The west side of campus is about to catch up with the east in terms of online technology. Soon wireless Internet access will be available in the Bowen Science Building, the first of many instillations to come for CCOM campus buildings.

“Wireless expands the areas where students, faculty, and staff can access their data,” said Boyd Knosp, the CCOM’s Associate Dean for Information Technology. “This ability better enables collaboration between researchers or between students working together on class assignments.”

Many faculty members in Bowen had taken it on themselves to set up their own wireless networks to do work in labs or offices. However, having UI Information Technology Services install standardized wireless throughout the building will increase efficiency as well as security.

Wireless is now a standard addition for any new campus buildings, and is a target to be added to the old.

“We have a multi-year plan to install wireless in buildings that currently don’t have wireless on the CCOM campus,” said Knosp. “The plan, which will be reviewed annually, puts wireless in BSB in FY09 and Med Labs in FY10. Other buildings will be addressed after these installations are done.”

Cancer researchers here at the UI now have a new resource at their fingertips.

The Tissue Procurement Core Facility will provide researchers with a well-characterized bank of frozen neoplastic and normal tissues designated for molecular genetic, biochemical or pathological studies.

“Quite a bit has been learned using animal models and tissue culture models, but the human system is often more complex,” said Dr. Patricia Winokur. “These samples will allow researchers to study tissues, blood or DNA from particular tumors or clinical syndromes to help identify the pathogenesis of these diseases.”

The Tissue Procurement Core Facility helps to obtain extra tissues from patients that aren’t vital for their continued care. This process will require consent from the patients and will be regulated in order to protect the patient’s private information.

The University already had a tissue procurement process for individual projects, but is developing the hospital-wide system as a way expand the collection and make fulfilling requests for samples easier and faster.

“We are investing in personnel who can help with collection and processing of samples,” said Winokur. “Eventually we hope to approach all UIHC patients to see if they would allow us to collect extra tissues and bloods. We are currently working through how this may be accomplished.”

Currently the facility is collecting certain types of cancer specimens. Cancer researchers at the UI will now have the ability to study multiple tumors, distinguishing differences in behavior of seemingly similar tissues. The collection includes lymphoma and leukemia tissues, as well as many different varieties of human tumor tissues.

“Some patients may have a genetic predisposition to a particular disease,” said Winokur. “This would allow us to better understand why a disease occurs in an individual, which could eventually lead to new therapies.”

Those interested in obtaining human tissue samples from the facility should begin by contacting the Tissue Procurement Core Facility’s office at 335-8211.

Women have made great strides in gaining access to careers in medicine – they now account for about 50 percent of matriculants to medical schools in the United States. Despite these advances women continue to be disproportionately under represented in the higher ranks of academe. Support for women in academic medicine is an important role of modern academic health science centers. To being addressing this issue head on, the Health Science Colleges (Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Public Health) recently sponsored a joint Women Faculty Development Conference The aim of this conference was to provide networking opportunities across the normal boundaries among these different schools.

After a welcome from UI Provost Wallace Loh, the day started with motivational speaker Debra Salz discussing life balance. This allowed women the opportunity to look at eight different aspects of their lives and determine the balance among each of these areas. This was followed by a series of breakout sessions that included information on CV development, preparing for senior leadership, conflict management, negotiation, mentoring, and work life balance among others. The vast majority of these sessions were presented by women who are our colleagues throughout the university.

Susan Curry, Dean of the College of Public Health shared her path to leadership through a series of vignettes that highlighted important points in her career path, where she made mistakes, and how she was able to parlay potential negatives into excellent opportunities. This was followed by another series of breakout sessions and opportunities for networking. Associate Provost and professor of OB/GYN, Susan Johnson, wrapped up the day with tips for time management.

As the inaugural event, this meeting was very well received. Attendee evaluations provided a number of excellent ideas for future meetings. We expect this event to grow each year and we encourage all women faculty to attend.

Dear Colleagues,

It is impossible to escape the financial challenges that we all face: the local, national and world economies dominate the news; the value of retirement investments have fallen; some of us have family and friends who have been laid off; and talk of cuts permeates our work environment.  We would like to begin periodic updates to keep you informed about current College finances and future plans and to ask for your help as we make decisions that affect us all.

To begin, it is crucial to stress that the environment we face is very fluid – it changes weekly, if not daily, as new information becomes available and new demands are made.  Keep in mind that the College must work closely with both the central University administration and UI Health Care as it moves forward to formulate and implement plans that deal effectively and fairly with this changing situation.

Beginning last July, it became apparent that collegiate revenues would not sustain the historical rate of administrative growth both centrally and departmentally.  Because of this we identified a number of budget reductions that could be made within College administration, thereby sparing departments to the fullest extent possible.  This produced a $1 million savings in expenses and amounted to an approximately 3% cut in the central College budget.

As we were implementing these changes, the State announced a shortfall in revenue for the current fiscal year (July 2008 to June 2009) and instituted a nearly 1% rescission (withdrawal or cut) in its current appropriations to Iowa State Board of Regents institutions.  This time, with the help of every department, the College identified about $750,000 in reductions.  In the end, central University administration required only $250,000 of this amount.  With the agreement of all departments, the remaining $500,000 of collegiate cuts was placed in reserve in anticipation of further State reductions in the next fiscal year.

In anticipation of cuts for the next fiscal year (July 2009 to June 2010), all university units have been asked to look at the impact on their budgets of 5%, 7.5% and 10% reductions in state appropriations.  Most units, including our College, have opted to plan for the worst case scenario.  A 10% reduction in state funding translates to an approximately $3 million cut to the College.

Preserving our core missions of teaching, research and clinical service is the primary guiding principle that we embrace as we develop strategies to address a reduction of this magnitude.  It must be said again: these are challenging times.  But I have a deep faith in the creativity and commitment of everyone within this College and I believe that we can weather these times if we work together.

During the month of February, the leadership of UIHC will hold a series of forums to update faculty, staff and students on the status of the UIHC financial situation.  These meetings will include an opportunity to discuss different ideas on how to address these budget shortfalls.  Prior to these meetings, if you have ideas, please let us hear from you.

Paul Rothman, M.D.
Dean, Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine
University of Iowa

Update on issues affecting the College

Colleagues,

We write to update you on some issues affecting the College. We encourage you to offer feedback here on these or any issues of importance to you.

1. Budget – The national economic crisis continues to impact the state of Iowa and has prompted Governor Culver to initiate a 1.5 percent across-the-board spending cut to the state’s budget. This reduction affects the Regent’s Institutions and translates to a $7.5 million budget reduction for The University of Iowa.  Toward that end, the CCOM was advised by President Mason that it must cut one percent of its total general education fund (GEF) allocation for the remainder of fiscal year 2009. This reduction totals ~ $753,000 across the College. Accordingly, each department has been asked to prepare a strategy to cut one percent of its GEF allocation. We asked that plans focus on reducing expenses as opposed to shifting them to other sources such as the UIP. This is important because we anticipate further reductions for budget year 2010.

The CCOM was recently informed by the Provost that central UI administration would absorb some of the budget reductions, reducing our total cut to $271,000. Rather than ask departments to revisit the budget revisions, collegiate administration will retain the difference in anticipation of reductions in the 2010 budget year. The College will provide updated financial and budget information to you on an ongoing basis.

2. IRB – Faculty have expressed concern about the pace of approvals of research protocols involving human subjects. The IRB and its members work extremely hard to keep up with the protocols but it has been difficult to manage the volume and complexity of applications submitted by our faculty. The College recognizes the great need to change this process for the better for all and it is working with the IRBs and the Office of the Vice President for Research to enhance our ability to process applications.

The College, working with the IRB and the VPR, has facilitated some process changes to expedite reviews while maintaining the highest possible standards. Among those changes:

•Reduction in the number of MDs (four in addition to the chair) whose presence is required to obtain a quorum for action.

•A total of 11 MDs will be joined by faculty from the other health colleges to fill scientific roles on the IRBs. CCOM faculty time will be compensated by the Dean’s office. The goal is to develop a dedicated group of reviewers who have greater experience and continuity in the IRB review process and thus improve standardization and scheduling of the review process.

•A panel of consultants will be developed to address specific content questions outside the board members’ areas of expertise. These individuals will not be members of the IRB and will not attend meetings unless requested by the IRB.

•To address the issues of performing IRB approved community-based research, the IRB has solicited advice from other IRBs around the country and they have developed a process to move forward with community-based research. At this time, the IRB will serve as the IRB of record for community practices for minimal risk studies. The processes developed do require quite a bit of effort in the Human Subjects Office and the Vice President for Research Office has provided it with two new FTE’s to assist with community based research. These individuals will help the community practices develop procedures for conducting human research and agreements with the University to serve as the IRB of record, and will train individuals at these sites in the basics of performing human research. IRB will be providing more information for the research faculty as these processes are implemented.

Dr. Pat Winokur, the new Associate Dean for Clinical Research, has begun working with both the IRBs and the Human Subject Office to enhance oversight for human subjects research.

3. Epic implementation – Associate Vice President for Information Systems Lee Carmen reports two important upcoming “go live” launches: In February, Pharmacy, eMAR, and ICU flow sheets; and in May the full electronic medical record system and electronic order entry. Epic information and updates are available on the Point.

4. University of Iowa Institute for Biomedical Discovery (IIBD) – The preliminary phases of construction of the Iowa Institute for Biomedical Discovery will begin this summer. This facility, which was approved two years ago by the Board of Regents and which received a $30-million appropriation from the Iowa General Assembly, will extend south from the Carver Biomedical Research Building toward the Bowen Science Building. The 200,000 square feet of new research space will house wet labs, a vivarium, the Iowa Institute for Biomedical Imaging, offices, conference rooms, and a cafeteria. Conceptual drawing of the building.

The building has been designed to encourage high-risk, high-reward multidisciplinary research by investigators across the UI campus. Among the major research programs within the building will be heart and vascular, cancer, neurosciences, regenerative medicine, diabetes, and informatics.

The UI Carver College of Medicine is is planning a memorial service for Ibrahim Saadi, a third year medical student who died suddenly in an automobile crash on Jan. 9. The service will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 31, in the Prem Sahai Auditorium (1110A MERF).

At the service, the College would like to present a book of condolences to his family, and is asking students, staff, and faculty to submit, through this web site, remembrances, personal stories about Ibrahim, thoughts of support and condolence, and photos. You may submit your remembrances in the comments section of this post, or, if you prefer, submit them privately by e-mail to Ginnie Woodard, or by regular mail at 1120A1 MERF. If you have photos to share for the scrapbook, please send them to Woodard as well.

UI Health Care will host a lecture in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by former secretary of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan, M.D., at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 21, in the Prem Sahai Auditorium (Room 1110A) in the Medical Education and Research Facility (MERF).

Sullivan will discuss “The Role of an Academic Medical Center in Achieving Dr. King’s Dream.” The event, part of the 2009 Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration of Human Rights on the UI campus, is free and open to the public.

Nationally respected for his work in medicine, public health and health policy, Sullivan served as secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) from 1989-1993 under President George H.W. Bush. During the then-emerging HIV/AIDS epidemic, Sullivan spoke out against discrimination against HIV/AIDS patients and led efforts to raise awareness of HIV transmission among vulnerable populations, including African-Americans.

He also is highly regarded for his leadership in health professions education for underrepresented minorities. He played a leading role in the establishment of the Morehouse School of Medicine and served as dean from 1981-1989 and 1993-2002. Morehouse School of Medicine trains a diverse health and science professions workforce to address the primary care needs of underserved communities and minority populations.

More information on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration of Human Rights at the UI.

Full news release.

Dr. Kimberly Leslie has been named head of the UI Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, effective April 1.

Leslie currently is professor of obstetrics and gynecology and chief of obstetrics at the University of New Mexico, where she also is director of maternal-fetal medicine. Leslie replaces Dr. Jennifer Niebyl, who is stepping down after serving as department head since joining the UI faculty in 1988. Niebyl will continue her appointment as professor of obstetrics and gynecology and as director of the department’s residency program.

Leslie’s patient care specialization includes maternal-fetal medicine, fetal echocardiography, cancer in pregnancy, cholestasis (an estrogen-induced disease) during pregnancy and operative obstetrics. Her research interests include molecular biology of estrogen and progesterone receptors, anti-estrogens in the female reproductive tract, endometrial cancer, interactions between epidermal growth factor and hormone receptors, and cholestasis.

Leslie earned a bachelor of science degree in psychology from Baylor University and a bachelor of science degree in biology and biochemistry from Texas Christian University. She holds a medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. Leslie completed residencies at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas, and Georgetown University Affiliated Hospitals, where she also completed a fellowship in maternal-fetal medicine.

Full news release.

The Fuerste name has been synonymous with eye care in the Dubuque, Iowa, area for more than a half-century. Now, thanks to a gift of more than $1.6 million, the University of Iowa is honoring the Fuerste legacy with the Marion and Frederick Fuerste, M.D., Professorship in Ophthalmology.

The UI created the professorship using funds from a charitable bequest in the will of Marion Fuerste, the late widow of UI alumnus Dr. Frederick Fuerste Jr., M.D. Frederick and Marion Fuerste died in 2003 and 2005, respectively.

Dr. Jeffrey Nerad, a professor in the UI Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, was named the inaugural Fuerste Professor in an investiture ceremony on Dec. 19.

“It is a great honor to be named to a position honoring the Fuerstes,” Nerad said. “Throughout my career, I have held Dr. Fuerste in high esteem, and I have been fortunate to have such a wonderful personal and professional relationship with the Fuerste family. This professorship will enable my colleagues and me to advance our work in the Oculoplastic, Orbital and Oncology Service at Iowa. Through their generosity, as with Dr. Fuerste’s long career, the Fuerstes will touch the lives of many eye patients.”

Dr. Gretchen Fuerste, said the professorship is a fitting tribute to her parents.

“My father always credited his and his family’s success to the University of Iowa,” Fuerste said, noting that four of the six Fuerste children attended the UI, and that beginning in 2009 her daughter will represent the fourth generation in the family to attend the UI medical school. “I know that our parents would be very happy to know that the Fuerste Professorship will live on at our alma mater.”

Nerad earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology from the University of California at Los Angeles and a medical degree from St. Louis University School of Medicine. He completed an internship at Maricopa County General Hospital; a residency in ophthalmology at St. Louis University; a preceptorship in oculoplastic and orbital surgery at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, England; and a fellowship in oculoplastic and orbital surgery at the UI. Nerad joined the UI faculty in 1985.

Full news release.

Dr. Annunziato (Ned) Amendola, UI professor of orthopaedics and rehabilitation, has been named to the John and Kim Callaghan Chair in Sports Medicine. The endowed John and Kim Callaghan Chair in Sports Medicine was established in 2007 through a leadership gift from John J. and Kim L. Callaghan of Iowa City, along with key support from other UI contributors.

The Callaghan Chair is a five-year appointment that supports a distinguished clinician, scientist and teacher in the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation who has earned national and international recognition in the field of sports medicine.

“Ned is a leader in the field of sports medicine. His expertise covers all clinical aspects of the discipline, his research is advancing the treatment and prevention of sports injuries, and his commitment to the care of competitive and recreational athletes of all ages is outstanding. His appointment to the John and Kim Callaghan Chair is well-deserved recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of sports medicine,” said Dr. Joseph Buckwalter, UI professor and head of orthopaedics and rehabilitation who holds the Dr. Arthur A. Steindler Chair in Orthopaedic Surgery.

Amendola, who is director of UI Sports Medicine, is an internationally recognized expert in arthroscopic surgery, particularly knee and ankle reconstruction. His clinical and research interests focus on improving the understanding, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of sports- and activity-related injuries. Amendola also has long-standing experience providing medical care for athletes at all levels of competition. He currently is head team physician for the UI Hawkeye teams including football. He was team physician for the Canadian national rugby team from 1995 to 2000. He also provides orthopedic consultation for the NBA’s Toronto Raptors and the NHL Players Association.

Full news release.