Written by Jackie Wirz, Ph.D.

There are many things that inspire me here at OHSU; most recently, I’ve been utterly amazed by the social behavior of drunk prairie voles.

Wha….?

Okay, a little clarification is needed here: I recently had the privilege of attending the dissertation defense of Allison Anacker, a Behavioral Neuroscience Graduate Program student. I have written before about the amazing scholarship that our students produce, specifically in the form of the blue-bound theses and dissertations that line one wall of the OHSU Library.

These works are incredible snapshots of the pain and suffering learning and growth that are the foundation of any graduate degree. As fantastic as these volumes are, if you prefer live action over the written word, I would highly recommend attending a thesis defense in person. You’ll get an excellent overview of their major scientific accomplishments, as well as a deeper insight into the personality of the individual, their lab and their PI.

I have had the privilege of knowing Allison for two years, working with her on the Student Research Forum and the inaugural OHSU Research Week event. Despite our close working relationship on things like organizing judging forms and reviewing abstracts, my understanding of her area of research was pretty low. I knew that it involved prairie voles, but not much beyond that. When she invited me to her thesis defense, I jumped at the chance to hear exactly what these prairie voles were up to.

As is tradition, all theses defense talks start with an introduction by the student’s Primary Investigator. Professor Andrey Ryabinin mentored Allison during her graduate career, and his introduction clearly demonstrated both his sense of humor and his deep respect for Allison’s academic ambitions and achievements.

He briefly showed a list of Allison’s publications which was long enough to justify tiny font. Then he showed a list of her awards, which had to be written in even tinier text. (As inspired as I am by her prodigious academic output, I’m also going to have to put some money aside for therapy as I am feeling pretty inadequate in comparison!) Putting aside the strictly scientific view, he also touched on her career path to OHSU, her deep commitment to her family and, most importantly, included many photos and stories of Allison that were sincere and hilarious all at once.

But what of the drunken prairie voles?  The complex ties between social behavior and alcohol cannot easily be studied using your average animal models: Allison’s scientific research has focused on developing and using a prairie vole model for alcohol behavior studies. Mouse and primate models are used at OHSU, and we also have research groups that work on animals as varied as chickens, zebrafish, frogs and moths. Despite my many years on this campus, this was the first talk I’ve attended that involved voles.

This particular animal system was set up and characterized by Allison and the Ryabinin lab in part because these animals can drink large quantities of alcohol, and their social behavior is well characterized. Specifically, prairie voles form pair bonds that are strong and stable lifelong relationships. Allison’s work to create, characterize and use this animal model for alcohol research is unique and valuable: using pair-bonded prairie voles, her work clearly demonstrates that social interactions influence alcohol drinking behavior in a variety of scenarios. For more details, check out her publications here.

One aspect of her seminar that I found particularly interesting was her thank you slide – like most scientists, she works with researchers both internal and external to OHSU. In a particularly striking example of collaboration, Allison used her Tartar Trust Fellowship to hire a Department of Medical Informatics and Epidemiology graduate student to write code for part of her research project.

Her willingness to work with students and experts outside her field of expertise to further her research objectives is a sign of exceptional maturity and teamwork in science – I believe that Allison’s research exemplifies the new paradigm of collaborative research that bridges disciplines to further our collective scientific understanding.  Although I am sad to see her go (she will be assuming a postdoctoral position at Smith College this winter), I know she will continue to do amazing things in behavioral neuroscience and beyond. Good luck, Dr. Anacker!

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Jackie Wirz is an Assistant Professor and the Biomedical Sciences Information Specialist at the Oregon Health & Science University Library. She earned her Ph.D. from Oregon Health & Science University in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and has a B.S. from Oregon State University in Biochemistry & Biophysics. Her research career has spanned 15 years and has covered diverse topics such as transcriptional regulation, macromolecular structure determination, collagen biophysics and DNA repair. Her professional interests include information, data, and knowledge management, as well as the publishing paradigms of scientists.

Additionally, Jackie is a strong proponent of science outreach and volunteers with a variety of programs designed to promote scientific literacy. Jackie believes in evolution, salted caramel buttercream and Jane Eyre.

As a runner and as the associate director of community engagement at OHSU, I couldn’t ask for a greater opportunity to share OHSU’s commitment to health and community than the half marathon announced last week by the creators of the iconic Hood to Coast Relay.

It’s going to be a fantastic run on a beautiful course–and it’s going to help advance OHSU’s mission of teaching, healing and discovery.

OHSU is going to join with the Hood to Coast team and help produce the inaugural Better Half Marathon, a half-marathon focused on women’s wellness but open to men as well. The race will be held Sunday, June 30, 2013 and will begin and end at OHSU’s South Waterfront Campus. Participants can also choose to walk the half marathon or run it in a four-person relay team.

For OHSU, it is great moment to share the message that exercise is medicine. And it is a chance to further our partnership with one of the best race producers in the Northwest. Finally, it is a chance to raise funds for three areas of health care at Oregon Health & Science University: the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, OHSU Sports Medicine and the OHSU Multiple Sclerosis Center. Ten dollars of every registration will go to a special fund at the OHSU Foundation created to help these three areas.

Do yourself a favor: Sign up to run or walk the half or tackle it with a team.

I’ll see you on the course.

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Bob Applegate is the associate director of community engagement at Oregon Health & Science University.

Written by Ames Elliot, M.P.H.

Two words strike fear into the heart of every person who goes to the doctor for a headache: brain tumor. These are the words I heard when I went with a friend to her appointment with a neurosurgeon. My friend knew the appointment could feel scary and asked me to come along and take notes for her.

While this friend is college-educated, works in the healthcare field and has struggled with several other health issues in her life, she knew she might need extra help to when meeting with her doctor. She’s not alone. Studies show that new cancer patients forget half the information given to them when it is bad news. Her brain tumor was small and she wouldn’t need surgery unless it got much bigger. After the appointment, she asked me to go over my notes because she was still reeling from the news.

Health literacy isn’t about intelligence and it’s not about experience. It’s about  “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.”

Many think that health literacy is only a problem for elderly, low income, minority or immigrant people. It is true that those groups are more likely to have low health literacy. What might surprise you are the overall literacy rates in this country. Did you know that that the average adult reading level is eighth to ninth grade? Did you know that at least one in five people read at or below the fifth grade level? The odds for reading at or below a fifth grade level are even higher for minorities and for elderly people. Many of these patients may feel ashamed about low literacy and try to cover it up.

Health literacy is an issue for many Oregonians, even the ones you don’t suspect. The good news is that OHSU is making strides to improve health literacy through our doctors, our patients and the communities we serve. Even if health literacy is not exactly brain surgery, I believe it is just as important.

Note from the author: Just in case you are wondering, this article is written at a ninth grade level.

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Ames Elliot, M.P.H., is the research education coordinator for the OHSU Integrity Office. Her professional interests include health communication, research translation and medical anthropology.  In her free time, she can be found playing outside or cuddled up inside with her 3 ½ pound blind Chihuahua puppy, Rosebud.

Written by Robert Hendrickson, M.D.

With a hurricane hitting the eastern U.S. and the news that several hospitals have power outages and have had to evacuate, it’s probably time to take a good look at how OHSU would do in a similar situation.

We may not get hurricanes in Portland, but we are certainly at risk for high-wind storms, ice storms/snow events and earthquakes that can cause massive damage to our infrastructure and energy supply.  Any of these events would be a major strain on “business as usual” at OHSU.

The good news, however, is that for more than a decade OHSU has had behind-the-scenes ongoing, intensive planning and training for these scenarios. Here are just a few of the actions that OHSU has taken to prepare:

• A well-trained team of high-level decision makers is always on call to make rapid decisions in a disaster.
• We’ve published a comprehensive Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) that describes all aspects of emergency operations.  Employees can view this plan electronically (log-in required).
• We’ve completed extensive training for high-level decision makers in the hospital and university as well as emergency management training for all employees.
• This year we are offering specific training for all licensed independent practicitioners (LIPs; doctors, nurse practioners, physician assistants, etc.) on their unique roles in disasters.
• We exercised our hospital evacuation plan last year and will do so again this year.
• Every year, we evaluate the most likely disasters to affect OHSU and perform exercises to test our response to those disasters. These include things like earthquake, loss of utilities, terrorist attack, and influenza or other infectious diseases.
• We perform disaster exercises at least twice per year–and usually more than that.
• We have regular monthly meetings of the emergency management committee and emergency preparedness advisory group, both of which perform ongoing improvement of our emergency management program.

What if you are a patient or visitor at OHSU when a disaster strikes? Your care team is there to provide you with instructions on how to keep you and your family member(s) safe during the disaster and how to continue the patient’s care after the disaster is over. Every clinical area has a team leader with additional training in disaster response.

In a disaster, our most precious commodity may be our employees and their willingness to return to work to help those in need.  It’s important for every employee to:

• Determine your role in different disaster scenarios. If you don’t know, ask your supervisor or manager. It is always better to know your role before the disaster strikes.
• Prepare your home and family for a disaster.  This will ensure that your family and home are safe and allow you to help our patients by returning to OHSU if needed. There is information about preparing your home and family on our intranet (log-in required).

If you are an employee and are interested in learning more, the Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) and additional information about preparation for a disaster are posted at the emergency management website (log-in required).

I’ve only explained a tiny portion of what the emergency management program does every day.  But rest assured, there is a tremendous amount of preparation, mitigation and training that we do every year to ensure that OHSU will not only survive a disaster, but will be uniquely prepared to assist our community and all of Oregon should an event occur.

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Robert Hendrickson, M.D., is the medical director of the OHSU Emergency Management Program. He is also an associate professor of  the department of Emergency Medicine and the associate medical director of the Oregon Poison Center.

Written by Jeff Gold, M.D.

One of my passions has been to better understand the role Electronic Health Records (EHRs) play in the delivery of care in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Health record softwares are very powerful and contain a lot of information and data. Through my past role as an ICU director and my current role as a professor and program director for critical care fellowships, I’ve observed many situations where a clinician goes back and looks at cases to find important patient information. The information they need is there but they either didn’t know where to find it or it is presented in a way that they can’t really see it. It’s almost like a huge Where’s Waldo puzzle.

I’m happy to say that a recently awarded grant will allow me and a great team of researchers here at OHSU to develop simulations studies that will help shed light on how we solve this puzzle.

I’ve been involved in choosing and implementing of a number of EHR systems over the years and have found that everyone uses the systems differently. When I took over as director of OHSU’s training program, I wanted to create a mechanism by which I could train our fellows on how to effectively use EHRs.

We decided to use simulation as this tool. We took a different spin on this and not only created a highly realistic case with all of the same data that a real ICU patient would have in their record, but we built medical errors and concerning changes in the patient’s condition into the case. I believe that the only way to ensure the system is being used appropriately is to ensure that the system’s users can recognize errors. If we can’t recognize issues in real-time, we can’t address them.

Through these simulation studies, we’ve discovered that the average clinician has difficulty integrating all of the data in the EHR for a given patient, and as a result, misses many of these errors. This is due to both how we train people to use the EHR and how the data is presented in the EHR.

This grant is going to allow us to systematically address these issues across the different ICUs at OHSU. In essence, we are trying to build both a better mouse and a better mouse trap. I hope that this work results in a standard way by which all practitioners at our institution are trained in using our EHRs. I hope it also becomes the way by which all meaningful changes to the EHR–user interface can be objectively tested prior to implementation.

Editor’s note: For more reading on this research, we recommend this blog post by William Hersh, M.D., professor and chair of the Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology at OHSU

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After completing fellowship in 2001, Dr. Jeff Gold joined the faculty at NYU Medical Center as an Assistant Professor. During his time at NYU, Dr. Gold received funding from the National Institute of Health to better understand the immunologic mechanisms of sepsis and septic shock. In addition, in 2004, he was named Director of Critical Care Service for Bellevue Hospital.

He joined the faulty of OHSU in 2005 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2009. Clinically, he works in the Medical Intensive Care Unit, the Pulmonary consultation service and is Associate Director of the Adult Cystic Fibrosis Center. Recently, Dr. Gold was named Director for the Pulmonary Critical Care and Critical Care Fellowships in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.

Jean McCormick, R.N., M.S.N.

Written by Jean McCormick, R.N., M.S.N.

Innovation is key to improving patient care while reducing costs and enhancing the health of Oregonians. Telemedicine is an effective tool for meeting these goals particularly when transferring a patient from a hospital to a skilled nursing facility.

Discharging a patient to a skilled nursing facility is all about coordination and timing: Interventions. Care plans. Paperwork. Prescriptions. Nursing notes help paint the picture of a patient when “handing off” care to another nurse.

By tradition, nursing notes were long, handwritten narrative descriptions of a patient that were attached to care plans. Electronic Health Records (EHRs) have streamlined nursing workflow and notes. Thus, notes on a patient today can seem less descriptive.

Both forms, handwritten or EHR, combined with a phone call to another unit or another site–for example a skilled nursing facility–help communicate patient needs to the receiving nurse. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always allow the patient to participate or provide visual information sharing with the receiving nurse.

Technological advances now enable OHSU to use video conferencing equipment to connect nurses at both ends while involving the patient in the discharge process: “a warm video discharge hand-off.” Videoconferencing allows nurses to communicate with one another, build a rapport, demonstrate parts of the care plan and educate one another while being at the patient’s bedside–empowering the patient to be involved in their discharge and care. This reassures the receiving nurse and alleviates anxiety regarding the “who and where for care” for the patient and family.

One OHSU nurse said that the video nurse-to-nurse hand-off gave her the feeling of being in the same room with the receiving nurse.

Our first warm video hand-off involved a stroke patient who was intrigued with the technology of connecting with the facility before she arrived. She and her husband were able to speak to the receiving nurse and ask questions about their care. The OHSU nurse was able to visually demonstrate care and use of the patient’s feeding tube.

OHSU has performed dozens of additional “warm video” hand-offs since our pilot program began a few months ago. Patients, families and nurses give high marks to using telemedicine to make this connection, which not only is faster than other approaches but also provides better results. Clearly, using video conferencing to hand-off care of a patient brings nursing to a whole new level. It’s now becoming a standard part of OHSU’s discharge program.

As Dr. Miles Ellenby, medical director of OHSU’s Telemedicine Network, puts it, “A phone call is helpful, a picture is worth a thousand words, but live interactive video is priceless.”

You can read more about the difference the OHSU Telemedicine Network made for an Oregon infant in this recent news story.

Written by Jackie Wirz, Ph.D.

What’s on your must-read list?

High on mine is Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves by Harvard professor George Church. It hit shelves in the traditional paper and ink format on Tuesday, Oct. 2. Yet Dr. Church has carried billions of copies of his book stored in a small test tube that he carries around in his pocket since last spring.

How is this possible? Dr. Church and his research team at Harvard recently converted the 53,000 word book into DNA. And it wasn’t just words that made the jump from text to genetic storage—the researchers encoded 11 images and even a computer program in their book, making this ambitious project the largest and most complex use of DNA as an artificial storage medium to date.

DNA is, of course, capable of storing complex information such as the instructions to create an entire human being.  No small task, considering that it consists of only four bases: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine(C) and thymine (T).

DNA has several unique advantages as a data platform, most importantly its capacity to be an incredibly dense storage system. Unlike traditional mechanisms of storage which are confined to two dimensions, DNA can store information in glorious 3D. The authors of the DNA Book compared different technologies for encoding data, converting the information into volumetric data densities; although traditional data is encoded in 2D along a flat surface, a CD (for example) still has thickness, which was used in the volumetric calculations. A commercial CD contains roughly 413,000 bits per cubic mm. In contrast, the purified DNA book produced by Church and colleagues is stored at an astonishing 5.49 x 10¹⁵ bits per cubic mm.

Put another way, if that CD was made of three dimensionally encoded DNA, you could store 13 billion albums on one DNA disc.  Not too shabby!

DNA is also extremely durable. When purified or properly preserved, it can survive for thousands of years unharmed (Remember that part of Jurassic Park where they extract DNA from amber-coated fossils?  Totally true!). It is stable at a variety of temperatures, and is biologically suited to be a long lasting storage medium. The fundamental tools necessary to work with DNA are literally encoded in all of nature; it doesn’t take long for our technology to outstrip and outdate our storage media (Jazz drives anybody?), but the enzymes and chemicals necessary to work with DNA are literally carried within most organisms on this planet.

That isn’t to say, however, that current DNA technology is user-friendly. Although the scientists in this study were careful to use “off the shelf” technology to create and sequence their DNA book, they are still professional scientists with training and equipment expertise in DNA manipulation. Even more of a hurdle is the expense: DNA synthesis and sequencing is still expensive and not commercially available to the average Joe.

But the times, they are a changing. Remember the hullabaloo surrounding the human genome project? Initiated in 1990, it took $3 billion dollars and 13 years to sequence the first human genome (however, this cost also included scientific activities related to genomics – the human genome sequencing was only a fraction of the overall budget). Now, it is estimated that the cost to sequence a genome hovers around $7500 dollars, and dropping rapidly. Perhaps DNA as a storage medium is closer to affordable than you may think.

But exactly how close are we to a sci-fi future? The idea that we’d be able to swallow a DNA copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica and suddenly have the information embedded in us is still wrong. Yes, the entire encyclopedia can be encoded in DNA, but if we ate it our body would just digest it.

We could theoretically create and infect ourselves with an Encyclopedia Britannica virus (e. britannicus), but it wouldn’t mean very much since the body’s mechanism of “reading” DNA is different than the technique used by the DNA Book researchers. In fact, DNA as an ideal storage medium works best when there are no living organisms involved—a fact acknowledged by the Harvard research team. The biological function of our natural cells could be disrupted or even damaged, the information is much less stable in living ecosystems and there would be a constant problem with DNA degradation or mutation (practically a non-issue when DNA is purified and stored on a microchip). So don’t hope to have an Encyclopedia Britannica add-on tacked to your genes any time soon.

Even though Church’s book can be easily copied and distributed (they considered including a DNA copy with every print edition of the book, but decided against it), the cost of reading the information with a DNA sequencer remains too rich for everyday use. For the time being, your best mechanism for checking out the Encyclopedia Britannica will still involve a trip to your local library. Stop on by—we’d be happy to help you learn more about DNA technology, sequencing and data management and storage. We may be using those old fashioned print books to help you out, but sometimes it’s nice having a book in your hand rather than a test tube of DNA.

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Jackie Wirz is an Assistant Professor and the Biomedical Sciences Information Specialist at the Oregon Health & Science University Library. She earned her Ph.D. from Oregon Health & Science University in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and has a B.S. from Oregon State University in Biochemistry & Biophysics. Her research career has spanned 15 years and has covered diverse topics such as transcriptional regulation, macromolecular structure determination, collagen biophysics and DNA repair. Her professional interests include information, data, and knowledge management, as well as the publishing paradigms of scientists.

Additionally, Jackie is a strong proponent of science outreach and volunteers with a variety of programs designed to promote scientific literacy. Jackie believes in evolution, salted caramel buttercream and Jane Eyre.

Written by Joe Robertson, M.D., M.B.A.

When I became OHSU President in 2006, I set out to have a conversation with Oregonians through a series of “swing” trips around the state. As Oregon’s only academic health center, we take pride that our campus includes all 96,000 square miles of our state. To reinforce our statewide presence and commitment, I thought it was important to get out on the road and hear firsthand the issues impacting communities and see if OHSU could better meet the health care needs of Oregonians.

I spent my first full day as OHSU President in John Day, and in the first year alone covered roughly 3,000 miles of Oregon highways. In my travels, I met with providers, hospitals, clinics, educators, legislators, community leaders, reporters and editorial boards, high school and college students, and other stakeholders.

Much of the feedback we heard was incorporated into Vision 2020 – particularly the importance of collaboration.

I’m proud to say we’ve been able to keep up the initial momentum. I view these trips, typically made two to three times per year, as an essential and ongoing component of our unique role in the state. Communities can see from repeat visits that we are engaged with them for the long haul. I generally travel with Dr. Mark O’Hollaren, our vice-president for Strategic Outreach, and staff from Government Relations and Strategic Communications. In late September we visited 8 Oregon communities, most notably Klamath Falls, Medford, Roseburg and Eugene.

On these trips, I’ve found an increasing appreciation for all of OHSU’s missions, and a broad recognition of our statewide presence. I am continually reminded that Oregonians experience OHSU not as an institution but one person at a time.

This is why we will continue to follow the guiding light of service excellence. There are still things we could do better, but one of the benefits of the trips has been the feedback that helps us identify and address problem areas. We will always have to work to maintain our reputation but what I hear on the road tells me that what we’re doing is working, and appreciated by citizens across the state.

OHSU’s vision is to improve the health and well being of Oregonians. That means partnering to ensure the very best care possible for all areas of Oregon and all Oregonians. It also means I’ll continue to travel throughout the state, looking for opportunities to work together and leverage resources to solve problems.

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Joe Robertson, M.D., M.B.A. is president of Oregon Health & Science University. His clinical focus is on vitreous surgery, with special emphasis on surgery for macular diseases. He received his medical degree from the Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, in 1978, and his M.B.A. from the University of Oregon in 1997.

Written by Jeff Kraakevik, M.D.

The video included with this post is eleven minutes and forty-one seconds long. It’s a little on the long side for a web-distributed video, but I think it is well worth the investment of your time.

The video was first posted in 2010, and is by Sir Kenneth Robinson. In it, he outlines how our education system as a whole has been shaped by the forces of history which were around when the modern education system was formed. He then outlines why this paradigm doesn’t work as well 100 years later.

He is using the elementary education system as an example, but I think the principles apply to medical education as well. I’d like you to watch it, and think about how what he is talking about applies to medical education. If you are pressed for time, skip to the 6:33 mark as that is where the most applicable bits start.  (A note to anyone who may have a stake in the ADHD debate: please don’t get distracted by this sub-point in his talk–that is not why I’m asking you to watch this.)

After you’ve watched it, I want you to think about how this “old” paradigm of factory-processed students being put into separate silos to learn for standard amounts of time is a really great description of most of the current medical education.

Remember that divergent thinking skills are critical for clinical problem solving. How is our current model of training either impairing or empowering those divergent thinking skills in our current curriculum?

Now, step outside that model, and dream about what could it look like as changes are made. We have the technological tools to make a competency-based education with real-time collaboration across teams and across disciplines a reality. What would the first two years of the medical school curriculum look like without set time-frames for students to complete a course on neuroscience look like? What would it look like if students moved on to the next subject or course after demonstrating they have mastered the skills necessary to move forward, and not because the 8-10 week course is done? What would a curriculum look like if there were no walls between the courses?

Now, I want to assure you this is not likely where OHSU in particular will be when the curriculum reform process is completed. I really think it is not possible to get to this level of learner-centeredness within one curriculum reiteration. But, I do put this up as a model worth considering, and it is a worthwhile discussion to debate its relative merits and risks as we do come up with our actual model of educational curriculum.

For further reading, read this recent blog post by leaders within the AAMC titled “Competency-based Medical Education: The Time is Now.”

[Special note to OHSU School of Medicine faculty, staff and students: consider attending the curriculum transformation retreat on Oct. 9. More details on the intranet (log-in required).]

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Jeff Kraakevik, M.D., earned his medical degree from the University of Iowa and his fellowship in Movement Disorders from Oregon Health & Science University. He joined the OHSU movement disorders faculty in 2006 and is currently an Assistant Professor of Neurology. Dr. Kraakevik holds the unique distinction of being a former high school teacher. He has followed this trajectory of educator and currently heads up the development of medical student and resident education for the OHSU department of Neurology and VA Medical Center where he holds a joint appointment. Dr. Kraakevik’s research interests include gait and balance problems of Parkinson’s disease as well as research that explores the best teaching practices for medical education.

You can also follow him on Twitter and at his neurology education blog.

Written by Mark Kemball

I am not a techie, but my family will tell you that I am addicted to my smartphone. I hear tales of parents who restrict their childrens’ screen time. In our house, it is my teenage daughter who confiscates my phone at mealtimes.

Of all the things that my phone does, I am most amazed by its camera. Its tiny dimensions and pin head lens belie its extraordinary clarity, wide zoom and flexible light balancing ability. I have shots in my photo roll that look as if they were produced on a full SLR.

So why am I so attracted to apps that go out of their way to mask this amazing technology?

I have a couple that fudge that wonderful focus. They add toxic color casts to grubby up my perfect little images. There’s even one that renders sharp, clear videos into flickery 8mm-style footage. Honest. You can see how it works in two videos I created with my phone.

Here’s the original version:

And here’s that same video, with a filter:

I know I am not alone. Millions are re-embracing media technologies we discarded twenty, thirty, forty years ago. How come they once again have value in today’s high-tech world?

My best answer so far is an important word to alumni relations programs. Nostalgia.

Years at university represent an extended period of hard work, hard play and the most concentrated period of personal growth and development. Naturally they are happily revisited as a staple of reunions and alumni magazines.

I wonder, however, if there isn’t a little more to it?

OHSU is a science-based institution. It stimulates inquiry to improve the health of people in Oregon and beyond. Labs, clinics and classrooms hum with the daily effort to push the boundaries of knowledge and translate that effort into better care for the patient.

Yes, it is exhilarating to hurtle forward and challenge our knowledge and experience in the cause of progress. But it is also scary, occasionally depressing and confusing, sometimes lonely.

During those times the reassurance of being anchored by our past secures our route to the future. The app that turns high tech into something we are familiar with also helps us mitigate the warp speed of evolving technology

Nostalgia was always a largely irrelevant luxury for me. Now, the many ways I can use my smartphone teach me that touching base with the past can help me better navigate the future.  I do plan to do more research–just as soon as I can get my phone back from my daughter.

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Mark Kemball and the alumni relations team are proud to count almost 34,000 dentists, nurses, physicians, researchers, technicians and other health professionals as OHSU alumni. The team strives to keep them all connected with the university, with its students and with each other.

You can also follow Mark on Twitter.