Faculty

FACULTY RECRUITMENT, RECOGNITION & SERVICE: Hematology & Oncology

The division’s faculty during FY 2013 included 145 physicians, and two nurse practitioners. Over the past year, the division successfully recruited five physicians to join the faculty at the assistant professor level, most to begin in July 2013. They are listed below, along with the institution where they completed their fellowship and areas of special interest:

Hillary Maitland: UVA Hematology and Oncology Fellowship program (classical hematology, hemostasis and thrombosis)
Craig Portell: Cleveland Clinic (hematologic malignancies, lymphoma and CLL)
Erika Ramsdale: University of Chicago (GI malignancy, geriatric oncology)
Osama Rahma: National Cancer Institute (GI malignancy, hepatobiliary and pancreas)
Leonid Volodin: Stanford University (stem cell transplantation)

Division faculty also participated in the recruitment of Thomas Loughran, Jr., as the new director of the UVA Cancer Center. Dr. Loughran trained at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle under Nobel Laureate E. Donnell Thomas. He has had a distinguished research and academic career, including pioneering studies of large granular lymphocyte leukemia, and founding the Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute. His appointment as director of the UVA Cancer Center and Weber-Smithfield Professor of Oncology Research and Professor of Medicine begins in August 2013. The division chief and faculty look forward to working with Dr. Loughran on achieving the goal of NCI designation as a “comprehensive” cancer center.

The 2012 “Best Doctors in America” list included four Hematology/Oncology faculty members (Drs. Densmore, Fracasso, Weiss, and Williams), as did the Castle Connolly “Top Doctors in America” and “Top Doctors for Cancer” lists (Drs. Brenin, Fracasso, Weiss, and Williams, on both lists). In addition, Fracasso and Weiss appeared on the 2012 U.S. News & World Report “Top Doctors” list.