LITTLE ROCK – Brendan Stack Jr., M.D., has joined the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) as vice chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery in the College of Medicine.

Stack, who will hold the James Y. Suen, M.D., endowed chair, directs the Divisions of Head and Neck Oncology and Clinical Research in the department.

After serving as a full-time missionary in Argentina for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Stack graduated with honors from the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Va., in 1989. He completed his residency at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla., where he won the national resident research competition in clinical science among otolaryngology residents. This was followed by a fellowship in head and neck oncology and reconstruction at the University of Washington in Seattle.

While in Seattle, Stack also completed a post-doctoral fellowship in molecular biology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, served as instructor at the University of Washington School of Medicine and was on the medical staff of the Seattle Veteran’s Administration Medical Center.

Beginning in 1997, Stack served as assistant professor of otolaryngology at Saint Louis University where he was named “Professor of the Year” in 1999. He then moved to the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in Hershey, Penn., and served as associate professor and director of head and neck oncology and director of research in the Division of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery. In Pennsylvania, he was named to “Top Thyroid Doctors”, “Guide to America’s Top Surgeons”, and Empire’s Who’s Who Among Executives and Professionals. He was promoted to full professor with tenure at Penn State before coming to UAMS.

Dr. Stack is board certified in Otolaryngolgy-Head and Neck Surgery, a Fellow of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and the American College of Surgeons, and a member of the American Head and Neck Society and the American College of Endocrinology.

UAMS is the state’s only comprehensive academic health center, with five colleges, a graduate school, a medical center, five centers of excellence and a statewide network of regional centers. UAMS has about 2,200 students and 660 residents and is the state’s largest public employer with almost 9,000 employees. UAMS and its affiliates have an economic impact in Arkansas of $4.3 billion a year.

UAMS centers of excellence are the Arkansas Cancer Research Center, Harvey and Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy and Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute.