New faculty join UMMC academic ranks
Medical Center leadership is proud to announce the following additions to its faculty and leadership staff.
Dr. Kholoud Y. Altarazi
Dr. Kholoud Y. Altarazi, who recently completed an adult epilepsy fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of neurology in the School of Medicine.
Board-certified in adult neurology as of 2024, she earned her medical degree in 2011 from the Jordan University of Science and Technology, School of Medicine in Jordan, where she completed her adult neurology residency, earning the Jordanian Board in Neurology, before pursuing her training in the United States. She completed a neurology residency at CHI Health, Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska.
She has been recognized for excellence with multiple honors including the American Epilepsy Society Fellow Award and the Creighton Resident Teaching Award. She is an active member of the American Epilepsy Society and the American Academy of Neurology.
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Dr. John F. Tu
Dr. John F. Tu, recently the associate chief medical informatics officer-clinical decision support, data and analytics at Corewell Health in Michigan, has joined the Medical Center faculty as chief medical information officer and associate professor of medicine in the School of Medicine.
Board-certified in preventive medicine-clinical informatics and in internal medicine, Tu earned his medical degree from the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago and completed his internal medicine residency at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois. He completed an informatics fellowship sponsored by the National Library of Medicine under the Harvard University/MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Tu has also served as a clinical assistant professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine; director of the Electronic Health Record Systems at Loyola University Health System; clinical assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine in Rochester, Michigan; and, at Corewell Health (formerly Beaumont Health), as vice president and chief medical informatics officer, and physician executive, innovation and analytics informatics.
As a physician in Illinois and Michigan, he accumulated nearly three decades of clinical informatics experience. As a researcher, he has made a number of scientific presentations.
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Dr. James W. Woodall Jr.
Dr. James W. Woodall Jr., recently a spine surgeon with Mississippi Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center in Jackson for more than 10 years, has joined the Medical Center faculty as an assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery in the School of Medicine.
A board-certified orthopaedic spine surgeon, Woodall received his medical degree in 2006 from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, then earned his PhD at the University of Mississippi. He completed his orthopaedic surgery residency at UMMC in 2013 and subsequently served as a clinical instructor of spine surgery at Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, California.
Woodall has an extensive record of community and professional leadership. He has a number of invited lectures and panel service to his credit. As a researcher, he is the co-author of about two dozen professional publications and has contributed to scientific investigations at a variety of institutions, among them UMMC; McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario; Wake Forest Department of Orthopaedic Surgery in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; and the Medical College of Georgia.
A fellow of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Woodall is also a member of AO Spine, the Society of Lateral Access Surgery (SOLAS), the North American Spine Society and the Mississippi Orthopaedic Society. Through his involvement with these societies, his subspecialized training and focused practice experience, he offers patients expertise in advanced minimally invasive spine surgical techniques.