News from the UW SMPH Department of Urology

July 2020 | Volume 16, Issue 6

Notable and Newsworthy


Dr. Abel

Jason Abel, MD, FACS was the recipient of the 2020 Dean's Award for Excellence in Medical Student Research Mentorship. Dr. Abel has consistently involved medical students in his funded program of research and has proven to be an outstanding mentor. He has mentored eighteen medical students in summer and yearlong research projects, resulting in 19 publications and 65 abstracts.

Christopher Manakas, MD is the recipient of the 2020 Wear Teaching Award for his outstanding commitment to resident education.

The 2020 Ira Sisk Award, named for the first Chairman of Urology at the University of Wisconsin, was awarded to Brady Miller, MD, MPH in recognition of outstanding performance on the resident In-Service Examination.

For his commitment to medical student education, Dr. Jason Flamiatos received a 2020 Annual Resident Teaching Award at the 23rd Annual Layton Rikkers Education Retreat.

Summer Research Update

This summer, the department has four student scholars in the UW School of Medicine & Public Health's Shapiro Summer Research Program . It consists of 8-10 weeks of mentored research conducted by student awardees between M1 and M2 years; students also have the opportunity for clinical shadowing during this time.

The UW SMPH Shapiro Summer Research Program student awardees working on research with Urology faculty this summer include:

Jasmine Love: Jasmine received a Surgery T35 grant and is working with Dr. Richards looking at the utility of urinalysis prior to in-office procedures.

Bikrum Chahal: Bikrum is working with Dr. Abel on a project predicting renal cell cancer recurrence using tumor protein expression.

Jonathan Le: Under the mentorship of Dr. Jarrard, Jonathan is studying the role of axumin scan in directing treatment of prostate cancer.

Aman Nihal: Aman is working with Dr. Jarrard, exploring whether automated image analysis of histologically benign prostate biopsies predicts cancer presence.

While this year's program is somewhat modified in response to COVID-19, the advancement of our research and medical student education continues.