Awards & Recognitions – October 2021

Get With The Guidelines® Awards

Barrow Neurological Institute/St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center have earned the 2021 Get With The Guidelines® Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award and Target: Stroke Honor Roll Award.

The Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award acknowledges that the Petznick Stroke Center has, for two consecutive calendar years, maintained at least 85 percent adherence to core standard levels of care outlined by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. It also means the Center has demonstrated 75 percent compliance to at least four of the seven stroke quality measures. These measures not only focus on the timely diagnosis and treatment of stroke but also on the prevention of subsequent strokes.

The Target: Stroke Honor Roll Award recognizes that the Petznick Stroke Center has achieved door-to-needle times within 60 minutes for at least 75 percent of eligible ischemic stroke patients.

Best of the Desert Finalist

Lisa Thompson, AuD, CCC-A, an audiologist in the Department of ENT and Skull Base Surgery at Barrow, was a finalist in AZCentral’s 2021 Best of the Desert awards. She was nominated in both the audiologist and hearing aid center categories for Central/North Phoenix.

Journal Editor-in-Chief

Ashutosh Jadhav, MD, PhD, a vascular and an interventional neurologist at Barrow, was selected as the inaugural editor-in-chief of a new journal. Stroke: Vascular and Interventional Neurology is an open-access journal, jointly published by the American Stroke Association and the Society of Vascular and Interventional Neurology. The first issue will publish in November.

Arizona Society of Otolaryngology President

Shawn Stevens, MD, a surgeon in the Department of ENT and Skull Base Surgery at Barrow, has been selected to serve as president of the Arizona Society of Otolaryngology. The term begins in October 2021 and will run through 2023.

BMSF Grant

Michael Robers, MD, a neurologist in the MS Program at Barrow, has received a Diversity in Clinical Trials Career Development Program Grant from the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation. The two-year grant, totaling $240,000, will support Dr. Robers in identifying and addressing barriers to clinical trial participation among individuals with multiple sclerosis who identify as part of a minority racial or ethnic group. This builds upon his research at the University of Southern California. He is working on this project with Barrow neurologists Aimee Borazanci, MD, and Ekokobe Fonkem, DO, and USC neurologist Lilyana Amezcua, MD. In addition to funding independent research, the grant supports collaboration with other investigators interested in improving minority inclusion in immunology and cancer research. It also funds mentorship for medical students who have a desire to complete research related to underserved communities.

Zeiss Brain Tumor Research Award

Irakliy Abramov, MD, PhD, a neurosurgery research fellow at Barrow, received the 2021 Zeiss Brain Tumor Research Award, given by the Joint Section on Tumors of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS)/Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS). He presented his work on intraoperative confocal laser endomicroscopy at the virtual AANS Annual Scientific meeting in August.

CNS Galbraith Award

Jacob Baranoski, MD, a PGY-7 chief neurosurgery resident, has received the highly competitive 2021 Galbraith Award from the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) for his abstract entitled, “Effects of Dietary Phytoestrogens on Aneurysm Wall Inflammation and Intracranial Aneurysm Formation.” This award is given to the best resident paper addressing a topic in cerebrovascular surgery, as judged by the Joint Section of Cerebrovascular Surgery. Dr. Baranoski was invited to present his abstract at the CNS Annual Meeting in October.