In the News

Overview

In the News

Photo: Dr. Files Meets with President after Las Vegas shooting

Good things are happening at UNLV Health, the medical practice where Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV doctors treat patients.

Here you will find the latest news stories and contact information for media relations. Our media relations team is available to assist with news inquiries involving UNLV clinics, doctors, patients, and programs.

If you are a journalist looking for more information about UNLV Health clinics, or the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV, our media relations team can help you with:

  • Setting up interviews with our expert physicians and other healthcare professionals
  • Access to our facilities for reporters/photographers/videographers and news crews.

We look forward to working with you. You can find more information about UNLV Media Policies, or contact our manager of media relations, Mr. Paul Joncich at (702) 895-1696 for stories about our doctors and medical clinics.

Article BY PAUL HARASIM

Physician Committed to Helping Patients Better Understand Their Medical Treatment

OB-GYN physician who recently joined the medical school feels fulfilled being a mentor and role model to others following in her footsteps.

Confused. Dr. Annette Mayes, now an assistant professor in the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV Department of Gynecologic Surgery & Obstetrics, didn’t like feeling that way 50 years ago. Neither did her mother.

Article BY PAUL HARASIM

Endocrinology Fellowship Attracts Much-Needed Specialists to Southern Nevada

This American Diabetes Awareness Month, Dr. Kenneth Izuora and Dr. Sanna Fatima highlight Nevada’s need for more endocrinologists.

It makes sense to check in now with Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV’s Dr. Kenneth Izuora and Dr. Sanna Fatima, physicians dedicated to wiping out diabetes – November is American Diabetes Awareness Month, a time when the CDC estimates that a staggering 38 million Americans of all ages have the endocrine disorder commonly known as diabetes.

Article BY PAUL HARASIM
Dr Baynosa

Patient’s Experience with UNLV Health ‘Couldn’t Have Gone Better’

Throughout treatment for breast cancer, Cornelia ‘Connie’ Jackson found Jennifer Baynosa, MD, and the UNLV Health General Surgery Clinic staff to be ’so caring and so professional.’

Between 2009 and 2022, Cornelia “Connie” Jackson had three abnormal mammograms. The nagging worry that accompanied the first two – both turned out to be false alarms – was practically nonexistent by the time she was told last year she needed another follow-up exam.

Article

UNLV Health opens 2 clinics in CCSD buildings

Clark County School District students and their siblings can get access to health care at no cost at two new UNLV Health clinics.

The school-based health centers inside the district’s Family Support Center and Bailey Middle School in Las Vegas serve those ages 3 to 21.

The free clinics aim to improve access to medical care for youth and minimize the amount of time they’re missing school.

“We are really excited that our students aren’t having to miss much instructional time,” Bailey Middle School Principal Danielle Duterte said.

Article
Dr Pistorio

Dr. Ashley Pistorio – Carpal Tunnel

A UNLV Health doctor is now one of just over 100 across the nation offering a newer procedure to treat carpal tunnel syndrome.

Dr. Ashley Pistorio demonstrated the technique to News 3 on Tuesday morning at the UNLV Health Plastic Surgery Clinic. 

Article
Dr Oriaku Kas-Osoka

Pediatrician’s Philanthropic Work Is a ‘Game Changer’

Award-winning associate professor and nonprofit medical director shares what drew her to a career in medicine.

One of eight children, Dr. Oriaku A. Kas-Osoka, MD, an associate professor in the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV department of pediatrics, began reading fluently on her mother’s knee at age three. During her childhood, nothing was more enjoyable than burrowing deep under her bed covers and reading by flashlight late into the night.

Article

UNLV Health Maternal Child Wellness Program Awarded Renewal of Grant To Help HIV-positive Women And Youth

Dr. David Di John, professor and section chief for pediatric infectious diseases at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine, is the director of the UNLV Health Maternal Child Wellness Program

 In the 1980s and 90s, when David Di John, MD, worked at and later headed an AIDS clinic in New York City, an outbreak of HIV and AIDs swept across the United States and the rest of the world. He remembers it, in part, as a time when there were numerous instances of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, which led to children dying young.

Article
Jeremy Kilburn

Leading the Largest Military-Civilian Partnership in the Country

Air Force Lt. Col. Jeremy Kilburn, a doctor specializing in pulmonary and critical care medicine, is an associate professor of medicine at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV as well as the school’s director of the Office of Military Medicine. Here, he provides insight into a unique military-civilian partnership that he says is the most complex in the United States.  

Article
Polio

Pediatrician Alerts Community About Polio, Need For Vaccinations

Assistant professor Josephine Sun offers expertise on the re-emergence of the polio virus and the importance of routine immunizations. 

When Josephine Sun, MD, finished her pediatric residency last year at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV, it had been more than 40 years since a case of polio originated in the United States.

Article

Dr. John Fildes’ Lifelong Commitment to Serving Southern Nevada Continues After Retirement

Even if Ben Franklin, one of the nation’s Founding Fathers who seemed capable of doing almost everything to enhance the common good – from helping draft the Declaration of Independence to inventing the flexible catheter – could have broken the time barrier to share his wisdom with Americans of every generation, there would have been no need for him to share one of his most important observations with John Fildes: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

Article
Dr Schiedler

Doctor Reunites With Patient 14 Years After Saving Her Life

Dr. Michael Scheidler performed life-saving surgery on tiny Annalisa Gubler when she was an infant with a dim prognosis.

For as long as she could remember, 15-year-old Annalisa Gubler had heard about the crucial role Dr. Michael Scheidler had played in her life.

She heard about how excited her parents had been to welcome their firstborn child into their family, how ill she soon became as an infant, and how Scheidler, a Las Vegas pediatric surgeon who now is with the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV, saved her life.

Article
SOM ground breaking

New Medical Education Building Construction Begins

With Donor funding through the Nevada Health & Bioscience Corp., the 135,000 square foot building is expected to open in summer 2022.

No one will ever accuse Nevada Health & Bioscience Corp. (NHBC) of taking its time to make a difference in the community.

Not even a year has passed since Nevadans first heard of the new nonprofit — its mission is to develop healthcare education, research, clinical assets, and programming in Nevada. 

Article
Thanksgiving dinner

How To Safely Celebrate Thanksgiving During a Pandemic

The founding dean of UNLV’s School of Medicine, Barbara Atkinson recommends
observing the holiday virtually this year to help keep loved ones well.

It’s a question millions of Americans are asking as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread disease in the United States: What kind of Thanksgiving celebration can we have this year?

Article
Dianne Galgana

Nurse Practitioner Improvises as She Earns Doctoral Degree

Dianne Galgana focuses on well-child care and management of common pediatric acute illnesses.

You look at a photograph of UNLV Medicine pediatric nurse practitioner Dianne Galgana and her daughter, Penelope, both dressed in red graduation regalia, and you can’t help but be reminded that a single image can carry a lot of power.

There’s pure joy in the photos. Pride of accomplishment. Love for each other. Love for life.

Article
Tiffany Robledo

Sacrificing Family Time and Finances to Help Fight Coronavirus

You might say Tiffany Robledo is on the front line of the front lines — she swabs inside the noses those arriving for UNLV Medicine’s curbside COVID-19 testing program. After the medical assistant collects specimens, they are then taken to a lab for testing. She is part of the program that has tested more than 3,000 people in Southern Nevada in less than a month.

“I’m only 21 and super proud that I’ve already been put in an important position to help people,” says Robledo. “It’s something that must be done to try and curtail the spread of this disease.” 

Article

Healthcare Students Learning

Healthcare Students Learning Around Big Obstacles

For students in Medicine, Nursing, and Dental Medicine, those furthest along heading to front lines while classmates cope with rearranged clinical work.

As many of us sit alone in our spare rooms, our home offices, our converted garages, as we perch on our couches doing what we can to find a kind of equilibrium of normalcy in the midst of the greatest public health crisis of the past 100 years, there are UNLV students already counting the days to when they will be on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Article
Dr. Di John Photo

The Interview: David Di John

In the Age of COVID-19: How an Infectious Disease Doc and Family Live Their Lives

Dr. David Di John, who ran an HIV clinic in New York during the height of the AIDS crisis, hopes public awareness about good hygiene will carry on long after the coronavirus scare ends.

Just because Dr. David Di John has largely devoted his professional life to the treatment of infectious diseases doesn’t mean his personal life is immune from repeated discussions about the infectious coronavirus, COVID-19, an acute respiratory disease.