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Message from the Dean: Focusing on diversityGME goes to Washington Vision 2020 in Action: Strategic initiatives to enhance diversity Med students rally for “Cover the Uninsured Week” 25th Annual Student Research Forum attracts hundredsGoogle funds medical image retrieval project School of Medicine goes “on-the-road”Discovery SpotlightJune 17 - Professional development opportunityDr. Rotwein on NIH Study SectionDr. Cain honored for leadershipDrs. McAnulty and Storrs receive CME awardInaugural GME Humanitarian Award recognizes four Neurological surgery residents receive national recognition Students honor volunteerism Dr. Fields assumes STFM presidency Welcome new faculty
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May 2008
Message from Dean Richardson: Diversity – a catalyst for innovation and excellence
 Over the last two decades, medicine has become increasingly and appropriately gender-balanced. At the same time, we have made some progress in balancing our leadership ranks by gender. We can do better – here in the School of Medicine as well as in academic medicine nationally – but our trend is moving in the right direction.
Coincident with this demographic shift, collectively, academic medicine also began to identify and acknowledge the role that gender plays in some disease manifestation and treatment efficacy. In response, we opened up new and productive avenues of gender-based research. Gender-based medicine continues to fundamentally transform health care in important ways. Likewise, as medicine becomes more diverse in other ways, we may uncover paradigms that result in similar health care advances.
As students, residents and faculty throughout academic medicine increasingly recognize and appreciate the role of diversity in fostering an intellectually vibrant climate, they preferentially seek out institutions with these characteristics. Thus, enhancing diversity in our own community will allow us to attract and retain exceptional physicians, scientists and students. Because of this, increasing diversity is a key goal of Vision 2020.
Historically, diversity refers to differences in ethnicity, race and gender. In the School of Medicine, we are finding that a range of life experiences is also important to diversity: rural heritage, economic background, sexual orientation, culture and belief systems and educational hardships, to name a few.
We want to increase diversity because it is the right thing to do and because it makes us stronger and better able to provide for patients. The Office of the Dean is supporting several programs to meet that goal. Please keep reading in this newsletter for an article that summarizes many of those efforts. However, there is ample evidence to suggest that success will require more than these formal programmatic efforts. Our success also depends on personal contact between OHSU School of Medicine representatives – faculty, residents and students – and potential recruits.
You can help.
Reach out to promising students, residents and young faculty members when you attend conferences or when you lecture at other institutions. Introduce yourself and learn about their interests. Exchange contact information and follow through with a phone call or e-mail. Introduce them to colleagues at OHSU that share their interests. Invite them to give a lecture here.
Give yourself reminders to follow up from time to time. Ask how things are going, or ask, for instance, “Have you made your top choices for residency?” Add these individuals to the distribution lists for newsletters and media releases that will keep them informed about events and achievements at OHSU. Offer an e-mail or phone introduction to Ella Booth, PhD, our Associate Dean for Diversity.
Dr. Charles Thomas, Chair of the Department of Radiation Medicine, is very involved in this personal outreach technique. The Radiation Medicine Lecture Series regularly hosts diverse faculty from around the country to present their work and perspectives at OHSU. He proactively contacts academically promising medical students and select undergraduate students, inviting them to get to know OHSU, and connects them with our faculty with whom they share common interests. When traveling, he meets with diverse students, post-docs and colleagues to let them know about our commitment to diversity and what a great place Oregon is to live and work.
Over time, these types of efforts will result in direct and indirect pay-offs as word of mouth about our commitment to a diverse community spreads. This approach requires extra work. I know we are all busy, but it is important. I thank all of you already engaged in this type of outreach, and encourage and appreciate everyone’s involvement. I invite you to contact Ella Booth for advice and suggestions. Thank you.
Best regards,
Mark Richardson
Dean
GME goes to Washington
 The Graduate Medical Education team from the Office of the Dean presented two posters at the Physician Workforce Research Conference hosted by the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington, D.C. in early May.
"Oregon Physician Workforce Distribution" analyzed the geographic distribution of Family Medicine GME alumni of the Portland and Klamath Falls programs since 1996. The analysis showed that a higher proportion of graduates of the Klamath Falls program ended up practicing in rural or frontier regions.
"Increasing Active Physicians in Oregon: A Reentry Approach" summarized the early results of our Physician Reentry Program and discussed its potential contribution to increasing the pool of active, licensed physicians in Oregon. (To read the March 2008 article on the Reentry Program: click here.)
While in Washington, the GME team went to Capitol Hill to visit members of the Oregon delegation. The goal of the visit was to inform legislators and staff about the physician and health care workforce shortages in Oregon and to provide information about OHSU's efforts to reverse these trends.
Organized by Lynne Boyle, OHSU Director of Federal Relations, and spearheaded by Donald Girard, MD, Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education, the group visited with legislative staff from the Senate Aging Committee and from the offices of Rep. Darlene Hooley, Rep. Greg Walden and Senator Gordon Smith. The group also met with Rep. Earl Blumenauer and Rep. David Wu.
"These were all productive meetings. It's good to get the word out about all the great things that OHSU and the School of Medicine are doing to help address workforce shortages in Oregon," said Ms. Boyle.
Pictured: Don Girard, Kristen Wessel, Elizabeth Bower, Clea English and Lynne Boyle.
Vision 2020 in Action: Strategic initiatives to enhance diversity
As part of Vision 2020, the School of Medicine is actively engaged in several strategic initiatives to enhance diversity. This list highlights some of these efforts.
Supporting the Post-Baccalaureate Medical Degree Conditional Acceptance Program. When grant funding was eliminated by the federal government, the Dean provided funding to keep the program alive. This program offers additional instruction and guidance to students whose competitive profiles have been negatively impacted by social, economic or educational disadvantages. There are four students in this year’s first-year medical school class who matriculated through the Post-Bac program. Three students are currently auditing first-year courses as part of the Post-Bac curriculum. We will continue to support four students each year.
Conducting workshops in the community. The Office of Diversity conducted workshops at Portland State University and Oregon State University for students interested in medicine. Those who attend the workshops heard from an OHSU admissions officer as well as MDs, medical students and graduate students who described their own paths to medicine. The Office will continue to make efforts in this area.
Supporting the Equity Summer Research Program. This is the fourth year of the Equity Summer Research Program for disadvantaged students. In this program, five to six undergraduates receive a stipend while spending eight weeks doing lab research with a faculty mentor. The students also attend science presentations with their peers.
Supporting diversity recruitment. In the spring of 2007, the Dean funded a new full-time position to work on diversity initiatives, including recruitment. The Dean also funded the Diversity Internship Program – a year-long internship experience to assist the Office of Diversity in recruitment initiatives. The Office of Diversity supports advertising in journals that target women and/or underrepresented minorities. The Associate Dean for Diversity meets with search committees, chairs and program directors to discuss diversity recruitment strategies.
For the complete update: click here. For more information about these and other diversity initiatives, please contact Ella Booth at boothe@ohsu.edu or Laurie Mecham at mechaml@ohsu.edu.
Med students rally for “Cover the Uninsured Week”
 National health care reform, universal access, rural and global health issues and specialty care were just some of the topics covered in workshops and lectures organized as part of Cover the Uninsured Week, which took place at OHSU from April 28 to May 3.
About 40 students from the School of Medicine teamed up with students from the Schools of Dentistry and Nursing to lead the events, which culminated in a Health Screening Fair at the University Park Community Center in North Portland. One hundred adults and their children received screenings for blood pressure, glucose and cholesterol levels, foot exams and vision tests. Community health care and substance abuse education programs also supported the event.
“Understanding that over 600,000 Oregonians are uninsured is one thing,” said Evelyn Ford, a second year student in the MD program, and Chair of the student organizing committee. “Seeing the impact face-to-face, or hearing State Representative Mitch Greenlick discuss what he is doing at the policy-making level really brings it home. Lack of health care insurance is a situation we will be facing as professionals in a little over 24 months, and we need to prepare ourselves both to better address it and advocate for a solution.”
“It’s hard to overstate the commitment shown by our students,” said Jim Reuler, MD, Professor of Medicine and faculty advisor to the committee. “Their willingness to take the time to give back to the community at this stage of their training speaks volumes about their commitment to medicine and to the community in which they will practice.”
Pictured: Med student Natasha Fewkes at the health screening.
25th Annual Student Research Forum attracts hundreds
 The sign outside the Old Library Auditorium read, “Student Research Forum,” but anyone glancing in at the first session on Thursday, May 8, may have been surprised. The more than 200 attendees were all sporting 3D glasses – the type with one red lens and one blue lens – and staring at an eerie glowing screen.
The attendees were following the directions of the Forum’s keynote speaker Susana Martinez-Conde, PhD, Director of the Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience at the Barrow Neurological Institute. Dr. Martinez-Conde’s talk on her work with optical illusions set the tone for the 25th Annual Student Research Forum, a wide-reaching collection of oral and poster presentations, dinners and awards.
Chaired by two graduate students in the School of Medicine, Brenda Marsh and Brenda Polster, the two-day forum hosted 70 student oral presentations grouped into 15 topics and a 45-member poster session. Students presenting research represented the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, Science & Engineering, Dentistry and Pharmacy. Monetary awards – sponsored by OHSU departments – were given in each of the 15 topics, and to outstanding poster session presenters.
For a complete listing of the awards: click here.
Google funds medical image retrieval project
Google Research, an arm of Google, Inc., the Internet search engine company, has awarded a small but strategic grant to advance work under way at the School of Medicine aimed at improving the use of image retrieval systems for medical applications. The project will focus on: gaining a better understanding of the medically oriented needs and motivations of users, extending and evaluating a prototype medical image retrieval system, and augmenting a research test collection of medical images.
"Image retrieval is less reliable than text retrieval partly because the algorithms to automatically identify image content are less well developed, but demand for efficient, secure image search engines is rising, among physicians and other medical users,” said William Hersh, MD, Professor, Chair of the Department of Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology, and the project's lead investigator.
School of Medicine goes “on-the-road”
 The Dean and five faculty members visited Central Oregon on May 21 to share the latest advances in the treatment of cancer, stroke, diabetes and heart disease. Dean Richardson viewed the event as closely tied with OHSU's statewide mission. "As Oregon's only academic health center, we consider our campus to be all 96,000 square miles of the state. We want to be a statewide resource for all of our citizens."
Titled “Breakthroughs and Innovations: Your Health, Your Future,” the one-day conference was emceed by Dr. William “Bill” Lee, a 1964 graduate of the OHSU School of Medicine. Dr. Lee also completed his residency at OHSU.
Dean Richardson presented the keynote address on how community partnerships have the potential to transform Oregon's health care and how these partnerships are the key to addressing current health challenges. Faculty presentations were:
“From Discovery to Hope” by Brian J. Druker, MD, Director, OHSU Cancer Institute
“Defeating Diabetes” by Andrew J. Ahmann, MD, Director, Harold Schnitzer Diabetes Center and Associate Professor of Medicine
“Restoring the Rhythms of the Heart” by Joaquin Cigarroa, MD, Director, Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories, Associate Professor of Medicine and Sumeet Chugh, MD, Director, Cardiac Arrythmyia Center, and Associate Professor of Medicine and Anesthesiology & Peri-Operative Medicine
“Time is Brain: The Latest in Stroke Treatment” by Helmi Lutsep, MD, Associate Professor of Neurology and Anesthesiology & Peri-Operative Medicine
To view local media reports and broadcasts of the event: click here.
Pictured:Joaquin Cigarroa during the presentation.
Discovery Spotlight: Newly developed reagents may improve pancreatic cancer detection
Brett Sheppard, MD, and colleagues in the OHSU Oregon Stem Cell Center, have developed new reagents, or antibodies, that can recognize pancreatic cancer. The new antibodies recognize a small number of normal pancreas cells, specifically cells involved in the transport of enzymes out of the pancreas, but recognize many more cells in pancreatic cancer tissue. These antibodies also recognize gastrointestinal cancers.
"The next step is to use these antibodies in a sensitive screening test to determine their full potential in diagnosis of this devastating disease," said Brett Sheppard, MD, study co-investigator and Professor and Vice Chair of Surgery in the School of Medicine. He presented these findings this week at Digestive Disease Week 2008 (Abstract No. 1838: "Development of Monoclonal Antibodies to Aid in the Diagnosis of Pancreatic Cancer").
Today just 15 percent of pancreatic cancer cases are detected early enough to qualify for a potential cure. Unfortunately, the signs and symptoms of the disease do not usually appear until the cancer is in advanced stages, when surgery - currently the only treatment for pancreatic cancer - is no longer an option. Pancreatic cancer is the fourth-leading cause of cancer death in the United States.
Eager to devise an earlier means of detection and save more lives, Philip Streeter, PhD, lead investigator on the study and Associate Professor of Medicine (Hematology/Medical Oncology) in the OHSU School of Medicine, along with Dr. Sheppard and colleagues generated and characterized the antibodies, which were developed following the injection of normal pancreas cells into mice. They next took the spleen cells of the mice and fused them with a myeloma cell line, which yields cells that can be grown for long periods of time in the laboratory. These cells secreted antibodies that the researchers were then able to screen for reaction with normal pancreatic and pancreatic cancer tissues.
Dr. Sheppard and colleagues have also established the Oregon Pancreas Tumor Registry, which is intended to keep patients at high risk for pancreatic cancer under surveillance, with the goal of early diagnosis. The registry also acts as a biospecimen repository in which patients and families may provide blood, pancreatic ductal fluid and tissue samples. Researchers may then use the samples for pancreatic cancer research.
OHSU has filed for patent protection on certain aspects of these antibodies. Other OHSU investigators on this study include: Karin Hardiman, MD; Craig Dorrell, PhD; Christopher Corless, MD, PhD; and, Markus Grompe, MD.
Save the date – Professional development opportunity: June 17
Janet Bickel is nationally recognized for her seminars on professional development. In her previous leadership position at Association of American Medical Colleges, she established the first Office of Women in Medicine. She has spoken and consulted at over 110 academic health centers and universities and is a leading national expert in helping academic institutions improve their leadership development. She will be on the Marquam Hill campus on June 17. Two events are planned, described below, both sponsored by the TALENT program and the Women in Academic Medicine Committee:
Grand Rounds: Generational Differences - Implications For Faculty Recruitment and Development in Academic Medicine and Science. Participants will learn to recognize and bridge critical generational differences, including active listening and balancing advocacy with inquiry, maximizing their impact as a mentor, and best practices at other institutions for facilitating faculty recruitment and career development. No registration is required. (OHSU Hospital 8B60 8 - 9 a.m.)
Lecture and Workshops. The plenary session will focus on Career Resilience and will be followed by workshops identifying skills and tools needed to negotiate successfully, balance work and life demands, and define a career path. These sessions are designed primarily for faculty. Registration is required. Please contact Rod Taylor at taylorro@ohsu.edu (Vey Conference Center, Doernbecher Children's Hospital, 1 - 4 p.m.).
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