Associate Professor of Internal Medicine Dana Kissner, M.D., was named the 2018 William Stead Tuberculosis Clinician of the Year at the National Tuberculosis Controllers Association annual conference, held May 21-24 in Palm Springs, Calif.

Dr. Kissner joined the Wayne State University School of Medicine faculty in 1985, and has managed the Detroit Tuberculosis Clinic since 2007. She is a pulmonary physician who took over the struggling program then.

"At the time she began, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had just completed a month-long investigation of an active MDR-TB cluster in Detroit," said James Sunstrum, M.D., who nominated Dr. Kissner for the award. "Within five years after her initial efforts, no further MDR cases have appeared in Detroit."

Those efforts include two clinic moves and city upheaval - from a health department building that closed to a former recreation center spot, and the disruption of key health department functions when the city declared bankruptcy in 2013, to a mainstream clinical location on the School of Medicine campus.

"Dr. Kissner has worked tirelessly to advocate on behalf of TB patients, not only within the city, but throughout the State of Michigan," Dr. Sunstrum said.
Her efforts helped to slash TB rates by more than half. The active TB case count in Detroit for 2007 was 62 cases. In 2017, the count was down to 24.

In addition to TB, her clinical interests include cystic fibrosis, bronchiectasis and nontuberculous mycobacteria. She is also director of the Adult Cystic Fibrosis Center. She won the school's College Teaching Award in 2016.