New faculty join UMMC academic ranks

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

Dr. Thy Huynh

Dr. Thy Huynh, a recent pediatric dermatology clinical fellow from Harvard Medical School/Boston Children’s Hospital, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of dermatology and of pediatrics.

Huynh earned her medical degree at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine in 2014. She completed a pediatrics internship at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, a clinical trials fellowship at Northwestern University and Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and a dermatology residency at UMMC, where she served as chief resident of research and surgery, before her fellowship at Boston Children’s.

Huynh is serving as the lead physician of pediatric dermatology and director of the clinical trials unit in dermatology at UMMC. She has been the author or co-author of more than 50 publications, and has given numerous oral presentations, including those at the World Congress of Pediatric Dermatology and the Society of Pediatric Dermatology.

She is an active member of the American Academy of Dermatology; UMMC Cancer Center and Research Institute; Society of Pediatric Dermatology; Women's Dermatologic Society, serving on its Council of Community Service and Education; and Pediatric Dermatology Research Alliance.

Dr. Kevin M. Mays II

Dr. Kevin M. Mays II, who recently completed his ophthalmology residency at UMMC, has joined the Medical Center faculty as assistant professor of ophthalmology.

Mays earned his medical degree at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Columbia in 2017 before completing an internship in internal medicine at UMMC in 2018, the year he began his ophthalmology residency.

Before pursuing his medical degree, he worked as a product research and development chemist; a pre-med tutor; an instructor for the Student Educational Enrichment Program for Georgia Regents University/Medical College of Georgia, which provides access to exam prep materials and courses to economically disadvantaged or underrepresented minority students; and certified academic instructor, tutor, mentor and teaching assistant for pre-professional exams, including the MCAT.

Mays is a member of several professional organizations, including the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Alpha Omega Alpha.

His hobbies include automotive repair and maintenance, woodworking and electrical engineering.

Dr. Yoshitsugu Obi

Dr. Yoshitsugu Obi, recently a nephrology fellow at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of medicine, nephrology.

Obi earned his medical degree in 2004 from the Faculty of Medicine campus at the University of Yamanashi in Yamanashi, Japan, before completing his PhD in 2013 at Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine in Osaka, Japan.

He has also done fellowships at Yokota Base Hospital in Tokyo; in geriatric medicine and nephrology at Osaka University; and in nephrology and hypertension at Rinku General Medical Center in Osaka.

Obi was an assistant adjunct professor in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine. He has been the principal author or co-author for scores of peer-reviewed publications and is a member of more than a dozen professional organizations. He is a board member of the Renal Replacement Therapy, the official journal of the Japanese Society for Dialysis Therapy.