Annual Pub 2022 - Flipbook - Page 18
Improving Access to Clinical Services
In Southern Nevada
by Paul Harasim
Jocelyn Burke, MD, the newest faculty member in the surgery department at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine, plans on improving access to advanced surgical care in Southern Nevada.
Arthur Romero, MD, plans on using the newest interventional pulmonology techniques to help patients with lung
cancer.
While these two physicians are in different specialties as they open two new service lines, what they are indicative of is the same: an unwavering commitment to the best in patient care by the medical school and its a昀케liated
clinical practice, UNLV Health.
Dr. Burke completed a fellowship in advanced
upper GI and minimally invasive surgery at the
University of Southern California Keck School of
Medicine and another in pediatric and adult surgical critical care at Northwestern University.
Now, after working as an attending surgeon at Colorado’s Institute of Esophageal and Re昀氀ux Surgery,
Burke is training Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine
resident-physicians in surgical techniques and,
she says, “working to establish a multidisciplinary,
minimally invasive surgery center of excellence
through UNLV, bringing together a group of surgeons with a devotion to minimally invasive approaches to the disease processes they treat.”
DR. JOCELYN BURKE | PHOTO: JOSH HAWKINS
Dr. Burke is well aware of the need for such a
center in Las Vegas, which has often seen people of all ages leaving town for a variety of surgical procedures.
“The goal with this,” she says, “is to provide a known, trusted service to the people of Las Vegas where they can
reliably seek advanced, less invasive surgical care for a number of conditions.”
Dr. Romero completed a fellowship in pulmonary
critical care and, more recently, another in advanced interventional pulmonology – both from
the University of California, San Francisco Fresno.
A relatively new 昀椀eld, interventional pulmonology
focuses on minimally invasive procedures to help
patients with lung cancer. Not only did Dr. Romero
become familiar with those procedures, he also
learned novel therapies to offer patients with
severe COPD, refractory pleural effusions, and interstitial lung disease. Armed with these new skills,
he can now help patients who would previously
have had to go out of state just to seek treatment.
DR. ARTHUR ROMERO | PHOTO: UMC
18
KIRK KERKORIAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT UNLV
SUMMER 2022
“My goal,” he said, “is to set up the UNLV interventional pulmonology program, which would be the
昀椀rst and only such program in Nevada.”
