When Christopher Colenda arrived for his admissions interview at MCV on a bright October day in 1972, the smell of curing tobacco from the warehouse district permeated the air. "To this day, the smell of curing tobacco brings forth vivid memories of that day for me," Colenda recalls.

At first caught up in the hectic pace of a major medical school, Chris was quickly exposed to the wide variety of medical fields. "Like everyone, I was intrigued by surgery, and the emergency room at MCV Hospital was " Dodge City ."

With his interests finally turning to issues surrounding neuroscience, Chris became a neurosurgical "extern" at MCV Hospital working at night. "Truth be known, I would have done it for free. Where else would a 23-year-old privileged, middle class kid experience medicine in its most unvarnished form?"

His extern work led him to witness to a major shift in medicine. Before 1975 an invasive procedure was required to locate mass lesions in the brain. In mid-summer 1975, MCV Hospital installed the first CAT scan machine in the state. On a sweltering July day, neurosurgeons used the CAT scan to successfully locate a hematoma in a young patient. "We were dazzled that hot summer's day. I witnessed the transformation of the practice of neurosurgery, and, for that matter, the practice of medicine."

Chris received his MD in 1977, a Masters of Public Health from Johns Hopkins and completed training in psychiatry at the University of Virginia Hospitals and Emory University . He left the South in 1997 to become professor and Chairman of the Michigan State University 's College of Human Medicine Department of Psychiatry. While at MSU, he also served as Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education and Community Affairs. While serving as Acting Dean of the College, he initiated a project between the college and a major health corporation to establish the Great Lakes Cancer Institute.

Currently the Jean and Thomas McMillin Dean of the College of Medicine at Texas A&M, Chris is also a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and professor of Health Policy and Management in the School of Rural Public Health. A board-certified physician of psychiatry and geriatric psychiatry, he has served as Chair of the Council of Aging for the American Psychiatric Association and now serves on its Council for Healthcare Systems and Financing. He is a member of the Board and Treasurer for the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatric and is Chair of the Geriatric Psychiatry Certification / Re-Certification Test Writing Committee for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Honored with the Outstanding Faculty Award from the MSU College of Human Medicine, he has also received the Special Commendation of the American Psychiatric Association Council on Aging.

A prolific researcher and writer, Christopher has published more than 130 research papers, educational papers or monographs, research abstracts and book chapters.

In 1973, a new, young MCV student sat in the second floor lecture room in Sanger Hall, back row, right of the projector. Chris remembers the day clearly, and his private muse that "Well, this ought to be interesting."

Today he laughs. "Little did I know!"

Kevin L. Holmes, PhD'81 - Anatomy

As part of his thesis project at VCU, Kevin Holmes was counting migrating cells in a sample, and testing the attraction of cells at different developmental stages. A lot was known about these particular cells and Kevin had a strong idea of the kind of cell migration he would find even before he started his research. But he didn't find what he expected.

"I immediately began to question my experimental procedures, and with deadlines approaching, began to feel the pressure to 'make' my results fit the expected results. This was a turning point in my scientific career. Instead of succumbing to the pressure, I performed the same experiments again, and again and again until I finally convinced myself that the results, though contrary to my expectations, reflected the actual biology of these cells."

That lesson has stuck with Kevin through a long and accomplished career in research.

After a few years in post-doctoral positions at VCU and the George Washington University Department of Biochemistry, Kevin accepted a position as Staff Fellow in 1983 with the Laboratory of Immunopathology in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institute of Health.

In 1987 Kevin was selected to establish and head a new Flow Cytometry Section within the NIAID. Flow Cytometry is the measurement of fluorescence on cells or particles while they pass in a fluid stream in front of a focused laser beam. The process and the cell sorting it enables have become an invaluable tool for researchers, especially immunologists, to determine the complex interrelationships of the cellular immune system, but is also used clinically for diagnostic purposes such as leukemia typing, stem cell research and oncology.

Under Kevin's direction, the new Flow Cytometry Section has grown to be the largest of its type within the National Institutes of Health. "The groundwork for my qualifications for this position was laid in my research begun at the School of Medicine ." In 1989 he was honored with the NIH Merit Award for his "extraordinary efforts" in founding the section and for his research on hematopoietic cell surface antigens.

Today he is the tenured head of the Flow Cytometry Section of NIAID. He supervises seven employees within the section and a Custom Antibodies Services Facility that is a part of the unit.

Although not a traditional basic research position, my position reflects my long-standing interest in biomedical technology." Admitting to a "real desire to tinker," Kevin confesses he is interested in the biology of a project as well as the technology used to study it. "My current position satisfies my urge to experiment with the technological aspects of modern biomedical research."

Kevin has made presentations to a number of flow cytometry symposiums or groups and has published more than 60 articles, book chapters and abstracts.

As part of his responsibilities, Kevin teaches an introductory course in Flow Cytometry for post-doctoral fellows. It has given him new respect for the professional educators he encountered at the School of Medicine . "The quality of teaching that I experienced at MCV has set the standard by which I measure myself in my own career."

ARCHIVES

Alumni News - Spring 2003

Dr. Harold M. Kimmerling, M’53
The 2003 Outstanding Medical Alumnus Award
for distinguished contributions to health care 

Dr. Harold M. Kimmerling, M’53, credits his alma mater as providing him a wonderful education. On that foundation, Dr. Kimmerling built an accomplished cardiology career.

A native of Roanoke, Virginia and a graduate of Virginia Tech, Dr. Kimmerling was a transplant to Texas by the end of the 1950s. There he established a very successful private cardiology practice. Over the course of the next four decades, he would serve his field in a number of ways, including as president of the Dallas Academy of Internal Medicine. He also held a teaching appointment at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and served as Secretary of the Department of Medicine at Baylor University Medical Center.

His career also included high-visibility roles. For four years after his graduation from MCV, and during his residency at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, Dr. Kimmerling ran the medical facilities at the Augusta National Golf Tournament. More recently, he served as a medical consultant to Ken Follett, bestselling author of On the Wings of Eagles, the real-life account of Ross Perot's bold plan to free two of his company's employees from a prison in Iran.

In 2000, after retiring from his practice, Dr. Kimmerling and his wife established the Martha M. and Harold M. Kimmerling, M.D., Chair in Cardiology to mark his gratitude to the medical school at which he got his start.

Dr. Kimmerling and his wife Martha are also well-known in the Dallas community for their philanthropic vision, which includes the Dallas Museum of Art and the Dallas Civic Opera. Dr. Kimmerling also has shared his time and talents with children in his community and, for seven years, served as medical leader for Boy Scouts Troop 82, which, at that time, was the largest scout troop in the country.

Dr. Chai Chang Choi, M'35
Saluted for his Life-Long Distinguished Service to the Healing Arts

Born in 1906 in Kaesung, Korea, Chai Chang Choi was profoundly influenced during his high school years by American missionaries and U.S.-educated Korean teachers, who shared their vision of America as a land of freedom and opportunity for students determined to get an education. On that foundation, he would go on to build a career marked by service to his profession and his community.

Outstanding among Dr. Choi’s accomplishments are his efforts to organize the Korean American Medical Association of Washington, DC, Virginia and Maryland, and the Korean American Medical Association of America, serving as founding president for both organizations. He serves today as advisor to the national organization that now boasts a membership of more than 10,000. 

Dr. Choi's life of service has been honored repeatedly. Among his awards are the "MOREN" Gold Medal of Honor from the Korean Government and the Gold Medal from the Korean American Medical Association. In addition, he recently was nominated to serve as Honorary Chairman of the Centennial Committee of Korean Immigration to the United States.

It was in 1927 that he pursued his dreams of studying in America, working briefly as a busboy and waiter and saving $250 before enrolling in college. Under pressure to master the readings and class lectures, in addition to paying his own way, he successfully completed his pre-medical studies. Accepted into the Medical College of Virginia in 1931, the young man once again struggled to make ends meet, as the curriculum's demands would not allow him to hold a job. But Mr. McCuley, the medical school's treasurer, allowed him to pay as he was able. It is his time at MCV that Dr. Choi credits as making him into the physician and man that he would become.

Following a yearlong internship in New Orleans, Dr. Choi returned to Korea for fourteen years, serving as Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare of the U.S. Military Government in Korea and as a representative to the first World Health Organization Conference in New York. His 1949 report "Public Health in Korea" was distributed worldwide and was well-received by the U.S. Defense Department and the WHO. Dr. Choi again traveled to America in 1950, this time with plans to study at MCV for one year. But when the Korean War broke out soon after his arrival, he decided settle permanently in Northern Virginia, where he could practice medicine and have his family join him. In addition to his medical degree from MCV, he also earned a public health masters degree at Johns Hopkins University in 1946. He also is the author of a second publication titled "American Medicine in Korean Medical History."