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Message from the Dean: Celebrating the Spring SeasonMatch Day 2008 Education Leadership Initiative Scholars New Faculty Affairs web site launchedState forms tort claims task forceHealth Fund Board Director discusses opportunities and challenges Physician Re-Entry Program Student outreach at health fairDiscovery Spotlight: Rosalie Sears, PhDApril 13: EPIC go-live updateCall for nominations: Faculty Senate Leadership AwardsUpcoming eventsHooding regalia12 TFME awards to studentsGME Distinguished Service AwardsThree honored by Red Cross New Doernbecher AdministratorWelcome New Faculty
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March 2008
Message from Dean Richardson: Celebrating the Spring Season
 Greetings and welcome to the March newsletter.
No doubt you've noticed that spring is upon us. The gloomy, legendary rains of the Pacific Northwest are finally giving way to cherry blossoms and the occasional glimpse of blue sky.
It has been a challenging winter for OHSU and the School of Medicine. But just as the natural world around us is caught up in this season of renewal, I am reminded of our own resilience, the strength of this great institution and the depth of our roots that stretch back more than a century. I am also reminded that there is much we can and should celebrate.
This past year, the School of Medicine entered the Top 20 ranking nationwide in terms of funding from the National Institutes of Health (we are number 19 now). Equally significant, during this recent era of national constrained funding, we still increased our NIH awards by six percent. This is because our faculty researchers are exemplary; last year, they were acclaimed around the state, the nation and the world for their breakthroughs and knowledge creation.
The Oregon Clinical & Translational Institute (OCTRI) celebrated its first birthday last year and the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute was invited to build and operate a satellite research facility entirely funded by, and based in, the state of Florida – in the company of prestigious peers such as Scripps, Stanford and the Max Planck Institute. OHSU announced 132 inventions, five new start up companies and growing revenue from research commercialization.
Our faculty physicians dominated local listings of "Top Doctors in Portland" and our clinicians regularly received noteworthy national awards and media recognition for their exceptional clinical care. And many members of our faculty are engaged in crucial discussions about health care policy, including systemic reform, bringing their unparalleled expertise to these conversations.
The School received nearly 5,000 applications for 120 medical school slots this past year. Our fourth-year medical students matched competitively to a variety of specialties across the nation. Our current medical school class is nearly 70 percent Oregonian and new statistics show that we are 15th in the nation in terms of retaining new physicians in Oregon. On the Graduate Medical Education (GME) side, we do even better and are ranked 10th in the nation for keeping physicians in Oregon.
Internally, I see encouraging signs of change and renewal. I am told that this past season, there were more faculty requests to serve on School committees than ever before. Some of our department chairs are beginning conversations about finding ways to overcome administrative barriers to collaboration, and we are committed in the Dean’s office to assisting those efforts. All of us are evaluating our budgets to ensure we are operating and organized in the most efficient manner. This is important because a more efficient and collaborative organization will free up new funding to invest in faculty development and create new opportunities.
Across the nation, medical schools are responding to the call to change and to recast academic medicine to better contribute to a new and improved health care future. That's exactly the path that we are on, and I believe we are ahead of the national curve in this process. Together, we are nourishing our strong roots while reorganizing to support new types of growth.
And spring is a time to celebrate these new beginnings. I am proud of the progress we have made together and very confident about our collective future. Thank you - all of you - for the extraordinary commitment you have shown, and continue to show, to OHSU, the School of Medicine, Oregon and the future of health care.
Best regards,
Mark Richardson
Dean
March Madness: “Match Day” 2008
 On March 20, OHSU medical students participated in the largest Match Day in history. Nationwide, 94 percent of 28,737 applicants initially matched to an open position, according to the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). Among the applicants were 103 graduating medical students from OHSU.
Our results? Every fourth-year medical student at OHSU who applied for a residency position matched to an open position. Seventy-five of our graduates will remain in western states, 36 of them will remain in Oregon and 27 will complete their Graduate Medical Education at OHSU.
With 46 graduates selecting a primary care specialty, our new physicians continue to buck national trends. Within primary care, family medicine residencies were selected by about 13 percent of OHSU match applicants, compared to 7.6 percent of match applicants nationally. Thirteen graduates matched to emergency medicine residencies, nine to Ob/GYN, eight to anesthesiology and five to radiology. The remaining graduates were scattered throughout multiple specialties.
On the Graduate Medical Education side, 146 positions were filled with 29 matching to internal medicine residencies, 12 in family medicine, 10 in emergency medicine, 13 in pediatrics and 12 in general surgery for the full six-year program and four for the preliminary year. Eight new residents matched to the OHSU Family Medicine Program at Klamath Falls. The remaining positions are in 16 specialties.
Pictured: Fourth-year med students pick up the notification of their match.
Education Leadership Initiative Scholars selected
Congratulations to the first class of scholars participating in the School of Medicine’s new Education Leadership Initiative. This initiative, formerly called the “teaching academy,” was identified as a priority by the School of Medicine Faculty Engagement Committee last year. The Scholars are:
Nicole Deioro, MD - Associate Professor, Emergency Med Theresa Devere, MD - Assistant Professor, Dermatology
Dawn Dillman, MD - Assistant Professor, Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine
Marian Fireman, MD - Associate Professor, Psychiatry
S. Humayun Gultekin, MD - Assistant Professor, Pathology
Holger Link, MD - Assistant Professor, Pediatrics
Erica Mitchell, MD - Assistant Professor, Surgery
Daniel O'Hearn. MD - Assistant Professor, Medicine
Donald Rosen, MD - Assistant Professor, Psychiatry
Lalena Yarris, MD - Assistant Professor, Emergency Med
For more information, contact Kris Wessel, PhD, Director of the Education Leadership Initiative (wesselkr@ohsu.edu).
New Faculty Affairs web site launched
As part of the ongoing efforts to enhance our professional environment and improve communications, a new and improved faculty affairs web page has been launched. The site brings together information on school policies, news and events, professional development opportunities, promotion and tenure, organizations, and life/family resources. The site was created by Brycie Jones, Communications Coordinator in the Dean’s office, under the direction of Patricia Hurn, Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Faculty Affairs. Please click here to view the site.
State forms tort claims task force
On February 20, at the close of the special one-month legislative session, Oregon Senate President Courtney and House Speaker Merkley announced the creation of the Oregon Tort Claims Act Interim Task Force. The task force will make recommendations to the 2009 legislature on needed changes to the Oregon Tort Claims Act in light of the Oregon Supreme Court ruling. Governor Kulongoski has also initiated an informal workgroup to evaluate how the Clarke decision has affected insurance, litigation and state contracting in Oregon.
Health Fund Board Director discusses opportunities and challenges
 Barney Speight, director of the Oregon Health Fund Board, was the guest speaker at an OHSU public forum on the work of the Oregon Health Fund Board on March 18. Created last legislative session, the charge of the seven-member Board is to present a comprehensive plan for health care reform to the 2009 legislature. An overview of the Board’s charge and work was followed by an open discussion with faculty and staff.
In response to the question posed about what role OHSU might play in the Board’s undertakings, Mr. Speight suggested three areas that were uniquely within the domain of an academic health center in the context of health care reform: development of clinical outcome metrics (rather than the current focus on administrative data) and associated education about the different value and role of various metrics as health care becomes more transparent; health care workforce development including advancing the team-based model of delivery; and leadership to help the health care community find the balance between cost and innovation. He also addressed the need to find consistent ways to fund innovation that are not solely dependent on the NIH. For more information about the Health Fund Board: click here.
OHSU Physician Re-Entry Program gains traction and recognition
 Physicians decide to leave clinical care for many reasons. Sometimes, they regret the decision and wish to return to patient care. Then what? In Oregon, they can now turn to the new OHSU Physician Re-entry Program which gives physicians the opportunity to refresh and update their knowledge, and then to become active again in patient care. The program is an innovative, low-cost way to help address physician workforce shortages.
"Our goal is to provide an organized, well-conceived, meaningful re-entry training program to encourage physicians in good standing to once again provide up-to-date, skilled patient care to Oregonians," said Elizabeth Bower, MD, Assistant Dean for Continuing Medical Education (CME) and Chair of the Re-entry Program (pictured).
To date, seven individuals have been accepted for retraining. The most common reasons for lapsed license and/or hospital privileges were illness or investment in family. The time frame for retraining ranged from two to three months. Program graduates range in age from 33 to 65 years. Five of the seven graduates are women. All seven are in primary care specialties. All are now practicing again. Five of seven practice in non-urban settings. All but one opted to practice in Oregon.
Ed Shapiro, MD, obstetrician/gynecologist and first program graduate, practiced medicine for 20 years. "Then, I retired to Port Townsend, Wash., an ideal place, a wonderful town," Dr. Shapiro explained. "But it wasn't long before I was missing the action. Nothing really pulled at my heartstrings anymore."
OHSU designed a re-entry program tailored to his specific needs and specialty. "I was current in my knowledge, but I needed to rotate on the OB unit for high-risk pregnancies and C-sections, and in surgery scrubbing in on GYN cases. I did the same clinical rotations as residents." Dr. Shapiro is currently working full-time again at Mountain View Hospital in Madras, Oregon.
Dr. Bower will present the results of the Re-Entry Program at the AAMC Physician Workforce Research Conference in Washington DC at the end of April. The program was also recently featured in The Scribe newspaper.
Donald Girard, MD, Associate Dean for GME and CME, and Richard Allen, MD, former Assistant Dean for GME, in association with the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners, launched the program in 2006.
School of Medicine students volunteer at cervical cancer screening events
 More than 175 Portland-area women received a free screening for cervical cancer as part of a community outreach program developed by the OHSU’s Center for Women’s Health and Anne Nedrow, MD, Medical Director of Women’s Primary Care at the Center.
The program, which has thus far held two screening events, relies heavily upon donations from the community and volunteer commitment. Physicians within the School of Medicine performed the cervical screening and clinical breast exams, while medical students performed other wellness screenings at the concurrent health fair.
Mimi Choate, a fourth-year MD/MPH student, volunteered as a medical assistant. Choate, who plans to go into family medicine, said, “My reasons for volunteering for this event were twofold: I definitely feel a calling to work with the underserved and I hope I get to make that a part of my practice. Most of the women who I saw here were uninsured or underinsured. Also, this was a good opportunity for me to continue to get clinical experience during my MPH year.” Choate, who speaks Spanish, also interpreted for women who spoke little or no English.
Jennifer Brewer, a second year MD student, volunteered at the first screening event. “I believe that preventive medicine is so important; unfortunately, many people can only access this care at free events such as these,” Brewer said. Physician assistant students, such as Veronica Espinoza (pictured) also volunteered at the health fair.
Discovery Spotlight: Rosalie Sears, PhD
 Focusing on post-translational protein regulation for cancer intervention
The c-Myc oncogene, regularly highly-expressed in most human tumors, has long been of interest to researchers seeking therapeutic targets for cancer treatments. Rosalie Sears, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, is pursuing a road-less-traveled in her research on this oncogene by focusing her attention on the post-translational regulation of the c-Myc oncoprotein.
Dr. Sears is working on a hypothesis that the aberrant stabilization of this protein – due to altered post-translational regulation of two phosphorylation sites – is important to its elevated levels in human cancers. Understanding the regulatory mechanism of these elevated levels holds out promise for targeted intervention.
In a healthy cell, c-Myc protein is typically expressed at continuously low levels, and is characterized by a relatively short half-life of about 20 minutes. The one period where this is not the case occurs in response to mitogen stimulation when a cell is pushed from an arrested state to enter the cell cycle and proceed to DNA synthesis. Elevated c-Myc expression is necessary to drive this transition. Once DNA synthesis has been achieved, c-Myc expression returns to its typically low levels as the cell continues to cycle.
This high point of c-Myc protein expression is the focus of Dr. Sears’ research. She believes that cancer commandeers the mechanism promoting c-Myc’s high expression and that during this stage c-Myc is not disposed to cause cell death and is highly potent. Two pathways regulate the phosphorylation and stability of c-Myc at this critical point, and abnormal activity of either pathway can slow the degradation of the protein, causing it to be expressed at higher levels for longer periods and triggering aberrant cell proliferation.
Simultaneously, Dr. Sears’ research has advanced understanding of the tumor suppressor activity of the PP2A-B56 phosphatase that facilitates c-Myc degradation, and of the scaffold-like role of the protein Axin1, which acts as a tumor-suppressor and docking station that supports the kinases and phosphatase that regulate c-Myc phosphorylation and degradation.
Dr. Sears is using transgenic knock-in mice that express c-Myc with altered phosphorylation and stability in her research. These mouse models of tumors and blood-borne cancers give Dr. Sears greater specificity to aid in developing therapeutic treatments.
“This work is really exciting because if we could re-establish the normal phosphorylation and rapid degradation of c-Myc we could both lower c-Myc levels and potentially turn back on its ability to induce cell death, resulting in potent tumor regression,” said Dr. Sears.
Dr. Sears was recently awarded a prestigious Career Development Grant from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and has been supported by grants from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, the Department of Defense and, the National Cancer Institute. A graduate of Reed College, Dr. Sears obtained her PhD in Cell Biology from Vanderbilt University Medical Center and conducted post-doctoral work at Duke University Medical Center.
(Discovery Spotlight is a periodic profile of a research project, scientist, discovery or lab in the OHSU School of Medicine.)
April 13: EPIC go-live update
The Epic Inpatient Go-Live date and time are April 13 at 4:00 am -- putting OHSU just three weeks from our first ever, truly integrated clinical enterprise medical record. Our success at this transition will place us among the very few outstanding health systems that can claim this level of integration. Faculty and staff support and leadership on the next two steps are essential to the smooth transition. Please click here here for a letter from Drs. Roy Magnusson and Tom Yackel that provides an update on this important process, and click here for the Epic Ozone web page.
Call for nominations: Faculty Senate Leadership Awards
On a yearly basis, faculty members are recognized by their peers for their exceptional efforts in support of OHSU missions. Awards are made for contributions within the last ten years. Emeritus faculty are not eligible. Each finalist receives a total of $3500 and his or her name engraved on a memorial plaque from the OHSU Foundation. These awards will be presented at a convocation luncheon in May.
This year, nominations from School of Medicine are sought in the Leadership category. Please send a letter of nomination and supporting documentation by April 11 to Doug Weeks (weeksd@ohsu.edu). Letters from more than one fellow faculty member are encouraged to allow reviewers to gain greater insight into the nominees’ qualifications.
Upcoming events
Check out the School of Medicine’s upcoming events & seminars calendar click here. April Highlights:
April 7: Campbell Lecture - C. Everett Koop, MD. Pediatric surgery, a 62-year perspective
April 9: Bioethics Study Group - Advancement for women faculty
April 10: Public Lecture - Tom Fleming, MD. Little eggs make big decisions
April 10: ORPRN Convocation. From research to practice – enhancing rural health care
Have something to post? Contact Mark Kemball (kemballm@ohsu.edu).
Faculty: Order your hooding regalia now!
The School of Medicine Hooding Ceremony will be held on June 3, 9:00 a.m. at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in downtown Portland. A reception for graduates, family and faculty will immediately follow the ceremony.
Regalia rental will be offered through Royal-T again this year, please click here for their ordering web site: click here. Regalia distribution on Marquam Hill will occur on the following dates/times:
May 21 & 22 - 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
Old Library, Great Hall
May 28 - 9:00 am to 12:00 pm
Old Library, Great Hall
Note: after April 28, a late fee of $15 will be charged. No Cap and Gown orders will be accepted after May 9.
Questions? Contact Janna Roth (rothja@ohsu.edu) in the Dean’s office.
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