HJAR Sep/Oct 2024

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS I  SEP / OCT 2024 37 For weekly eNews updates and to read the journal online, visit HealthcareJournalAR.com “The establishment of a family medicine resi- dency program in El Dorado will provide a frame- work to help address the workforce shortage that rural areas across Arkansas are facing,” said Donya Watson, MD, associate professor in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine. “We would like to recruit and train graduates from Arkansas medical schools who will hope- fully stay in Arkansas to practice.” The goal of the El Dorado residency program is to improve and expand access to healthcare in rural areas while also strengthening the phy- sician workforce in underserved south Arkansas communities. The program will be a partnership between UAMS and South Arkansas Regional Hospital and will establish a rural track fam- ily medicine program with a focus on maternal health and obstetrics. Watson will be the program director of the El Dorado residency program, which will serve as a full-circle moment for her. “For me personally, as a graduate of the pro- gram here in 1997, I am very excited about the opportunity to help train the next generation of the health care workforce for El Dorado and south Arkansas,” Watson said. The program aims to earn accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education in 2025 and enroll its first residents in the summer of 2026. The trainees will complete part of their residency in Little Rock at UAMS and Arkansas Children’s Hospital, though the major- ity of their training will be spent immersed in El Dorado and south Arkansas-based rural clinical settings. Oncologist Abhijit Godbole, MD, Joins CHI St. Vincent Cancer Center CHI St. Vincent announced that oncologist Abhijit Godbole, MD, has joined the team of specialists at the CHI St. Vincent Cancer Center in Little Rock. Godbole joins CHI St. Vincent from Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pine Bluff, where he served as a hematologist-oncologist. Before that, he was an assistant professor of hematol- ogy and oncology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He worked as an attend- ing hospital physician at Lehigh Valley Health Network in Allentown, Pennsylvania. A graduate of B.J. Medical College in Pune, India, Godbole received a PhD in molecular med- icine from the University of Maryland. He also held the role of a post-doctoral research associ- ate at Thomas Jefferson University in Maryland. He completed a residency in internal medicine at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, New York, and his hematology-oncology fellowship at the Uni- versity of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Godbole is board-certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Soci- ety of Hematology, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. He has served on multiple edi- torial boards, including the American Journal of Cancer Case Reports and the American Journal of Cancer Therapy and Pharmacology . He is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research, the American College of Physicians, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and the American Society of Hematology. The CHI St. Vincent Cancer Center is located at 10001 Lile Drive in Little Rock. UAMS Names Ryan Cork, MSHA, Vice Chancellor of Northwest Region The University of Arkansas for Medical Sci- ences (UAMS) has named Ryan Cork, MSHA, as its next vice chancellor for the Northwest Arkan- sas Region. He joins UAMS from the Northwest Arkansas Council in Bentonville, where he has served as the nonprofit’s executive director of healthcare transformation since 2021. “Ryan has extensive experience in leadership and healthcare administration combined with knowledge about the unique health care needs and opportunities in Northwest Arkansas,” said Cam Patterson, MD, MBA, UAMS chancellor and CEO of UAMS Health. “These qualities will be critical as UAMS continues to expand its aca- demic, clinical, and research work in this rapidly growing region.” Cork has more than 20 years’ experience as a healthcare administrator, with stints at Cleve- land Clinic, where his roles included serving as chief operating officer and institute administra- tor for international operations, and The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and James Cancer Hospital, where he was adminis- trator for the Department of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery. In addition, he has served on active duty with the United States Navy since 1994, most recently with the Navy Reserves Med- ical Service Corps. Mudassar Kamran, MD, Joins Baptist Health Neurosurgery Arkansas Mudassar Kamran, MD, MSc, DPhil (Oxon) has joined the team at Baptist Health Neurosurgery Arkansas. Kamran received a medical degree from King Edward Medical College, Lahore. He subse- quently attended University of Oxford where he completed a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in Sur- gery and an MSc in Neuroscience. He obtained residency training in Diagnostic Radiology and pursued fellowships in Diagnostic Neuroradi- ology and Endovascular Surgical Neuroradiol- ogy (also known as endovascular neurosurgery or neurointerventional radiology) from Mallinck- rodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, in St. Louis. Kamran specializes in endovascular surgical neuroradiology – image-guided, minimally inva- sive treatments of head, neck, and spine dis- eases. He is board-certified by the American Board of Radiology for diagnostic radiology and neuroradiology. Kamran has over 35 peer-reviewed publications and currently teaches courses in the Department of Radiology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Kamran speaks four languages: English, Urdu, Punjabi, and Hindi. n Abhijit Godbole, MD