|
TB Notes Newsletter
No. 4, 2007
PERSONNEL NOTES
Stephen Benoit, MD, has accepted a
position in the National Center for Public Health Informatics, where
he will be part of an analytics/epidemiology team. After finishing
his Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) training in the Division of
Healthcare Quality Promotion, Stephen joined the International
Research and Programs Branch (IRPB) in July 2006. He worked
primarily in Latin America, helping with the planning for the Mexico
drug-resistance survey as well as the establishment of a Center for
Excellence. He worked closely with Paul Jensen, conducting TB
infection control trainings in Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru. In
addition, he conducted an analysis of TB among the foreign born
using data from the National TB Surveillance System. His last
official day in DTBE was October 12, 2007.
Nick DeLuca, PhD, is departing DTBE for
a position as a Behavioral Scientist with the Global AIDS Program
(GAP) in Windhoek, Namibia. Nick has been with DTBE since 1997,
first starting as an Association of Schools of Public Health fellow
in what was then the Communications and Education Branch. He was
later hired in a permanent position as a Health Education
Specialist, and continued on to the senior staff position of
Education, Training, and Behavioral Studies Team Leader in the
current Communications, Education, and Behavioral Studies Branch (CEBSB).
During his time with DTBE, Nick has developed patient and provider
education and training materials; developed and implemented
education and behavioral studies; conducted training courses;
provided technical assistance and guidance to local, state,
national, and international partners; and provided leadership and
guidance to the Regional Training and Medical Consultation Centers (RTMCCs).
Nick will be greatly missed by the TB community, and we hope he will
continue to be involved in HIV/TB in his new position. His start
date with GAP is effective November 12, with the goal of moving to
Namibia in January 2008.
Ilana Dickman, a fellow in DTBE’s Clinical and Health
Systems Research Branch (CHSRB), has accepted a job in the
Washington, DC, area, where she will be working as a health care
analyst on a cultural competency project for HHS’s Office of
Minority Health. Her last day with CDC was October 4. Ilana joined
CHSRB as an Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH) Fellow 1
year ago. She devoted the majority of her time to developing the
ethnographic guide for TB programs providing services to persons
from China and to finalizing all five guides in the series. This
effort involved completing in-depth reviews of the literature,
gathering a wide range of health statistics, and doing a substantial
amount of organizing and writing. Her well-received Brown Bag talk
presented to the Division in August nicely reflected the fine
quality of her work. Ilana was also very instrumental in helping
plan and carry out the very successful TB Walk this year. All of us
who had the opportunity to know and work with Ilana will miss her
very much, and we wish her well in her new job.
Teresa Goss returned to DTBE on August
20. She has joined the Communications, Education, and Behavioral
Studies Branch (CEBSB) as a Training Specialist. In this position,
she will provide technical and administrative support for TB
training, education, and public awareness activities. Prior to her
move back to DTBE, Teresa served as a Management and Program Analyst
on the Center’s Strategic Business Unit (SBU) Personnel Team.
Susan Lippold, MD, MPH, TB Controller for the city of
Chicago, left CDC/DTBE on October 31, 2007, having accepted
a position with the Global AIDS program in Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam. In her new role, she will direct CDC and PEPFAR activities
in this area, including HIV/TB activities. Susan joined the DTBE
Field Services and Evaluation Branch on January 2, 2002. During her
tenure as Director of the TB Control Program and the City of
Chicago’s TB Control Officer, Chicago's TB cases decreased from 378
in 2001 to 292 in 2006. She instituted quarterly cohort reviews, and
restructured the program so that field sites were consolidated and
merged with clinic sites, and three public health nurses were
invested with supervisory authority over both clinic and field
functions. Three new supervising communicable disease investigator
positions were created. In addition, six field nurses report
directly to the TB program. In addition to serving as Director, she
also served as supervising physician and also as Program Manager for
more than 1 year when needed due to vacancy. This entailed
individually reviewing all active and suspect cases followed in
the health department and the private sector. She directly handled
all personnel, contracts, and budgetary matters for the program and
brought all contracts up to date and developed scopes of service,
something that had been remiss for years. During her tenure,
performance measures increased including completion of therapy and
knowledge of HIV status. She oversaw the 4-year CDC-funded project
to address disparities seen in the African-American population. This
successful project involved numerous activities including focus
groups and educational messages culminating in a TB video. She
served as Co-Principal Investigator (PI) in TBTC studies #26 and #28
and Co-PI in TBESC studies #9 and #15. In addition to seeing TB
patients, Susan kept her Internal Medicine continuity clinic for
more than 7 years at Cook County. In addition to all this, she had a
solo art show! Susan considered this a very rewarding position, but
not an easy one, with difficult decisions to make such as
temporarily closing clinics, shuffling staff, stopping certain
activities, and either establishing or changing policies -- all
depending on resources and operations. Susan stated, "The TB control
program in Chicago is something I'm proud to have been a part of."
Sundari Mase, MD, MPH, has been selected as the new
Medical Team leader in the Field Services and Evaluation Branch.
Sundari received her bachelor’s degree with honors in Neurobiology
from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1988 and
subsequently received her medical degree from the University of
California, San Francisco, in 1993. After completing her residency
in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco,
Sundari worked in an Internal Medicine group practice in the San
Francisco Bay Area for 5 years serving as the primary care physician
for 1200 patients. She was board certified in internal medicine in
1996 and was recently recertified in 2006. Sundari then chose to
pursue a career in public health and obtained her MPH degree in
epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2003.
She worked for the State of California TB Control Branch as a Public
Health Medical Officer in the Surveillance and Epidemiology Section.
During her 4 years in this position, Sundari played a lead role in
establishing and implementing the State of California MDRTB
Consultation Service, providing expert consultation for the state’s
most complex and drug-resistant TB cases and contacts. She was also
the state’s lead in writing the latest California TB treatment
guidelines and contributed substantially to the writing of the
California Treatment of Latent TB Infection guidelines. She also
served as Outbreak Response Officer, leading numerous outbreak
investigations, several involving MDRTB. Sundari joined the Francis
J. Curry National TB Center in July 2005 as the Western Region MDRTB
consultant. She has given many TB presentations and has published
several articles, most notably a systematic review of the literature
evaluating the incremental yield of the third AFB sputum specimen in
the evaluation of TB suspects. Based on the findings from this
review and other data, WHO has adopted the policy of reducing the
number of specimens to be examined for screening TB cases from three
to two in places where workload is very high and human resources are
limited. In 2006, Sundari started in her role as the TB
Controller/Deputy Health Officer of Santa Clara County, a high TB
incidence jurisdiction in California (228 cases reported in 2006).
In this role, she provided oversight for the care and management of
TB cases and their contacts, including all contact investigations,
by working closely with community physicians and public health
nurses. She has also been involved with writing and updating all of
the TB control policies and procedures for Santa Clara County. In
collaboration with the Stanford Medical Center, Sundari is the
Principal Investigator for a research project evaluating the
cost-effectiveness of universal TB screening in schools, as Santa
Clara County has a school mandate for universal TB screening. She
has also been involved with outbreak investigations. She has
continued to serve as a Warmline consultant for the Francis J. Curry
National TB Center and has served as the MDRTB consultant for the
Puentes de Esperanza Project, a USAID- funded binational program led
by Dr. Kathleen Moser aimed at providing treatment and management of
15 MDRTB patients residing in Baja California. In May 2007, Sundari
served as a program consultant to CDC for the evaluation of the
overseas TB screening program in U.S- bound Burmese refugees using
the new Technical Instructions for TB screening. The results and
conclusions of this evaluation have informed the latest changes to
the TB technical instructions for overseas screening of refugee and
immigrant populations. We welcome Sundari to DTBE. She will be
reporting to her new position in early January 2008.
Karyn Mitchell has joined DTBE as the
newest addition to our DTBE support staff team. Similar to other of
our support staff, she is administratively and organizationally a
part of the Management Analysis and Services Office (MASO) but has
been assigned to work in DTBE with the Clinical and Health Systems
Research Branch (CHSRB). Karyn has been with CDC since December
2006, starting out with CCID’s National Center for Zoonotic,
Vector-Borne, and Enteric Diseases (NCZVED) as an Office Automation
Clerk. Karyn was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. She has
held several positions in New York City, including working in the
Mayor's office in New York City as well as in various clerical
support and customer service positions. In Dec. 2000 she started
working for the NYC Board of Education as an office clerk aide and
teacher’s aide. She moved to Georgia in July 2003, and worked for
the Georgia Department of Corrections as a corrections
officer before coming to CDC. She looks forward to working with
DTBE. Welcome, Karyn!
Dr. Young-Kil Park, Chief of the
Molecular Biology Section at the Korean Institute of Tuberculosis
(KIT) in Seoul, South Korea, has joined the Mycobacteriology
Laboratory Branch (MLB). As Chief of the Molecular Biology Section
at KIT, he oversees the drug susceptibility testing and genotyping
of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and identification of
nontuberculosis mycobacteria. His major research experience while at
KIT was to develop and evaluate molecular tests for detection of
mutations in the genes associated with resistance to TB drugs and to
establish and build an M. tuberculosis clinical isolate
banking system for use in molecular epidemiological studies based on
RFLP analysis. During his time with MLB he would like to learn more
about laboratory systems and quality assurance. He will also be
assisting Tracy Dalton, his primary advisor, with the laboratory
aspects of the PETTS project. Dr. Park will be training and working
with MLB until September 2008.
Bonnie Plikaytis, MS, has accepted the
position of Deputy Branch Chief for the Mycobacteriology Laboratory
Branch. Bonnie received a masters degree from Georgia State
University and began her career at CDC in the Division of Bacterial
Diseases working on developing diagnostic tests for use with
Legionella pneumophila. For the past 19 years, Bonnie has been
working in the various incarnations of the Mycobacteriology
Laboratory Branch. Her research has concentrated on developing the
scientific basis for new rapid molecular-based diagnostic tests for
identifying mycobacteria, detecting M. tuberculosis, and
assessing drug susceptibility. She has made important contributions
to our understanding of the molecular basis of rifampin resistance,
and more recently, to capreomycin and aminoglycoside resistance.
Besides research, Bonnie has been a mentor to more than a dozen
graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, many of whom have
flourished under her mentorship.
Paul Regan has accepted the public
health advisor position in Jackson, Mississippi; his report date was
September 17, 2007. His duties include acting as director of the
Hinds County TB Clinic in Jackson, MS, and administration of TB
control activities in Public Health Area V, which include several
cities and counties in and around the Jackson area. Paul was
previously assigned to the Florida Bureau of TB & Refugee Health in
Tallahassee. While there, he was responsible for coordinating
statewide interjurisdictional transfers of TB patients, Area
Management of Areas 1 & 2A, Area coordinator for Area 5, and COOP
(Continuity of Operations Program) coordinator for the Bureau. Paul
volunteered for several temporary duty assignment opportunities
during his assignment in Florida, including New Orleans, LA; Fort
Wayne, IN; and Kosciusko County, IN. Paul began his DTBE career in
the Alabama Department of Health, where he supported local staff and
performed disease intervention activities in an eight-county area.
His additional duties included regular interaction at the division
level where he assisted with central office projects. His
division-level projects included export, analysis, and presentation
of epidemiologic data from each of Alabama’s 11 public health areas.
While in Alabama, Paul assisted with an Epi-Aid in Bayou La Batre.
Before Paul came to DTBE, he was in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he
worked in the TB control program as a Disease Intervention
Specialist II. His assignments included conducting contact
investigations, performing case management, and conducting health
seminars. Prior to that, Paul worked with the Louisiana Dept. of
Corrections for 8 years as a Probation and Parole Field Agent.
Kim Seechuk, MPH, has accepted the position of TB program
manager in Washington, DC, and started on Oct. 28. She most recently
served as the Deputy Chief, Program and Training Branch (PTB),
Division of STD Prevention (DSTDP), CDC. She started with the
Division of STD Prevention in 1997 as a program consultant.
Prior to coming to CDC, she spent 17 years with the Maryland
Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in various capacities in the
STD, Outbreak Investigation, and Epidemiology and Communicable
Disease Control Programs. The positions in which she served
included disease intervention specialist, program epidemiologist,
health educator and, finally, manager of Maryland’s STD Prevention
Program. She received her masters of public health degree from Johns
Hopkins School of Public Health in 1988. Kim just completed a
temporary duty assignment with the Global AIDS Program (GAP),
serving as the Acting Deputy Director for GAP-Tanzania.
Susan Spieldenner, RN, BS, was selected
for the senior PHA position in Richmond, California, effective
September 2, 2007. Susan returned to DTBE after serving as a Public
Health Quarantine Officer for the past year with the Division of
Global Migration and Quarantine (DGMQ) at the Detroit Metropolitan
Airport. In that assignment, she initiated a research project for
evaluating the effectiveness of providing a written referral to
arriving immigrants with B1 or B2 TB classifications in completing
US-based follow-up examinations. Susan had previously been assigned
to the California Department of Human Services Tuberculosis Control
Branch, where she worked in the Resource Management and Planning
Section. During that time she was involved in California’s local
assistance award process, provided budget planning support to the
two counties most heavily impacted by the TB outbreak among recently
arrived Hmong refugees, and developed agreements providing for the
care of TB patients under civil detention. Susan originally came to
DTBE from the State of Michigan, where she had worked as the TB
Program Coordinator since 2001. In this position, she provided
technical advice and guidance to the local health departments on
standards of care and reporting requirements, and addressed issues
of patient noncompliance, among other duties, throughout the state.
Before this, Susan used her skills as a public health nurse for the
Calhoun County (Michigan) Health Department in Battle Creek,
Michigan, working in the community.
Kelly Stinson, MPH, has accepted a position as a
Senior Clinical Research Associate at Otsuka Pharmaceuticals in
Washington, DC. She will be part of a clinical trial team whose
primary goal is to achieve FDA approval of a novel TB drug. Kelly
joined DTBE's International Research and Programs Branch (IRPB) in
2004, after graduating from Emory University. During the past 3.5
years in DTBE, she has been involved in a variety of projects. She
is the current TB/HIV technical lead for South Africa, where she
supervises all DTBE TB/HIV projects occurring in-country as well as
TB/HIV project staff. She is the project officer for the development
of TB/HIV surveillance training materials for use in countries with
high TB and HIV burdens. She has also served as an instructor for
TB/HIV operations research courses in Latvia, Malawi, El Salvador,
and Argentina. She has provided technical assistance on TB/HIV
integration to CDC’s Global AIDS Program offices in Botswana,
Mozambique, South Africa, and Central America. Kelly is also the CDC
principal investigator for several projects related to TB/HIV
surveillance, and is a member of the WHO Electronic Recording and
Reporting Workgroup and the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator
TB/HIV Working Group. Her last official day in DTBE was Oct. 12,
2007.
Last Reviewed: 05/18/2008 Content Source: Division of Tuberculosis Elimination
National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention
|