Alumni Spotlights
Alumni Spotlights
Michael Elnicki, MD, ’86M (Res)
Director of Medical Student Assessment
Professor, Department of Medicine
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
Michael Elnicki, MD, ’86M (Res)
These days, I am mostly in the dean’s office at the University of Pittsburgh. I direct the medical student assessments and international medical education projects. Pitt recently adopted a new curriculum (no lectures) with a new assessment system. One major international project that we just finished was to build a new medical school in Astana, Kazakhstan with a US-style curriculum. The school, Nazarbayev University School of Medicine, just received international accreditation. I still teach students, residents, and fellows, and I see primary care outpatients a few days weekly. I have been an editor at the Journal of General Internal Medicine since 2023.
As for memories from Rochester, there are many. Once it snowed three feet while I was on wards at Strong. I remember having to cross country ski to work for three days.
Now, I am living north of Pittsburgh in Wexford with my wife, Sandi, and two springer spaniels. Our two sons, Chris and Alex, are near Portland, WA and in Alexandria, VA. We also have a place in the mountains near Seven Springs Ski Resort, complete with a trout stream and plenty of deer.
Anna Feldweg, MD, ’97M (Res)
Director, Editorial Management
Deputy Editor, Allergy and Immunology
UpToDate
Anna Feldweg, MD, ’97M (Res)
After completing my residency, I started working as a primary care physician in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In my third year, I had a patient with exercise-induced anaphylaxis and consulted the Allergy/Immunology department at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston for help. This rekindled my interest in immunology, and the next year I left primary care to do a fellowship there. Five years later, I was recruited to UpToDate, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, to help add Allergy/Immunology content to the program. I have been with UpToDate for 19 years, spending most of my time reading, editing, consulting with expert authors, seeing patients in Boston one day a week, and eventually managing the 60-person team of physician editors.
My medical training at Strong provided a solid foundation on which to keep exploring medicine until I found my niche in education at UpToDate. I am grateful to be able to help physicians on the front lines of patient care access the information they need quickly, knowing how hard they work and how critical that work is. Somehow, I still identify as a primary care doctor in my own head, although I left that role years ago, perhaps because I call on my 'inner internist' to try to anticipate what information would be most useful. During the pandemic, I reconnected with my residency friends, several of whom are still practicing in Rochester, and I was once again reminded of what a sincere, caring, and talented group of people they are, and how much those characteristics were fostered by our time in the Strong program.
Gregg Kaupp, MD, ’02M (Res)
Pediatrician/Internist in private practice
Nashua, NH
Gregg Kaupp, MD, ’02M (Res)
I cannot say enough positive things about my time at the University of Rochester. It was immediately evident upon entering private practice that I had been trained extremely well. My wife, Cara Kaupp, MD, ’03M (Res) had the same experience, and we still feel the same way to this day.
After Cara and I finished residency, we moved to Bedford, NH. That year, I started a med-peds practice from the ground up with one partner. Nearly 22 years later, we are four med-peds and one NP Strong (pun intended!). We managed to create and maintain a 50/50 balance of pediatric and adult patients, which has been great. In 2007, our son Brendan was born, and a year later we traveled to China to adopt our identical twin girls, Ruby and Lucy who were 17 months old. While in China, I spent a few unexpected nights in the hospital for an appendectomy. Cara took care of the three one-year olds with help from fellow med-peds alum Jason Emmick, MD, ’01M (Res) who traveled with us as the group’s physician. Less than 2.5 years after Brendan was born, our second son Trevor came along, and our family was complete. When I am not at a gymnastics meet, hockey game, soccer game, or track meet, you will find me in the woods on my mountain bike.
Cara and I are forever grateful for our time in Rochester and all of the personal and professional connections we made there. I look forward to reconnecting with many fellow alumni at the reunion in 2026!
Laura Nicholson, MD, ’97M (Res)
Director, Education, Scripps Research Translational Institute
Professor of Translational Medicine, Scripps Research
San Diego, CA
Laura Nicholson, MD, ’97M (Res)
After residency, I accepted a position to start the hospitalist program at Stanford University Hospital, a role I planned as temporary while I decided between two different fellowship pursuits, infectious disease versus oncology. To my surprise, I enjoyed leading a new division and recruiting partner hospitalists, along with the exciting daily problem solving of the general inpatient wards. Stanford’s internal medicine residency journal club was not using the JAMA Users’ Guides (now JAMAevidence) approach, so I started an evidence-based medicine curriculum for their journal club and morning report, shortly after which I was offered the positions of Associate Program Director for Internal Medicine and Medical Director of the inpatient wards. I love the complementary professional roles—administrative leader, clinical research educator, and inpatient physician—and have continued this rewarding combination across my career, now at Scripps Clinic in San Diego.
My pathway to medicine was perhaps uncommon, based on fascination with all science that evolved to biology then physiology then biomedical discovery. This immersion made the transition to MD/PhD training easy, but the extension to patient care did not come naturally. URMC’s biopsychosocial approach provided context and a human connection for all I had learned, and the camaraderie of our residency class meant I looked forward to days full of patient care. The bedside presentations in front of patients, the teaching from our dedicated faculty, the emphasis on kindness and communication, and especially the superior medical knowledge and clinical care of my peers made me a much better physician and person. Now having taught at Stanford, University of California San Diego, and Scripps Clinic, I can say unequivocally that the University of Rochester program was the perfect setting for my maturation from biology student to career inpatient internist and clinician educator.
Charity Oyedeji, MD, ’17M (Res)
Assistant Professor, Division of Hematology
Duke University Medical Center
Durham, NC
Charity Oyedeji, MD, ’17M (Res)
Since graduating from the URMC med-peds program, I completed a hematology fellowship at Duke University and became an assistant professor in the Duke Division of Hematology. My expertise is in clinical research focused on improving care for older adults with sickle cell disease. I have currently received a K award from the NIH to fund this work. My husband, Vic, and I also had our first child this year named Melody.
URMC assisted me on my journey by providing a great training experience in a collegial environment. I learned essential skills to conduct evidence-based medicine and high quality community-based research through the CARE track. Faculty in the med-peds program also taught me foundational knowledge on how to care for kids and adults with sickle cell disease.
Rena Pine ’87M (MD), ’91M (Res)
Medical Director
St. Johns Home
Rochester, NY
Rena Pine ’87M (MD), ’91M (Res)
I am one of the many Rochester alumni who stayed in Rochester after training. It will be 30 years since my husband, Will, and I bought our 1830 farmhouse on 14 acres in Victor, New York. Will is retired and spends his time fly fishing or planning a fishing trip. Our daughter, Liza, is in the Netherlands working for a small investment company focused on global water sustainability. Our son Erik (MDPHD) will be starting his fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering, hoping to do pancreatic cancer research.
I am currently the medical director at St. John’s home, where I take care of residents in both subacute and long-term care. I continue to teach residents and medical students and most recently had a group of first year medical students for their geriatric rotation.
I left my primary care practice in 2011 after 20 wonderful years working with Joel Shamaskin, MD, ’84M (Res), ’85M (Flw) and also with Richard Schuster ’76M (MD), ’80M (Res) until he left in 1995. Joel and I joined UR in 1999 as one of their first primary care practices.
One memory of training in Rochester is my first rotation as a second-year resident being put in charge of the Rochester General Hospital Emergency Department with the third-year resident in house as my back up and caring for a woman with pasturella sepsis needing a lumbar puncture. Another memory is the ice storm in 1991 and walking to Genesee Hospital to see patients as the roads were not passable.