Faculty

Tamsen Bassford, M.D.
Dr. Bassford is the Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine.  She graduated from the University of Southern California with her medical degree, followed by her Family Practice Residency at the Arizona Health Sciences Center of The University of Arizona.  She is an Associate Professor of Clinical Family Medicine and Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology.  She was previously the Associate Dean for Student Affairs in the College of Medicine and one of the course directors for Social and Behavioral Science.
Dr. Bassford has been active in the area of cancer prevention and women's health and a Principal Investigator for the Arizona site of the Women's Health Initiative.  Dr. Bassford is also the Principal Investigator for a cancer prevention education in medical curriculum grant awarded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI).  She developed the Mensajeras de Salud Project, a lay health education project directed at breast and cervical cancer in Hispanic women, which has operated for ten years in Tucson.  She has served on the Mammography Advisory Panel of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, the FDA Mammography Advisory Committee, and the National Institute of Health (NIH) Consensus Panel on Osteoporosis.  She maintains her own practice at the UPHK Family Medicine Center and is excited about the addition and development of another outstanding residency program within her department.

ShirleyBlancas, M.D.
Dr. Blancas is a native of Southern California who attended medical school at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  She began her residency training at the Waukesha Family Practice Residency in Waukesha, WI, finishing residency at the St. Joseph Family Medicine Residency in Milwaukee.  Dr. Blancas chose to extend her residency training for family reasons; this also allowed her the time to serve as an outpatient physician for a small community clinic whose focus was the provision of primary care to (primarily) Latino patients of all ages.  Her favorite area of medicine is providing women's healthcare with a focus on maternal child health (MCH).  She enjoys many areas of medicine, including providing care to those with mental health issues and those with multiple chronic conditions.  She is bilingual in Spanish/English.  Dr. Blancas enjoys teaching residents and is looking forward to serving as one of our residency continuity clinic attendings, as well as MCH faculty. 

Peter Catinella, M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Catinella attended medical school at the University of Arizona College of Medicine Tucson, Arizona followed by residency at Banner (Good) Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix Arizona.  He completed a Faculty Development Fellowship with the University of Arizona's Department of Family & Community Medicine/College of Medicine, as well as a Master's of Public Health at the University of South Florida.  Dr. Catinella was previously the Program Director for the Department of Family Medicine Residency at Indiana University, as well as Associate Program Director at Tallahassee Memorial Regional Medical Center.  Just prior to his relocation to Tucson, he served as Vice Chairman of the University of Utah's Department of Family & Preventive Medicine, as well as Director of the Public Health Program at the University of Utah.  Dr. Catinella is now Vice Chairman of our Department of Family and Community Medicine, as well as Assistant Chief Medical Officer with University Physicians Healthcare.  His areas of interest include teaching residents about practice management, coding and organizational development and dynamics, as well as topics in the field of public health.  His prior experience with residency directorship has been influential in helping shape the vision and direction of our new program.

Julia Hardeman, M.D.
Dr. Hardeman completed her medical school training at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, followed by residency through the University of Iowa Department of Family Medicine Pella Rural Track Program.  Her rural health experiences have included the delivery of healthcare to patients in Iowa, Alaska and Nigeria.  Following residency, she relocated to a remote section of the Navajo Reservation in Northern Arizona where she provided primary care to patients with a variety of acute and chronic healthcare needs at the Inscription House Health Center.  In 2008, she and her family moved to Tucson where she is enjoying her role as faculty with the Family and Community Medicine Department.
Her particular areas of interest include outpatient based procedures in the area of dermatology and women's health including colposcopy; coding and practice management topics; pediatric well-child and acute care, and rural and international medicine.  She is currently the associate program director of the University of Arizona/UPHK GME Consortium Family Medicine Residency.

Paul Hicks, M.D.
Dr. Hicks completed medical school at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, followed by residency at the University of Arizona in the Department of Family and Community Medicine.
Following residency, he provided full-spectrum care to patients in a rural Community Health Center network in Colorado for 10 years.  This included high volume and high risk obstetrics, including caesarean sections in addition to hospital work and emergency room coverage.
Special interests include full-spectrum family medicine including obstetrics, hospitalist and intensive care work, hospital procedures, and practice based research.  His current research interest involves looking at health care disparities and the provision of medical care to the underserved.

Lane Johnson, M.D., M.P.H.
Dr. Johnson is a graduate of the University of Arizona College of Medicine where he was a founding member of the Commitment to Underserved People (CUP) Program.  He completed his residency in Family Medicine at the University of Arizona, followed by work as a campus health physician at the University of Michigan.  Dr. Johnson has served as physician and Medical Director for the United Community Health Center, a consortium of clinics in rural Southern Arizona, as well as for the Broadway Family Health Center in Tucson.  One of Dr. Johnson's many interests is medical care for the underserved, and he has provided volunteer physician services both for the Commitment to Underserved People (CUP) Clinic, as well as to the St. Elizabeth of Hungary clinic here in Tucson.
Dr. Johnson is currently the Director of the MD-MPH Dual Degree Program at the University of Arizona College of Medicine.  Areas of special interest and research include public health, clinical prevention, medical education, rural health, and alternative therapies.  His practice has included the use of herbal treatments and acupuncture.  He authored a book about herbs for clinicians in 2001, Pocket Guide to Herbal Remedies, and received a Health Education Multi-Media Yearly (HEMMY) award in 2005 for his work with herbs used by Hispanic women with diabetes.

Jim Kerwin, M.D.
Dr. Kerwin attended medical school at the University of Michigan before completing residency at the University of Arizona in the Department of Family and Community Medicine.
His special areas of interest include the care of adults with developmental disabilities.  Dr. Kerwin has been instrumental in the development of the Medical Home Project at the UPHK Family Medicine Center, designed to help adults with developmental disabilities find better access to needed healthcare services.  He is also passionate about teaching medical students from the University of Arizona and is looking forward to playing an active role in attending with the new Family Medicine Residency at UPHK.

Christine Kneisel, M.D.
Dr. Kneisel received her Bachelor of Science in Health Education from the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse.  She then worked for several years with the Department of Public Health with a focus on HIV/AIDS.  Public health related issues and topics related to care for the medically underserved continue to be areas of interest for her. 
She received her Medical Degree from the University of Arizona and completed her Family and Community Medicine.  Her current interests are hospital medicine with an emphasis on intensive care medicine and procedures, women's health, obstetrics, and acupuncture.

Marisa Menchola, Ph.D.
Dr. Menchola obtained a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Arizona, with an emphasis on Clinical Neuropsychology.  She completed a rotation in Behavioral Medicine at the U of A Family Medicine residency and a clinical internship at the U of A Department of Psychiatry, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship with the Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium.  Her clinical experience has focused on the neuropsychological assessment of individuals with neurological and other medical conditions, pre-surgical evaluations, and psychosocial interventions in medical settings.  Her research interests include the study of aging and neurodegenerative conditions with an emphasis on Latino elders, and the evaluation of educational programs for the public and medical residents.  Dr. Menchola is a native of Lima, Perú, and is particularly excited about being part of a program that is devoted to the care of culturally diverse and underserved populations. 

Victoria Murrain, D.O.
Dr. Murrain completed medical school in Pamona, California at the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific (Western University).  She completed a one year flexible internship at the Dallas Forth Worth Medical Center in Grand Prairie, Texas, followed by residency with the University of Arizona's Department of Family and Community Medicine.  She has completed a Faculty Development Fellowship through the University of Arizona's Department of FCM, as well as additional training through the National Institute for Program Director's Development.  Dr. Murrain has served as Medical Director of the Family and Community Medicine Clinic, as well as Program Director for the University of Arizona's Department of Family and Community Medicine Residency.  She is currently Assistant Dean of Graduate Medical Education for the University of Arizona, as well as Designated Institutional Official (DIO) for the University of Arizona/UPHK GME Consortium.
She enjoys maternal-child healthcare provision and works closely with the rural health obstetrical program, in conjunction with the mobile health clinic.  She is fluent in Spanish and enjoys advocating for the provision of healthcare to the underserved.  She has helped to establish the Homeless Teen Program here in Tucson.  She is looking forward to working with our residents as they begin working with the mobile health clinic as part of the new family medicine residency program.

Bethany Panchal, M.D.
Dr. Panchal attended medical school at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health and completed her Family Medicine Residency at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.  Prior to joining our faculty in 2009, she worked in Tucson in a private family medicine practice.  She now serves as an outpatient continuity clinic attending for the UA/UPHK Family Medicine Residency and maintains her own medical practice in the clinic, as well.  Her procedural skills include joint injections, dermatology procedures and those related to women's healthcare and care of the newborn, including colposcopy and circumcision.  She also enjoys serving as an attending for the Maternal Child Health Service within the Family and Community Medicine Department. 

Ron Pust, M.D.
Dr. Pust's 40-year career as a physician interfaces curriculum development with teaching, and field research with clinical practice among underserved populations. After 4 years with CDC's TB program (Navajo IHS and Nigeria) and 6 as a generalist in Papua New Guinea, he was board-certified in Preventive Medicine and in Family Practice. Joining FCM in 1979 as director of its new clerkship and CUP programs, he was Director of FCM Predoctoral Education Division from 1981-2009, when it was awarded over $4.5 million in federal family medicine grants. Remaining an active predoctoral faculty in the new ArizonaMed curriculum as a Society mentor and director of its unit on Border, Indigenous and Global (BIG) Medicine, he co-directs an annual course on clinical global health for residents and senior students. On a 2004-5 sabbatical, he was founding head of Family Medicine at Moi University in Kenya. His research deals with field assessment of lung disease, leprosy, and clinical care under resource constraints. Other publications concern medical education for careers in underserved regions.

Cecilia P. Urquides, M.D.
Dr. Urquides is a graduate of the University of Arizona College of Medicine in her hometown of Tucson, Arizona.  She completed her Family Medicine Residency and Faculty Development Fellowship through the University of Arizona's Department of Family and Community Medicine.  Her current interests include hospital medicine with an emphasis on intensive care medicine and procedures, caring and advocating for the underserved, and women's health.

Victor Weaver, M.D. (Residency Program Director)
Dr. Weaver graduated from medical school at the University of Florida, followed by family medicine residency at Louisiana State University in New Orleans.  He spent the next four years working in a rural community health center and emergency room practice before joining the faculty of the University of Arizona in 2006.  Dr. Weaver has completed the University of Arizona's Faculty Development Fellowship.  His clinical practice at the University of Arizona has included serving as a hospitalist and ICU attending as well as outpatient attending; he does additional clinical work for the University of Arizona Department of Emergency Medicine.  He is currently a Reynolds Scholar in Geriatrics.
A few of his many areas of teaching interest include critical care, emergency/trauma skills for family physicians, inpatient procedures, and use of simulation lab experiences in medical education.  Globally, he has been involved in clinical and teaching mission work in Haiti and South America, as well as healthcare provision on the US-Mexican border.