Dr. Curtis J. FitzSimmons Summer ID Research Fellowship
Curtis J. FitzSimmons passed away on December 29, 2017, at the age of 50. He was born on March 4, 1967, in Evanston, Illinois, to Bob and Jan FitzSimmons. He graduated from Lincoln East High School in 1985 and went on to earn a BA in biology at The University of Kansas in 1989. He earned his MD in 1993 from KU Medical Center, where he later completed his internship and residency in internal medicine and his fellowship in infectious disease.
Dr. FitzSimmons became a board-certified infectious disease physician, becoming a partner at Plaza Infectious Disease. He was also a clinical assistant professor of medicine at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine. In addition, he was a staff physician at St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City.
He married his wife, Laura, on August 13, 1994, and they raised three children together: Brian, Connor, and Nolan.
Dr. FitzSimmons was a member of the Kansas Medical Society, American College of Physicians, Infectious Diseases Society of America, and KC Infectious Disease Society, where he served as president. He received special certification as a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and Infectious Disease in 1996, 2006, and 2016.
The FitzSimmons Family established this award to encourage medical students between their first and second years of medical school to engage in impactful research and expose them to the fascinating field of infectious diseases.
How to Apply
Interested students should email Dr. Nathan Bahr by January for the upcoming summer. Awardees are selected by the ID division. This is a monetary award—past winners have received $5,000—and awardees will also be able to apply for credit through the medical school. The KU Medical Center Summer Research Program Flow Chart explains the credit application process.
Each awardee will work directly with an ID faculty member on a research project related to infectious diseases for the summer. The exact project will be mutually agreed upon by the awardee and faculty member.
Past Awardees
| Year | Fellow | Topic(s) | Mentor |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Paul Amstutz | Pneumocystis jiroveci and COVID-19 and Potential conflict of interest in the evidence informing IDSA guidelines |
Dr. Nathan Bahr |
| 2022 | Molly Gillcrist | Affect of immune suppressing dose adjustment on outcomes of patients with solid organ transplant and COVID-19 | Dr. Albert Eid |
| 2021 | Sam Sosland | Diagnostic delay and histoplasmosis | Dr. Nathan Bahr |
| 2020 | Alexandra Buller | Systematic review and meta-analysis of AFB smear for the diagnosis of TB meningitis | Dr. Nathan Bahr |