Alumni

Letter from the Chair of the University of Utah Biomedical Informatics Department Alumni Network:

It is my pleasure to take a moment to update you on our Alumni Network.  Serving as the Chair of the Network for the past 3 years, the vibrancy, trust and respect of Utah-trained Informaticians is self-evident.  I am continuously reminded of the vigor of our group when interacting with colleagues who place emphasis on the fact that Utah-trained Informaticists have interacted with, designed, and been exposed to systems with practical significance in health care.  There is no equivalent to a Utah-trained Informatician.   Some may argue that we should be considered priceless in a market where cost and quality are everything, especially ensuring that clinical data standards and terminologies are appropriately used to help achieve interoperability and efficient, effective medicine. . . need I go on ?!?

Just in case you didn’t realize it, Utah’s Biomedical Informatics Alumni span the entire world, with more Ph.D. and Master’s degrees than any other bio, medical or clinical informatics program globally.  Over the past decade, alumni efforts to raise money have contributed to numerous scientific and educational speaker series, and funded important local and international projects sponsored by the Biomedical Informatics Department.  Homer, Reed and Joyce’s visions as Heads of the Department have inspired all of us to achieve meaningful accomplishments in numerous areas of medicine to help our fellow informatics colleagues as well as clinicians who value our expertise.   The main functions of the Network are as follows:

1. Promote networking between Alumni and their colleagues on a personal level to support each other’s knowledge base, social knowledge of others, and emotional support through the good times and bad

2. Promote networking at the level of Alumni’s organizations to enable new capabilities to take place in academia and the marketplace

3. Hosting the traditional pizza dinner gathering at the AMIA Annual Meeting

4. A reunion, back to Salt Lake City, Utah, the birthplace of medical informatics!  Currently, we are planning an event that will allow for a Utah-based reunion to occur in 2011 prior to AMIA (Stay in touch by joining our LinkedIn group “Utah Biomedical Informatics”). 

5. Fundraising to empower the Department with funds to sponsor scientific and meaningful events for our community

The Alumni Network is led through a formal committee, which meets monthly to discuss, plan and organize the future.  I chair the Network, along with the following fellow committee members whose roles and relevant links are below:

Chairperson:

Gerasimos Petratos, MD, MS
Class of 2003
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/gerasimos-petratos/1/541/3a

U.S. East Coast Representative:

David Vawdrey, PhD
Class of 2007
http://vesta.cumc.columbia.edu/dbmi/facdb/profile/profile.php?id=dkv7001

West Coast/Intermountain West Representative

Aaron Kamauu, MD, MPH, MS
Class of 2006
www.akamauu.com

Asia Representative:

Yoon Kim, MD, PhD, MS
Class of 2003
yoonkim@snu.ac.kr

We are looking for new ideas and faces to strengthen our Network.  Please feel free to reach out to us so that we can involve you in the Network, or listen to your ideas and leverage your energy so that we can continue to grow and provide a true service for our Alumni !

Sincerely,

Gerry Petratos
+1 917.842.1507
gerry@hiteks.com