Bradley Britigan, M.D., dean of the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Medicine, will visit North Platte on March 7 and 8 to provide updates on key UNMC initiatives and to learn more about health care issues facing rural Nebraskans.
On March 7, he will speak during a noon Rotary luncheon at the Quality Inn & Suites Sandhills Convention Center, 2102 South Jeffers. On March 8, he will speak during a Sunrise Rotary at 7 a.m. in Heidi’s Restaurant in the Parkade Plaza.
Dr. Britigan will talk about programs and initiatives in the college, including UNMC partnerships that increase the number of physicians practicing in rural Nebraska as well as partnerships such as the one with Great Plains Regional Medical Center that provide patients access to clinical trials for cancer.
UNMC credits North Platte and partnerships with Nebraska communities for contributing to its nationally ranked primary care and rural medicine programs. One successful program is the UNMC Family Medicine Residency Program Rural Training Track. The three-year program for residents – physicians in training following medical school — began in 1991 as one of the first of three rural family medicine residency programs in the nation.
North Platte is one of five sites across Nebraska that partners with UNMC to train resident physicians for rural practice. Sixty-six percent of physicians who have participated in the program still practiced in rural Nebraska.
Dr. Britigan also will discuss a proposed new cancer center in Omaha that would serve the state and include a research facility, a multidisciplinary outpatient cancer center, ambulatory care clinic, and new hospital. He also will invite comments about the health care needs of the community.
The proposed cancer center would provide Nebraskans and the region outstanding treatment for cancer and offer patients new therapies and more clinical trials, position UNMC to achieve a National Cancer Institute Comprehensive Cancer Center designation, and enhance its national and international reputation for cancer care and research.
For more information about the project, logon to http://www.unmc.edu/healthiernebraska.
Dr. Britigan, a Stokes-Shackleford professor, was named dean last July. Previously he served as chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.
Dr. Britigan received a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and his doctor of medicine degree from the University of Southern California. He completed internal medicine residency at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, followed by an infectious diseases fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He has also been a staff physician in the Department of Veterans Affairs for over 20 years. His research has been funded over the years by NIH, the VA, and a variety of research foundations. He is the author of more than 110 peer-review publications.
UNMC has a presence in 120 locations across the state, including locations where community health professionals provide training sites, training and experience for UNMC students and residents, programs that strive to increase the number of health professionals practicing in Nebraska, and sites where students participate in distance education programs.
Through world-class research and patient care, UNMC generates breakthroughs that make life better for people throughout Nebraska and beyond. Its education programs train more health professionals than any other institution in the state. Learn more at unmc.edu.