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BULLETIN Proceedings of the HMS Faculty CouncilAt the March 6 meeting of the Faculty Council, Sanjiv Chopra, new faculty dean for continuing education, reported on the course offerings of the department and plans for the future. Last year the department offered 230 continuing medical education (CME) courses. There were 48,000 registrants, including 1,800 from foreign countries. In addition to those courses held in the greater Boston area, primary care medicine courses were offered in Long Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, and Chicago, and this year will also be offered in Washington, D.C. CME FutureDespite these accomplishments, Chopra said there is room for improvement. A course template has been developed to help ensure that all courses receive outstanding ratings. Chopra is eager to work with other HMS faculty, including colleagues at the Academy, to develop workshops aimed at helping speakers enhance their presentation skills. He told the council that the next frontier for CME is distance learning. Using the abbreviation ABCDE (affordable, basic, convenient, distance, electronic learning), he cited Harvard president Lawrence Summers's statement that with Harvard's storehouses of knowledge, there is an unprecedented opportunity, perhaps even a moral obligation, to share information and knowledge with colleagues worldwide. CME offered online and perhaps at substantially discounted rates to physicians from Latin America, Asia, and Africa, might be a novel way to accomplish this goal. The Graduates' ViewNancy Oriol, associate dean for student affairs, and Ronald Arky, master of the Peabody Society, presented a synopsis of the HMS data from the Association of American Medical Colleges questionnaire of 2001 alums. HMS students tended to be somewhat older than medical students at other institutions, and a higher percentage were underrepresented minorities. Comparison of rankings among a group of 13 research-intensive medical schools on Steps I and II of the national medical board exams demonstrated that HMS students placed in the highest score rankings in this elite group. More than 60 percent of HMS students intend to pursue careers in academic medicine compared with the national average of just 30 percent. Although 73 percent of HMS graduates incur medical school debt, a greater percentage of that debt is in the lower debt ranges, compared with graduates from other schools. The majority of both HMS graduates and graduates nationwide said debt had no influence on their choice of subspecialty. However, Arky cautioned that it may be too early to ask this question to graduating medical students, but rather that it should be asked toward the end of residency training, when physicians have to choose whether they will pursue careers in academic medicine or clinical practice. Twenty percent said they had felt mistreated at some time during medical school, a percentage similar to the national figure. Types of mistreatment reported were public belittlement, sexual remarks, gender discrimination, racist remarks, sexual advances, grade discrimination by gender, and the request to perform personal chores. Of those who reported mistreatment, the vast majority at HMS and nationwide stated that mistreatment most frequently occurred in the clinical setting. Sixty-five percent of respondents did not report the harassment to their school. The major reason for not reporting was fear of reprisal (45 percent), and 40 percent said the incident was not important. The strengths of their medical school experience most frequently cited by HMS graduates were classmates, faculty, enrichment opportunities, the large number of clinical sites available for clerkship rotations, the New Pathway curriculum, and the HST curriculum. The number one weakness cited was the cost of attending medical school.
Gimbrone to Keynote Soma Weiss Student Research DayThe 62nd annual Soma Weiss Day, presented by the HMS Office for Enrichment Programs, will be held April 18. Named in memory of a renowned HMS professor, the event gives students a chance to share their research with the Harvard medical community. There will be poster sessions, HMS/HSDM student presentations, and a keynote address by Michael Gimbrone, the Elsie T. Friedman professor and head of the Department of Pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, titled "Understanding Vascular Endothelium: A Pilgrim's Progress." For 11 years, Gimbrone was chair of the academic societies' committee on student research. Students participating in the event will receive a copy of Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood by Oliver Sachs. Activities will take place in the TMEC atrium and amphitheater from 1:30 to 6:30 p.m. For more information, call 432-3181.
Health Sciences and Technology Holds Bioinformatics and Genomics Seminar SeriesThis spring the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology is holding a series of seminars exploring current research and topical issues in bioinformatics and genomics. On April 18, Zoltan Szallasi, a senior research scientist in the Informatics Program at Children's Hospital, will present "Is It Time to Trade 'Wet-work' for 'Network'? The Perils and Promises of Genetic Network Analysis." On May 2, Isaac Kohane, codirector of the HST Program in Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics and director of the Children's Hospital Informatics Program, will present "A Two Part Story: The Importance of Representation in Functional Genomics and the New HST Program in Bioinformatics." Both seminars will be held at 4:15 p.m. in room E25-111 at MIT, 45 Carleton Street, Cambridge. For more information on these seminars, contact Daniel Sodickson at 617-632-7654 or e-mail dsodicks@caregroup.harvard.edu.
Symposium Shows Biomedical Research Imaging TechnologiesThe HMS biomedical imaging task force will present a symposium, "Research Imaging--Molecules and Molecular Targets," from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the Armenise Building amphitheater on April 15. Organized by Stephen Harrison, Howard Hughes investigator at Harvard University and HMS professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology, and Robert Lenkinski, director of experimental radiology at Beth Israel Deaconess, the symposium will showcase the uses of emerging and developed imaging technologies including molecular electron microscopy, subcellular optical microscopy, confocal microscopy, two-photon microscopy, microPET, microSPECT, animal MR imaging, and in vivo optical imaging. If you plan to attend, contact Penny Rothberg at 617-432-3071 or e-mail prothberg@hms.harvard.edu.
In Memoriam Photo by Barbara Steiner Merton Bernfield, the Clement A. Smith professor of pediatrics at Children's and professor of cell biology at HMS, died March 18. He was 63. Bernfield joined the HMS faculty in 1989 after 22 years at Stanford University. He was an internationally recognized leader in developmental biology who studied how molecules that control morphogenesis are regulated during development and following injury. Bernfield was director of the Joint Program in Neonatology, the unit responsible for the care, education, and research of newborns at Children's, Brigham and Women's, and Beth Israel Deaconess until its dissolution in 1998. His many honors included Guggenheim and Macy fellowships and distinguished lectureships like the Swedish Zetterstrom Lecture and the Wellcome Visiting Professorship in the Basic Medical Sciences. Bernfield was a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Association of Physicians. He is survived by his wife, Audrey, the director of the Office of Enrichment Programs at HMS, and their three children. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be sent to the Merton Bernfield Memorial Award, c/o The American Society for Cell Biology, 8120 Woodmont Ave., Suite 750, Bethesda, Md., 20814-2762.
Harold Chandler, a pioneer in nuclear medicine and retired HMS assistant clinical professor of medicine, died May 17, 2001. He was 88 years old. A graduate of Bowdoin College and Jefferson Medical College, Chandler began his practice in internal medicine in Boston in the late 1940s. To aid in the diagnosis of thyroid illnesses, he worked with a friend who owned a radio shop in East Boston to build one of the first nuclear medicine devices for that purpose. He later established Mt. Auburn Hospital's Department of Nuclear Medicine. After retiring from Mt. Auburn in 1978 after more than 25 years, he served on the staff of St. Elizabeth's. As a major in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War II, he landed at Omaha Beach and helped establish the first Allied field hospital on the continent after D-Day. Chandler was a trustee of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, a past president of its New England chapter, and president of the society's education and research foundation. He was also a fellow of the American College of Nuclear Physicians. He is survived by his wife, Iris; two sons, Mark of Palo Alto, Calif., and Ted of Sierra Madre, Calif; and five grandchildren.
Vladimir Fencl, HMS associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, died Jan. 14 at the age of 78. He joined the HMS faculty as an instructor in physiology in 1964 and became associate professor in 1969. From 1974 to 1990, he served as director of respiratory care at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Fencl was involved in the scholarly and educational programs of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. He delivered lectures at the Charles University School of Medicine in Prague and presented the Jan Brod Prague Memorial Lecture. He is survived by his wife, Montserrat.
Angelo Eraklis, HMS associate clinical professor of surgery at Children's Hospital, died Feb. 2 at age 69. A native of Portland, Maine, Eraklis graduated from HMS and trained in surgery at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston City Hospital, and Children's Hospital. He was one of the founders of the American Pediatric Surgical Society and had an extensive career developing a large international clinical practice and the Renal Transplant Program at Children's. He also founded Health Care International in Clydebank, Scotland, a tertiary hospital designed to export American medical expertise and enhance international medical training and patient care.
Charles Weingarten, HMS assistant clinical professor of medicine at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, died Jan. 6. He was 66. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Weingarten graduated from Brown and Boston University School of Medicine. Until a few months before his death, he was director of primary care at Spaulding. An internist with a special interest in medical aspects of psychiatric illness, Weingarten joined the HMS faculty as an instructor in 1967. From 1973 to 1990, he served as chief of medicine at McLean Hospital, and from 1990 to 1994, he was chief of medicine at Harvard University Health Services. In 1994, he returned to Spaulding, where he had served earlier in his career as the first medical director of the hospital, then known as Massachusetts Rehabilitation Hospital. He leaves his wife, Jane; two sons, Steven of New York and James of Chicago; and a daughter, Robin of Boston.
Honors and AdvancesLisa Najavits, HMS associate professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at McLean Hospital, has been named a fellow of the American Psychological Association. The Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center recently announced the 17 recipients of the 2002 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award. Graduate student Elissa Lei in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program, and Zhaolan Zhou, a former grad student who is now a postdoc in the lab of Robin Reed, will participate in a scientific symposium with other winners in May. Shelly Greenfield, director of ambulatory services for the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment Program at McLean Hospital and HMS assistant professor of psychiatry, has been elected to the American College of Psychiatrists. She was also recently awarded fellow status by the American Psychiatric Association, as well as being named co-editor in chief of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry. The Boston Chapter of the American Statistical Association has named Alan Zaslavsky, HMS associate professor of statistics in the Department of Health Care Policy, as the Mostellar Statistician of the Year. The award is given annually to a distinguished statistician who has made exceptional contributions to the field and shown outstanding service to the statistical community. Frank Sellke, chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess and the Johnson and Johnson professor of surgery at HMS, was chosen as a member of the surgery, anesthesiology, and trauma study section of the Center for Scientific Review at the National Institutes of Health. The 12 new 2002-2003 George Mitchell Scholars include HMS third-year student Gavin Quinn, who will study for a master's degree in creative writing at Queen's University in Belfast, Ireland. The scholars, chosen for academic distinction, leadership, and community service, spend a year of postgraduate study in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The Wiley Foundation announced that Stanley Korsmeyer, the Sidney Farber professor of pathology, is the cowinner, with H. Robert Horvitz of MIT, of the inaugural Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences. The prize, founded by the charitable arm of the publisher of scientific, technical, and medical books John Wiley and Sons, recognizes scientists who have opened new fields of research or advanced novel concepts and their applications in biomedicine. Korsmeyer was chosen for his discovery of the relationship between human lymphomas and the fundamental biological process of apoptosis. Six of the 30 recipients of the recently announced 2002 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans are HMS students. The fellowships provide a $20,000 stipend and pay half the cost of tuition for up to two years of graduate study. The fellowships were established to recognize the contributions made to this country by immigrants and their children. Among this year's recipients are first-year students Irene Linetskaya and Eric Sheu, second-year students Erick Miranda and Markella Zanni, and Jose Vargas and Neelaksh Varshney, who will enter HMS in the fall.
News BriefsHSPH faculty voted in January to refuse to accept research funding from tobacco manufacturers and their subsidiaries. Because of the incompatibility of the public health mission, HSPH has not been accepting such funds for several years, but the vote now makes it a matter of official policy. In January, the U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination of Eve Slater as Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services. Slater was previously senior vice president for clinical and regulatory development at Merck Research Laboratories. She has also served as chief of the hypertension unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. |
