Meet Tom Hartka, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at UVA School of Medicine.<\/p>\n
This post is part of a series of interviews with new and junior faculty. Stay tuned for more interviews with your colleagues!<\/p>\n
Q: How long have you been at UVA and where were you before you came to UVA?<\/p>\n
It is hard for me to believe, but I have been at UVA for over a decade.\u00a0\u00a0I initially came to UVA for medical school in 2006 and stayed on for residency in Emergency Medicine.\u00a0\u00a0I then completed a fellowship in trauma research after residency.\u00a0\u00a0In 2014, I was hired as a faculty member in Emergency Medicine.<\/p>\n
I actually went to Virginia Tech for undergraduate and graduate school in computer engineering.\u00a0\u00a0When I decided to pursue medicine, I attended a post-baccalaureate pre-med program at Johns Hopkins.\u00a0\u00a0I am a Cavalier sports fan until they play Virginia Tech.\u00a0\u00a0For those rivalry games, I still get out my orange and maroon gear.<\/p>\n
Q: Is there something that you\u2019ve worked on or accomplished in your career that you\u2019re particularly proud of or glad you were able to experience?<\/p>\n
A fairly recent accomplishment was being part of two teams that were selected as Crash Injury Research in Engineering Network (CIREN) centers.\u00a0\u00a0This project is funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and CIREN engages doctors and engineers to investigate real-world motor vehicle collisions (they are \u201ccollisions,\u201d there is no such thing as an \u201caccident\u201d).\u00a0\u00a0We were awarded a $4.7 million contract for the next five years to set up an engineering center and a medical center.\u00a0\u00a0The medical center is actually a collaboration between UVA and Inova-Fairfax to enroll patients who present with injuries due to a MVC.\u00a0\u00a0The engineering centers reconstruct the kinematics of the occupants during the collision and determine which component of the vehicle caused each injury.\u00a0\u00a0I am fortunate to be a co-investigator for both a CIREN medical center and a CIREN engineering center.<\/p>\n
Q: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?<\/p>\n
I was certain that I would grow up to be some sort of engineer.\u00a0\u00a0My family is all engineers: my father and my sister are both electrical engineers and my uncles worked in mechanical engineering.\u00a0\u00a0I initially trained in computer engineering, but at some point, I realized that I would go a little stir-crazy sitting in a cubicle all day. I eventually ended up in Emergency Medicine, so I am now kind of the black sheep of the family.<\/p>\n
Q: A favorite spot to grab lunch during the day?<\/p>\n
Roots is\u00a0a\u00a0favorite spot to grab a lunch.\u00a0\u00a0As long the weather is nice enough to stand outside, since the line is always out the door.<\/p>\n
Q: Do you have any children or fur babies at home?<\/p>\n
No children or fur babies\u2026I guess they could be called feather babies.\u00a0\u00a0My wife and I have a small flock of chickens (who are all named and part of the family).\u00a0\u00a0One of the things I love about Charlottesville is that I can tell people I own chickens and they don\u2019t think it is that strange.<\/p>\n
Q: Do you have a favorite local restaurant or hangout spot?<\/p>\n
The Afghan Kabob Palace is probably my favorite restaurants.\u00a0\u00a0It is not a flashy restaurant, but the food is amazing.\u00a0\u00a0As for hangout spots, you can usually find my teammates and me at the Livery Stable on Monday nights after our curling match (yes, that ridiculous sport in the winter Olympics).\u00a0\u00a0The Main Street Arena has a curling league and we have been participating for the last 3-4 years.\u00a0\u00a0The upcoming season will probably be our last as the arena will be no more.<\/p>\n
Q: Anything else you’d like to add?<\/p>\n
Another interesting thing about me is that I have become a patron of the ballet. My wife is not in the medical field – she actually founded a ballet company here in town after dancing professionally.\u00a0 She came to UVA for college, which is where I met her.\u00a0\u00a0She co-founded the Charlottesville Ballet while she was still getting her degree.\u00a0\u00a0The Charlottesville Ballet now has a school with over 550 students and the professional company is celebrating its 10th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary season.\u00a0\u00a0Over the years, I\u2019ve volunteered my carpentry skills to build set pieces small and large \u2013 you can even see some of my non-medical work on stage in\u00a0The Nutcracker\u00a0<\/em>each year!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meet Tom Hartka, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at UVA School of Medicine. This post is part of a series of interviews with new and junior faculty. Stay tuned for more interviews with your colleagues! Q: How long have you been at UVA and where were you before you came to UVA? It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1462,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12,5,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty-interviews","category-interviews","category-junior-faculty-interviews"],"acf":false,"yoast_head":"\n