Alfons Krol named interim chair of Dermatology, Paul Flint to head search for new chair
Dean Richardson has appointed Alfons L. Krol, MD, FRCPC, to the position of interim chair of the Department of Dermatology.
This appointment is effective July 1, 2010. In making this appointment,
Dean Richardson sought the input of dermatology faculty members; Dr.
Krol emerged quickly as a consensus choice. "I am confident that Dr.
Krol will be an effective and inspirational leader for the Department
of Dermatology," said Dean Richardson. "I appreciate his willingness to
step into this interim leadership role." 
In March, Neil Swanson, MD, announced his intent to step down as
chair after serving in this position for 15 years. Dr. Swanson decided
to return to a more active role providing clinical care and education,
and to refocus his considerable experience and expertise on his new
role as Director of Clinical Operations in the OHSU Knight Cancer
Institute.
Dr. Krol joined the OHSU School of Medicine faculty in September
2002 as a professor. Dr. Krol is also the director of Pediatric
Dermatology at OHSU and Doernbecher Children's Hospital. He received
his medical degree from the University of Alberta and completed his
residency and fellowships at McGill University and the Montreal
Children's Hospital. Previously, Dr. Krol was director of Pediatric
Dermatology at the University of Alberta and the Stollery Children's
Hospital, and also served as director of the Division of Dermatology at
the University of Alberta.
Paul Flint, MD, Professor and Chair, Department of Otolaryngology,
Head and Neck Surgery, will lead the search for a new chair. The
committee membership is:
- Rosalie C. Sears, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics
- Jeffrey L. Koh, MD, Professor, Departments of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine, and Pediatrics
- Scott Turner, MA, Associate Hospital Administrator, Pediatric Administration
- Charles D. Lopez, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Departments of Medicine, and Cell & Developmental Biology
- Tomasz M. Beer, MD, Professor, Department of Medicine, Deputy Director, Knight Cancer Institute
- Phoebe Rich, MD, Oregon Dermatology and Research Center, and Adjunct Professor, Department of Dermatology
The department is engaged in a self-assessment process and the
search committee will conduct interviews with department faculty,
residents and staff to gain their perspective on the ideal attributes
of the new leader. Outreach for the department chair position is
underway. Advertisements for the chair position are running in relevant
professional journals and letters are being sent to medical schools
across the country. Additional person-to-person contacts will also be
made.
"This is a very attractive leadership opportunity in a department
comprised of exceptional faculty members, a history of strong clinical
performance, nationally known educational programs and a robust
research portfolio," said Dean Richardson. "The department is very
important to OHSU, Oregon and to advancing the discipline of
dermatology. I expect that this high priority search will attract a
strong group of candidates."
Oregon, OHSU and health care reform
Barney Speight (Oregon Health Authority) and Dean Mark Richardson
were the keynote speakers at the OHSU Annual Professional Board Staff
meeting June 28. 
Mr. Speight provided an overview of Oregon's ongoing health care
reform efforts, including "taking apart" the Oregon Department of Human
Services so that health aspects of the agency are in a single new
agency. He also discussed the new all-payers, all-claims database which
will support "Dartmouth Atlas style analyses of our Medicare, Medicaid
and commercial payer spending across all Oregon communities." He
concluded by thanking OHSU for its partnership in reform efforts.
Dean Richardson discussed OHSU involvement in reform advocacy and
the ongoing internal response to prepare for reform, noting that OHSU
is ready for the system-focus of reform legislation because of prior
hard work, including the integration of the Faculty Practice Plan and
the School of Medicine. "This helped break down some of the internal
barriers we have to system-wide change," he said. He also focused on
the workforce aspects of the legislation, noting the need for new ways
of organizing providers to demonstrate new delivery
models.
The OHSU Professional Board recognized outstanding contributions to
OHSU with seven awards this month (some are jointly awarded). The award
recipients were: Scott Fields, John Vetto, Windy Stevenson, Mark
Reller, Jeffrey Koh, Cynthia Perez, Michele Noles, Kenneth Abbey,
Arpana Naik, Charles Thomas and Carol Marquez.
The PowerPoint slides for both presentations and a listing of the awards are here (OHSU log-in required).
Pictured: Barney Speight (left) speaking at the meeting and
Scott Fields , MD, Professor, Department of Family Medicine, receiving
the award for Innovation in New Models of Clinical Care from Brett
Sheppard, MD, Chair, Professional Board.
Paper of the Month: Research shows how virus evades immune systems
This month's featured paper was published in the April edition of the journal Science,
and is titled: "Evasion of CD8+ T cells is critical for superinfection
by cytomegalovirus."In the paper, Klaus Früh, PhD, Louis Picker, MD,
and colleagues in the OHSU Vaccine & Gene Therapy Institute and the
Oregon National Primate Research Center report on how a herpes virus
called cytomegalovirus (CMV) continues to reinfect human hosts despite
the body's capacity to control the primary infection.
Generally, the human body's immune system clears infections and also
"remembers" them so that in the event of an encounter with the same or
a similar virus, reinfection does not occur. But some viruses – such as
CMV – outsmart the immune system. The OHSU team demonstrated that
rhesus CMV can reinfect rhesus macaques (RM) that are highly immune
against CMV because they already harbor a persistent infection by the
same virus. This remarkable feat is possible because the incoming virus
encodes proteins that inhibit major histocompatibility complex class I
(MHC-I) antigen presentation, a process that normally alerts CD8+
"killer" T cells to an ongoing infection.
"We showed that CMV evades the immune alert systems by making genes
that disrupt the MHC-I molecules' ability to communicate an ongoing
infection to the T cells. In
essence, CMV is able to cut off an infected cell's call for
elimination. This allows CMV to overcome this critical immune barrier
during reinfection," explained Dr. Früh.
When these MHC-I inhibitory genes were deleted from CMV, the virus
was unable to reinfect unless the CD8+ T cells were transiently removed
from the animals. MHC-I interference was also dispensable when
CMV-negative RM were infected for the first time. These findings
demonstrate that the viral MHC-I inhibitory genes (called US2-11
glycoproteins) promote evasion of CD8+ T cells in vivo, thus explaining
why CMV can so easily overcome pre-existing immune responses.
CMV infects up to 80 percent of the U.S. population before age 40,
reinfecting people again and again even though their immune systems
strongly respond to it. For most people, CMV infection goes undetected
and they do not become seriously ill. However, in vulnerable
populations with weaker immune systems, such as infants, organ donor
recipients and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients, CMV poses a
potentially deadly risk.
This research suggests that it will be challenging to develop a
vaccine to prevent CMV infection, although it might still be possible
to limit CMV-associated symptoms and disease by vaccination. However,
this research also explains previous results by Dr. Picker who showed
that CMV can be used repeatedly as a viral vector to induce immune
responses against other pathogens, such as the immunodeficiency virus.
Thanks to its unique immune evasion strategies, CMV-based vectors are
not limited by vector-specific immunity unlike most other viral vectors
that are currently in development.
This paper was reported on by several media outlets. You can read the Oregonian article here. Author listing:
Scott G. Hansen, Colin J. Powers, Rebecca Richards, Abigail B. Ventura,
Julia C. Ford, Don Siess, Michael K. Axthelm, Jay A. Nelson, Michael A.
Jarvis, Louis J. Picker, Klaus Früh
A list of all OHSU-authored papers published in the past two months is here.
Pictured: Drs. Picker (left) and Früh.
20,000 Oregonians enroll in Oregon POLST Registry
The new Oregon Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST)
Registry, which is operated by the OHSU Department of Emergency
Medicine through a contract from the state of Oregon, went "live"
statewide Dec. 3, 2009. 
Although
having a POLST form is voluntary, state regulations now mandate that a
health care professional who signs a POLST form send it to the new
Registry unless the patient opts out. So far, about 20,000 Oregonians
have made their information available to Emergency Medical Services
(EMS) providers and physicians.
"This is a good outcome," said Terri Schmidt, MD, Professor,
Department of Emergency Medicine, and Director, Oregon POLST Registry.
"In my decades as an emergency medicine physician, I know how quickly
an unexpected event can become a medical tragedy for someone with a
long-standing illness. The Registry is a tool that ensures
professionals have rapid access to a patient's wishes."
The original bright pink POLST document remains the primary method
of indicating one's preferences for emergency care. At OHSU, a copy is
included in a patient's electronic health record (EHR), but not all
systems and providers use an EHR, or the same EHR. Furthermore, the
paper POLST form frequently is not immediately available to EMS
personnel in a time of crisis. Now, copies of POLST forms are entered
into a secure electronic database (the Registry) that allows EMS
responders to call a phone number and – within about 80 seconds –
determine whether the patient has a POLST form on record.
"The POLST Program came about as a way of ensuring that people with
advanced illness or frailty receive the treatments they want and avoid
those they do not want," said Susan Tolle, MD, Cornelia Hayes Stevens
Chair, Professor, Department of Medicine, and Director, OHSU Center for
Ethics in Health Care. "The Registry provides a backup system for
quickly relaying a patient's wishes as medical orders to the health
care professionals who need it, when they need it."
As of May 31, there are 17,626 active, searchable forms; 2,040
archived forms; and 2,437 forms that are not Registry-ready, meaning
there is missing or illegible information. Steps to further enhance the
POLST Registry will be taken later this summer, when Dr. Schmidt and
her colleagues begin contacting EMS providers and patients or the
patients' family members who have used the Registry to get feedback on
their experience.
OHSU's Center for Ethics provides education about POLST to patients
and health care professionals, and has distributed over one million
forms in Oregon since 1995. However, there has been no way to track the
number of completed forms nor has there been a centralized repository
for them. Now, the Registry provides an unprecedented opportunity for
leaders of the program. "For the first time, we will know how many
POLST forms are out there," said Dr. Schmidt. "We'll know what choices
Oregonians are making."
The POLST hotline for EMS is staffed 24/7 by the OHSU Emergency
Communication Center in the Department of Emergency Medicine. The
Registry has received a total of 151 calls, with a match rate of about
14 percent. Dr. Schmidt said she expects the match rate to increase as
the Registry receives more entries.
Thirty-three states have either implemented or are developing a
POLST program similar to the model pioneered in Oregon. "The POLST
program, developed at the Center for Ethics at OHSU, is a model for the
nation," said Dean Richardson. "It allows individuals to make choices
about care they receive in advance of an emergency, when those
decisions can be carefully and completely thought through."
Pictured: Nicholas Weltch, Emergency Transport Coordinator,
responds to calls, including inquiries about patients in the POLST
Registry, in OHSU's Emergency Communication Center.
Do you feel like an imposter? Wellness program helps residents, faculty manage stress
Maybe it's the 80-hour week residents put in, maybe the feelings of
being an imposter that afflicts many of them, maybe the stress, or
perhaps just the weight of feeling, after four long years of medical
school, 
that
they're back to square one. Whatever it is, it happens to nearly all
new residents, and it happens pretty much like clockwork midway through
their first year. They begin to question their choice of careers. The
altruism that drew most of them to the profession begins to compete
with a creeping sense of cynicism. They find themselves feeling
irritable, undervalued, and under-rewarded. The personal meaning in the
practice of medicine gets lost in the overwhelming fatigue.
It's a trajectory that long has troubled Donald Girard, MD, OHSU's
Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education. "We've done a lot of
studies over the years," said Dr. Girard, "and have consistently found
that most residents, not all, but most, began struggling sometime
around the middle of their first year. It's not the rain, it turns out,
and it's not even necessarily the hours." Australian residents, who are
limited to 55 hours, encounter the same problem."
"The suicide of an OHSU resident was the 'sentinel event' that
ultimately impelled OHSU to establish the Resident Wellness Program,"
said Mary Moffit, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry,
who joined Dr. Girard, and the Department of Psychiatry's Sydney Ey,
PhD, Associate Professor, and Mark Kinzie, MD, PhD, Assistant
Professor, to develop and staff the Resident Wellness Program. The
program is rooted in the theory that staying well is at least as
important for residents as learning to help others get well. The six year old pioneering program has proven so successful that in July 2008 it was opened up to faculty.
"Physicians are not high utilizers of health care services," said
Dr. Moffit. "Often, they don't have primary care docs, they don't go
for wellness checkups, and they don't go to counseling." Yet, said Dr.
Ey, "at least 50 percent of physicians in practice report that they
know a colleague who has been, or is, burned out." The program is
confidential and there is no cost. The Oregon Board of Medical
Examiners supports this program and, unless a physician is impaired by
an illness – is practicing medicine impaired – no information is
disclosed to the Board.
Read the full story here.
Pictured (left to right): Drs. Ey, Moffit and Kinzie.
To schedule a meeting with the Resident and Faculty Wellness,
Program contact Dr. Moffit: moffitm@ohsu.edu or 494-1208. If
urgent, call 503 330-7880.
From the Archives: Howard Mason visits Japan
A terrible photograph. Grainy, blurry, overexposed. One of two (and
the better of two) snapshots of people in a scrapbook labeled "Japan
1977." Seated at left is OHSU biochemist Howard S. Mason, PhD, 
meeting with Japanese colleagues at the Research Institute for Food Science in Kyoto, on April 13, 1977.
Dr. Mason had been collaborating with Japanese scientists for
decades by the time of this trip, and would continue to do so for the
remainder of his career. In 1988, Dr. Mason was the first Oregonian to
receive the Order of the Rising Sun, Third Class, for his work in
fostering scientific exchange between the United States and Japan. Of
his experiences working with the Japanese, Dr. Mason wrote: "I [had]
encountered the idea that it is no harder to find and work on important
questions than trivial ones, and I learned the difference between them
in terms of the generalizations and principles that could emanate from
any set of experiments. However, I only did one critical experiment in
my life – the discovery of biochemical oxygenation, or rather, of
biological oxygen transfer. At any rate, that is what I brought to my
Japanese colleagues, although most of them probably never knew what hit
them…"
This scrapbook and others like it were put together by Dr. Mason
during his long career at OHSU, which spanned more than thirty years.
Books, research, and correspondence have been deposited in the OHSU archives so that historians can determine what else Dr. Mason brought to his colleagues, both at home and abroad.
Contributed by Sara Piasecki, Head, OHSU Historical Collections & Archives.
A tale of mentoring inspired by the 1960s NASA "Race to the Moon" and a 25-year quest 
David K. Grandy, PhD, Professor, Department of Physiology &
Pharmacology, has mentored many high school science students in his 25
years as a research scientist in the OHSU School of Medicine. But
Yamini Naidu, his latest charge, is in a class by herself. The
diminutive ninth grade student – who turned 15 in January and barely
reaches five feet on her tiptoes – got turned on to science in middle
school after winning awards at several school science fairs.
She discovered that she had a true passion for science and decided
to search for a place to get practical professional guidance on how
"real" scientific research is done. She e-mailed a number of
investigators, but Dr. Grandy, Professor, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, was the only one who followed up with her and encouraged her to pursue her interest. "I was impressed by her e-mail," he said.
"My laboratory was going through a transition and I had room for her
and an ideal project." He recalled his own youth back in Cleveland,
Ohio, where he had the opportunity to work with scientists at NASA's
Lewis Research Center in the 1960s during the height of the "Race to
the Moon."
"That experience not only gave me confidence in myself but seeing
how professional scientists work was really transforming. Having
benefited from that kind of special opportunity, I've always felt the
best way to repay the generosity of my NASA mentors is to share my
passion for basic research and discovery with those who are really
motivated."
Dr. Grandy's generosity would prove to be mutually beneficial.
Yamini joined a quest Dr. Grandy and his team have been on for 25
years, to design new drugs that offer promise in treating debilitating
mental conditions, one of them being methamphetamine addiction. Read the full story here.
The ripple effect: expanding on-campus faculty mentoring
The School of Medicine/OCTRI Lead Mentors program is now accepting applications for 2010-11 – deadline July 15. Don't delay! Apply now! 
Supporting on-campus mentoring and faculty development is an
investment in faculty success. The School of Medicine/OCTRI Mentoring
Program is designed to help individual faculty members get the career
development assistance they need, provide resources to departments to
enhance the quality and scope of their mentoring programs, and –
through the ripple effect – expand the available pool of mentors within
the institution.
The program has proven to be a good investment even in its first
year. As the program embarks on its second year, faculty input is
forming the basis of program upgrades to the two major program
components.
The first – the individualized, self-directed component – is a
series of seminars and workshops that provide an overview of key career
development topics. This past year, this program component:
- Launched a comprehensive faculty development and mentoring website.
- Conducted seven one-hour Career Perspectives sessions and six two-hour Mentor Skills Workshops September through May.
- Hosted more than 200 faculty, students and staff who attended at
least one of these events, with faculty from 17 of 19 clinical
departments and four of seven basic science departments registered for
at least one event. The majority of attendees (40 percent to 100
percent per session) were women.
- Received favorable quality ratings for the majority of sessions.
The second component – the Lead Mentors Program:
- Enrolled an inaugural cohort of 13 faculty as Lead Mentors.
- Conducted six in-depth sessions during six months covering topics
such as "coaching through listening," "mentoring across differences,"
and "managing difficult conversations."
- Received an overall program rating of 4.0 on a five-point scale.
Based on faculty feedback, both program components will continue and
will be enhanced by bringing national speakers to campus, providing
more sessions specifically for basic science faculty, and – for the
Lead Mentors Program – incorporating an explicit description of a
mentoring project that will be undertaken in the faculty member's
department.
Join the ripple effect: apply now to be a Lead Mentor and learn more about this initiative.
Pictured: Lead Mentors discuss the first year's program at a debrief lunch with Dean Richardson.
Breaking barriers: ARRA $4.38 million award supports integrated core research facilities
Next
year, OHSU investigators will be able to take advantage of new core
research facilities thanks to a $4.38 million award from the National
Center for Research Resources. This award, which was funded through the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will support the renovation of
about 5,400 square feet in Richard Jones Hall and will integrate
facilities for flow cytometry and genomic analysis. The goal of this
renovation initiative is to improve campus resources for molecular and
cellular characterization – and to reduce barriers for OHSU
scientists.
This project consolidates flow cytometry technologies available
within the Flow Cytometry Shared Resource. The renovation will also
create shared space for the Massively Parallel Sequencing Shared
Resource that, together with the Microarray Shared Resource, will make
up the new OHSU Integrated Genomics Laboratory. After the renovation,
these two revamped core facilities – the Flow Cytometry Shared Resource
and the Integrated Genomics Laboratory – will occupy contiguous space,
allowing for administrative efficiencies and closer scientific
collaboration.
Headed by Phil Streeter, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of
Medicine, OHSU's Flow Cytometry Shared Resource was established in
1996. It provides consultation, training and teaching, technical
expertise, and technical services. Instrumentation includes analytical
flow cytometers and cell sorters. Currently, however, its resources are
located in part on the OHSU campus and in part at the Portland VA
Medical Center.
"Consolidation of the flow cytometry technologies will make it
easier to use the facilities and the new location in Richard Jones Hall
will be closer to the vast majority of investigators," said Dr.
Streeter. "We are excited about this opportunity to enhance flow
cytometry services for our investigators."
The award also provides momentum for the new Integrated Genomics
Laboratory, with Chris Harrington, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department
of Molecular & Medical Genetics, and Senior Staff Scientist, as the
Director, and Bob Searles, PhD, Senior Staff Scientist, as the
Associate Director. Structural and functional genomic analysis
resources at OHSU currently include a Gene Microarray Shared Resource
and a Massively Parallel Sequencing Shared Resource. The Gene
Microarray Shared Resource operates two microarray technology platforms
– the Affymetrix GeneChip System and the Illumina BeadArray System.
Last year, OHSU was awarded an Illumina Next-generation Sequencer,
thanks to the generosity of the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust. This
instrument, as well as the increased sample throughput and data
management resources that accompany these technologies, requires
expanded and renovated space. The renovation will relocate all these
genomic technologies from the Center for Health & Healing to
Richard Jones Hall, now newly adjacent to the Flow Cytometry Shared
Resource.
"Besides better space and more convenient locations, we are all
excited about the potential of the co-located facilities to enhance
scientific collaborations," said Dr. Harrington. The proximity of these
facilities will increase both the quality and efficiency of services
provided to investigators. Bringing these resources together will
enable co-development of methods and technologies to minimize the
number of cells required for array or sequencing assays. Further,
rapidly handing off purified cells from the Flow Cytometry Shared
Resource to the Genomics Laboratory will minimize the chances of
changes in gene expression profiles and will enhance the potential to
isolate intact and high-quality RNA and DNA from smaller numbers of
cells.
The core renovation project is currently in the design completion
phase. Construction is expected to begin later this year, and
facilities will be completed in 2011. OHSU also received a $4 million
award to construct new facilities at the Oregon National Primate
Research Center. This project is nearing completion of its design phase
as well.
Pictured (left to right): Drs. Harrington, Searles and Streeter.
Pill Hill Pirates take the title! Physician Assistant program's kickball fundraiser for Wallace Medical Concern 
The OHSU Physician Assistant
Class of 2011 recently put on several fundraising events to
benefit Wallace Medical Concern, raising $2,000 for the local
clinic. With locations in Gresham and Portland, the Wallace
Medical Concern provides neighborhood-based health care services
and assistance for Portland's low-income and uninsured
residents.
During the Oregon Society of Physician Assistants' Spring
Medical Update in Portland, students held a raffle with items
such as Beavers baseball game tickets, handmade
jewelry and a local restaurant gift certificate. With the
help of CME attendees, the group was able to bring in $500 toward
their goal. An additional $600 was raised at the fall CME conference,
also to benefit Wallace Medical Concern.
The following week, the class hosted the third annual OHSU Kickball
Tournament, a tradition begun by OHSU's PA Class of 2010. More than 150
people competing on 10 teams representing the PA, dental, medical,
nursing, RT, and RA schools raised $1,000. The Med 11 Team
"Pill Hill Pirates" took the title, with the PA 11 team "Kick in the
Grass," finishing a close second. On May 11, representatives from the
Wallace Medical Concern visited the Marquam Hill campus to accept the
$2,000 donation from the PA class.
Honors, announcements and appointments
Dennis Bourdette receives UC Davis Distinguished Alumnus Award
Dennis
Bourdette, MD, Roy and Eulalia Swank Family Research Professor, and
Chair, Department of Neurology, received the 2010 Distinguished Alumnus
Award from the University of California Davis School of Medicine for
outstanding achievements in medicine.
"We are proud to honor Dr. Bourdette with this award," said Claire
Pomeroy, MD, MBA, Vice Chancellor and Dean of the UC Davis School of
Medicine. "As founder and director of the OHSU Multiple Sclerosis
Center, he is widely recognized as a national expert on the clinical
care of multiple sclerosis, with patients referred to him by
neurologists from throughout the Pacific Northwest."
Dr. Bourdette's research focuses on lipoic acid – an anti-oxidant
that he has proved to be effective in an animal model of multiple
sclerosis. In collaboration with other researchers, he also discovered
that inactivation of a mitochondrial protein, cyclophilin D, is
neuroprotective in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE).
This discovery has served as the basis for a patent application and the
emerging development of a novel therapy for multiple sclerosis.
"I am deeply honored to receive this award," said Dr. Bourdette. "I
had great teachers at UC Davis School of Medicine who taught me that my
first duty as a physician was to serve my patients. I will always be
grateful to them and UC Davis."
Pictured: Dean Claire Pomeroy presents the award to Dr. Bourdette.
David Ellison appointed to the Chair of ABIM’s Subspecialty Board on Nephrology
David
Ellison, MD, Professor, Departments of Medicine and Physiology &
Pharmacology, has been named Chair of the American Board of Internal
Medicine’s (ABIM) Subspecialty Board on Nephrology. As such, he becomes
the subspecialty board’s representative to ABIM’s Board of Directors.
Dr. Ellison has been a member of the Subspecialty Board on Nephrology
since 2000. ABIM sets the standards and certifies physicians practicing
in internal medicine and its subspecialties who possess the knowledge,
skills and attitudes required to provide high quality care.
“David juggles the roles of teacher, innovator and clinician capably,
balancing the demands of each while utilizing his myriad roles to
inform all of his work. As a member of the subspecialty board he will
now chair, he will continually bring his experience in nephrology in
creating certification and maintenance of certification programs that
are current and relevant to what physicians are doing in practice,”
said Christine Cassel, MD, ABIM's President and CEO.
Four MD/PhD candidates win coveted NRSA "F" awards
Four OHSU MD/PhD candidates have been awarded coveted Ruth L.
Kirschstein National Research Service (NRSA) fellowships by the
National Institutes of Health. The awards – known as "F" awards based
on the coding NIH assigns them – provide stipends to support each
student's research and pay for tuition and fees. The award recipients
are Daniel Cleary, Art Riddle, Kimmy Su and Rebecca Williams. These new
awardees join five other recipients of this prestigious grant among the
current MD/PhD students: Ted Braun, Jeff Chen, Aaron Grossberg, Emily
Pratt and Chris Severn.
Read more about the students, their graduate studies mentors and their research here.
Med student Chad Burk selected for the HHMI-NIH Medical Research Scholars program
Chad Burk, third year med student, joins 116 medical, dental, and
veterinary students from 47 schools across the country to spend a year
in a lab doing hands-on research as part of the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute-National Institutes of Health Medical Research Scholars program
that seeks to strengthen and expand the pool of medically-trained
researchers. The HHMI program is typically a one-year research
program at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda,
MD..
Students are housed on the NIH campus in the HHMI owned
Cloister. Chad lists his research interests as immunology,
biomarker discovery, theranostic nanomedicine and
molecular imaging, and targeted drug delivery and gene therapy.
As an undergraduate, he was a Bioengineering major with a Biotechnology
emphasis at University of California, San Diego.
OCTRI Announces 2010 Student Research Scholarships
The Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute's
commitment to clinical and translational research includes support for
the next generation of researchers. Each year, OCTRI awards OHSU
students scholarships that allow them to design and participate in
research projects under the guidance of a faculty mentor. The awards
are part of the Oregon Students Learn and Experience Research (OSLER)
program, which is supported by an NIH TL1 training award. OCTRI also
provides direct funding to support six additional students who conduct
short-term studies over the summer.
This year's awards include four MD/MPH students, seven MD students,
one doctoral candidate in Biomedical Engineering, and four students
from the School of Dentistry.
View the 2010 Student Trainees and Research Scholars.
Frederick Keller receives International Cooperation Award
Frederick S. Keller, MD, Chair, Department of Diagnostic Radiology,
and Director, Dotter Interventional Institute, received the
International Cooperation Award for 2010 from the Chinese Society of
Interventional Radiology (CSIR) for having made important contributions
to China's interventional radiology. CSIR is China's largest
educational and scientific society dedicated to interventional
radiologists.
The society represents physicians and scientists while promoting the
high quality practice of interventional radiology and demonstrating the
latest information of basic and clinical research pertinent to the
field. Dr. Keller will be honored at the 9th Scientific Meeting of
Chinese Society of Interventional Radiology held Sept. 8-12, 2010, in
Guangzhou, China.
Joe Gilhooly receives Robert S. Holm Leadership Award for Pediatric Program Directors
Joe Gilhooly, MD, Professor, Department of Pediatrics, received the
Robert S. Holm Leadership Award at the 2010 Association of Pediatric
Program Directors meeting in Chicago, IL. This award is a national
recognition for the one current or former Pediatric Residency Program
Director who has made extraordinary contributions in leadership and for
the support of other pediatric program directors as a mentor, advisor
and role model. Dr. Gilhooly led the pediatric residency program for 15
years during which time the program became extremely competitive and
had outstanding test score outcomes. "The Doernbecher Children's
Hospital residency program is now one of the most competitive in the
country thanks in large part to Dr. Gilhooly's leadership," said Stacy
Nicholson, MD, Professor and Chair, Department of Pediatrics.
Patricia Hurn receives 2010 Faculty Senate Award for Collaboration
The 2010 OHSU Faculty Senate Award for Collaboration was awarded to
Patricia Hurn, PhD, Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Faculty
Affairs, and Professor and Vice Chair for Research, Department of
Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine. Dr. Hurn holds joint
appointments in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology and the
Department of Neurology and is also Director of the OHSU Research
Center for Gender-Based Medicine.
In her letter of nomination, Sharon Anderson, MD, Professor,
Department of Medicine, Vice Chair for Veterans' Affairs and Chief of
Medical Service, Portland VA Medical Center, wrote: "Dr. Hurn sets the
standard for collaboration among her colleagues within our department
and across our campus. As an internationally recognized stroke expert,
she has used her collaborative skills to advance the research careers
of new investigators as well as more seasoned investigators. Read more here.
Maria Fleseriu promoted to FACE Fellow
Maria Fleseriu, MD, Assistant Professor, Departments of Medicine and
Neurological Surgery, was recently promoted to Fellow of the American
College of Endocrinology (FACE) in recognition of her high standards of
excellence and achievement in endocrinology and quality of care given
to her patients. According to the American College of Endocrinology
(ACE), promotion is based on an expanding scientific reputation and
contributions to the ACE.
Lalena M. Yarris honored with CORD Faculty Teaching Award
Lalena M. Yarris, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency
Medicine, is the 2010 recipient of the Council of Emergency Medicine
Residency Directors (CORD) Faculty Teaching Award. Dr. Yarris received
the award in June during the CORD Business Meeting in Phoenix. Dr.
Yarris completed her residency at OHSU after which she became the
Assistant Residency Program Director. One year later, she became
Co-Director of the EM Education Research Fellowship.
Her experiences as a resident at OHSU inform her teaching and Dr.
Yarris consistently receives outstanding evaluations for bedside
teaching, didactic lectures, small group instruction and student
mentoring. Among other accomplishments, Dr. Yarris founded the
Emergency Medicine Education Research Group (EMERGe) to promote
collaborative education research among academic emergency physicians,
and heads CORD's End-of-Shift Feedback Project.
Ryan Palmer interviewed about use of technology in medical education
Ryan Palmer, MFA, was featured in an article in the journal of the
American Academy of Family Physicians discussing web-based learning.
Ryan is Administrative Director for the School of Medicine "Principles
of Clinical Medicine" course. He is also the administrator for the
Curriculum Committee and assists with distance learning for the OHSU
Rural Scholars Program. He is currently pursuing his Doctorate of
Education in Educational Leadership: Postsecondary Education at
Portland State University. Ryan told AAFP News Now he is
particularly excited about the potential of Google Wave, a Web 2.0
manifestation that he called a combination of real-time chat, wiki,
blog and content repository.
Read the article here.
Welcome New Faculty
A warm welcome to our newest faculty members, listed alphabetically:
- Dayana Rodriguez-Contreras, PhD, Research Assistant Professor,
Department of Molecular Microbiology & Immunology
- Joseph T. Ichter, DrPh, MHA, Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine
- Kari Kohrs, MPH, RD, Instructor, Department of Medicine
- Frank M. Warren, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Otolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery
