Alumni News
6 News Notes
40 | F LO R I DA P HYS I C IAN
William Cottrell, MD,
HS ’78, wrote and selfpublished
“Confessions of an
Anesthesiologist,” available in
paperback and e-book formats
from Barnes & Noble and Amazon.
The book chronicles Cottrell’s time
at the UF College of Medicine,
training under surgeons like Drs.
Albert Rhoton, Jim Alexander
and William Enneking, as well as
medical, political and personal
issues from Cottrell’s history.
Cottrell is an anesthesiologist who has been in private practice for
nearly four decades in Concord, North Carolina.
Jayne Mittan, PA ’91, received the 2017 Humanitarian Physician
Assistant of the Year Award from the Florida Academy of
Physician Assistants. Mittan, based in Tallahassee, routinely travels
to Guatemala to provide medical care to the Mayan peoples as
a medical liaison for the organization Porch de Salomon. The
Florida Academy of Physician Assistants’ vision is to fully integrate
physician assistants into every aspect of health care in Florida by
empowering, representing and advocating for Florida physician
assistants.
Laura Zindell Fenton, MD ’92,
was named professor of
radiology at the University of
Colorado School of Medicine.
She is also director of fellowship
education in pediatric radiology.
A former radiology resident
at the UF College of Medicine,
Fenton is a 2015 recipient of the
Haller Award for Excellence in
Teaching and sits on the national
board for the Society of Pediatric
Radiology.
Kelli Wells, MD ’98, was named a member of the UF College
of Medicine’s Medical Alumni Board and the deputy secretary
for health for the Florida Department of Health. A family
medicine practitioner for many years, Wells is the director of the
Department of Health in Duval County. She also has served as the
clinical services director of the Department of Health in Escambia
County and the chief medical officer at the Agape Community
Health Center in Jacksonville.
Michael McKee, MD ’01, was appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder to the
Michigan Advisory Council on Deaf, Deafblind and Hard of Hearing.
McKee, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan Medical
School, will serve a three-year term on the 13-member council. As
a physician with a hearing loss, he advocates for equitable health
care for the deaf and hearing impaired.
Cheerag D. Upadhyaya, MD ’01, was appointed surgical codirector
for the Saint Luke’s Marion Bloch Neuroscience Institute
in Kansas City. A neurosurgeon, Upadhyaya specializes in spine
surgery, has served as chief of neurological and spine surgery for
Saint Luke’s and established the Saint Luke’s Spine and Sports
Medicine Clinic. He completed his neurosurgical residency at
the University of Michigan and a fellowship in complex and
minimally invasive spine surgery at the University of California,
San Francisco.
PHOTO COURTESY OF ANGELA CHENG, MD
From left to right: Drs. Peter Thompson, Manuel Trujillo, Angela Cheng
and Yan Ortiz-Pomales.
Angela Cheng, MD ’04, was honored with the Jack Culbertson
Teacher of the Year Award at Emory University School of Medicine,
where she is an assistant professor of surgery in the division
of plastic and reconstructive surgery. Cheng joined the Emory
faculty in 2012 after completing a general surgery residency at
the University of Texas-Houston, a plastic surgery residency at the
University of Virginia and a breast and microsurgery fellowship at
University of Texas Southwestern.
Laura Zindell Fenton, MD '92