2022 Presenter Profiles

Session Title: Keynote; High Tech medicine-strategies to reposition family medicine as primary in the new healthcare ecosystem

Affiliation: College of Human Medicine, Department of Family Medicine, Michigan State University

Biography: Dr. Arnetz is a population health-primary care physician with boarded in Occupational and Environmental Medicine by the American Board of Preventive Medicine. He completed his MD and PhD in the psychophysiology of aging at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, and his MPH and MScEpi and his residency in Occupational and Environmental Health at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston. He served as the Chair of Family Medicine, College of Human Medicine, MSU for 6 years and stepped-down 2021 to direct digital health and implementation sciences projects. Dr. Arnetz is committed to working with healthcare systems and physicians to introduce evidence-based interventions to enhance sustained health and performance among providers and other healthcare personnel. He is very interested in the application of remote sensoring, machine learning and AI- informed medical decision support systems, and other facets of digital medicine to strengthen the patient-provider-partnership. Dr. Arnetz believes is a privilege to work with providers across Michigan.

Session Title: Rural Behavioral Health: Challenges and Changes

Affiliation: Aspirus Ironwood Clinic

Biography: Dr. Jason Bombard, DO is a psychiatrist practicing at Aspirus Clinic in Ironwood, Michigan for the last five years. He has a previous background in academic psychiatry and was the former program director at the University of Toledo. He moved to the Upper Peninsula with the hope of being able to provide high quality mental health care for a very at risk population. He has always been a proponent of reducing stigma and working to establish the mental health needs of our community as a priority. He feels very lucky to be able to become part of this community and looks forward to continuing to work to increase access and awareness. He is very thankful for the opportunity to attend this conference to speak with a diverse group about these challenges and the hope for the future.

Session Title: Lifestyle and Wellness Integration: improving personal wellness for yourself and your patients

Affiliation: NorthCountry Health Direct Primary Care

Biography: Dr. Ryan Brang received his medical training from Ross University and completed his family medicine residency in Marquette. After spending his first two years after graduation with his wife Katie in private practice in northern Wisconsin, they were recruited to return to Marquette to become faculty members where they have been educating residents for the last 8 years. This September they will be transitioning to their new private practice in downtown Marquette known as NorthCountry Health Direct Primary Care. They will be focusing on preventative medicine, nutrition counseling, wellness and lifestyle education, procedural care and general primary care. Ryan is board certified in family medicine and is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, and a member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.

Session Title: Opportunities for Collaboration in Musculoskeletal Care in the Upper Peninsula

Affiliation: Upper Great Lakes Family Health Center

Biography: Dr. DeYoung grew up in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, graduating from Saranac High School in 1994. He went on to attend Michigan State for a BH in History, a BS in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and eventually his MD. He attended internship and residency at Eisenhower Army Medical Center and then served active duty as an attending physician in that program and later as the “Officer In Charge” of the Connelly troop medical clinic. In 2010, Dr. DeYoung was deployed to Afghanistan with the 1/33 Cavalry Squadron of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). In Afghanistan, he provided trauma care to the US and Afghan forces in Khost Province and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Combat Medical Badge. In 2013, he returned to Michigan to begin practice in the rural Northern Lower Peninsula and the Eastern UP. In 2019, he joined the Upper Great Lakes Family Health Center and the UPHS-Portage Sports Medicine Institute in Houghton. Dr. DeYoung and his colleagues provide medical coverage to the athletes at Michigan Tech, Finlandia, several local schools, and local recreational sports leagues.

He married his wife, Karen, in 2005, and she completed her own medical education (she’s also a family medicine physician) while helping raise their three children throughout Dr. DeYoung's active-duty time and deployment. Isabella was born in 2007, followed by Sophia in 2010 (she was one week old when he left for Afghanistan and one year old when he returned) and Case in 2012. Isabella and Sophia are involved in the Superior School of Dance, and Case plays hockey in the Copper Country Junior Hockey Association. If the family is not skating or dancing, they enjoy camping, hiking, boating, and fishing.

Session Title: Assessment and Management of Mood and Anxiety Disorders in the Perinatal Period

Affiliation: St. Cloud Hospital, CentraCare Clinics

Biography: Dr. Drom is an alumna of Michigan Tech, receiving a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Following completion of undergraduate training, she continued her graduate studies at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, TX. During these formative years, her interests expanded to include studying the complex interplay between physical, psychological, and neurological illnesses. With this focus, she completed her post-graduate residency and fellowship training in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry. She currently practices in a hospital-based setting, seeing medically ill patients who develop psychiatric symptoms in this context and completing emergency psychiatric assessments. Her clinical work additionally encompasses the development of policies in suicide risk mitigation and addiction management, perinatal psychiatry, and teaching activities for the Family Medicine residency program and visiting medical students. In her free time, she enjoys gardening, trail running, and dabbling in plant-based cooking.

Session Title: Obesity – It’s Not What You Think

Affiliation: UP Health System - Marquette

Biography: Dr. Griffin graduated from MSU-CHM (UP Program) in 2000 and completed a family medicine residency through the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2003. Subsequently, she spent 4 years as a family physician in the U.S. Air Force, stationed at the Air Force Academy and in Okinawa, Japan. After this, Dr. Griffin moved back to the Upper Peninsula and started at the Bariatric clinic in 2008. She has now completed a fellowship and is certified in obesity medicine and continues to practice at UPHS-Marquette.

Session Title: Addressing social determinants of health through development of a health and social resource website: a healthcare provider-academic partnership

Affiliation: Department of Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology, Michigan Technological University

Biography: Kelly Kamm, MHS, PhD is an epidemiologist in the Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology Department at Michigan Tech. Dr. Kamm’s research program seeks to develop and evaluate interventions to improve health in under-resourced settings by reducing psychosocial and environmental barriers that negatively impact healthy behaviors. She has conducted research to identify barriers faced by vulnerable populations through qualitative and quantitative methods, developed place-based interventions to address these barriers, and evaluated health and behavior outcomes associated with the interventions. Dr. Kamm has worked with vulnerable populations in the U.P and in low-income countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Session Title: Where did I put my keys? The Neurologic Basis of Aging and the diseases that accompany it.

Affiliation: MyMichigan Health

Biography: Brian MacFalda, DO, MBA is a neurologist and physician leader with MyMichigan Health. Dr. MacFalda practices comprehensive neurology but has fellowship training in epilepsy. Prior to joining MyMichigan Health Dr. MacFalda spent over 10 years working as a neurologist in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Growing up in northern lower Michigan, Dr. MacFalda appreciates the challenges of accessing care in the northern rural parts of the state and has continued to have outreach clinics within the region and has leveraged the use of telemedicine to provide care to these underserved regions.

Session Title: Diabetes as a specialty in rural communities: How to expand important aspects of diabetes care to our rural settings.

Affiliation: Aspirus Ironwood, Aspirus Ontonagon, & Aspirus Iron River Clinics

Biography: Gayle Maslakow was born and raised in the western end of the Upper Peninsula and has resided in the area her entire life, raising two children, and working full time in health care at a rural health clinic. She enjoys skiing, snowshoeing, kayaking, and the great outdoors. She currently lives near the Sylvania National Forest and enjoys all it has to offer.

She is a board-certified family nurse practitioner specializing in diabetes care. She loves working with complex patients with diabetes and has a special interest in insulin pump management and the use of continuous glucose monitoring systems. She strives to make diabetes fit into the individual patients’ life rather than her patients needing to live their lives around this exhaustive disease.

She has 25 years of nursing experience. Her undergraduate studies include a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, graduating Summa Cum Laude, from the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota. She earned her Master of Science in Nursing from Concordia University in Mequon, Wisconsin. She holds additional board certification in Advanced Diabetes Management, certification in CAM therapies and bodywork, BLS, and ACLS. She has worked as adjunct faculty at Gogebic Community College teaching in the certified medical assistant program as well as the medical coding and billing programs.

She serves as a member of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, Upper Peninsula Diabetes Outreach Network, American Diabetes Association, European Association for the Study of Diabetes, and Association of Medical Professionals with Hearing Losses.

Gayle is a contributing author of Clinical Guidelines in Primary Care, (fourth edition), and wrote the guideline: Hypoglycemia Secondary to Diabetes contained in the Endocrine Disorders chapter.

Session Title: Addressing social determinants of health through development of a health and social resource website: a healthcare provider-academic partnership

Affiliation: Department of Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology, Michigan Technological University; Keweenaw Area Community Foundation

Biography: Robin Meneguzzo, FNP-C, IFMCP, is a family nurse practitioner who has worked in a variety of healthcare settings. She has predominantly worked in family practice in the Copper Country. She is an Institute for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner (IFMCP) and uses this holistic approach to understand all the factors that affect the health of the individual and the community. Using this wider understanding of health has led her to explore work in public health, rural health research and most recently to her current position as Executive Director of the Keweenaw Area Community Foundation. Robin has a passion to understand and address the root causes of problems at the individual and community level and work towards finding solutions to allow for improved health and well-being for all.

Session Title: Vaccine Efficacy and Vaccine Hesitancy in an Era of New Vaccines

Affiliation: W. Harry Feinstone Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University

Biography: Andrew Pekosz is a Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins University. He received his BS in Biochemistry from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of Pennsylvania. His laboratory studies the basic biology of influenza, coronaviruses, and other emerging and zoonotic virus infections. He has been interviewed on the topics of COVID-19, influenza, biosafety, emerging infectious diseases, and pandemic preparedness by a number of news agencies including National Public Radio, the Associated Press (AP), the Baltimore Sun, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Cable News Network (CNN), CSPAN, British Broadcasting Company (BBC), Bloomberg Television, Al Jazeera, France24, Voice of America, the Discovery Channel and numerous local radio and television stations.

Session Title: Vaccine Efficacy and Vaccine Hesitancy in an Era of New Vaccines

Affiliation: Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Biography: Abram Wagner is a Research Assistant Professor in Epidemiology at the University of Michigan. He received a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Michigan and was a post-doctoral Fulbright Scholar in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. He studies vaccine uptake and the epidemiology of vaccine-preventable disease, with a focus on issues in middle income countries. His research encompasses studies of vaccine effectiveness, seroepidemiology, and the impact of vaccine hesitancy.