The UA Division of Dermatology welcomes two new assistant professors, Vivian Y. Shi, MD, and Drew Kurtzman, MD, who joined the faculty at the UA Department of Medicine and began practicing in Tucson in July.
Dr. Kurtzman—who presented the departmental grand rounds lecture Aug. 3 on “Clinical Pearls for the Diagnosis and Management of Cutaneous Autoimmune Disease”—was recruited from Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where he completed a fellowship in Dermatology and Rheumatology. He also was an attending physician and staff dermatologist at the VA Boston Healthcare System. Before that, he was a chief resident and resident in dermatology here at the UA Division of Dermatology and an intern in internal medicine at the UA Department of Medicine. He earned his medical degree from the UA College of Medicine – Tucson and his bachelor’s degree in molecular and cellular biology from the UA. In 2010, he also completed the Intensive Course in Clinical Research at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
Among honors and awards, Dr. Kurtzman received the Medical Dermatology Society’s Mentorship Award in 2014 and a number of awards for scholarship while at the UA College of Medicine – Tucson. On research, he has collaborated with UA principal investigators Clara Curiel-Lewandroski, MD, at the UA Division of Dermatology, Marlys Witte, MD, in the UA Department of Surgery, and Daruka Mahadevan, MD, PhD, at the UA Cancer Center. Topics have included skin cancer, metastatic melanoma and gastrointestinal stromal tumors. He also has multiple peer-reviewed publications, scientific abstracts and oral and poster presentations to his credit, with subjects ranging from “A Blistering Response: Concurrent Psoriasis and Pemphigus Foliaceus” to “Dermatomyositis and Cutaneous Small Vessel Vasculitis.”
A native of Guangzhou, China, Dr. Shi comes to the UA from the University of California – Davis, where she was chief resident and a resident in the Dermatology Residency Program at UC Davis Medical Center. Before that, she completed an internship in internal medicine at University of Chicago/NorthShore University Health Systems. She earned her medical degree from the University of Chicago, where she also completed a Medical Student Research Fellowship with the American Dermatological Association under Lawrence S. Chan, MD, the university’s head of dermatology. Her undergraduate degree in physiological sciences is from UCLA.
Dr. Shi has taken part in numerous medical volunteer and community service activities in her post-graduate career. This includes travel to Kathmandu, Nepal, as part of a collaborative team of dermatologists and physicians to provide care for 400 patients in earthquake stricken villages, to Tuensang, India, to provide care for underserved villages near the Burmese border. She also traveled to Shanghai as part of a medical student volunteer team assisting victims of an earthquake in Szechuan province. Here, she was a clinical volunteer to provide dermatology services as part of the New Life Volunteering Society in Niles, Ill., the Eczema Care Education Center at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and the Paul Hom Community Free Clinic in Sacramento.
Dr. Shi also has had multiple published research papers and abstracts accepted for presentation. As for honors and awards, she won a 2015 National Postgraduate Award from the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society for a project on “Incorporation of Teledermatology in Nepal for International Medical Outreach.” In 2011, she won an Albert M. Kligman Fellowship travel award from the Society of Investigative Dermatology to present on “The Role of Lymphangiogenesis in IL-4 Transgenic Mouse Model of Atopic Dermatitis” as well as a Research and Education Grant from the Fondation Pour La Dermatitis Atopique of France to present on “Evaluating the Use of an Eczema Action Plan in Atopic Dermatitis Patients.” Her more recent work can be found here.
Clinical Appointments
In addition to their teaching and research activities, Drs. Kurtzman and Shi will practice medicine at the Banner – University Medical Center Tucson and UA Cancer Center – North and Orange Grove Campus outpatient clinics. To schedule an appointment with them, please call (520) 694-2873 (CURE). For physician referrals, call (520) 694-5868 or toll-free 1-800-524-5928.