HJAR Nov/Dec 2023

36 NOV / DEC 2023  I  HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS   Healthcare Briefs ReneeMallory, RN, BSN, Named Arkansas Secretary of Health Renee Mallory, RN, BSN, was named Arkansas Secretary of Health in August of 2023. She is a member of the Governor’s cabinet and provides senior executive leadership for the agency. Mal- lory began her career at the Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) in 1988 as a nurse surveyor for Health Facility Services. Throughout the years, she has served in various roles, including the dep- uty director for Public Health Programs from 2018 to 2021, the Chief of Staff from 2021 to 2022, and the Interim Secretary of Health from 2022 to 2023. She has previously served as a designee on the Tobacco Settlement Commission and the Arkan- sas State and Public School Employees Life and Health Insurance Board. She currently serves as a member of the State Board of Health. The ADH delivers over 100 services through the main office in Little Rock and over 90 local health units in each of the state’s 75 counties. These services include immunizations, WIC, out- break response, vital records, chronic disease pre- vention, preparedness and emergency response, injury and violence prevention, and suicide pre- vention. The ADH also includes the Arkansas Pub- lic Health Laboratory, which tests for safe food and drinking water, detects inherited genetic dis- orders in newborns, and provides early identifica- tion of infectious diseases, including COVID-19. Local, state, and federal partnerships help the ADH to advance its mission and best serve the people of Arkansas. UAMS Researchers Oversee NFL-funded Study of Non- Opioid Concussion Treatments The National Football League (NFL) and the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) recently awarded more than half a million dollars to med- ical researchers, including two pain specialists at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), to study non-opioid alternatives for treat- ing post-traumatic headache, a common after- effect of concussion and other forms of traumatic brain injury. Post-traumatic headache (PTH) is a poorly treated, highly debilitating headache disorder where medications and other options for treat- ment aren’t very effective, said Erika Petersen, MD, a professor of neurosurgery at UAMS who chairs the multispecialty Sports Management Task Force for the American Society for Pain and Neu- roscience (ASPN). In July, Petersen became the executive board president of the ASPN, whose medical research- ers shared $526,525 with their counterparts at Emory University for the purpose of investigat- ing innovative pain-management methods that could benefit NFL players and society at large. Petersen will be a primary investigator for her group’s study, to be called “A Pilot Study Assess- ing Noninvasive Treatment of Refractory Post- Concussion Headache Pain.” Johnathan Goree, MD, a UAMS associate pro- fessor of anesthesiology and director of the Divi- sion of Chronic Pain, is also a member of the task force, which developed the study’s research plan, and will participate on the study steering committee. “ASPN is very excited for the research grant,” Petersen said. “Given that more than 3.8 million people are diagnosed with concussion in the United States annually, the persistence of PTH should be considered a substantial public health concern.” She said the ASPN researchers, who received about $350,000 of the grant money, will study can- nabidiol (CBD) and noninvasive vagal nerve stim- ulation (nVNS) in PTH patients. “We will compare standard of care treatment for PTH to these two promising, less-studied options,” she said. “Our hypothesis is that both nVNS and CBD will reduce headache days and headache severity compared to standard of care treatment. The study will specifically be enroll- ing former contact-sport athletes with a history of concussion who have PTH. ASPN will be direct- ing the research at about a dozen sites within 25 miles of an NFL franchise.” Emory researchers, meanwhile, will study mind- fulness-based intervention in sports medicine injuries. “These awards are the second round chosen by the NFL-NFLPA Joint Pain Management Com- mittee, which aims to facilitate research to bet- ter understand and improve potential alternative pain management treatments for NFL players,” according to the football league. David Persson, MD, Joins CHI St. Vincent Primary Care Clinic - Village East in Hot Springs Village CCHI St. Vincent announced that David Pers- son, MD, has joined the team of physicians at the CHI St. Vincent Primary Care Clinic - Village East in Hot Springs Village. Persson is now see- ing patients at the clinic, located at 410 Ponce De Leon Drive. After attending medical school at Eastern Vir- ginia Medical Center, Persson completed a res- idency in internal medicine at Eastern Virginia Graduate School of Medicine in Norfolk. He pre- viously served as an internal medicine physician at Christus Health in Shreveport, Louisiana and most recently at Saline Memorial Hospital in Ben- ton, Arkansas. He is certified in internal medicine by the Arkansas State Medical Board. Baptist Health UAMS Graduate Medical Education Program Celebrates More Resident Spots, Trained Physicians The Baptist Health-University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Medical Education Pro- gram continues to tackle physician shortages with the announcement of more resident spots and the completed training of more physicians into the medical field. This summer, the program increased the num- ber of internal medicine residents admitted from 12 to 15 per year while the psychiatry program increased the number of residents from four to six per year. The Baptist Health-UAMS Medical Education Program also celebrated the comple- tion of residency requirements for 24 physicians David Persson, MD