Illinois Medicine

ACEP represents more than 2,500 emergency physicians in California and is the largest state chapter in the country. Kivela is a managing partner and practicing emergency physi- cian in Napa, a past president of the California chapter and chair of the National ACEP State Legislation and Regulatory Committee. '91 Ruddy E. Ruiz, MD, Res '91, was appointed as the new medical director for Health First's William Childs Hospice House. He has practiced in Brevard County, Fla., since 1996, was previously a physician with Hospice of St. Francis and continues serving his patients through MIMA, Brevard County's largest independent physician group. Ruiz is board-certified in internal medicine and in hospice and pal- liative care. A native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, he graduated from Loui- siana State University before attend- ing medical school at the Universidad Central del Caribe in Cayey, Puerto Rico. He completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago. '03 Sanjay Sikka, MD, Res '03, has been appointed to the Central Maine Medical Center medical staff. He is practicing with Central Maine Gastroenterology in Lewiston. Before joining the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine, medi- cal community, Sikka completed fellowships in advanced endoscopy at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the University of Chicago. While serving his fellowship at Northwestern, he was an instruc- tor in medicine and a member of the gastroenterology faculty. He also served an internal medicine residency at the University of Il- linois Medical Center in Chicago and completed a gastroenterology fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Sikka's professional background also includes work at both Central DuPage and Evanston hospitals in Illinois. Certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, Sikka is the co-author of numerous schol- arly articles in professional journals and has contributed articles to medical textbooks. As he awaits confirmation by the Louisiana legislature to the state's board of regents, Albert D. Sam II, MD, MMM, MS '98, Res '01, says he knows one thing: his career owes much to the University of Illinois. During his residency in general surgery, Sam also completed a research fellowship in cardiovascular surgery that earned him an MS. "Besides my training as a surgeon, we published a fair amount during my time in Chicago," he says. "I really became a critical thinker during that time period. … It is very hard to find a program that makes you an exceptional clinician but at the same time gives you that academic and research component." He spent two years in the laboratory of William R. Law, direc- tor of surgical research in the department of physiology at the time, who shaped the arc of his career along with the two program directors Sam served under—Charles Rice and Jose Cintron. "Dr. Rice was instrumental in me joining that lab," Sam says. "He saw I had potential as a researcher." And Cintron, who remains a mentor and good friend, "did a good job of transitioning me back into the clinical side of surgical training." Today, Sam is the chief of vascular surgery at Baton Rouge General Hospital, a clinical assistant professor in the Louisiana State University School of Medicine and a partner at the Vascular Specialty Center, a vascular surgical practice in the Baton Rouge area. He handles all phases of vascular and endovascular surgery and oversees the clinical research activities of the group. "It's been exciting," he says of his work. "We've done a lot of research, and I have had the honor of being a principal investigator for a number of trials," including the National Institutes of Health- sponsored CREST trial for stroke prevention, "whose results will alter how we treat carotid disease," Sam adds. Sam also has found time to use his platform as a national spokesperson for the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association to do advocacy work in Louisiana and lobbying on Capitol Hill. "We're working on several initiatives—the preservation of NIH funding, childhood obesity, nutrition," he says. "As a clinician, you treat people one at a time. As a spokesperson, you try to get the message out to people who can affect policy. We treat people every day who have vascular disease, and the vast majority of these problems are preventable." On the board of regents, a natural extension to Sam's civic Tell us what you're up to! Your classmates are curious about what you are doing. Fill them in by sending your latest news and accomplishments to medcomm@uic.edu, and we'll be sure to include it in the next issue of Illinois Medicine. volunteer work on K-12 education, he expects to be hashing through the need to eliminate programs and consolidate schools as a result of declining state revenue. "These are sensitive and passionate issues that demand temperate, lucid viewpoints—that I am humbled to have been asked to add to these and other important discussions regarding higher education in Louisiana," he says. — Patrick Kampert I L L INOI S MEDICINE | 39

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