Program Directors

Alexandra Mieczkowski, MD, MS

Program Director, UPMC Internal Medicine/Pediatrics Residency Training Program
Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics

Dr. Mieczkowski is a 2013 graduate of the UPMC Med-Peds Residency Program. She completed her general academic fellowship in Med-Peds earning her Masters of Science in Medical Education in 2015. Her scholarly work focuses in the area of resident autonomy and resident financial literacy. She became associate program director in 2016 and also served as medical director of the Turtle Creek Clinic during that time. Dr. Mieczkowski became a program director in 2020.

Allie Dakroub, MD, MS

Associate Program Director for Ambulatory Education
Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics

Dr. Allie Dakroub is a graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School (Class of 2011 — Go Blue!!) and completed his Internal Medicine and Pediatrics residency at Wayne State University/Detroit Medical Center (WSU/DMC Class of 2017).  Dr. Dakroub served on faculty at WSU/DMC for the 2017-2018 academic year and was awarded the Paul E. Ruble faculty teaching award for excellence in resident education in 2018.  He earned his Master of Science in Medical Education in 2020, while completing the Academic Clinician Educator Scholars Fellowship on the Med-Peds track at the University of Pittsburgh from 2018-2020.  He is currently an Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh and serves as the Associate Program Director for Ambulatory Education for the Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Residency Program.  His clinical and academic interests include primary care, survivorship and late effects, and innovation in educational methods, namely, gamification of medical curriculum.  He currently serves as the mentor/advisor for the resident-led Med-Peds Journal Club, directs the Med-Peds resident ambulatory rotation, co-directs the Introduction to Physical Exam course for the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and is involved with multiple other domains of education within the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center/School of Medicine.

John Szymusiak, MD, MS

Assistant Program Director
Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics

Dr. John Szymusiak is a Med-Peds hospitalist, and an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics. Dr. Szymusiak is a graduate of the combined residency in Internal Medicine-Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh, where he served as the chief resident during his fourth year. He stayed in Pittsburgh and completed the Academic Clinician Educators Fellowship, through which he received a Master’s in Medical Education from the University of Pittsburgh. Following completion of his fellowship, he became the first Med Peds hospitalist in the UPMC system.

His academic interests are in patient safety, QI, and medical education and he is also the Director for the Pediatrics Clerkship at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the Associate Vice Chair for Undergraduate Medical Education in the Department of Pediatrics. As a faculty member, Dr. Szymusiak has received awards recognizing his teaching at both the residency and medical student level as well as the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine’s Outstanding Early Career Educator award in 2021.

Program Leadership

Andrew J. Nowalk, MD, PhD

Co-Program Director, Pediatric Residency Program at Children’s Hospital
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics

Dr. Nowalk is a graduate of Georgetown University with a degree in Chemistry and MD/PhD studies at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He graduated from Pitt in 1999, and then completed residency training in pediatrics in 2002 followed by a chief resident year in 2002-2003. He completed fellowship training in Pediatric Infectious Diseases in 2005 and joined the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC. During his fellowship and as an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in our Division of Infectious Diseases, he has carried out NIH-supported basic and clinical research on the diagnosis and pathogenesis of Lyme disease. In addition to his clinical and research activities, he is a member of the CHP IT Physician Advisory Group, Vice-President of the Children’s Hospital Medical Staff and an Advisory Dean for the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He had been involved with the residency program in a variety of ways, including coordination of the Subspecialty Pathway and chair of the Clinical Competency Committee from 2012-2014. He now serves as Co-Program Director of the Pediatric Residency Program.

Katherine Watson, DO

Co-Program Director, Pediatric Residency Program at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics

Dr. Kate Watson serves as the Co-Program Director of the pediatric residency training program at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and leads the pediatric primary care education programs for the residents.  She has been excited to lead projects to increase primary care education and community health in the residency training program including an innovative curriculum for first year pediatric residents focusing on social determinants of health, impacts on child health and community engagement.

Dr. Watson is also a practicing general pediatrician in the Division of General Academic Pediatrics (GAP) at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.  As an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Dr. Watson is a strong advocate for child wellbeing both in and outside the office setting.  She has focused her academic work on addressing childhood obesity, especially in highest risk populations.  In the clinic, she works with families to prevent and manage obesity by promoting breastfeeding, training residents to counsel effectively about health behaviors, and spearheading clinical food insecurity projects.

Jennifer Corbelli, MD, MS

Program Director, Internal Medicine Residency Program
Vice Chair for Education, Department of Medicine
Assistant Professor of Medicine

Jennifer Corbelli MD, MS, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine, clinician-educator in the Division of General Internal Medicine and the program director of the internal medicine residency. She is fellowship trained in both women’s health and medical education and has extensive teaching experience at both the national and local level. Her academic interests include curricular development and systematic review, and she co-directs a master’s level course entitled “Introduction to Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” She practices primary care medicine at UPMC Montefiore Hospital, with a particular focus on women’s health, and she regularly attends on the hospital service at UPMC Montefiore. Dr. Corbelli also has a special interest in care for the underserved.

Jane Liebschutz, MD, MPH, FACP

Chief, Division of General Internal Medicine
UPMC Endowed Chair of Translational Medicine and Research
Director, Center for Research on Health Care

Dr. Liebschutz’s research is focused on developing interventions to combat the current crisis in opioid use disorders. More broadly her research focuses on substance use, violence, and mental health within the practice of general medical care. Earlier in her career, she studied violence and its health impacts—knowledge that she uses in her current work on substance abuse disorders. Dr. Liebschutz has conducted numerous observation and intervention studies, including research on opioid prescribing for chronic pain in primary care. She has also directed randomized trials to study the treatment of opioid and injection drug use disorders in hospitalized patients. Dr. Liebschutz has a sustained history of funding, including current R01 funding to study “Implementing opioid risk reduction strategies into primary care practice.”

Her research has been supported by the NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse, Health Resources and Services Administration, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the American Cancer Society, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research. She has been a frequent speaker at national and international conferences held by, among others, the Society of General Internal Medicine, the American College of Physicians, the College on Problems of Drug Dependency, and the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network. Her topics have ranged from intimate partner violence and chronic pain management to work-life integration.

Internal Medicine Residency Program

UPMC Montefiore, N-715
200 Lothrop Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
Phone: 412-692-4942
Fax: 412-692-4944
Email

Medicine/Pediatrics
Residency Program

NRMP CODE:  1652700C0

For more information on the program, contact:
Tiffany Thomas, Coordinator
dixont2@upmc.edu
412-692-4945

Mailing Address

Department of Pediatrics
1 Children's Hospital Drive
4401 Penn Avenue
AOB Suite 5400
Pittsburgh, PA 15224

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