Two CCOM professors were among six University of Iowa faculty members to win the 2008 Regents Award for Faculty Excellence. Given by the Board of Regents, State of Iowa, the award honors faculty members for work representing a significant contribution to excellence in public education. Each honoree receives $1,000. From the CCOM, Drs. Pamela Geyer, UI professor of biochemistry, and Jane Paulsen, UI professor of psychiatry, were chosen for the award. (more…)

Designer Nancy Zear and photographer Susan McClellen of UI Health Care’s Creative Media Group (CMG) have won an Award of Excellence for “New Beginnings,” the UI Carver College of Medicine’s 2007 annual report.

“It gives us respectability,” said Connie Peterson, CMG’s director. “It’s nice to be judged by other designers, by a community of our peers.”

CMG is the College’s full-service design and printing organization, creating such materials as posters, brochures and newsletters for the University’s use.

The award was announced by Graphic Design USA, a top competition in publication design. This year more than 10,000 entries were submitted and only the top 15 percent were recognized.

“It’s important for ourselves and our energy,” Peterson said about the honor. “It also increases the visibility of our institution.”

UI cancer researcher Kristina Wyatt Thiel is the 2007-2008 recipient of the two-year, $100,000 postdoctoral fellowship awarded by the National Ladies Auxilliary to the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States. Thiel is a postdoctoral research fellow in cardiology.

Thiel’s research project focuses on preventing certain kinds of breast cancer cells from becoming immune to therapies like Herceptin, a drug that has helped to significantly increase a patient’s chance to fight off the disease.

She has identified an agent that, once inside the tumor, will block the cancer cell from survival mode, and her research will be looking for safe ways to get that agent into the cell. Thiel also hopes that her research results will help develop therapies for other human diseases.

Correction appended

Roger Tracy, CCOM director of the Office of Statewide Clinical Education Programs (OSCEP), has received the University of Iowa President’s Award for State Outreach and Public Engagement in the staff category.

Tracy joined the CCOM in 1969 as director of project development and director of community services for the Iowa Regional Medical Program. During this time, he helped attract the original funding for the Statewide Perinatal Care Program, which, under the leadership of Dr. Herman Hein, became a national model. In 1974, Tracy was named OSCEP director.

At the very beginning of his career, Tracy began collecting data on Iowa’s physician workforce. Today, this database has evolved to include all active Iowa physicians, and recently, it was further expanded to include all major health professionals — physician assistants, nurse practitioners, physical therapists, pharmacists and dentists. Based on the depth and breadth of nearly four decades of data collection, OSCEP released in 2007 the Report of the Task Force on the Iowa Physician Workforce — a detailed report that describes the current supply of physicians in Iowa, analyzes specialty trend data, and provides recommendations to increase supply and influence distribution and retention of health care providers in the state.

“No other state or region in the nation has access to similar information of this quality, complexity and currency,” said Dr. Peter Densen, CCOM executive dean, who nominated Tracy for the award. “The value of this data to state policy makers, medical educators and citizens — data that Roger has quietly and systematically assembled over 35 years — is unique and simply cannot be overstated.”

As OSCEP director, Tracy created the Statewide Medical Education System, which provides educational opportunities for medical students at six Regional Medical Education Centers around the state. (more…)

An adjunct faculty member and a CCOM student received 2008 Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine awards from the Arnold P. Gold Foundation.

Dr. Jerald Bybee, an adjunct clinical assistant professor and a family physician in Maquoketa, Iowa, was selected as this year’s faculty recipient of the award, and CCOM fourth-year student Craig Gurney received the student award. They received the awards at the Gold Humanism Honor Society breakfast May 16.

Full news release.

Dr. Matthew Howard, UI professor and head of neurosurgery, has been appointed the John C. VanGilder Chair in Neurosurgery. The five-year appointment was effective March 1.

The endowed VanGilder Chairmanship honors the achievements and contributions of the late Dr. John VanGilder, UI emeritus professor of neurosurgery, and was created by gifts to the UI Foundation from colleagues, former trainees, friends and the VanGilder family. John VanGilder died in 2007.

Howard, who joined the UI faculty in 1993, has led the UI Department of Neurosurgery since it was first created in 2001. He is an expert in neurosurgical treatment of epilepsy, and his cutting-edge research explores how the brain processes sounds and emotions. Howard also is active in the development of new medical devices. He helped pioneer the invention of the Stereotaxis Magnetic Navigation System, which uses magnets to precisely guide surgical instruments through the human body.

Howard is the first UI faculty member to hold the John C. VanGilder Chair in Neurosurgery, which is the department’s first endowed faculty award.

Full news release.

Three CCOM faculty members in psychiatry, along with a faculty member in the UI College of Liberal ARts and Sciences Department of Psychology, were named to American Psychiatric Association work groups that will develop the fifth edition of the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V).

From the CCOM:

Dr. William Coryell, the George Winokur Professor of Psychiatry, will serve on the Mood Disorders Work Group.

Dr. Jane S. Paulsen, UI professor of psychiatry, neurology, psychology and neurosciences, will serve on the Neurocognitive Disorders Work Group.

Dr. Susan K. Schultz, UI professor of psychiatry, will serve on the Psychotic Disorders Work Group.

From the UI Department of Psychology, Dr. Lee Anna Clark, professor and collegiate fellow, will serve on the Personality and Personality Disorders Work Group.

Dr. Gail Bishop, Holden Chair of Cancer Biology and Carver College of Medicine Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Internal Medicine, was selected to serve as chairperson of the Transplantation, Tolerance, and Tumor Immunology Study Section for the NIH’s Center for Scientific Review. She will serve a term beginning July 1 and ending June 30, 2010.

Members of this group are selected on the basis of their demonstrated competence and achievement in their scientific discipline, as evidenced by the quality of research accomplishments, publications in scientific journals, and other significant activities, achievements and honors.

Bishop, who joined the College in 1989, conducts research focusing on molecular mechanisms of lymphocyte activation.

Dr. Michael Kienzle, director of the CCOM’s Office of Economic and Business Development, was selected to serve as an ex-officio member of the American College of Cardiology’s Education Oversight Committee. The term coincides with his term on the ACC’s Digital Products Management Board.

Dr. Charles Helms, UI professor of internal medicine, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to conduct vaccine policy research in Australia.

Helms, an infectious diseases specialist and medical director of the Office of Clinical Quality, Safety and Performance Improvement at UI Hospitals and Clinics, will travel to New South Wales, Australia in 2009 to study their new policy of health care worker immunization. In 2006, New South Wales implemented a plan that requires the screening and vaccination of all health care workers for preventable diseases. Its goal is to radically reduce the transmission of such diseases among health care workers and to patients.

As part of his Fulbright-supported research, hosted by the University of Sydney, Helms will evaluate the impact of the vaccination plan through data analysis and interviews with Australian public health officials, health policy leaders, health care facility directors, medical and nursing staff, patient and public policy advocates, and other groups.

Full news release.