SPRINGFIELD, IL – Children entering pre-k, kindergarten, 6 th or 9 th grade, or who are new to Springfield Public School District 186, are required to have school physicals and immunizations. Meningococcal vaccines are also required for all students entering 12 th grade. Parents are encouraged to schedule appointments with their children’s primary care doctor or physician. Families who do not have a primary care doctor or who have difficulty accessing medical care may benefit from free clinics held in August. “Having a primary care physician and a medical home is crucial for prevention and

Minimally invasive procedure could lower blood pressure, reduce need for medication

The Memorial Medical Center Foundation awarded nearly $650,000 in health-related grants for community and health-system initiatives this spring – a record-breaking total for the foundation’s grant program. More than $169,000 of the grants were awarded to projects at SIU School of Medicine . The grant recipients included: Surgery: $59,051 to perform a retrospective comparative study of open, laparoscopic and robotic-assisted surgery for colorectal cancer at Memorial Medical Center. Surgery: $14,125 to assess the effects of hyperbaric oxygen therapy on the regenerative speed of nerve tissue

District 186 parents, remember to schedule your kids' back-to-school physicals!

NIH Adopts Common Forms for Biosketch and Current/Pending Support NIH has announced the adoption of Common Forms for Biographical Sketch (Biosketch) and Current and Pending (Other) Support, effective May 25, 2025, as detailed in NIH Notice NOT-OD-24-163. These forms will be required for all applications and Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPRs). Updates : NIH's adoption of the Common Form for Biographical Sketch and a new Biographical Sketch Supplement originally scheduled for May 25, 2025 is postponed. Continue to use NIH-specific format pages until further notice.

Each quarter, a traveling trophy will be awarded to a clinical department to recognize the most improvement in patient experience scores from the previous quarter. Designed to encourage teams to work together to improve the patient experience across SIU Medicine, the first award was presented to the team that improved patient satisfaction scores the most when comparing Q4 2018 to Q1 2019. The first award was presented to the obstetrics and gynecology department, which includes general OB, uro-gynecology, gyn-oncology, and reproductive endocrinology, recognizing the team’s efforts in improving

As part of our continuing mission to provide exceptional patient experience at SIU and in tandem with Dr. Lausen’s colleague recognition program we are back with another month of positive patient experience highlights. Our May 2019 celebrated patient experience highlight comes from the Division of General/Trauma Surgery and goes to Maretta Sullivan. In the aftermath of a traumatic event, speed of care is key and an efficient, well-run clinic is vital in getting our patients on the road to recovery. Ensuring that their needs are met during times like these takes an enormous amount of work

Dr. Satu Somani was one of the three original faculty members of the SIU School of Medicine Department of Pharmacology and a dedicated scientist/educator. He loved teaching, often asking for more time to teach additional material he felt was important to the student’s medical education. Dr. Somani passed in 2002, and to honor his memory, a fund was established to provide a monetary award annually to an outstanding student of Medical Pharmacology. The ten students who achieved the top scores on the Year 2 Pharmacology exam compete for the award by writing a report that critically evaluates an

Vickram Ramkumar Ph.D., Professor of Pharmacology, was awarded the Outstanding Scholar Award at the College Level of Southern Illinois University in 2019. Dr. Ramkumar joins the ranks of several other Pharmacology Department faculty who received Outstanding Scholar awards for excellence in both Research and Teaching in previous years.

Internationally renowned hypertension expert John M. Flack, MD, MPH, was named the inaugural holder of the Sergio Rabinovich, MD, Endowed Chair of Internal Medicine at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in an investiture ceremony on Monday, June 3. An endowed chair represents one of the highest achievements in academic medicine, both for the person for whom the chair is named and also for the person who holds the chair. Flack, who joined SIU Medicine in 2015, is an internist who specializes in treating resistant hypertension in minority populations. He is an American Society of