Making the Rounds with the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV

Making the Rounds

July 27, 2021 Issue 289

Friends & Colleagues,

We’re always looking for ways to engage our new students on issues that inform them of the world in which they will practice. This year, we set up a summer reading project for our entering students centered on the book, Fatal Invention, an incisive work written by Dorothy E. Roberts. The book is subtitled, “How science, politics, and big business re-create race in the twenty-first century.” The book points out that with the human genome project, it became clear that the human species is of one race. The book further examines how the biological concept of race promotes inequality in a supposedly “post-racial” era. Jennifer Young, our director of community engagement, did a superb job of coordinating the project that served as a catalyst for robust, if not at times difficult, discussion. Understanding who we are will allow us to better care for our community as a whole. In today’s newsletter, we focus on a recent graduate of the medical school, Dr. John Rovig, who’s now doing his postgraduate residency training in internal medicine through the medical school. Dr. Rovig, who’s become a stickler on medical ethics since entering medical school, is doing all he can to ensure that all Southern Nevadans get the care they deserve.

Marc J. Kahn, M.D.

Dean, Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV

Announcement

The UNLV Alumni Association has officially approved the formal recognition of the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV Alumni Chapter!

Toyokazu Endo, MD, was chosen as the president for the chapter.

Medicine By The Numbers

Brain Aneurysm Stats

An estimated 6.5 million people in the United States have an unruptured brain aneurysm, or 1 in 50 people.

Women, particularly those over the age of 55, have a higher risk of brain aneurysm rupture than men (about 1.5 times the risk).

African-Americans and Hispanics are about twice as likely to have a brain aneurysm rupture compared to whites.

There are almost 500,000 deaths worldwide each year caused by brain aneurysms, and half the victims are younger than 50.

Brain aneurysms are most prevalent in people ages 35 to 60, but can occur in children as well. Most aneurysms develop after the age of 40.

Source:

https://bafound.org/about-brain-aneurysms/brain-aneurysm-basics/brain-aneurysm-statistics-and-facts/

Internal Medicine Resident Becomes

Father On First Day Of Residency Training

John Rovig, MD, first-year internal medicine resident and charter class graduate, is now facing a more enjoyable challenge that involves late nights and early mornings. Photo by Kiffin D. Photography.

Just about six months after John Rovig began his studies as a member of the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV Charter Class, he needed emergency surgery.

It turned out the abdominal pain he’d been experiencing for almost a month had been caused by an infected urachal cyst. People can generally live comfortably with a urachal cyst -- a collection of tissue and fluid between the bladder and the belly button -- unless it becomes infected.

“I was out almost a month after the surgery, basically overcoming the infection,” he says. “I really wasn’t feeling well.”

Suggestions of restarting medical school didn’t sit well with him -- “I wanted to graduate with my class.”

In a classic bit of understatement, he said it “took some work” to catch up with the rest of the class.

Yes, he did what few others could have done, got on the same page as other members of his class, through late nights and early mornings of study. In May, right on time with the rest of the new medical school’s first graduating class, he became John Rovig, MD.

John Rovig

Internal Medicine Resident

Now he’s facing another challenge that involves late nights and early mornings. But he says it’s much more enjoyable -- changing diapers and burping his firstborn.

On July 1, the first day of his internal medicine residency at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine, his wife, Kaitlin, gave birth to Will Timothy Rovig, a child Dr. Rovig says the couple has been praying for over the last four years.

“I get up during the night to help my wife by changing diapers and burping the baby,” he says. “I really enjoy it.”

Dr. Rovig said he and his wife will be forever grateful for the full-tuition scholarship he received from the Engelstad Foundation for his four years of medical school. “We were dealing with expensive IVF (in vitro fertilization) treatment to have our baby and that scholarship alleviated even more financial stress.”

The Rovigs -- Kaitlin is a Las Vegas native -- met when both were students at Brigham Young University in Utah. They decided their home should be in Las Vegas, where her father, George Timothy Kelly, MD, has long practiced rheumatology.

“Internal medicine is a field that coordinates with many fields to help best take care of a patient...Like rock climbing, to be successful it requires professional relations that are centered on trust and clear communication.”

John Rovig, Internal Medicine Resident

Originally from Idaho, Dr. Rovig, who was one of six children, says his interest in science, and specifically medicine, largely came about because of his grandfather and an Idaho Falls physician who took care of his critically ill sister.

“My grandfather was a dermatologist, and was someone that I looked up to as a young child. Unfortunately, he passed away when I was still young...My mom loved to tell me stories of the type of person and physician my grandfather was. He was the kind of person that would make house calls on his days off, and was always willing to aid those in need. His memory inspired me to want to become a physician.”

Neil Haycocks and John Rovig during the

White Coat Ceremony on August 25, 2017.

"As I got older my sister became very ill to the point that physicians at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona told my parents to prepare for the worst...As a teenager, the thought of losing my sister was incomprehensible. Fortunately, a physician in our hometown in Idaho found out what was causing my sister’s multisystem failure -- a rare complication of lupus -- and took care of her at no cost. My parents had spent all their money and insurance at Mayo, but that doctor still took her under his wing and got her well. She’s now married and has two kids. He further inspired me to become a physician.”

Dr. Rovig, who has long enjoyed rock climbing, says he chose internal medicine as a specialty because you start with very little hard information about what is causing a patient’s medical problem, allowing the physician to work his way to an answer. In that way, he says, it is not unlike the mental gymnastics he goes through to figure out the best route to take during a rock climbing ascent.

“I enjoy the puzzle aspect of medicine...of working with a diverse community of patients...On top of that, internal medicine is a field that coordinates with many fields to help best take care of a patient...Like rock climbing, to be successful it requires professional relations that are centered on trust and clear communication.”