1960s

Jack Baruch, M.D. ’65, lives in Key Biscayne, Florida, and testifies in court as an expert medical witness. His medical career includes conducting research for the National Institutes of Health, teaching psychiatry at Georgetown University, and having a private practice in Bethesda, Maryland.

Nicholas J. Cassisi, M.D. ’65, and Elayne Cassisi, M.D. ’65, the first husband and wife team to be accepted and graduate from the Miller School of Medicine, were honored with the creation of the Cassisi Learning Lab at the University of Florida. Established this year by an anonymous donor, the facility teaches learning strategies to student-athletes with disabilities.

Michael S. Gold, M.D. ’65, is surgeon-in-chief at Bassett Healthcare in Cooperstown, New York, clinical professor of surgery at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, adjunct professor of surgery at Dartmouth Medical School, and chair of the advisory board for Mithoefer Center for Rural Surgery.

Guido O. Perez, M.D. ’65, is professor emeritus at UM. He recently retired after more than 30 years of teaching, research, and patient care.

Michael R. Klein Jr., M.D. ’66, after 32 years practicing orthopaedics, divides his time as medical director of MRK Medical Consultants and his home in Italy, where he and his wife purchased a 300-year-old home in the village of Castello di Volpaia. Klein serves on the clinical faculty at the University of California Davis School of Medicine.

John G. Clarkson, M.D. ’68, senior vice president for medical affairs and dean of the Miller School of Medicine, was honored as the 2005 recipient of the Dade County Medical Association Lifetime Achievement Award

1970s

Randall Coverman, M.D. ’75, practices dermasurgery and cosmetic dermatology in Altamonte Springs, Florida.

Linda Whidden Flower, M.D. ’75, is chair of the Texas Physicians Resource Council and works at Tomagwa Ministries Medical Clinic, a faith-based community clinic for low-income and uninsured patients.

Peter Andrew Jacobson, M.D. ’75, has been in private practice in Brandon, Florida, since 1978.

Arthur Diskin, M.D. ’79, is chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach. He was recently elected president of the Florida College of Emergency Physicians for 2004-05.

1980s

Eric M. Baumel, M.D. ’85, is a partner in Wellington Imaging Associates, a radiology group for Wellington Regional Medical Center and Glades General Hospital in Florida.

Gregg Lowell Friedman, M.D. ’85, practices psychiatry in Aventura, Florida.

David Lee Gordon, M.D. ’85, associate professor of clinical neurology at UM, spoke at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting on “Winning the Battle Against Brain Attack: Update from the War Room.”

Blake R. Nestok, M.D. ’85, is medical director of cytopathology at the Health Alliance of Cincinnati. He also is a Master of Science candidate in the Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health.

Charles Sand, M.D. ’85, is an emergency physician at Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa. He was recently elected president of the Florida and Puerto Rico affiliate of the American Heart Association.

Fred F. Telischi, M.D. ’85, is director of the UM Ear Institute, vice chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology at UM, and president of the Florida Society of Otolaryngology.

Ernest F. Block, M.D. ’86, is the director of trauma surgery at Orlando Regional Medical Center and was appointed vice chair of the Florida Committee on Trauma. He completed his terms as chair of the Surgical Section of the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) and as past president of the Florida Society of Critical Care Medicine.

1990s

Adam Bright, M.D. ’90, completed the Great Floridian Ironman Triathlon in October.

Betty Bellman, M.D. ’91, is a voluntary assistant professor in the dermatology and cutaneous surgery department at the Miller School of Medicine.

Bob Gerhardt, M.D., M.P.H. ’92, is currently deployed with the First Cavalry Division in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq. Otherwise occupied as research director and teaching faculty at the Brooke Army Medical Center Emergency Medicine Residency Program, Gerhardt holds an appointment as associate professor of military and emergency medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

Brian Pearlman, M.D. ’92, lives in Atlanta and is associate professor of medicine at Medical College of Georgia and assistant professor of medicine at Emory University. He recently had an article on hepatitis C published in The American Journal of Medicine.

Paul H. Ting, M.D. ’92, was named Teacher of the Year for a second consecutive year at the University of Virginia, where he teaches anesthesiology.

William Trattler, M.D. ’92, recently published two books: Review of Ophthalmology, a 380-page review book for the ophthalmology boards, and Ophthalmology Made Ridiculously Simple.

Jeff Sootin, M.D. ’94, is a general surgeon in private practice and serves as chief of the surgery department at Emory Eastside Medical Center in Snellville, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta).

Ajay Baddi, M.D. ’95, is an invasive cardiologist in Chicago.

Keith R. Brill, M.D. ’95, finished serving in the U.S. Air Force as chief of women’s health at Nellis Air Force Base in 2003. He is currently in private practice in Las Vegas.

Marla Laufer, M.D. ’95, is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Hilit Mechaber, M.D. ’95, is assistant professor of medicine at UM. She and husband Alex Mechaber, M.D. ’94, are resident faculty masters at Stanford Residential College at UM.

H. Stuart Osmussen, M.D. ’95, is an anesthesiologist in private practice in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Michelle Cohen Rissman, M.D. ’95, is an internist in private practice in Delray Beach, Florida.

Rafael Carrion, M.D. ’97, completed his urology residency at the University of South Florida and a urology fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. He serves as assistant professor of urology at the University of South Florida College of Medicine.

Gina Z. D’Amato, M.D. ’98, is assistant professor of hematology and oncology at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute at the University of South Florida in Tampa. She and a team of researchers have found a chemical compound that kills cancer cells in laboratory experiments. This past summer, D’Amato presented a summary of this experiment at the 40th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in New Orleans, Louisiana.

2000s

Tracy Thompson Gutierrez, M.D. ’01, graduated from the family practice residency at Franklin Square Hospital Center and works for Kaiser Permanente in Columbia, Maryland.

Sandra Nathan, M.D. ’01, is a neurology resident at UM. She is slated to do a one-year stroke fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston next year.

Pooja Khator, M.D. ’02, completed her ophthalmology residency at the University of Maryland and matched at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute for a glaucoma fellowship.

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