The People Behind the Jackson Field Center
We are proud of our experienced professional staff and would like to introduce them to you.

Annual Follow Up
The Annual Follow Up (AFU) staff are the people who call every year to ask about the health of the ARIC participants over the previous year.

Ms. Barbara Davis is the AFU supervisor. She has been with ARIC since the beginning--18 years. Ms. Davis has a BS from Mississippi College and several hours toward a Master's Degree. She came to ARIC with many years of interview experience, working with
several major universities around the country as well as national survey organizations, such as Louis Harris.

Ms. Mattye Watson is an AFU caller. She has been with the ARIC study for 17 years. Ms. Watson started out doing home interviews with participants before joining the AFU staff. Ms. Watson has a BA from Tougaloo College and a Master's Degree from Jackson State University.

Ms. Dorothy Washington is an AFU caller and has been with ARIC for 14 years. She started out doing home interviews prior to joining the AFU staff. Ms. Washington has a BA from Jackson State University.

Community Surveillance
The Community Surveillance staff obtain and review records to determine the occurrence of heart attacks and deaths related to heart disease in ARIC participants and the within the Jackson community.

Ms. Diana Speed is the Surveillance supervisor and reviews medical records for hospitalized hearts attacks and in-hospital deaths related to heart disease. Ms. Speed has worked with the ARIC study for three years. She has a BS in Medical Record Administration and several years of experience in abstracting in such positions as inpatient coding, quality assurance, cancer registry research, and utilization review.

Ms. Tammy Coker obtains and reviews records and performs family interviews for deaths in the Jackson community that occur out of the hospital. She has worked with the ARIC study for 3 years. Ms. Coker is certified in medical records abstraction and has a BS in Clinical Psychology.

A Brief History of the Jackson Field Center

The vision for the Jackson Field Center began in 1985 with Dr. Richard Hutchinson and Dr. Robert Watson. Dr. Hutchinson (Principal Investigator) and Dr. Watson (Co-Principal Investigator) developed the competitive research proposal that resulted in the ARIC Field Center being established in Jackson at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). After leading the study for over 12 years, Dr. Hutchinson is now a Professor Emeritus. He continues to consult on ARIC and related studies at UMMC. Dr. Watson has retired, and works on his farm in the country outside of Jackson.

Dr. Dan Jones led the study from 1997 to 2000. Dr. Jones is now the Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Dean of the School of Medicine at UMMC. Dr. Andrew Brown led the study from 2000 to 2003. Dr. Brown continues as the Chief of Internal Medicine at UMMC, and is pursuing research interests in the prevention of medical errors. Dr. Thomas Mosley assumed leadership of the Jackson Field Center in 2003. Dr. Mosley first began working with ARIC in 1993 under the mentorship of Dr. Hutchinson. Dr. Mosley is the Associate Director of Geriatric Medicine at UMMC.

Over the 18 year history of the Jackson Field Center, a number of staff and investigators have worked with ARIC and made an important contribution to the overall success of the study. With warm memories of each, we thank them for the hard work and fun times. We have put together a list of those that have played (or still play) an important part of the Jackson Field Center.

Investigators:
Mike Andrew, David Conwill, Marsha Eigenbrodt, David Gordon, Gene Hutchenson, Sehadri Raju, Frank Raila, William Russell, Thomas Skelton, Clinton Smith, Robert Smith, Jessie Spencer, Narain Srivastava, and Chris Waterer.

Study Coordinator: Jane Johnson.

Secretaries: Starlee Hays, Connie Myers, and Dorothy Rowan.

Clinic Staff: Bobbie Alliston, Brenda Asken, Royanne Barry, Faye Blackburn, Catherine Britt, Dorothy Hawthorne, Agnes Hayes, Sharda Iyer, Patricia Martin, Kathy McCormick, Evelyn McCree, Virginia Overman, Lisa Sields, Cecile Sneel, Rajam Radhakrishnan, Cora Walls, Brenda Watson, and Nancy Wilson.

Annual Follow Up Staff: Barbara Davis, Doris Pitts, Liza Sullivan, Joseph Summerville, Dorothy Washington, and Mattye Watson.

Surveillance Staff: Tammy Coker, Rene Killebrew, Penny Lowery, Stephanie Parker, Diana Speed, and Betty Warren.

Recruiters:
Clara Bowman, Janet Cleveland, Rose Franklin, Annette Jennings, Doris Pitts, Gloria Shelton, Dorothy Washington, and Mattye Watson.

The University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi

The city of Jackson (http://www.visitjackson.com) is located 211 miles south of Memphis and 189 miles north of New Orleans. Jackson is the capital of the state of Mississippi and the state’s largest city with a metropolitan population of 495,000 of which approximately 200,000 reside within the city limits of Jackson.

The University of Mississippi Medical Center (http://www.umc.edu) occupies a 164-acre tract of land in the heart of Jackson, and consists of the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Dentistry, Health Related Professions, and a graduate degrees division. The total student body has 1,800 students of whom 378 are in the School of Medicine. The total employment of the medical center is 5,300, with 450 full-time faculty in the School of Medicine alone. Since 1997, several major construction projects totaling over $200 million have been completed.