Senior Faculty Scholars

John Schneider MD, MPH is an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist in the Departments of Medicine and Health Studies. Clinically, he specializes in adolescent and adult HIV primary care and has a specific interest in provision of high-quality care to LGBT community members. He has extensive experience with advancing the physician patient relationship in resource restricted settings, including his current clinic at a Federally Qualified Health Center on the South Side of Chicago and during his time working in Southern India.

His NIH funded clinical research focuses on how social networks can be leveraged to improve the health of men who have sex with men in resource restricted settings. Specifically, he illuminates network mechanisms by which community members can engage in primary HIV/STI prevention, and on how individuals who are HIV-infected can best be retained in care and adhere to medical regimens.

Dr. Schneider is now a Bucksbaum Senior Faculty Scholar.

2013 Pilot Grant Project: Provider training to improve patient medication adherence in Federally Qualified Health Center settings: The Case of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis

Michael Schreiber, MD, is an expert in neonatal-perinatal medicine and pediatric critical care. He is a member of a multidisciplinary team of specialists that treats more than 1,000 premature and critically ill babies each year.

Dr. Schreiber’s research focuses on finding new and better therapies to improve the care and quality of life for premature babies. He served as the director of two important studies showing that inhaled nitric oxide reduced the risk of physical and developmental complications related to premature birth. Dr. Schreiber is also interested in ethical issues associated with neonatal and pediatric intensive care.

A popular teacher and speaker, Dr. Schreiber has lectured at universities, hospitals and medical meetings around the world. He is an author on more than two hundred scientific reports. In addition, he serves as an ad hoc reviewer for many medical publications including the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Journal of Perinatology, Pediatric Research, Journal of Pediatrics, and the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

(1945-2013)

Dr. Joel Schwab was a Professor of Pediatrics. Dr. Schwab graduated from the University of Michigan in 1967 and received his MD degree from New York Medical College in 1971. He completed his pediatric residency at Northwestern University’s Children’s Memorial Hospital and was an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern until 1986 when he came to the University of Chicago. Dr. Schwab maintained a private pediatric practice, the Child Life Center, until 1996. For nine years, Dr. Schwab served as co-director of the Pediatric Clerkship. His outstanding teaching and contributions to humanism in medicine earned him numerous awards and accolades. He was selected as an honoree in the Pritzker School of Medicine’s class composite photograph for nine consecutive years. In 1998 he received the Faculty Teaching Award from the Faculty Dean of Medical Education and was voted Teacher of the Year by Pediatric Residents. In 2002, the Pritzker School of Medicine students nominated him for the American Association of Medical Colleges Humanism in Medicine Award. He also received the Pritzker School of Medicine Outstanding Clinical Teaching Award and the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award in 2006.

Dr. Schwab’s dedication to medical education spanned the medical career spectrum to include both medical students and undergraduate students. In addition to serving on the Pritzker School of Medicine’s Admissions Committee and Committee on Promotions, for ten years, he was the Faculty Director of the Health Professions Advising Office at the University of Chicago Collegiate Division. And in honor of Dr. Schwab’s contributions to medical education, the Clinical Excellence Track program “On Being a Doctor” has been renamed “The Joel Schwab, M.D. Program On Being a Doctor.”

Joel Schwab, Doctor and Mentor

Dr. Mindy Schwartz is the co-recipient of this years Faculty Physician Peer Role Model Award. Dr. Schwartz joined the faculty in 1987 as a faculty in the Primary Care Group, and has held a faculty position in the Section of General Internal medicine. She has maintained a busy clinical practice in addition to holding a variety of positions in the medical school and in the internal medicine residency program. Dr. Schwartz has been an award-winning teacher and was elected in 2010 as a Master of the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine Academy of Distinguished Medical Educators. Over the past 10 year she has studied and taught medical history to the medical students and to internal medicine residents. In May 2014, she was the local arrangements chair for the national organization of medical historians – the American Association for the History of Medicine.

In addition to her current academic interests, she has taught Nutrition in Health and disease in the Pritzker School of Medicine from 2001-9.

Dr. Schwartz currently serves as one of the medical school advisors- serving along with Brian Callender as the head of the Coggeshall Society. She also serves as the, Chapter advisor for the Gold Humanism Honor Society and she was Former Associate Program Director and Chair of the Internship Selection Committee for the Department of Medicine from 1994-2004.

Board-certified surgeon, Virginia Shaffer, MD, specializes in colon and rectal surgery. Dr. Shaffer is an expert is treating colorectal cancer, complex anorectal disorders, inflammatory bowel disease, diverticulitis and more. She is highly trained and experienced in performing minimally invasive, laparoscopic and robotic colon surgery, allowing her to provide customized care that best addresses each individual’s needs.

Dr. Shaffer understands how personal colorectal diagnoses are, so she takes a compassionate and patient-centered approach to care, working closely with each patient to develop their tailored treatment plan. Whether she is recommending common procedures or complex surgical techniques, Dr. Shaffer is dedicated to delivering the highest quality care to all her patients.

Along with her commitment to her clinical practice, Dr. Shaffer is also passionate about using research to look for ways to improve both the quality of care and patient experience. Her work has been published in a wide range of highly respected, peer-reviewed journals, such as Clinics in Colon and Rectal Surgery, Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery, American Journal of Surgery and more.

Ted Skolarus, MD, MPH, FACS, is a urologic oncologist who specializes in the care of patients with prostate cancer, including caring for men with elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels and performing transperineal prostate biopsy.

Dr. Skolarus has fellowship training in urologic oncology, health services research and implementation science. His research aims to better understand and improve the care of men with prostate cancer.

With over 175 publications, Dr. Skolarus has expertise in quantitative and qualitative health services research, clinical trials and state-of-the-art implementation science methods to optimize best practice implementation in real-world clinical settings. In other words, he studies issues of cost, quality, and access to healthcare, and strategies to help get patients the right care in the right place at the right time.

Dr. Skolarus has presented at numerous regional, national and international meetings and organizations. He serves as faculty in the National Cancer Institute’s Training Institute for Dissemination and Implementation Research in Cancer, as well as a reviewer for the NIH Center for Scientific Review. His research has been funded by the National Cancer Institute, VA Health Services Research and Development Service (HSR&D), American Cancer Society, and the American Urological Association.

Dr. Sonali Smith is an expert in the care and treatment of adults with all types of Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. She has a special interest in new agents for lymphoma, as well as stem cell transplantation and its role in improving the survival of patients with relapsed lymphomas.

An active researcher, Dr. Smith is involved in the development of promising agents for patients with non-Hodgkin and Hodgkin lymphoma. She is principal investigator on a number of innovative clinical trials. Many of the trials incorporate the collection of tumor and blood samples to study the effects of treatment on cancer cells through collaborative laboratories.

Dr. Smith frequently lectures to both physicians and patient groups on these topics. She serves on several national committees charged with improving treatment options for patients with lymphoma, providing physician education, and providing reliable information for patients through established websites. Dr. Smith also frequently performs peer reviews of research being considered for publication in major medical journals. Additionally, she has won several teaching awards at the University of Chicago.

David H. Song, MD, is an internationally recognized expert in plastic surgery with additional training in reconstructive microsurgery. He specializes in breast reconstruction and oncoplastic surgery—a combination of lumpectomy and reconstructive techniques.

Dr. Song is well recognized for his extensive experience with perforator breast reconstruction procedures, including deep inferior epigastric perforator flap (DIEP), superior gluteal artery perforator flap (SGAP), superficial inferior epigastric artery flap (SIEA), thoracodorsal artery perforator flap (TAP). He is also skilled in the use of acellular dermal matrix (AlloDerm) in implant breast reconstruction and in the reconstruction of abdominal wall defects. Additionally, Dr. Song has pioneered several techniques for the repair and reconstruction of chest wall defects. His research interests focus on outcome improvement in lumpectomy and mastectomy reconstruction. He is involved in several clinical trials exploring advancements in these procedures. In 2008, he received the Arthur G. Michel Clinician of the Year award from the Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization.

In addition, Dr. Song serves on the board of Medical Aid for Children of Latin America (MACLA), an organization that provides free surgical care for children with congenital deformities in the Dominican Republic. He is a fellow in the American College of Surgeons, and past president of the Chicago Society of Plastic Surgeons. Dr. Song is also a past board member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) and the Association of Academic Chairmen of Plastic Surgery (AACPS).

Dr. Song received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, which further equips him to advance healthcare delivery, particularly in the areas of breast cancer awareness, treatment and prevention.

2013 Pilot Grant Project: Dynamic Operational Mapping – Annotation for Patient and Family Education

Dr. Song is now head of plastic surgery at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

Dr. Spitz is the Residency Training Director and Education Mission Director for the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience. She has been a national leader in psychiatric education, serving as President of the Association for Academic Psychiatry, and in educational leadership positions on the program committee of the American Psychiatric Association, and within AADPRT, the Psychiatry Training Directors’ Association. Her clinical interests include the treatment of refractory bipolar and unipolar affective disorders, management of psychiatric disorders in pregnancy, and in psychodynamic psychotherapy. She teaches courses on psychotherapy and on educational methodology for residents, and has received numerous teaching awards.

Dr. Spitz obtained her medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and completed her residency training and fellowship in inpatient psychiatry at the University of Chicago. She was Residency Training Director and Director of the Inpatient Service at Tufts-New England Medical Center, and spent three years in Norwich, England as a Consultant Psychiatrist for the National Health Service, where she led the Psychiatry Service in Norwich and redesigned the delivery of psychiatric services for that city’s population of 170,000 adults. She is interested in the impediments to delivery of psychiatric services, and a supporter of a single payer system of care.

Dr. Sarah Stein is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics in the Department of Medicine, Section of Dermatology, where she is the Director of Pediatric Dermatology. She is an expert in the diagnosis and management of childhood skin diseases, including dermatitides, pigmentary disorders, birthmarks, vascular anomalies, disorders of hair and nails, infectious skin conditions, and cutaneous manifestations of internal diseases.

Dr. Stein has a special interest in the presentation of skin disease in children of color. She is a member of the Pediatric Dermatology Research Alliance and collaborates on research initiatives to better characterize and manage pediatric skin disorders.

Dr. Stein is the Dermatology Residency Program Director and has developed initiatives to improve resident continuity of care experiences and adoption of the milestone evaluation process. She is a fellow in the Academy of Distinguished Medical Educators and she has received the Department of Medicine’s Excellence in Education and Clinical Care Award and the Department’s Postgraduate Teaching Award.