Letter from our Chair
Dear DFMPHS Community,
I hope everyone is enjoying the summer! It has been an exciting few months for DFMPHS, with many accomplishments worth celebrating across our faculty, residents, students, and staff.
A major highlight was our 10th Annual DFMPHS Research Day, held April 16 at IBIO. This milestone reflected the tremendous growth of our research enterprise over the past decade. With record attendance and approximately 30 research and quality improvement projects, the event showcased the breadth of scholarship across clinical care, public health, and community health. Congratulations to our oral presentation award recipients—Dr. Samar Haroun, Emily Yao, and Keele Thomas—and many thanks to our keynote speaker, Dr. Herbert Smitherman, for his inspiring and thought-provoking address.
We were also proud to participate in the Michigan Family Medicine Research Day, where Dr. Yousif Slim received a Best Resident Oral Presentation Award for Improving Approaches to Diagnosing and Treating ADHD. Congratulations, Yousif!
Our educational excellence was further recognized with Dr. Eleanor King, Program Director of the Wayne State Family Medicine Residency Program, receiving the 2026 Michigan Family Medicine Educator of the Year Award from the Michigan Academy of Family Physicians. This well-deserved honor recognizes her outstanding commitment to resident education, mentorship, and community-engaged primary care. We are very proud of her achievement.
This past year has also been an important period of strategic renewal for DFMPHS. Through our rebranding and strategic planning initiative, we have refined our mission, vision, and core values and identified bold priorities for the next three to five years. Faculty working groups are now developing concrete actions to move these priorities forward.
DFMPHS is also pleased to announce the establishment of the Sushma Sadasivan, M.D. Family Medicine Expendable Scholarship, made possible through a generous commitment from Dr. Sushma Sadasivan, which will support a graduating medical student who has matched into Family Medicine and is in good academic standing, with preference given to eligible students who graduated from a high school within the Detroit Public Schools Community District or its predecessor or successor district.
On a personal note, I am grateful to have completed the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine® (ELAM) Fellowship this spring. The experience strengthened my leadership skills and, equally importantly, connected me with an inspiring community of leaders in academic medicine across North America. I look forward to applying these lessons as we continue to build the future of our department together.
As we look ahead to the new academic year, we remain focused on strengthening our educational programs, advancing impactful research, and improving the health of the patients and communities we serve.
Wishing everyone a wonderful and restful remainder of the summer. I look forward to an exciting year ahead!
Warm regards,
Warm regards, Jinping Xu, MD, MS
Professor and Chair, Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences