-patient rehabilitation medicine units at JMH (67 total beds) discharge more
than 900 patients each year. In addition to our in-patient program at JMH, we also
care for patients at HealthSouth, where David Kushner, M.D., is an attending.
Many stroke patients and other patients with all types of neurological or orthopedic
conditions are hospitalized there.
New Residents
Our Program Director, Dr. Sherman, along with help from our Program
Coordinator, Coretha Davis, and our Associate Program Directors, Drs. Restrepo
and Tolchin, have developed an outstanding curriculum for our residents. Under
their direction, the residency has grown from 4 residents to 17 residents in a short 4
years. Our new class of 6 residents hail from Baylor College of Medicine to as far
away as the University of Cartagena, Columbia.
We welcome our SCI fellow, Jasmine
Martinez-Barrizonte, D.O. I am directing
our SCI Fellowship program and having a
great time doing so. Our fellow is
fortunate to have faculty from the Miami
Project to Cure Paralysis to work with,
including Mark Nash, Ph.D., Associate
Professor, Department of Neurological
Surgery, who is our Director for
Research.
Kevin Dalal, M.D.
The PM&R department of the Miami VA is led by Ronald Tolchin, D.O. His physician
staff includes Heather Sered, M.D., Miguel Tabaro, M.D. and Kenneth Ward,
M.D.. Many new programs and training activities are occurring at our VA. The SCI
Service at the VA is directed by Alberto Martinez-Arizala, M.D., who helps us with
our SCI fellowship training program.

Research Update
Last year we held our First Annual Research Day and our Keynote Speaker was
Dalton Dietrich, Ph.D., Scientific Director of the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.
He spoke to us about Hypothermia and its effect in pre-clinical studies of brain and
spinal cord injuries. This year our Keynote Speaker was Ross Zafonte, D.O.,
Professor and Chair, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Harvard
Medical School, who gave a presentation on traumatic brain injury research. Both
of these keynote speakers were excellent and gave us cutting edge information.
The ongoing studies involving our faculty are in the areas of Multiple Sclerosis
(Dr. Khurana), Musculoskeletal Ultrasound (Dr. Irwin), TBI (Dr. Parrilla,
Dr. Felix), SCI and Pain (Dr. Felix and myself), UTI’s in SCI (Dr. Banovac, Restrepo,
and myself), Back Pain (Dr. Sherman), Prosthetics (Dr. Ference), Pediatarics
(Dr. Khurana) and Heterotopic Ossification (Dr. Banovac). In addition, several
faculty are involved in Miami Project studies led by Dr. Mark Nash,
Edelle Field-Fote, Ph.D., and Eva Widerstrom-Noga Ph.D. New studies in development
on acute SCI interventions are also involving some of us (Dr. Sherman and
myself).
As you can see, I am excited to bring you this update and look forward to sending
out another letter in the near future. Until then, I remain dedicated to reaching for
the best in all we do.
Have a great day,
Diana D. Cardenas, M.D., MHA
Professor and Chair
Department of Rehabilitation Medicine
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
305-243-9516
Chief of Service of Rehabilitation Medicine
Director of the Jackson Memorial Rehabilitation Hospital
Miami, FL