With great pleasure we announce the appointment of Dr. Victor Sierpina as Director of Medical Student Education, in the Department of Family Medicine, effective March 1, 2010.
Dr. Gary Shokar, our current Predoctoral Director, has accepted the position as Chairman of the Department of Family and Community Medicine, Texas Tech Health Science Center, El Paso, Texas. He will assume those duties March 1, 2010 and we are pleased to report that he will continue to maintain a faculty appointment in our department. He will work closely with Dr. Sierpina to assure a smooth transition in the Medical Student Education Program.
Dr. Victor Sierpina joined the faculty in the Department of Family Medicine in January, 1996. Dr. Sierpina is a Professor of Family Medicine with tenure at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, Texas. He is the first designated W.D. and Laura Nell Nicholson Family Professor of Integrative Medicine at UTMB. He graduated from the University of Illinois Abraham Lincoln School Of Medicine as a James Scholar and completed the Family Practice Residency at MacNeal Memorial Hospital in suburban Chicago. Since medical school he has integrated holistic medicine, alternative therapies, and wellness promotion in primary care. Dr. Sierpina is board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine and the American Board of Holistic Medicine. He is recipient of two NIH grants which supported his educational and research efforts in integrative medicine. Nationally, he is the Past Chair for the Consortium of Academic Health Centers for Integrative Medicine (2008-2009), 39 health science centers with active programs in Integrative Medicine.