The COVID-19 pandemic may have cancelled all in-person ceremonies and celebrations, but it didn\u2019t stop the UConn School of Medicine from honoring new inductees to UConn\u2019s chapter of a prestigious honor medical society.<\/p>\n
The UConn School of Medicine celebrated 30 new inductees to the Alpha Omega Honor Medical Society (A\u03a9A)\u2014 an honor that signifies excellence and commitment to scholarship, leadership, professionalism, and service. The new inductees to UConn\u2019s A\u03a9A chapter includes fourth year students, residents, and faculty.<\/p>\n
As the 130th active A\u03a9A chapter, UConn joins medical schools throughout the U.S. in this society recognizing and promoting the highest ideals of medicine. The roots of UConn\u2019s Connecticut chapter was first established in 2016. It is only the second chapter to be established in the state since Yale School of Medicine\u2019s Alpha chapter was founded in 1920.<\/p>\n
While the in-person ceremony did not occur this year, School of Medicine leadership offered their well wishes and congratulations to the new inductees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are so very proud of the Class of 2020 and their excellence across academics, patient care, research and service to the community,\u201d shared Dr. Bruce T. Liang, dean of UConn School of Medicine.<\/p>\n
Liang added: \u201cCongratulations to the graduating medical students inducted as new members of the prestigious\u00a0A\u03a9A national medical honor society, along with our new Chapter members hailing from our talented faculty and medical residency programs. This is one of the highest honors and true recognition of your commitment as a health care professional and the practice of the art of medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n
“We are very proud of our student, resident, and faculty A\u03a9A inductees,” said Dr. Kevin Dieckhaus, associate professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases who leads the chapter as its A\u03a9A Councilor. “It is unfortunate that social distancing guidelines have prevented us from celebrating their election in person, but this in no way diminishes their accomplishments.<\/p>\n
Dieckhaus added: “In a time of epic changes in both society and the practice of medicine due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these individuals embody the ideals of leadership, professionalism, and service that will be crucial for our society to frame the future of health care and respond to the challenges we are facing.”<\/p>\n
As an active A\u03a9A chapter, each year UConn School of Medicine can nominate\u00a0the top 25 percent of its medical school class to become members of the\u00a0professional medical organization within their senior year. Of that 25 percent,\u00a0up to 16 percent of the total medical school class may be\u00a0elected into the\u00a0society.<\/p>\n
The new inductees also shared a few words on being inducted into this prestigious honor society, especially during a pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThough it is disappointing to be missing out on the ceremonies, traditions and gatherings of spring I am honored to be inducted into A\u03a9A and serve on the front line of this pandemic as an emergency medicine physician,\u201d said Dr. Michael Joseph, MD class of 2017.<\/p>\n
Alice DiFrancesco, MD class of 2020 said: \u201cI think it is in our nature to be upset by the fact that we could not participate in the traditional ceremonies associated with not only our A\u03a9A induction, but also graduation and other senior activities that we had looked forward to for so many years. But I also think that our ability as professional students to both adapt and accept this temporary normal reflects some of the inherent qualities which A\u03a9A stands for, and I am certainly grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is an incredible honor to be inducted into A\u03a9A. It is a society whose mission is to improve care to all, something that is of great importance, now more than ever,\u201d said Bryan Ferrigno, MD class of 2020.<\/p>\n
The full list of inductees is below.<\/p>\n
MD STUDENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n Nicholas Joseph Bellas<\/p>\n Dylan Max Buller<\/p>\n Rebecca Lynn Calafiore<\/p>\n Sonny Caplash<\/p>\n Jonathan Thomas Caranfa<\/p>\n Christopher Cheng<\/p>\n Antea Jean DeMarsilis<\/p>\n Madeline DeWane<\/p>\n Alice Ann DiFrancesco<\/p>\n Bryan William Ferrigno<\/p>\n Salem-Michael Harry-Hernandez<\/p>\n Craig John Macken<\/p>\n Anzhela Moskalik<\/p>\n Colin James Pavano<\/p>\n Justin Sardi<\/p>\n Kristina Marie Wagner<\/p>\n Miryam Hannah Wilson<\/p>\n <\/p>\n RESIDENT\/FELLOWS<\/strong><\/p>\n Karan Tarasaria MD<\/p>\n Whei Ying Lim MBBS<\/p>\n Perry Kingsbury Pratt MD<\/p>\n Fatima Jalil MD, MPH<\/p>\n Chantel Alicia Strachan MD<\/p>\n Arundati Rao MBBS<\/p>\n Michael W Joseph MD<\/p>\n Sarah Elizabeth Kollar DO<\/p>\n Michael Benjamin Light MD<\/p>\n Toishi Sharma MBBS<\/p>\n John Michael Norko MD<\/p>\n <\/p>\n FACULTY<\/strong><\/p>\n Steven Vincent Angus MD<\/p>\n Augustus Mazzocca MD<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The COVID-19 pandemic may have cancelled all in-person ceremonies and celebrations, but it doesn\u2019t stop the UConn School of Medicine from honoring new inductees to UConn\u2019s chapter of a prestigious medical honor society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":160863,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1868],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2177],"class_list":["post-160862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meds"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 07:08:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/160863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160862"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=160862"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=160862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}