The UConn School of Medicine community gathered together on April 24 to celebrate the inaugural class of fourth-year medical students elected to its new Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society (AΩA) chapter. UConn faculty and medical residents also elected to join AΩA were honored.
As the 130th active chapter, UConn joins medical schools throughout the U.S. in the society recognizing and promoting the highest ideals of medicine. Member election to AΩA chapter is an honor that signifies excellence and commitment to scholarship, leadership, professionalism, and service.
The roots of UConn’s new Connecticut Beta chapter was first established in 2016. It is only the second chapter to be established in the state since Yale School of Medicine’s Alpha chapter was founded in 1920.
As an active AΩA chapter, each year UConn School of Medicine can nominate the top 25 percent of its medical school class to become members of the professional medical organization within their senior year. Of that 25 percent, up to 16 percent of the total medical school class may be elected into the society.
Elected members of the inaugural chapter class include:
Class of 2019 medical students
- Alexis Cordone
- Madeline Coulter
- Brett Diamond
- Jeremy Grenier
- Laura Hatchman
- Austen Katz
- Ardian Latifi
- Julianna Lau
- Rebecca Maher
- Lisa O’Donovan
- Roshni Patel
- Mary Soyster
- Ishan Tatake
- Kristin Torre
- Katelyn Wong
Residents
- Sarah Lopez, family medicine
- Christian Mosebach, internal medicine
- Prateek Shukla, primary care
- Jessica Tuan, internal medicine
Faculty
- Cato T. Laurencin, University Professor at UConn, the Albert and Wilda Van Dusen Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at UConn School of Medicine, and director of the Institute for Regenerative Engineering and The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Center for Biomedical, Biological, Physical, and Engineering Sciences at UConn Health
- Edwin L. Zalneraitis, professor of pediatrics and neurology and director of the pediatric residency program at UConn School of Medicine and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center
Alpha Omega Alpha was founded in 1902 by a small group of medical students led by William Webster Root at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Chicago. Its premier membership has included 57 Nobel Laureates, 11 Surgeons General of the U.S. and nearly seventy-five percent of deans of U.S. medical schools. Since its founding, AΩA has elected more than 185,000 members worldwide.
The mission of AΩA is dedicated to the belief that the profession of medicine will improve care for all patients by recognizing high educational achievement, honoring gifted teaching, encouraging the development of leaders in academia and the community, supporting the ideals of humanism and promoting service to others.