Faculty

Amy Blatt, MD
Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics
William L. Morgan, Jr. Professorship in Medicine

Dr. Blatt is Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency. She was a resident and chief resident in the Medicine-Pediatrics Residency at the University of Rochester from 2002-2007. She served as Director for the Internal Medicine Third Year Clerkship from 2016 through 2021 and Associate Program Director for the Internal Medicine and Internal Medicine-Pediatrics residencies before becoming Program Director in 2022. She has worked as an adult and pediatric Hospitalist and currently attends on the adult inpatient teaching service at Strong Memorial Hospital. Her academic interests include learner assessment, addressing bias in the clinical learning environment and the transition from undergraduate to graduate medical education. Outside of work, she enjoys hiking, running, kayaking, and local music and theater with her family.

Catherine Gracey, MD, MS
Professor of Medicine

Dr. Gracey serves as Associate Program Director for Ambulatory Education and directs our Primary Care Program. She chairs the residency program’s Clinical Competency Committee and directs the Medical Educator Pathway. In addition to having her own primary care clinical practice, she precepts residents in the residency continuity clinic practice and develops curriculum for the Ambulatory Block Education Thursdays.

Her research interests include teaching humanism and communication skills, in part through her work with the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare. Outside of work, she enjoys cooking, running, and playing with her family.

Joseph Nicholas, MD, MPH
Professor of Medicine
William and Sheila Konar Family Professor of Geriatrics, Palliative Medicine, and Person-Centered Care 

Dr. Nicholas is the Director of Medical Education and the Associate Chief of Medicine at Highland Hospital, and serves as Associate Program Director for the IM residency program. His training has included residencies in Internal Medicine, Pediatrics and Preventive Medicine and Public Health. His educational interests include clinical reasoning, medical decision making and individualizing guideline-directed care for hospitalized older adults, and has an academic focus in orthogeriatric care for fragility fracture patients. He attends on the Highland Inpatient Geriatrics teaching service. His interests include all things Finger Lakes.

William Novak, MD
Professor of Clinical Medicine

Dr. Novak is as an Associate Program Director and serves regularly as a Hospitalist on the inpatient resident teams at Strong Memorial Hospital.  He also directs our residency’s point-of-care ultrasound program and can be found scanning most days with residents during their ultrasound rotation.
 
An Internal Medicine resident, chief resident, and Infectious Diseases fellow at the University of Rochester from 1999-2005, Dr. Novak then joined our faculty.  His outside interests include all things outdoors in the Finger Lakes region, particularly off-road cycling and skiing.

Alec O'Connor, MD, MPH
Professor of Medicine
Director of GME Scholarship

Dr. O’Connor was a resident and then chief resident in the Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Rochester (1996-2000) before becoming an Associate Program Director for the Medicine and Medicine-Pediatrics residencies in 2003. He served as Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency from 2012-2022. He is currently an Associate Program Director of the residency and is the Director of GME Scholarship.

He is a Hospitalist at Strong Memorial Hospital, where he attends on the Inpatient Teaching Service. He has published on a variety of topics related to improving prescribing practices and residency education, and he has served on national committees within the Alliance of Academic Internal Medicine. His outside interests include cycling, sculling, traveling, and watching soccer, especially Manchester City.

Chunkit Fung, M.D.
Associate Chair, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion - Department of Medicine (SMD)

Dr. Chunkit Fung is a professor of medicine and a medical oncologist, with clinical expertise in genitourinary cancer.  At the medical school, Dr. Fung serves as a faculty advisor for two affinity medical student organizations, SPECTRUM (LGBTQ+ medical student organization) and the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association.  

At the national level, Dr. Fung serves as a co-chair of the American Society of Clinical Oncology LGBTQ+ Community of Practice and the Board of Governor for the Human Rights Campaign, which is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve LGBTQ+ equality, with more than 3 million members nationwide.  Outside of work, Dr. Fung enjoys running, hiking, cooking, and traveling. 

Melissa Mroz, MD, MPH
Associate Professor of Medicine
Medical Director, Strong Internal Medicine 

Dr. Mroz is the Medical Director of the Strong Internal Medicine Faculty-Resident Practice. She also serves as the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion champion for the Division of General Internal Medicine and facilitates the Evidence-Based Medicine curriculum in ambulatory education.  She has been involved in maintaining the practice's certification as a Patient-Centered Medical Home and has experience in quality improvement addressing health disparities.  Through these roles, she aims to continue to improve upon a practice structure that provides both excellent patient care and education of Internal Medicine residents.  

Dr. Mroz practices primary care and supervises residents as a clinical preceptor.  She has clinical expertise in obesity medicine and has presented regionally and nationally on this topic.  She also has an interest in addressing bias, stigma and discrimination in the workplace. Outside of medicine, she enjoys spending time with friends and family, being outdoors and trying new foods.

Jennifer Anolik, MD, PhD
Professor of Medicine, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and Microbiology and Immunology
Associate Chair of Research, Department of Medicine
Program Director, Physician Scientist Training Program

Dr. Anolik is an adult rheumatologist who practices in the University of Rochester's Lupus Clinic. Her research interests include the role of B cells in the pathophysiology of human systemic lupus, the study of new immuno-modulatory treatments for lupus, and B cell regulation of bone homeostasis in rheumatoid arthritis. As part of the research group at the University of Rochester she has been one of the pioneers in the use of B-cell depletion for the therapy of autoimmune diseases and investigation of the effects of B cell depletion on immune function in SLE patients. She has also pioneered the use of tonsil and bone marrow biopsy as a means of probing immune dysregulation in autoimmune diseases, including SLE and RA.

Katherine Arden, MD
Assistant Program Director for Primary Care

Dr. Arden is the Director of the Primary Care Residency Program and an Assistant Director for Primary Care.  She was a resident and chief resident in the Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Rochester from 2017 to 2021.  She is a primary care physician at Geriatric and Medicine Associates at Highland Hospital, and she works as a clinical preceptor for the resident primary care practice at Strong Internal Medicine.  For the first two years of her primary care practice, she additionally worked as a part-time hospitalist seeing her own primary care patients at Highland Hospital.  Dr. Arden greatly enjoys teaching medicine residents how to improve their diagnostic framework for approaching clinical problems and how to approach therapeutic options from a patient-based perspective.  Outside of work, she enjoys singing, running, & downhill skiing. 

Andrea Garroway, PhD 
Assistant Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry
Assistant Program Director for Communication Coaching and Wellness

Dr. Andrea Garroway is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine, Assistant Program Director for Communication Coaching and Wellness in the Internal Medicine residency, and Director of Behavioral Health Integration at Strong Internal Medicine. She teaches patient and family-centered communication skills, psychosocial medicine, and promotes physician wellness and self-care. She is a clinical psychologist and enjoys collaborating with residents and faculty on patient care as an embedded behavioral health clinician in Strong Internal Medicine. Her professional interests include integrating mental health into primary care settings and teaching trauma-informed approaches to medical care. She also is a site director and clinical supervisor for the URMC Psychology postdoctoral fellowship Integrated Care Family Track. Outside of work, she spends time with her family, plays tennis, and enjoys reading fiction.

John Grable MD, PhD.
Professor of Medicine
Assistant Program Director for Research

Dr. Grable works on the Hospitalist service half time and serves as a preceptor in the resident clinic while maintaining a small private practice. His research interests include tobacco cessation treatments.  He directs the Rochester Model inpatient tobacco treatment program.

He is an assistant program director for research activities and organizes scholarly activities such as Resident Poster Day and is the Research Track director.

Mahala Schlagman, MD
Assistant Program Director for Health Equity

Dr. Mahala Schlagman is the Assistant Program Director for Health Equity, overseeing residency education on the social determinants of health as well as their impact on individual patient and community health.  As a primary care doctor she serves her own patient panel and precepts residents in continuity practice. She has a particular interest in care for patients with complex medical, social and psychiatric needs.

In addition, she acts as the Medical Director of a Medical Legal Partnership that provides free civil legal serves to patients at Strong Internal Medicine. Dr. Schlagman trained at Barnard College in English Literature and at Weill Cornell Medicine. She completed her residency at the University of Rochester in Internal Medicine. Outside the hospital Dr. Schlagman enjoys canoeing, hiking, and spending time with her children.

Jessica Stern, MD, MS
Assistant Program Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Dr. Stern is an Assistant Program Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the Internal Medicine Residency Program. She is an Associate Professor in the Divisions of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, and Allergy, Immunology, and Rheumatology in the Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics.  She graduated from Bowdoin College and received her medical degree from The University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, where she stayed to complete her combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics residency training, Allergy and Immunology Fellowship, as well as a Master’s Degree in Clinical Investigation. Her research interests include the intersection of public health and allergic disease, including the use of implementation science to improve equity in allergic disease. Her career goals are to center justice and equity as well as to reduce health care disparities in asthma and allergic disease by integrating systems that address co-morbid allergic conditions, environmental triggers, and social determinants of health. Her outside interests include traveling, spending time with her family, and exploring new nature trails.

Meghan Train, DO
Associate Professor of Medicine
Assistant Program Director of Quality Improvement for the Internal Medicine Residency

Dr. Train is the Assistant Program Director of Quality Improvement and Patient Safety for the Internal Medicine Residency.  She completed Med-Peds Residency at the University of Rochester in 2014 and has since been working as an Academic Hospitalist as well as a Clinic Preceptor in the Internal Medicine Ambulatory Care Clinic.

Dr. Train’s academic interests include medical education, quality improvement and high value care.  She serves as Medical Director for the 6-1400 inpatient unit and is Assistant Director of Meliora in Medicine in the School of Medicine. Her outside interests include spending time with her family, dog and remaining active outdoors.