In the News
In the News
Good things are happening at UNLV Health, the medical practice where Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV doctors treat patients.
Here you will find the latest news stories and contact information for media relations. Our media relations team is available to assist with news inquiries involving UNLV clinics, doctors, patients, and programs.
If you are a journalist looking for more information about UNLV Health clinics, or the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV, our media relations team can help you with:
- Setting up interviews with our expert physicians and other healthcare professionals
- Access to our facilities for reporters/photographers/videographers and news crews.
We look forward to working with you. You can find more information about UNLV Media Policies, or contact our manager of media relations, Mr. Paul Joncich at (702) 895-1696 for stories about our doctors and medical clinics.
The Interview: David Di John
In the Age of COVID-19: How an Infectious Disease Doc and Family Live Their Lives
Dr. David Di John, who ran an HIV clinic in New York during the height of the AIDS crisis, hopes public awareness about good hygiene will carry on long after the coronavirus scare ends.
Just because Dr. David Di John has largely devoted his professional life to the treatment of infectious diseases doesn’t mean his personal life is immune from repeated discussions about the infectious coronavirus, COVID-19, an acute respiratory disease.
School of Medicine Resident Physicians Sharpen Surgery Skills
Working with cadavers provides medical students with valuable experience.
Inside the Oquendo Center, a large medical event space near McCarran International Airport, eight human cadavers lay on individual operating tables, each one surrounded by an array of surgical equipment.
UNLV School of Medicine Achieves Latest Accreditation Milestone
School granted provisional accreditation by Liaison Committee on Medical Education, remains on track to earn full accreditation by 2021-22.
The UNLV School of Medicine has reached a major milestone in its accreditation process, successfully completing the second of three steps that all new medical degree-granting schools must obtain before receiving full accreditation.
Former UNLV Medicine Fellow Joins Faculty
Dr. Joseph Carroll says the opportunity to be part of the
medical
school’s team at the UMC Trauma Center was too good to pass up.
It was when he was in the seventh grade that Dr. Joseph Carroll, now an assistant professor in the UNLV School of Medicine’s department of surgery, first thought about becoming a physician.
Internationally Known Trauma Surgeon Begins Work as School of Medicine Dean
Dr. John Fildes continues the vision for establishing UNLV’s academic medical center.
In August, just days after being named interim dean of the UNLV School of Medicine, Dr. John Fildes was before a gathering of the world’s best surgeons, delivering a keynote address on handling mass casualty situations. It’s a topic with which he is all too familiar.
Mojave Counseling Youth Clinic
Helping Children and Adolescents with Mental Health Difficulties
UNLV Medicine’s Mojave Counseling Youth Clinic offers assistance to some of Nevada’s youngest patients.
Responses to the questions below reflect input from the entire mental health team at the Mojave Counseling Youth Clinic, which is under the direction of Dr. Alison Netski, chair of the UNLV School of Medicine department of psychiatry and behavioral health.
How are the challenges different between helping adults and helping children?
Family Medicine Clinic
UNLV Medicine Family Medicine Providing Wide Range of Services
The UNLV Medicine Family Medicine Clinic handles around 11,000 patient visits per year, including expectant mothers, children, adults, and the elderly, as well as the Golden Knights and Aviators.
Surgeon Encourages Minority Students to Pursue Medical Careers
The story that ran in the Las Vegas Review-Journal last May was compelling. Mary Kay Duda’s life was saved by UNLV Medicine’s Dr. Charles St. Hill.
St. Hill, one of only three fellowship-trained surgical oncologists in Nevada, performed a complex 10-hour surgery known as a Whipple procedure to remove a large tumor that enveloped her pancreas.
“I’ve been given the gift of life,” a grateful Duda would later tell St. Hill and reporter Jessie Bekker.
Inspirational Goals
UNLV Medicine Pediatric Surgeons
UNLV Medicine Brings More Pediatric Surgeons to Las Vegas.
They cannot always say what’s bothering them. They cannot always answer medical questions. They are not always able to be patient and helpful during a medical examination.
Yes, children are definitely not small adults in so many ways – they behave differently, they require specific testing for their specific illnesses, they need special techniques for procedures. Clinicians must always take into account the immature physiology of the infant or child when considering symptoms, prescribing medications, and diagnosing illnesses.
UNLV Medicine’s ENT Team
Dr. Robert Wang — he completed his residency in otolaryngology at Harvard, one of the nation’s most celebrated medical schools, and his head and neck fellowship at M.D. Anderson, the world’s most renowned cancer institute — is upbeat on a recent early April morning.
Yes, on this day where the sun had yet to make its first appearance, no one could accuse the chairman of the UNLV School of Medicine Department of Otolaryngology- Head & Neck Surgery of not accentuating the positive.
Excellent in an Emergency
Dr. John Fildes' youthful interest in medicine turned into a successful lifelong career
While Dr. John Fildes’ interest in medicine began as a youngster, it was what he saw working in a hospital during college that spurred his interest in trauma care.
Working in a variety of hospital jobs in New York state, Fildes said he saw many people die following car wrecks and industrial accidents — people he thought could have been saved if the hospital had had better acute care capabilities.
Today Fildes serves as the inaugural chair of the UNLV School of Medicine surgery department and is know worldwide for his work in trauma medicine.
Leaving Them Smiling
For children with rare conditions, UNLV Medicine surgeon restores the ability to show happiness. It’s a procedure that leaves both the patient and the surgeon with smiles on their faces. Surgery to correct the effects of Moebius syndrome – a rare congenital condition that can paralyze a person’s entire face and affect muscles that control back and forth eye movement – can make it impossible for a person to show that sign of happiness that most people take for granted.
Dr. Deborah Kuhls Reflects on Mass Shooting
They sought a carefree weekend out on the town.
Some were from Vegas, many drove in from Southern California, and others journeyed on a plane to escape the worries of their everyday lives.
That’s what set the evening apart from so many others that Dr. Deborah Kuhls has spent in UMC’s trauma center.
Pediatric Surgeon Dr. Michael Scheidler
The story of how Dr. Michael G. Scheidler, the son of a mailman and the youngest of eight children, became one of the nation’s top pediatric surgeons is one of perseverance.
Though the chief of pediatric surgery at the UNLV School of Medicine couldn’t see himself becoming anything other than a physician, that vision wasn’t always shared by educators.
Read the full story here.
Cleft and Craniofacial Surgery
If your child has a cleft lip and/or palate or other craniofacial disorder a good place to start is with the UNLV Medicine Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery team.
Each child is an individual, however, and you should be sure to discuss your child’s unique situation during your first appointment with Dr. Menezes and the UNLV Medicine multi-disciplinary management team.
Dr. Amber Champion is a Champion for Her Patients
If you ask Dr. Amber Champion why she’s now a UNLV Medicine endocrinologist with an emphasis in diabetes, she begins by telling you a story that’s set in Australia, a story about an abnormally hungry 27-year-old medical student who ended up in the emergency room with blurry vision and an unquenchable thirst — a young woman whose car broke down, whose bicycle burned up.
UNLV Surgical Oncologist Performs 10-Hour Whipple Procedure
As doctors wheeled 75-year-old Mary Kay Duda into surgery for a pancreatic tumor, she turned to her daughter, Katie, and said, “See you on the flip side.”
Katie Duda, 36, rolled her eyes at the memory, humorous now that her mother is nearing two years cancer-free. At the time, though, the thought of losing her mother was unbearably real.
Mary Kay Duda says she’s one of the lucky unlucky ones. Unlucky in that the tumor growing inside her enveloped the head of her pancreas. Unlucky in that one Las Vegas surgeon declined to operate because the tumor was so large.
Dr. Joseph Thornton on Overcoming Obstacles
Dr. Joseph Thornton’s road to becoming a physician makes you realize yet again that where there’s a will, there’s a way.
He grew up in a single parent household on the south side of Chicago, the son of an African American bartender who wanted the best for her son. His two aunts, both maids, also lived in the home.
“Combining incomes made the housing affordable,” says the 72-year-old colorectal surgeon who now is an associate professor in the UNLV School of Medicine’s Department of Surgery. “For good times they loved to go to the racetrack and watch the horses run.”
Dr. Jennifer Baynosa, Surgical Oncologist
From her extended family what Dr. Jennifer Baynosa often heard as a child was that one day she would find a nice man, fall in love, get married, and have a family.
Taking care of her children and her husband, preparing their meals and washing their clothes, was the future that would be hers.
Groundbreaking Robotic Surgery
UNLV Medicine Dr. Ovunc Bardakcioglu, successfully performed a breakthrough surgical procedure using a new robotic device that required no incision through the skin, significantly shortened recovery time, and lessened the chances of infection.