Inspiring, innovative – Hall of Famers, distinguished alumni are celebrated

Inspiring, innovative - Hall of Famers, distinguished alumni are celebrated

Published on Monday, July 29, 2024

By: Gary Pettus, [email protected]

Photos By: Jay Ferchaud/ UMMC Communications

Five more distinguished names were added to the Medical Alumni Chapter Hall of Fame during a Friday ceremony that also recognized the 2024 Distinguished Medical Alumnus and the 2024 Early Career Achievement honoree.

"Golden Graduates" were feted as well with medallions proclaiming the 50th anniversary of their medical school graduation from the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, saluted the honorees "who have shaped our profession for the better, including members of the 1974 graduating class.

"You all inspire us, and it's a privilege and honor to have you here," said Woodward, a 1991 graduate of the UMMC School of Medicine.

A member of the 1974 class, Dr. George Rodney Meeks, spoke on behalf of his classmates. As a medical student, he said, he was privileged to be taught by many legendary Medical Center figures - "individuals who were held in such esteem by their colleagues around the world."

Student Alumni Representatives (STARS) from the School of Medicine were on hand to introduce the awardees.

2024 Distinguished Medical Alumnus

THOMAS N. SKELTON SR. of Madison, a 1981 graduate of the UMMC School of Medicine, is an eminent cardiologist who, throughout his career, embodied UMMC's three mission areas: education, research and clinical practice.

As a clinician, he was the director of the Cardiology Division for a decade. He was also medical director for the Conerly intensive care tower and the current adult hospital during the opening of those facilities. He served on committees for critical care, quality improvement and information systems.

As a researcher, Skelton was an investigator for imaging work in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study and the Jackson Heart Study.

As an educator, he taught medical students, residents and fellows for more than 32 years, most of that time as the program director for cardiology fellowship training.

Skelton completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center/Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. At Duke University, his fellowship research in cardiology covered interventional methods for valvular heart disease and software development for image analysis. In 1988, he returned to Jackson to join the faculty at UMMC, where he has spent his entire career.

Although retired now, he continues to teach on a limited basis as professor emeritus. And, as a trained, certified Epic system analyst, he supports the Cardiology Information Systems team with his expertise.

The members of his "doctor family" all graduated from the University of Mississippi and earned their medical degrees at UMMC, including his wife, Dr. Deborah Skelton, who has retired from her gastroenterology practice.

While growing up, the Skelton children - Laura, Charlotte and Thomas Jr. - watched Disney movies on a conference room TV at the Medical Center's old heart station while their father took care of people's hearts, taught students to read EKGs, and trained residents and fellows in anesthesia, emergency medicine, cardiology and more.

Today, Dr. Laura Skelton Smith is a radiologist in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. Charlotte Skelton Taylor is an assistant professor of radiology and program director for the radiology residency program at UMMC.

And Dr. Thomas Skelton Jr., finished cardiology training at UMMC and plans to join the faculty after specialty training in adult congenital heart disease.

"I had the honor of hooding my three children at graduation in 2013, 2014 and 2017, " their father said, referring to a medical school tradition. "So, I bequeath them to you to carry the torch for UMMC."

2024 Early Career Achievement Awardee

Early Career Achievement Awardee, Dr. Justin Turner, receives recognition from Woodward.JUSTIN M. TURNER of Jackson, an internal medicine physician who completed his residency at UMMC in 2011, has served as chief medical officer for the Mississippi State Department of Health since August 2022.

He is also health officer for the agency's Central Public Health Region, oversees clinical operations for MSDH and is a liaison to the medical community.

Turner serves as well on the Public Health Task Force for the Mississippi State Medical Association and was a member of the COVID-19 Task Force for the City of Jackson.

He is a graduate of Jackson State University and Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, which honored him with the 2021 Axel C. Hansen, M.D., '44 Distinguished Physician Award.

His numerous other honors and awards include the 2023 Distinguished Physician's Award from the Mississippi Medical and Surgical Association; 2017 Doctor of Distinction from the MSMA, which also awarded him the 2020 Dr. James Waites Leadership Award; 2022 Mississippi Children's Museum Community Champion Award; 2021 National Top 40 Under 40 honor from the National Minority Quality Forum; and Mississippi Business Journal's 2018 Top Entrepreneurs in Mississippi, 2015 Top 50 Under 40 Businesspersons in Mississippi and 2014 Mississippi Health Care Hero.

Turner's community service includes participation in health fairs, panel discussions, outreach ministries and mentorship. He also speaks as a health expert on local and national news and radio stations.

During his awards dinner remarks, he said, "Family is very important to me," and that family extended even beyond his relatives. To illustrate this, he described how "Dr. Woodward and her team" had helped a relative of his who had been diagnosed with cancer.

"This is family here," he said. "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

2024 Hall of Fame Inductees

ArceneauxJ. LINCOLN ARCENEAUX was a beloved figure who made his mark during his 38-year career as a teacher and advisor.

The associate dean emeritus of student affairs for the School of Medicine and associate professor emeritus of microbiology and immunology touched the lives of some 3,000 students.

A native of south Louisiana, Arceneaux was a true Ragin' Cajun, having graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette before earning his PhD in microbiology at the University of Texas at Austin in 1968.

At Princeton University, he completed a National Institutes of Health fellowship before joining UMMC, where he was recruited as an assistant professor of microbiology in 1970.

Six years later, medical students named Arceneaux the Preclinical Professor of the Year. In 1978, he was appointed assistant dean for student affairs in the School of Medicine and was promoted to associate dean in 1992.

An advisor to the Associated Student Body as well, Arceneaux served as a mentor and father figure not only to medical students, but eventually to dental students and those seeking graduate degrees as well. He was known by students and his colleagues alike for his sincerity, honesty and soft, quiet voice, which he used to instruct, counsel and comfort.

In 2019, the Medical Center acknowledged his impact with the naming of the J. Lincoln Arceneaux Conference Room, the same room where he met with his colleagues to decide which applicants to accept to medical school.

Four years after his retirement, Arceneaux had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke, which affected his ability to speak. He underwent therapy and, during the 2019 dedication, he was able to express himself to those gathered to honor him.

Arceneaux, who lived in Madison, is survived by his wife, Dr. Jean Arceneaux, associate professor emerita of microbiology and immunology at UMMC, and his son, Dr. Jacques Arceneaux, who accepted the award on his father's behalf.

"I know he convinced a lot of students to stay in medical school," Jacques Arceneaux said of his father, noting that some of his students became physicians who cared for members of the Arceneaux family.

"Seeing how much he cared for students was a very powerful thing."

ALEXANDER J. HAICK JR. of Jackson was named early in his career as an "Outstanding Young Surgeon" by the American College of Surgeons. He justified that honor for the duration.

A Jackson native who grew up in other parts of the South and in the Midwest, he returned to the state to enroll at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. Three years later, he entered the School of Medicine, graduating in 1977.

Haick began his surgical education as a house staff officer at Vanderbilt University, where the world-renowned clinician, educator and researcher, Dr. H. William Scott Jr., served as professor and chair of the Department of Surgery.

Later, at UMMC, he trained under another legendary figure, transplant surgery pioneer, Dr. James D. Hardy. He then joined the Medical Center faculty and was named an assistant professor of surgery in 1982.

Haick enjoyed teaching, but he decided his true calling was as a clinician. He entered private practice in Jackson, working at Surgical Clinic Associates for 36 years.

He is a former president of the American Cancer Society in Mississippi; past chief of staff of Mississippi Baptist Medical Center, serving on the MBMC's board of directors for 16 years; and chair of the Risk Management Committee of the Medical Assurance Company of Mississippi.

Haick retired from clinical practice on Dec. 31, 2023 - 46 years after he graduated from medical school.

Thanking his family and his late parents, Haick said his father was in the U.S. Marine Corps, which does not award medals "simply for doing your job;" being a Marine is "sufficient" honor, he said.

"I'm honored to receive this reward on behalf of those who don't expect to be rewarded."

VAN L. LACKEY of Madison has been for decades an influential figure in the treatment of cancer in Mississippi.

Lackey, who grew up in Jackson, received his medical degree in 1972 from the UMMC School of Medicine. At UMMC, he completed his internal medicine residency, followed by an American Cancer Society fellowship in hematology-oncology.

In Jackson he entered practice as one of the state's first medical oncologists. He was a founding member of Jackson Oncology Associates, the largest oncology group in the state, serving for years as its executive committee chair.

At Mississippi Baptist Medical Center and St. Dominic Hospital, he chaired their respective cancer committees. He is also the former president and chair of the Mississippi Division of the American Cancer Society. He was a founding member of the Mississippi Society of Oncology, serving as president from its inception until his retirement.

A Fellow of the American College of Physicians, Lackey was its Mississippi Chapter Governor for four years. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, former director of the Hederman Cancer Center in Jackson, and former director of oncology services for Mississippi Baptist Medical Center.

Lackey is a lifetime member of the UMMC Medical Alumni Chapter and is a founding member and past president of the Guardian Society.

His "recent, but large, family of medical providers" includes his three daughters, although his wife, Lynn Ross Lackey, is an interior designer, he said.

"While (he and his daughters) are discussing medical matters, my wife is quick to point out that none of us can pick out curtains."

JOYCE OLUTADE of Madison is the founder and first medical director of the student-run Jackson Free Clinic, which for more than 20 years has provided free health care services to people who otherwise couldn't afford them.

Olutade's professional and personal education led her to the United States from Calabar in Nigeria, where she was born and where, as a young girl, she saw civil war deprive people of their lives and their homes.

These images stayed with her through her years as a medical student at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria; as an internist at Emory University; as a family medicine resident and faculty development fellow at Morehouse College in Atlanta; and, perhaps most of all, as a fellow at the University of California San Diego when she was on leave from UMMC; there, in 2000, she got her first sight of a student-run clinic for patients who, in many cases, didn't have a doctor or a home.

A similar idea became her fellowship project, originally called the Jackson Free Clinic for the Homeless. Olutade, who had joined the UMMC Department of Family Medicine as an assistant professor in 1998, received a grant to enable her to start the clinic.

In January 2002, working with medical students and with the support of Dr. Lessa Phillips, her department chair at the time, she helped found the non-profit clinic. Today, it is multiservice, with students and faculty from multiple UMMC schools providing free health services to the medically underserved.

She continued in that vein in Ibadan, Nigeria, where she had been a medical student. There, Olutade helped start a cervical cancer screening program in collaboration with the Save Our Future campaign.

Since 2018, she has served as the Medical Director for Missions for the African Christian Fellowship USA, South Region, helping organize and lead teams of African professionals yearly to Sierra Leone and other West African countries to provide free health care services to rural communities.

Referring to her idea for a free clinic, Olutade said, "I think I had a seed and found Jackson, Mississippi, to be good soil. What I see now is a big tree."

THAD F. WAITES of Hattiesburg has been an influential figure in the field of cardiology for decades.

Waites, who grew up in Waynesboro, is a 1970 graduate of the UMMC School of Medicine. After an internship at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, he completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Colorado, followed by a cardiology fellowship at Emory University.

As a member of the U.S. Naval Reserve, he served as a flight surgeon for a Marine Corps Aircraft Group during the Vietnam War.

Waites has practiced for much of his career at Hattiesburg Clinic/Forrest General Hospital as a clinician and leader.

He has also taken on a number of leadership roles in professional organizations. He was president of the American Heart Association-Mississippi and twice served as president of the American Heart Association Greater Southeast Affiliate.

He has achieved the American College of Cardiology's Master designation, a first for a Mississippian. In 2023, he was selected as an ACC Distinguished Fellow. He served the organization on its board of trustees, chair of its board of governors and, for two terms, as chair of the Health Affairs Committee (advocacy).

Waites is a member and former chair of the Mississippi State Board of Health during a period that included the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Hattiesburg, he was chosen this year as a winner of the Hub Award, presented annually to two citizens for their contributions to the city.

Waites, the brother of another distinguished physician, the late Dr. James C. "Jimmy" Waites, described the day when, as a young boy, he took a tour of the brand-new Medical Center with his much older sibling.

"I saw things that were terrible to a 10-year-old," he said. "I said, 'I'm never going to be a doctor.'"

GOLDEN GRADUATES: Members of the Class of 1974

Dr. John Abide
Dr. William "Jim" Alexander
Dr. Henry Bethea
Dr. Robert Brahan
Dr. Thomas R. Bryant (unable to attend)
Dr. Sam Cox
Dr. William Cushman
Dr. John Halbrook
Dr. Chan Henry
Dr. Sheldon Johnson
Dr. George Rodney Meeks
Dr. Glenn Morris
Dr. John Purvis
Dr. Troy Watkins

STUDENT ALUMNI REPRESENTATIVES (STARS)

Chloe Coulter
Kamyrn Davis
Molly Fontenot
Sarah Hayek
Alexis Lanier
Kendall Pitre
Dearrius Rhymes
Jay Warren

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