Cameron Regional Press Releases

CAMERON REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER ANNOUNCES  35th ANNUAL SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

On February 29, 2024, the Board of Directors of Cameron Regional Medical Center announced that funding for its 35^th Annual Health Care Scholarship Program had been approved. As a result, numerous scholar­ships totaling thousands of dollars will be made available to high school seniors residing in a five-county area.

Warren McElwain, CRMC Board President and Chairman of the CRMC Scholarship Committee, advised, “High school graduating seniors residing in Caldwell, Clinton, Daviess, DeKalb, and Harrison Counties will be eligible for this 35^th annual offering by the Medical Center. These awards carry a renewability feature, and as always, a special category for CRMC employees’ children is also included.”

Recipients of these CRMC scholarships must make a commitment to pursuing an acceptable health care field of study on a full-time basis beginning this fall. Final selection of scholarship winners will be based on such criteria as GPA, ACT score, need, goals, and school/community involvement. These scholarships for area high school seniors are renewable for an additional three years, provided the student maintains a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or greater, stays enrolled in an acceptable health care field of study, and conveys this information to CRMC by August 1 of each subsequent year.

CRMC Administrator, Joseph Abrutz, added, “Scholarships are not limited to just students planning to become physicians or nurses. Successful candidates may be pursuing a career in the Allied Health professions, including physical therapy, radiology, laboratory, or respiratory therapy.”

In addition to this high school scholarship program, CRMC now has two other separate scholarship programs in an effort to meet the needs of as many area students interested in health care as possible. A special scholarship program for second-year Allied Health students at North Central Missouri College in Trenton was started in 2014, and the CRMC Medical Staff initiated a scholarship program in 2017 for first-year medical school students from CRMC’s service area.

Scholarship applications are now available in the offices of all high school guidance counselors in Caldwell, Clinton, Daviess, DeKalb, and Harrison Counties and must be postmarked or delivered to CRMC no later than April 8, 2024. The application can also be found online at cameronregional.org/scholarships.

McElwain further noted, “Over the years, the Medical Center has received tremendous feedback with regard to our scholarship programs. There are many rewarding opportunities in health care, and we want to keep our area young people interested in furthering their education and in coming back to northwest Missouri to pursue their careers and goals.” 

For immediate release - 2/29/24            Contact: Carol Arthur, CRMC      816.649.3226 or carthur@cameronregional.org

CRMC serves as KUMC Urology Residency Training Site

Officials at Cameron Regional Medical Center (CRMC) have announced that, effective immediately, the Medical Center will begin serving as a training site for the K.U. Medical Center (KUMC) Department of Urology’s Residency Program. This action was approved by CRMC’s Active Medical Staff and Board of Directors in November 2013.

Moben Mirza, M.D., will serve as Training Site Director at CRMC for the new program. Dr. Mirza, Assistant Professor with KUMC, completed a fellowship in Urologic Oncology at the University of Kansas and completed his Urology Residency at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He provides Urology services, both outpatient clinic and surgical, one day per week at CRMC.

M. M. Amin, M.D., CRMC’s Chief of Staff, commented on the new Urology Residency program by stating, “The Active Staff physicians at CRMC feel extremely fortunate to have KUMC Urologists here twice a week. We are pleased they have chosen us as a training site for their outstanding Residency program.”

The goal of K.U.’s Department of Urology is to train Residents to become physicians proficient in both the surgical and non-surgical aspects of Urology via practice-based learning and by combining a well-rounded surgical experience with a solid clinic exposure that prepares Residents for complicated diagnostic problems encountered in actual practice.

While at CRMC, the Residents from KUMC will observe, participate and have mentored experience in urgent care Urology, clinic-based Urology, and both minor and major Urology procedures/cases.

Eugene Lee, M.D., and Priya Padmanabhan, M.D., join Dr. Mirza in providing Urology services at CRMC on a regular basis. Dr. Lee is at CRMC weekly and is an Assistant Professor of Urology at KUMC. After completion of his residency training at the University of Kansas, he completed a Urologic Oncology Fellowship at the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Dr. Padmanabhan, also an Assistant Professor, completed her Residency in Urology at the New York Medical Center and a Fellowship in female Urology and pelvic reconstruction in the Department of Urology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She comes to CRMC on a monthly basis.

Drs. Mirza, Lee, and Padmanabhan are members of Premier Specialty Network, a diverse network of highly-qualified specialists based out of Columbia, Missouri.

In regard to the expanded relationship with CRMC, Dr. Mirza stated, “I think this is an exciting opportunity for our Residents to learn in a unique community care setting. It will allow us to continue strengthening our relationship with CRMC and our patients.”

The Department of Urology at the University of Kansas accepts three Residents per year for a total training period of five years. Entrance into the Residency program is extremely competitive, as over 200 applications were received this year. KUMC has other training sites at the Kansas City VA Medical Center, Children’s Mercy Hospital, and Truman Medical Center.

Since the mid-to-late 1990s, CRMC has served as a training site for Orthopedic Surgeons, Inc.’s five-year Orthopedic Surgery Residency training program through St. Mary’s Medical Center. Several of the Orthopedic Surgeons who have received Residency training at CRMC have come back to the Medical Center to practice once their education and training have been completed, including Dr. Kevin Witte, Dr. Alan Cornett, and Dr. Michael Justice.

Joseph F. Abrutz, Jr., CRMC Administrator, advised that the staff at CRMC is excited about hosting KUMC’s Residency program in Urology. “We enjoy a wonderful working relationship with K.U. Medical Center and its exceptional Urology program. Dr. Mirza, Dr. Lee, and Dr. Padmanabhan are an essential part of our health care team, and this expansion in Urology services at CRMC is a perfect fit with our mission of continuously improving access to care for the residents of rural northwest Missouri.”

The University of Kansas Medical Center Department of Urology is the only medical center in the region offering specialists in every area of Urology. According to U.S. News and World Report 2012-2013, K.U. Medical Center was named Best Urology Care in Kansas City and the region