Cancer expert, anesthesiologist, neuroradiology fellow, emergency med resident join faculty

Medical Center leadership is proud to announce the following additions to its faculty and leadership staff.

Sam H. Baird, M.D.

Dr. Sam H. Baird, a recent neuroradiology fellow at George Washington University Hospital who has vast experience as a radiology academician, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of radiology.

After receiving his B.A. from Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas, in 1966, Baird earned his M.D. at the University of Texas Medical School, San Antonio, in 1970. After a rotating internship year at Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, he was a resident in adult psychiatry from 1971-73, followed a child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship from 1973-75 at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Ohio.

He served as a clinical instructor in the Department of Psychiatry in Cincinnati from 1975-83, followed by a diagnostic radiology residency from 1983-86 at the Mt. Sinai Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio. He then had a body imaging fellowship at M.D. Anderson Hospital, Houston, Texas, from 1986-87; a neuroradiology fellowship at Hermann Hospital, UT Medical School. Houston, from 1987-88; and a neuroradiology fellowship at Methodist Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, from 1988-89.

Baird served as an assistant professor of radiology at the Baylor College of Medicine from 1991-2009 and as an assistant professor of radiology at the University of Oklahoma from 2010-14. He retired from radiology practice in 2014, attended graduate school and pursued other interests, then had the neuroradiology fellowship at George Washington University Hospital, Washington, D.C., from 2017-18.

Sebastian John Jacobi, D.O.

Dr. Sebastian John Jacobi, recently an emergency medicine resident at UMMC, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of emergency medicine.

After receiving his B.S. in physiology with honors from Michigan State University Honors College in 2009, Jacobi earned his D.O. at the Western University of Health Sciences in 2014. He was an emergency medicine resident at UMMC from 2014-18.

An Army reservist with the 933rd Forward Surgical Team from 2009-14, he has been a physician with the Mississippi Army National Guard since 2014. He was deployed to Kuwait in support of Operation Spartan Shield in 2018.

Jacobi has served as a staff emergency physician at Anderson Regional Medical Center and at UMMC Grenada. He is an active member of the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American Academy of Emergency Medicine and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

Nita J. Maihle, Ph.D.

Dr. Nita J. Maihle, dean of the National Ovarian Cancer Academy and professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, obstetrics and gynecology, pathology, and graduate studies at Augusta University, has joined the Medical Center faculty as a professor of medicine, professor of cell biology and UMMC Cancer Institute associate director for basic research.

After receiving her B.A. and M.S. in botany from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, Maihle earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in biomedical sciences at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York. She completed postdoctoral fellowships in molecular biology/retrovirology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and National Cancer Institute, Frederick, Maryland and in tumor virology/tumor biology at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio. She also received an honorary M.A. from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

A member of the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center from 1989-2003, Maihle served as program director of its Growth Factors and Cancer Program and as associate director for basic research. She also served as a professor and consultant for the Mayo Clinic/Foundation Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and as founding director of Mayo’s Department of Defense and National Cancer Institute-funded training program in tumor biology. A member of the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center from 2003-13, Maihle served as a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences, professor of pathology and professor of pharmacology for the Yale University School of Medicine, where she also was director of the Female Reproductive Tract Cancers Program.

Founding director of the Racial Disparities of Cancer Post-Baccalaureate Training Program, she moved to Augusta University in 2013 to become program director of its Biochemistry and Cancer Biology Ph.D. Training Program, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, professor of obstetrics and gynecology, professor of pathology, professor of graduate studies, and associate center director (education) of the Georgia Cancer Center. In 2015 she became dean of the DOD-sponsored National Ovarian Cancer Academy.

A member of a host of professional organizations, Maihle has held numerous leadership positions at the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Department of Defense, Food and Drug Administration, Veterans Affairs, and has held board appointments at the Van Andel Research Institute as well as at various biotechnology start-up companies. She has obtained more than $22 million in direct funding for cancer research projects. The holder of no fewer than 10 patents, Maihle is a much sought-after public speaker: She has given more than 100 invited presentations at scientific meetings nationally and has authored or coauthored more than 135 articles in peer-reviewed publications.

Her research interests include detection, prevention and treatment of cancer with an emphasis on women’s cancers; precision medicine: coupling diagnostics and biotherapeutics in human disease by targeting rational molecular pathways; and the use of receptor biology to improve diagnostics and biotherapeutics in cancer and other diseases, among other research interests.

Prabhat Mishra, M.D.

Dr. Prabhat Mishra, a pediatric, cardiac, regional, obstetric and general anesthesia practitioner at Team Health Anesthesia, Naples, Florida, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of anesthesiology.

After receiving his B.S. in biology and in biological anthropology from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, in 2008, Mishra earned his M.D. at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Florida, in 2012. He had an anesthesiology residency from 2012-16 and a pediatric anesthesiology fellowship from 2016-17 at Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri.

Mishra served as a pediatric, cardiac, regional, obstetric and general anesthesia practitioner, first at U.S. Anesthesia Partners, Fort Myers, from 2017-18, then at Team Health Anesthesia. The author or coauthor of six presentations at scientific meetings, he is a diplomate of the American Board of Anesthesiology and an active member of the American Society of Anesthesiology and the Society of Pediatric Anesthesia.