All-faculty meeting and the Dean's State of the School address: Sept 15, 4:30 pm, Old Library Auditorium
The School of Medicine annual all-faculty meeting and State of the
School address this year are expanded to include honoring faculty
members/teams that made exceptional contributions to the School last
year and to highlight new initiatives and accomplishments. All
available primary faculty are invited.
Irene Barhyte named Senior Associate Dean for Finance and Administration
Irene
Barhyte has been named Senior Associate Dean for Finance and
Administration in the School of Medicine. This position has been newly
defined and expanded to include responsibility and oversight both for
the finances of the School of Medicine and the Faculty Practice Plan.
Previously – before the integration of the OHSU Medical Group into the
School of Medicine as the new Faculty Practice Plan on January 1, 2009
– these responsibilities were carried out in two separate
positions.
Dean Mark Richardson and the Faculty Practice Plan Management
Committee enthusiastically recommended Irene for the newly integrated
position, which she has filled since April on an interim basis. "In
recognition of Irene's exceptional performance over these past several
months – especially during what has been a challenging budget year due
to the global economic crisis – I am pleased to appoint her to this
position. She is a real asset to the School of Medicine and to the
Faculty Practice Plan," said Dean Richardson. "Irene understands the
big picture perspective of our complex institution and is also
sensitive to the needs of each department, regardless of size and
budget."
Irene has been at OHSU since 1997. In her most recent position as
OHSU Assistant Comptroller, Irene was responsible for overseeing many
aspects of Central Financial Services (CFS). She has a deep knowledge
of OHSU's organization and financial systems. She was involved in
planning for and implementing the integration of OHSU Medical Group
into the School of Medicine as the new Faculty Practice Plan, and has
been involved in special projects related to research
administration. She is a CPA and Certified Treasury Professional,
previously worked with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
(FDIC), a big-six accounting firm, and is a graduate of Oregon State
University.
Shoukhrat Mitalipov, PhD, and team develop gene therapy method to prevent some inherited diseases
Researchers at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC)
believe they have developed one of the first forms of genetic therapy –
a therapy aimed at preventing serious diseases in unborn
children. Specifically, the therapy would combat inherited diseases
passed on from mothers to their children through mutated DNA in cell
mitochondria. The research is published in the Aug. 26 advance online
edition of the journal Nature and will appear in a print edition of the journal at a later date.
"We believe this discovery in nonhuman primates can rapidly be
translated into human therapies aimed at preventing inherited disorders
passed from mothers to their children through the mitochondrial DNA,
such as certain forms of cancer, diabetes, infertility, myopathies and
neurodegenerative diseases," explained Shoukhrat Mitalipov, PhD, an
associate scientist in the Division of Reproductive Sciences at ONPRC,
the Oregon Stem Cell Center and the School of Medicine Departments of
Obstetrics and Gynecology and Molecular & Medical Genetics.
"Currently there are 150 known diseases caused by mutations of the
mitochondrial DNA, and approximately 1 out of every 200 children is
born with mitochondrial mutations."
To read the complete OHSU media release, click here. To check out a sampling of the worldwide media coverage, read the BBC article here.. 309 local, national and worldwide media stories and counting.
Welcome new MD students: by the numbers
120: total class size
- 73%: Oregon residents
- 12%: born in another country
- 61: women
- 26: average age
- 21 to 47: age range
- 78: number of undergrad colleges represented
- 37%: biology majors
- 18%: biochemistry, molecular biology or neuroscience majors
- 37: other majors (including sciences, humanities, social science and the arts)
- 120: unique paths that led to OHSU medical school
- 3: the number of paths described below in their words
Welcome new MD students: three stories
For photos, video and local television coverage of the White Coat Ceremony, visit the School's facebook page: click here.
A tug of war between an ambition to become a writer and a desire to apply an interest in science in a hands-on way.
For Nathan Garton, 26, of Grants Pass, the decision
to become a physician crystallized when he worked as a hospice
volunteer interviewing terminally ill patients and chronicling the
story of their lives for the benefit of both the patients and their
families. In that process, he also learned about the medical histories
that brought people to their final chapters.
"I'm interested in stories, and to me that's a lot of what being a
doctor is about, asking the story of a person's body and trying to find
out the specific events that led them to you. Writing those stories was
where it all kind of clicked for me."
That decision resolved something of a tug of war between an ambition
to become a writer and a desire to apply his interest in science in a
hands-on way. Garton spent his last three undergraduate years at
Bennington College in Vermont, a famous breeding ground for writers,
graduating with a double major in English and Physics. During summers,
he was an intern at Tin House, the Portland-based literary magazine.
But he was drawn to science by a fascination with the saga of his great
uncle, a nuclear physicist, who sought to work out a proof knocking a
chink in Bell's theorem of quantum mechanics. Garton inherited the
unfinished proof when his great uncle died and grappled with it in
producing his senior thesis at Bennington.
While engaged in post-baccalaureate pre-med studies at Portland
State University, Garton helped expand and refine the "Defining
Moments" story keepers 
program
at Adventist and also volunteered in an OHSU emergency medicine
department program for students, which exposed him to the contrast
between the achingly slow rhythms of a hospice and the often
super-frenetic pace of an emergency room. Garton already is giving some
thought to his professional career beyond medical school. "I'm really
interested in primary care in a rural setting on the Oregon coast where
my grandparents live, an area that's absurdly barren when it comes to
doctors." But he also confesses to a great interest in neurology and
mapping neuro pathways.
The daughter of the only bovine veterinarian in southern Tillamook county, Jenna assisted her father on rounds.
Jenna Emerson, 23, begins her studies at OHSU with
a clear-eyed perspective on the health care needs of rural populations
in Oregon as well as in the "pretty drastic environment" of poverty
stricken countries like Guatemala where she was a health care aide for
a year after college. The daughter of the only bovine veterinarian in
southern Tillamook county where dairy farming is the leading industry,
Emerson attended Nestucca High School in Cloverdale (pop. 249) then
went on to major in biology at Carroll College in Montana.
As a youth she assisted her father on his rounds and during
surgeries. In college she worked in a veterinary clinic. But she
transferred her focus to human health when she became aware of the
plight of an increasing number of immigrant agricultural workers in
Tillamook County. That commitment deepened in Guatemala where she found
herself doing post-operational stitching and supporting appendectomies
in the poorly equipped, understaffed National Hospital. She also worked
for Faith in Practice, an American non-governmental organization that
sends health care teams to remote Guatemalan villages.
Maliheh's other passion is soccer, which she concedes virtually ruled her life for a time.
Maliheh Nakhai, 26, who was raised in Eugene and
graduated from South Eugene High School, knew early on what she wanted
to do. She had an inkling she might want a career in science after her 
elementary
school class dissected a frog because, despite an initial
squeamishness, she found herself totally enthralled. By the time she
was a high school freshman Nakhai was pretty sure of what she wanted to
do even though she wasn't certain what it would entail. She set about
finding out by participating in Health Occupations Students of America
all through high school and volunteering as a certified nursing
assistant at Eugene's Sacred Heart Medical Center. She majored in
biology at Mills College in California and after graduating in 2006 she
moved to Ashland, Ore., where she worked for three years as a research
coordinator at the Clinical Research Institute of Southern Oregon.
She did volunteer work with La Clinica del Valle, which provides
health care services to low-income, uninsured and underserved
communities at three centers in Jackson county, Oregon. Nakhai's other
passion is soccer, which she concedes virtually ruled her life for a
time. She was captain of the women's soccer team at Mills and the
junior varsity team in high school. And she is looking, at least at
this point, toward the possibility of combining her passions by
specializing in sports medicine or orthopaedics. She also is keen on
providing medical care in some way to traditionally underserved
populations.
Congratulations! Physician Assistant Program graduates 13th class
The OHSU Physician Assistant Program
graduated its 13th class on Saturday, August 15. The program
graduated 36 students of which two-thirds plan to stay in Oregon to
practice. At the time of graduation one third of the class was
already employed – about half in primary care. "These new
physician assistants are a very important element of Oregon's health
care future, and will provide significant new access to primary care,"
said Dean Mark Richardson.
The commencement address was delivered by Bill Leinweber, Executive
Vice President and CEO of the American Academy of Physician Assistants.
Mr. Leinweber spoke to the students about being an advocate for both
their profession and their patients and the role that PAs can play in
health care reform.
Awards were presented to students and faculty. Graduates Ian Penner
and Casey Evans were presented with the award for Academic Achievement
while Christina Joseph was recognized for Excellence in the Clinical
Year and Kristin Dunlap was given an award citing her professionalism.
Pat Kenney-Moore, MS, PA-C, and Greg Larsen, MD, of OHSU, received the
Excellence in Teaching in the Academic Year award. Charles Versteeg,
MD, of Southern Oregon Orthopedics in Medford and Jana Van Amburg, MD,
of Advanced Specialty General Surgery in Bend, received the Excellence
in Clinical Teaching award. The day culminated with a reception of
family and friends.
From the archives: On the eve of World War II
David W.E. Baird, MD (left), and Howard P. Lewis, MD (right), both
towering figures in the history of the medical school during the first
and middle parts of the 20th century, chat quietly in the Old
Library.
At first glance, this image seems to capture a normal tête-a-tête
between the dean and his chief of medicine. But on the back, written in
pencil, is the small notation that radically alters the way we look at
and interpret this photo: July 10, 1942 / Taken night of activation of 46th General Hospital
The 46th General was the all-volunteer unit based out of the
University of Oregon Medical School which operated overseas, in Africa
and Europe, during World War II. In command was 57-year-old urologist
Col. J. Guy Strohm, who had served as division surgeon with the 91st in
World War I.
The forty-year-old Lewis would soon leave for Army duty, first as
assistant chief of the medical service at Halloran General Hospital in
Staten Island, and then as chief at Rhoads Hospital in Utica, New
York.
The forty-four year-old Baird would continue to lead the school
through the war years, overseeing a faculty depleted by military
call-ups and a curriculum accelerated to produce new physicians as
quickly as possible.
Contributed by Sara Piasecki, Head, OHSU Historical Collections & Archives.
Out of the O.R. and into virtual reality
ACS accredits OHSU surgical simulation – one of 40 in nation
In 2006, the OHSU surgical simulation program squeezed itself,
elbow-to-elbow, into a small, cramped space and had only basic
old-school equipment. Today, just three years later, it's housed in a 
remodeled
1,200-square foot space in the Old Library with state-of-the-art, high
fidelity "virtual reality" simulators that allow residents to practice
colonoscopies, bronchoscopies and many other surgical procedures on
adult and pediatric models.
"Simulation is a key part of surgical education and today's
amazing technology helps move beyond the historical paradigm of
learning by random opportunity," said Donn Spight, MD,
Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, and Medical Director of
VirtuOHSU. "It moves surgical education outside of the O.R."
VirtuOHSU recently earned accreditation from the American College of
Surgeons, one of only 40 such programs to receive this national
recognition. With 89 residents, the OHSU surgical residency program is
the second largest in the country.
John Hunter, MD, Professor and Chair, Department of Surgery, is leading an effort to coordinate and expand simulation programs across the institution for both students and practicing health care professionals.
Dr. Hunter is chairing the newly charged OHSU Simulation Governance
Board – composed of OHSU faculty from the Schools of Medicine, Nursing
and Dentistry, the OHSU Hospital and community members from Intel,
among others. Securing philanthropic support for a comprehensive
simulation center is part of the OHSU Foundation's $100 million Faculty
Fundraising Initiative.
The residency experience of Dr. Spight, who specializes in minimally
invasive surgery, shows the enormous educational potential of
increasingly sophisticated simulation technology. "I trained in the
classic environment — the attending and the chief resident would be
doing a laparoscopic operation," he remembered, "and the attending
might think of me and say, 'Hey, call Donn to the OR,' and upon my
arrival he would say 'We're going to teach you to sew — right now.' Your heart starts pounding and your sphincter tone gets high, everyone's watching, and the attending says, 'Step up!"
Read an article about the VirtuOHSU in the 2009 Bridges Magazine here.
David Dorr, MD, at White House to discuss primary care
David
Dorr, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Informatics &
Clinical Epidemiology, participated in a White House roundtable on
health care reform on August 10. Led by President Obama's Health
Reform "Czar" Nancy-Ann DeParle, the group was called together to
report on the potential of medical homes to enhance primary care
delivery.
Dr. Dorr, pictured left, presented information to the group about
the Care Management Plus (CMP) model. The CMP model embeds a care
manager/coordinator with a redesigned Health IT/electronic medical
records infrastructure to support care coordination. Led by Dr. Dorr,
the CMP model was piloted over a six-year period at Intermountain
Healthcare with 4,700 patients and 72 doctors at seven primary care
clinics. The focus was a patient population of at-risk older adults
with complex chronic illnesses.
The pilot demonstrated the role of CMP in increasing satisfaction
and productivity of primary care staff, improving mortality rates, and
reducing unnecessary hospital admissions, especially
re-hospitalizations. Currently, the model is being disseminated to
75 clinical teams across the country from OHSU. In addition to Dr.
Dorr's presentation, the White House staff heard from representatives
from state Medicaid plans, other health plans, integrated delivery
systems and physician societies. You can read more about CMP in the January 2009 School of Medicine Dean's newsletter (click here).
OHSU study shows decline in maternity care workforce due to malpractice insurance
A study led by Ariel Smits, MD, MPH, Department of Family Medicine,
shows that Oregon continues to lose maternity care providers.
Information drawn from the study abstract describes how the team
surveyed all obstetrical care providers in Oregon in 2002 and 2006.
Survey data, supplemented with state administrative data, were analyzed
for changes in provision of maternity care and reasons for stopping
maternity care.
Results
show that only 36.6 percent of responding clinicians qualified to
deliver babies were actually providing maternity care in Oregon in 2006,
significantly lower than the proportion (47.8 percent) found in 2002.
Cost of malpractice premiums remains the most frequently cited reason
for stopping maternity care, followed by lifestyle issues.
A goal of the study was to examine how Oregon's rural liability
subsidy is affecting rural maternity care providers' ability to provide
maternity care services. Most providers receiving the subsidy reported
that it was very important to their continued provision of maternity
care. However, statistical analysis found that the subsidy alone was
not effective at keeping maternity care providers delivering babies.
Call support, practice coverage and increased reimbursement should also
be considered.
The study was funded by a grant from the American Academy of
Family Physicians, the Oregon Medical Association, and OHSU
Family Medicine Research Division. For additional information, contact
Dr. Smits or John Saultz, MD, Chair, Department of Family Medicine. The
full paper is in the August issue of Health Services Research.
Discovery Spotlight: "K" awards jump from five to sixty-five
Since the early days of federal research funding, PhD researchers
have outnumbered those with MD degrees. A flow of physicians out of
academic medical centers and into private practice in the late 1980s
and early 1990s widened the disparity, severing the ties between
the departing clinicians and their grant-eligible research environment.
"Translational research, which extends discovery to the patient, should
inherently include physicians as researchers and innovators. The NIH
"K" Awards system is an attempt to redress this imbalance," said
Cynthia Morris, PhD, MPH, Vice Chair of Medical Informatics &
Clinical Epidemiology, Professor of Medicine, Public Health and
Preventative Medicine. "K awards offer ten to fifteen programs to
facilitate and improve the career development of early clinician
investigators, and attract them into the investigator environment." As
part of the award, training is provided in the basic sciences and in
clinical translational science.
"In 2001, we had
fewer than five awards," said Dr. Morris. "Now, OHSU and the VA have at
least 65 mentored career development awards between them."
Robert
O'Rourke, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Surgery and
Co-Director of the department's Bariatric Surgery Program, is one of
OHSU's K awardees. "Most of my clinical practice involves the use of
surgery in the treatment of morbid obesity," he said. "There's no doubt
that surgical techniques are effective, but there is also a huge need
for research to help us better understand and address the underlying
long term causes and effects of obesity."
Nine months into his five-year award, Dr. O'Rourke is focusing on
the role of inflammation in mitigating some of the diseases regularly
associated with obesity. "We know that diseases such as diabetes and
artherosclerosis in obese patients are significantly related to
underlying chronic systemic inflammation in those patients," he said.
"My research is dedicated to finding molecular and cellular hooks that
will allow us to intervene and apply non-surgical techniques to the
treatment of obesity-related diseases."
OHSU's program for early research scholars in clinical and
translational science in the Oregon Clinical and Translational Research
Institute is designed to support applicants and awardees at every
stage.
"This kind of support is a critical ingredient in successful
applicants becoming successful investigators," said Dr. Morris. Dr.
O'Rourke agreed. "Without the support of OCTRI, my department chair Dr.
Hunter, and my mentor, Dr. Dan Marks, my chances of taking this work to
the NIH's R01 funding level would be greatly reduced. My patients are
also a major part of this collaboration. With their consent, we use
tissue samples from clinical surgical procedures to test in the
research lab. Their participation in this way allows us to expand our
avenues of enquiry many times over."
"This is an important OHSU pipeline for new investigators and
getting people through the K phase and into the next, independent
investigator phase -- in other words getting these junior people into
the RO1 or VA merit review grant category," said Eric Orwoll, MD,
Professor, Department of Medicine, Associate Dean for Clinical Research
and Director of OCTRI, "and we're working on methods to make that even more successful."
Pictured above: Dr. O'Rourke
Honors, appointments and announcements
Evelyn Ford, MD-MPH candidate, receives Fogarty Award
Evelyn
Ford, a MD-MPH candidate at OHSU, is one of nearly 100 top graduate
students and post-doctoral trainees from the United States and 19
nations selected to train in global health research in low- and
middle-income countries. The program, supported by the Fogarty
International Center, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and 15
other components of the National Institutes of Health, is administered
by Vanderbilt University's Institute for Global Health and the
Association of American Medical Colleges.
Evelyn will investigate causes of maternal morbidity and mortality
and contribute to HIV surveillance program design in Dhaka, Bangladesh
at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Diseases Research in
Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) under the mentorship of Alejandro Cravioto, MD,
PhD and Laura Reichenbach, PhD, ICDDR,B.
Pictured at right: Evelyn Ford and Dr. Fauzia Huda attend the
FICRS orientation at National Institutes of Health in Washington,
DC
Brian Fennerty, MD, is ASGE president-elect
M. Brian Fennerty, MD, FASGE, Professor of Medicine, is
president-elect of the the American Society for Gastrointestinal
Endoscopy (ASGE). Dr. Fennerty assumed his duties on May 31 during the
society's Digestive Disease Week in Chicago. His term as
president-elect continues through May 2010, to be followed by his term
as ASGE president. Dr. Fennerty is a fellow of the ASGE, the American
College of Gastroenterology and the American Gastroenterological
Association. He is a past member and current consultant of the FDA
Advisory Panel on Gastrointestinal and Urological Devices. He is also a
member of the Gastroenterology Committee for the American Board of
Internal Medicine.
APOM resident receives FAER Research Fellowship Grant
Stacy Fairbanks, MD, a resident in the Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine (APOM) has been awarded a Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER) Research Fellowship Grant (RFG).
One of only three RFGs in the country, Dr. Fairbanks' project,
"Mechanisms of Sex Differences in Neuronal Survival," explores the role
of the enzyme sEH in the difference in brain cell death after stroke
between men and women. Elucidating sex specific mechanisms of brain
injury after stroke may allow the development of sex-tailored and more
effective therapies against stroke injury for both men and women. Dr.
Fairbanks is being mentored on this project by APOM Professor Nabil
Alkayed, MD, PhD.
Pictured: Nabil Alkayed, MD, PhD, and Stacy Fairbanks, MD
OHSU hosts interns through NIH program, ARRA funding
The NIH Summer Research Experience program uses American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act funding to pair local educators and students with
individual faculty members for a hands-on experience in laboratories
where breakthrough research is taking place. More than 3,000 high
school and college students and high school teachers are expected to
participate in this program with faculty on university campuses around
the country. Project titles and principal investigators in the
School of Medicine who received ARRA awards for this purpose are:
- John Brigande, PhD, Associate Professor, Otolaryngology and Cell & Developmental Biology
- William Fleming, MD, PhD, Professor, Medicine and Cell & Developmental Biology
- William Hersh, MD, Professor and Chair, Medical Informatics & Clinical Epidemiology
- Mary Stenzel-Poore, PhD, Professor and interim Chair, Molecular Microbiology & Immunology
PA class donates $1,000 to low/no-income clinic
The OHSU Physician Assistant Class of 2010 recently made a financial
donation of $1,000 to Portland's Old Town Clinic, which provides
compassionate and quality health care on a sliding fee scale to
low-income and homeless people. The class's fundraising efforts, which
included raffle and other events, have been aimed at giving back to the
community and supporting worthy causes. In deciding where to donate
their funds, students wanted to support a cause that embodied their
goals for health care: serving the community and sustaining
affordable access. Old Town Clinic has also acknowledged the value of
making physician assistants integral members of the health care team by
employing PAs and contributing to PA education through both didactic
and clinical opportunities. The OHSU Class of 2010 believes that these
policies are key elements in working toward a solution to our nation's
health care crisis and were honored to make the donation to such a
facility.
Welcome to our new faculty members
A warm welcome to our newest faculty members: this list is located here: www.ohsu.edu/som, or click here.
