April SOM News

FYI: OHSU Media Coverage 2005

OHSU had 6,036 known media stories and mentions in 2005. On average, OHSU appeared in the media 17 times a day, 500 times a month. Twenty-three percent of media coverage resulted from OHSU media releases.

Coverage in The Oregonian represents 6 percent of all OHSU media coverage. Twenty-eight percent of this coverage resulted from University News & Publications news releases. The majority of coverage in The Oregonian was about the business of OHSU (25 percent), followed by OHSU experts quoted on various topics (19 percent). Media in rural areas of Oregon accounted for 19 percent of OHSU's coverage, with stories about patients in rural areas accounting for the bulk of rural coverage (33 percent), followed by OHSU business coverage at 24 percent.

The majority of national media coverage (66 percent) was comprised of OHSU experts commenting on various health and science topics. In 2005 OHSU received coverage in all six of its targeted national publications. Coverage in these publications remained similar to last year: The Chronicle of Higher Education, 19 mentions; The New York Times, 17 mentions; USA Today, 11 mentions; The Los Angeles Times, 10 mentions; The Wall Street Journal, 8 mentions; and The Washington Post, 5 mentions.

Negative stories about OHSU accounted for less than 1 percent of all media coverage. Negative news included stories about exemptions to Oregon's public records law, which prevents public disclosure of the names of animal researchers; medical malpractice reporting concerns; and the tram.

Best Graduate Schools 2007

U.S. News & World Report's special edition, "America's Best Graduate Schools 2007," ranks the OHSU School of Medicine's primary care program 3rd among 126 medical schools nationwide. This marks the 11th consecutive year OHSU's primary care program has ranked in the top 3 percent. The school's rural medicine specialty ranks 4th, up seven spots from 11th place last year, and the family medicine specialty ranks 5th, making this the 12th year in a row OHSU's Department of Family Medicine has ranked among the top five. OHSU's Women's Health specialty ranks as 16th in "America's Best Graduate Schools 2007."

The magazine's medical specialty rankings are based on reputation and determined by medical school deans and senior faculty from around the country. U.S. News & World Report also ranks medical schools based on overall research funding. The OHSU School of Medicine ranks 32nd, up three places from 35th last year.

Tram Update: Construction Moving Ahead

Tram construction is halfway complete and already equipment is arriving from Switzerland, where it is manufactured. Track ropes that move the tramcars up and down Marquam Hill and saddles that hold the track ropes in place will be delivered to the construction site this week. Five additional 40-foot containers are on ships from Switzerland and will arrive in Portland in the next two weeks.

The Portland Department of Transportation has created a Web site with up-to-date information and photos of tram construction: click here

Thomas Hansen Leaving OHSU

Dr. Thomas Hansen, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Chief of Inpatient Psychiatry at the Portland Veteran's Administration Medical Center, will be leaving the SOM faculty this summer. Dr. Hansen, an AOA graduate (1979) of OHSU's medical school, completed his residency training in psychiatry at Yale. He returned to OHSU as a faculty member in 1983 and has held positions at the VAMC since, serving as chief of acute psychiatry since 1991. Hansen's research has contributed to the understanding of antipsychotic drug-induced side effects and therapeutic response to antipsychotic drugs.

Hansen is the recipient of Psychiatry's Distinguished Service Award in residency training and its Teaching Award. He has taught extensively at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting, Oregon Psychiatric Association meetings, and in CME forums throughout Oregon. He has served on the SOM's Medical Student Admissions Committee.

Dr. Hansen will be recognized at the Department of Psychiatry's residency graduation ceremony on June 2nd.

Incentives for Staffing Kohler Pavilion

Approximately 200 new jobs are being recruited locally and nationally in connection with OHSU's new Peter O. Kohler Pavilion, scheduled to open in June. The recruitment campaign will run through the summer to address the jobs needed in late summer or early fall when more inpatient floors are occupied. OHSU employees are being offered incentives of up to $3,000 for referring applicants for certain positions and an additional bonus for referring diverse applicants to specified positions.

The 335,000-square-foot, 11-story Kohler Pavilion will be ready for patients June 27. The building will include the OHSU Center for Women's Health; eight operating rooms, with space for four future operating rooms; and the OHSU Cancer Institute Center for Hematologic Malignancies, as well as a new radiation medicine suite. When complete, the Kohler Pavilion will add a net total of 120 medical, surgical and intensive care beds to OHSU's capacity. The Portland Arial Tram will connect the building's ninth floor with OHSU Center for Health & Healing.

More information on OHSU employee recruitment is available: http://www.ohsu.edu/kohlerpavilion/careers.cfm

Goethe University New OHSU Sister School

The Presidents of Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany, and OHSU, on behalf of its School of Medicine, have signed a Memorandum of Agreement. The cooperative agreement relates to research, exchange of student and faculty, and related educational, cultural and scientific matters. SOM professor Al Lewy, M.D., Ph.D., initiated the "sister school" agreement.

OHSU's Economic Impact

OHSU expansion, which began in spring 2003, has generated approximately 2,000 construction jobs. OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital has just begun a new construction project to increase the number of children's beds, which will create new job opportunities in children's services. OHSU expansion to the South Waterfront is expected to add 4,500 jobs during the next 20 years.

OHSU is the city's largest employer and the state's fourth largest with 11,500 employees. Patient care visits have increased from 245,000 annually in 1988 to 737,600 in 2004. Annual research award dollars have grown from $40.5 million in 1988 to $274 million in fiscal year 2005.

AHA Heart Walk to Benefit OHSU

The American Health Association's 5K Heart Walk will be on Saturday, May 20, starting at 9:00 a.m. at SW 1st and Salmon. The biggest AHA fundraiser of the year, the Heart Walk directly benefits OHSU and the 23 AHA projects at OHSU funded at $3.2 million. This year, OHSU's goal is to have at least 10 OHSU teams and 150 walkers.

Help fight heart disease by walking or donating to this year's Heart Walk. Click here to register and to join an OHSU team, to sponsor a walker or to donate online. Register by April 19 and get a free OHSU t-shirt. Prizes will be awarded for teams with the most walkers and the most money raised.

If you have any questions or would like to start your own OHSU team, please contact Kathleen Gardiner at 4-9445 or gardinek@ohsu.edu.

National Provider Identifier Enrollment

Under HIPAA regulations, health care providers (individual practitioners, organizations, and payors) are required to obtain a single, unique identifier number for every practitioner and entity that processes electronic claim transactions. This new "National Provider Identifier" (NPI) number will eventually replace all the separate UPINs, PINs, etc. The identifier will be assigned once and used for life.

Providers must enroll in the NPI and use the number for billing transactions by May 23, 2007; however, OHSU has decided to implement NPI prior to summer of 2006. While responsibility to apply for the new NPI number lies with the individual practitioner, OHSU Medical Affairs and OHSUMG have agreed to facilitate this process for OHSU's individual practitioners by using the information already stored in the Echo (credentialing, privileging, enrollment) database.

For further information, please contact either of the NPI Task Force Co-chairs:
Ron Marcum, M.D., marcumr@ohsu.edu, 4-1710
Karl Simon, M.A., simon@ohsu.edu, 4-5240

HRC Annual Lecture

Jonathan R. Lindner, M.D., SOM Associate Professor of Medicine, Cardiovascular Division, will deliver this year's Heart Research Center Annual Lecture, "Tiny Bubbles: Big Ideas in Heart Disease and Cancer," on Thursday, April 27, at 6:30 p.m. in the OHSU Auditorium.

Dr. Lindner will explain the potential clinical applications of microbubbles, including revolutionary methods for early detection of disease, targeted delivery of drugs and genes, breaking up of blood clots, and noninvasive diagnosis of organ inflammation and the metastatic potential of tumors. The lecture is sponsored by the OHSU Heart Research Center and the OHSU Cancer Institute. A reception to welcome Dr. Linder to OHSU will immediately follow the lecture.

Both the lecture and the reception are free and open to the public. For more information, please call 4-2382 or visit http://www.ohsu.edu/heart.

Palmer Gives Costenbader Lecture

SOM faculty member Earl A. Palmer, M.D., delivered the prestigious Costenbader Lecture on March 16 at the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus 32nd Annual Meeting in Keystone, Colorado. Dr. Palmer's lecture, "Retinopathy of Prematurity and the Factor of Time," was supported by the Children's Eye Foundation.

Thomas to Lecture at Radiation Oncology Symposium

SOM Professor & Chair of the Department of Radiation Medicine, Charles R. Thomas, M.D., has been selected to give the 4th Annual Leslie Alexander Lecture by his peers within the Radiology Section of the National Medical Association Dr. Thomas will speak on "Critical Assessment of Radiation Therapy in the Management of Rectal Cancer: Can We Delete Radiotherapy in Some Patients?" at the Radiation Oncology Symposium, which will be held on August 7, 2006, in Dallas, TX. The NMA is one of the oldest predominately African-American professional organizations and will be holding the 111th Annual Meeting and Scientific Convention.

New SOM Faculty

A warm welcome to the following faculty members who have joined the School of Medicine since March 1, 2006: Brian Wong, M.D., Adjunct Professor, Infectious Diseases; Laurence Sagasay, M.S.N., R.N., Instructor, Anesthesiology & Peri-Operative Medicine; Claire E. Spiro, M.S.H., PA-C, Assistant Professor, P.A. Education; David M. Spiro, M.D., M.P.H., Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine.

WebMD Video Service Features SOM Physicians

A new video news service from WebMD.com recently featured several OHSU physicians. Sanjiv Kaul, M.D., and Kevin Wei, M.D., were interviewed about the new Chest Pain Center and their research into myocardial contrast echocardiography and microbubbles. A study by Al Lewy, M.D, that looks at the effects of melatonin on resetting the internal body clock of blind people was profiled. Lewy also was interviewed about the effects daylight-saving time has on the body. A new alternative to a full corneal transplant, performed by Rick Fraunfelder, M.D., was featured, and Kyle Johnson, M.D., was interviewed about the latest treatments for pediatric sleep disorders.

Physiology/Pharmacology Recognized as Outstanding Volunteer Group

Oregon Food Bank will recognize OHSU's Department of Physiology and Pharmacology as an Outstanding Volunteer Group at their Volunteer Celebration Event on April 26th, during National Volunteer Week. From May 2003 - March 2006, members of the department contributed 747 hours to the food bank. Members of the department accomplished this by volunteering one Saturday every month for 3 hours since May 2003.

The volunteers include SOM faculty (Damani Bryant, Andrea DeBarber, Beth Habecker, Chuck Roselli, Dennis Koop, Xuehong Liu); researchers ( Lisa Bleyle); post docs (Teri Wadsworth, Yohei Normiatsu); graduate students (Brenda McKee, James Brady, Xiao Shi); and administrative staff (Evan Bowman, Jeanne Sutter, Janet Lee, Rebecca Saunders, Lisa Rhuman and Jill Spencer).