med ed
A newsletter for faculty, staff, and students of the University of Minnesota Medical School

No. 365, February 2004

Editor: Gregory Vercellotti, M.D., verce001@umn.edu

Editorial Assistant: Allison Campbell, aac@umn.edu

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Worthy teachers

The Medical School has nominated four outstanding members of our faculty who exemplify excellence in postbaccalaureate, graduate, and/or professional education. Names forwarded to the University awards committee include James Carey, Ph.D., P.T., Director of Physical Therapy, an allied health program; Kenneth Roberts, Ph.D., Urologic Surgery department; Glenn Giesler, Ph.D., Neuroscience; and, John Day, M.D., Ph.D., Neurology. The award recipients will gain a new title, Distinguished University Teaching Professor. They also gain a $3,000 annual augment to their salaries, while their departments receive $1,500 annually for five years for the recipient to use for research or professional development. The names of the award recipients will be announced in mid-March. Good luck to each of our four worthy nominees.

Continuing Medical Education gains advisory council

Continuing medical education is a core component of the Medical School, according to a task force assembled by Dean Deborah Powell last year. Continuing medical education is integral to the continuum of learning, from undergraduate education through graduate medical education to the lives of our community of practitioners. To aid the Medical School's CME Director Steve Hillson, M.D., in realizing that vision and reaching community physicians, a new CME advisory council is forming. As of January, members include Ginny Jacobs, James Pacala, M.D., Louis Ling, M.D., Charles Schulz, M.D., Richard Auld, assistant director of the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice, Stuart Speedie, Ph.D., Ray Christensen, M.D., Gregory Vercellotti, M.D., Tom Gilliam, R.N., M.B.A., Joseph Clinton, M.D., Karyn Baum, M.D., Ben Bache-Wiig, M.D., North Clinic (Robbinsdale), Robert LaPrade, M.D., June LaValleur, M.D., Russ Luepker, M.D., M.S., School of Public Health, and Theodore Thompson, M.D. "We have the intent to serve the community of physicians in an ordered fashion," says Hillson, "from the local community to the state, the nation, and the world." The CME advisory council will meet every two months. Questions or suggestions? E-mail Hillson at hills004@umn.edu.

Preparing for the LCME site visit

We in the Medical School have done a terrific job since the last LCME accreditation visit in 1997. With the help of tobacco funding from the state and support from the successful University of Minnesota Physicians, the school has turned around its finances. We've made progress in other issues, too: using technology to promote education and evaluation; improving curriculum governance; and moving forward on integration of the Twin Cities and Duluth programs. When the LCME site visit team visits March 28-April 1, we can showcase what makes us a strong school, as long as we're prepared with the facts. We are planning to offer LCME reviews in the third week of March to help faculty prepare for the site visit. To become more familiar with the material to be covered in these reviews and the visit, faculty and students may want to look at the LCME self-study, which includes a database and executive summary. It's available through Linda Reilly, reill002@umn.edu.

Introducing Careers in Medicine

The introduction to the Careers in Medicine Program will be offered to first-year students in a small group format over the lunch hour, Feb. 16 and Feb. 20, at 12:15 p.m. At the introductory session students will:

· Be oriented to the AAMC Careers in Medicine Web-based resource

· Review the critical factors to consider in deciding upon a specialty

· Learn about avenues for further career exploration

· Be given an overview of the residency selection process

· Obtain a timetable for career decision-making

To participate, sign up with Katrina McGill at larso372@umn.edu or 612 626-0163. If these sessions fill up, additional ones will be scheduled. Careers in Medicine Manuals are available from Katrina in room B614.

Advisors selected, scheduling to go forward

To the year two students on both campuses and their new advisors, "Thank you," says Director of Clinical Education Theodore Thompson, M.D. Medical students need guidance and often a friend to turn to with questions during the final two years. On March 8, online clerkship scheduling goes live, and it will be available until March 27. After that, advisors will approve students' choices.

Share the healing arts at Harambe, March 13

For the second annual Harambe Show, medical students, residents, and physicians are invited to submit artwork, poetry, or short stories to share in the art gallery or the proposed Harambe art booklet. Then join in Saturday evening March 13, at Coffman Theater, for Harambe, a reunion of the community and the Medical School through the healing power of the arts, sponsored by the Student National Medical Association. Harambe is a celebration of the performing arts and other artworks from medical students, physicians, and community. For students, the purpose is to bring diversity, reality, empowerment, and relaxation into their lives; for the community, the purpose is to make the image of medical students and physicians more real and human. Please contact Cuong Pham at pham0079@umn.edu for submissions and questions about Harambe or the art booklet.

Poverty's impacts

Poverty impacts the quality of life in the United States just as it does in less-developed settings, reported Barbara A. Elliott, Ph.D., to the International Society of Quality of Life meeting in Prague, November 2003. A professor of Family Medicine on the Duluth campus, Elliott's presentation, "How Health Ranks as a Domain in Quality of Life among those Living in Poverty," reported the results of interviews with 750 people living at less than 200 percent of federal poverty guidelines in Duluth. The results showed that, as in areas outside the United States, among those who are not eligible for government-reimbursed care, health is the area of greatest concern. The relative importance of health for quality of life, she noted, relates to survival rather than philosophical or meaning-based concerns.

On Doctoring: Primum non nocere, Feb. 26

Harvard professor Troyen Brennan, M.D., J.D., M.P.H., will talk about medical errors, patient safety, and medical litigation in the latest in the On Doctoring series on medicine and the social fabric. A film about a medical error, Josie King, discussions by Alison Page and Karyn Baum, M.D., and an expert panel round out the program. Primum non nocere ("first, do no harm") begins at 8 a.m., Feb. 26, in Moos 2-650 and continues until 10 a.m.

Winter Ball Feb. 13: Bring your Bella or Bello

Break out the dancing shoes and semi-formal attire for the Medical School Winter Ball, 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., Feb. 13, at the McNamara Alumni Center, 200 Oak St. S.E., Minneapolis. Tickets are $14 at the door.

Award to al'Absi

We are pleased to announce that Mustafa al'Absi, Ph.D., who serves in the Duluth departments of Behavioral Medicine, Family Medicine, and Physiology, has been chosen to receive the 2004 American Psychosomatic Society's Herbert Weiner Early Career Award for Contributions to Psychosomatic Medicine. He has been invited to deliver an address to the Society at its annual meeting in March when he will be presented with his award. The award is for his overall research contributions, not for any single line of research. Please join me in congratulating him on this outstanding honor.

Mask-fitting completed for year three

Year three students are being fitted for masks. This mask-fitting is a requirement for practice in community settings, says Theodore Thompson, M.D. The masks would be used when students see patients with highly communicable respiratory infections, such as tuberculosis or SARS.

Buddy up

Duluth students now have official buddies on the Twin Cities campus. Twin Cities' students will help familiarize the Duluth students with the Twin Cities campus and will act as a resource. To find out more about the buddy system, contact Theodore Thompson, M.D., at thomp005@umn.edu or 612-626-2841.

Mark your calendars: Graduation is May 7

Save the date and come celebrate the class of 2004's graduation May 7. KARE-11 television personality and cancer survivor Randy Shaver will be the speaker.

CME course in Israel this fall

Physicians will have an opportunity to become familiar with another health-care system and with gynecological malignancies common among Ashkenazi women during a fall 2004 CME program to Israel. The course director will be Matt Boente, M.D., Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Women's Health. Israel's Poriya Hospital, site of the CME course, has an ongoing relationship with the University of Minnesota's ob/gyn department. For more information, see the Web site: http://www.med.umn.edu/cme/.

Editor's note: Campaign report from Iowa

Year two student Will Nicholson took a break this winter and went south---to Iowa to observe the Democratic candidates working the crowds before the caucuses took place. We applaud Nicholson for his efforts; whatever one's political affiliations, it is important that medical students recognize that as future leaders they have a stake in the kind of society and the health-care programs in which they live and work. Nicholson addressed health care issues with the candidates and shared an entertaining and insightful report with us, from which we would like to quote a couple of excerpts. The first is from his introduction: "For me, practicing medicine was going to involve more than treating patients in a clinic. It was going to involve improving the socioeconomic climate in which they lived their lives. Doctors do not work in a vacuum." Candidates speaking with Nicholson were often interrupted by cheering audiences, pushy reporters, and impatient campaign managers. One candidate simply ditched him. But Nicholson came away knowing that health care is the number one issue on agendas of voters, journalists, and campaign workers. He ends his report: "On my last day in Iowa, I was talking to a local volunteer and he asked me if I were a medical student, shouldn't I be studying right now? A good point. He could be right, I imagined. But then again, maybe I was studying right now. "This is medical school," I told him. He smiled..."