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BULLETINThe HMS Faculty CouncilAt the Oct. 22 Faculty Council meeting, Joseph Martin, dean of the Faculty of Medicine, welcomed members and announced that the new vice chair/chair of the docket committee is Linda Heffner, HMS associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology. State of the SchoolMarking the end of his fifth year as dean, Martin summarized the progress made in four major priorities that he had set at the start of his term: strengthening basic science research, broadening relationships with the teaching hospitals, reinvigorating educational programs, and increasing diversity at all levels. He then discussed many of the topics covered in his State of the School speech on Sept. 26 (see Focus, Oct. 11, 2002).Report on Titles and CriteriaDaniel Podolsky, the Mallinckrodt professor of medicine and chair of the committee to recommend titles and criteria, reported that the committee had been charged with determining whether an additional faculty track should be established for those investigators who are not eligible to hold full-time positions on the faculty but who make significant contributions, on a part-time basis, to the mission of the School. Considerable precedent for this type of arrangement exists, based on the existing Academic Part Time (APT) track for those engaged in clinical and teaching activities.The committee focused on the issue of appointments for investigator-teachers with primary employment at for-profit institutions and acknowledged that the rapid expansion of for-profit research institutions in Boston makes it highly likely that more people will seek such appointments in the future. The committee emphasized that potential criteria for appointment in this second APT track must focus on the mission of the Medical School rather than the aims of the outside institution. The committee recommended that APT criteria should be considered an umbrella for two sets of criteria, clinical part-time (CPT) and investigator part-time (IPT); titles of lecturer and senior lecturer be used and thought of as corresponding to levels of full-time assistant and associate/full professor, respectively; term appointments be made with a three-year term for lecturer and five-year term for senior lecturer for IPT faculty; and a substantive contribution to teaching be an essential requirement of the part-time appointment. However, IPT faculty may not serve as primary supervisors of graduate students, though they may serve on thesis committees; and graduate students may not do thesis research in an institution that is not affiliated with HMS. The committee recommended that IPT faculty be entitled to faculty privileges such as access to Countway Library. The council accepted the committee's report with the understanding that implementation will require further discussion. Change for Oral Surgery ProgramThe council accepted a proposal prepared by the Massachusetts General Hospital Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (OMFS) Program committee and presented by Thomas Dodson, HMS associate professor and director of resident training in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at MGH. The proposal modifies the training program by consolidating the current two curricula (HSDM and non-HSDM graduates) into one in which all trainees will enter HMS III and complete HMS III and IV. The proposed modification offers better education and training for all residents (including a six-month elective block during HMS IV in which trainees can engage in research activities), simplifies and coordinates the program by consolidating the two curricula, and is consistent with the HMS policy of not accepting transfer students into HMS II. Moreover, a review of the program reveals no differences in the accomplishments of HSDM vs. non-HSDM graduates.The MD degree would not be granted to anyone who had not experienced and passed the typical two full clinical years of education at HMS. OMFS candidates would be expected to come from dental schools where medical and dental students are integrated into the same preclinical basic science classes. In the case of an OMFS candidate being seriously considered who came from a dental school where preclinical coursework--specifically the pathophysiology course--was not taken with medical students, the content and rigor of the preclinical coursework would have to be carefully scrutinized by a pre-admission committee to determine parity with the HMS preclinical coursework.
Senator Kennedy Honored with Richmond Award
Senator Edward Kennedy (right) received this year's Julius B. Richmond Award from HSPH during a ceremony at the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel on Nov. 21, where he also delivered the award lecture. Kennedy was selected to receive the award for his longstanding advocacy for health policy reform. The annual award is named in honor of Julius Richmond (left), former HSPH dean and HMS professor emeritus of health policy. He is the former director of the national Head Start Program, former U.S. Surgeon General, and former Assistant Secretary of Health under President Jimmy Carter. (Photo by Christina Roache)
Harvard President Calls for Support of Scholars at RiskDear Colleagues, A faculty committee, co-chaired by the University Committee on Human Rights, has been constituted to choose the Scholar at Risk fellow. Last year two half-year fellows were chosen from a pool of nominees submitted by faculty members--an Ethiopian geographer, sponsored by the Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Studies, and an Iranian legal scholar, sponsored by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Scholars from any disciplines represented at Harvard are eligible. The purpose of the fellowship is to enable scholars whose lives have been disrupted to pursue their research interests and to benefit from the scholarly environment that Harvard can provide. I invite you to submit nominations for the fellowship. The deadline for submissions is Wednesday, January 15, 2003. Nomination forms, as well as details of the Scholars at Risk initiative and the selection committee membership, can be found at www.humanrights.harvard.edu. Nominations should be submitted to the University Committee on Human Rights Studies, 218 Eliot St., Kennedy School of Government, or by e-mail to humanrights@harvard.edu. We look forward to receiving nominations. If you have any questions about the fellowship that are not answered on the website, please contact Jacqueline Bhabha at 617-384-7743, jbhabha@law.harvard.edu, or Stephen Greenblatt at 617-495-2101, greenbl@fas.harvard.edu. Sincerely,
Grillo Surgery Professorship Announced
Gifts from friends, colleagues, and grateful patients have funded the Hermes C. Grillo professorship in thoracic surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, which was announced at an HMS reception on Oct. 1. In his introduction to Grillo (HMS '47), Gerald Austen, the Edward D. Churchill professor of surgery at MGH, called him the "father of tracheal surgery." Grillo has been honored and lauded numerous times for the innovations he brought to the field. The first incumbent, Douglas Mathisen, has research interests that include management of airway disease, esophageal cancer, and advanced lung cancer. He succeeded Grillo as chief of the General Thoracic Surgical Unit at MGH. Above, Grillo (left) and Mathisen embrace after the ceremony, at which Harvard medical dean Joseph Martin presented Grillo with the Paul Revere silver bowl he is holding. (Photo by Liza Green, HMS Media Services)
Memoir Tells of Woman's Heart Attack Survival, MGH Doctors Who HelpedIn An Arrow Through the Heart: One Woman's Story of Life, Love, and Surviving a Near-Fatal Heart Attack, Deborah Daw Heffernan writes of the first year of her recovery from a heart attack at the age of 44. Heffernan, a graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, faced myriad cardiac complications and interventions: myocardial infarction, angioplasty, open-heart surgery resulting in a double bypass, ventricular tachycardia, and managing with a defibrillator and half of a heart (ejection fraction 25). Despite the gravity of her situation, Heffernan wrote her book with both poignancy and humor. In it, she tells of the Massachusetts General Hospital doctors who helped her to recover: David Torchiana, chief of cardiac surgery and HMS associate professor of surgery; Marc Semigran, cardiologist; and Jeremy Ruskin, electrophysiologist and HMS associate professor of medicine. To both thank her doctors and help in the fight against heart disease, the leading cause of death among women, Heffernan will donate to the MGH cardiac unit a $25,000 bonus that she is slated to receive from her publisher if sales of her book reach a predetermined goal by April.
AAMC Honors Korsmeyer for Distinguished Biomedical ResearchAt the 113th annual meeting of the Association of American Medical Colleges held Nov. 8 to 11, Stanley Korsmeyer, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and the Sidney Farber professor of pathology and professor of medicine at HMS and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, received the Award for Distinguished Research in Biomedical Sciences. Korsmeyer has pioneered research on the mechanisms involved in the regulation of apoptosis, or programmed cell death, changing the way scientists approach the treatment of some diseases. His seminal observations have revealed that susceptibility to apoptosis is determined by the balance of pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic signals. An imbalance in these signals is a critical component of multiple human diseases, including cancer.
Beals Endow Associate Professorship at HSPHBruce and Robert Beal, longstanding friends of HSPH, have endowed an associate professorship at the School to honor their father, Alexander Beal. The endowment will initially support the work of the Harvard AIDS Institute by funding its research directorship. Richard Marlink, lecturer in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, has been appointed the Bruce A. Beal, Robert L. Beal, and Alexander S. Beal research director of the Harvard AIDS Institute. Bruce Beal and Robert Beal (Harvard, AB '63, MBA '65) are partners in the Beal Companies, a real estate development and consulting firm that has been managed by their family for five generations. Bruce is a member of the Harvard AIDS Institute's International Advisory Committee and serves on the Committee on University Resources as well as an adviser to the University on real estate matters. Robert serves on the Committee on University Resources and is a member of the Dean's Council of Harvard Divinity School and the Advisory Council of the Taubman Center at the Kennedy School. In addition to the professorship at HSPH, Robert and Bruce Beal have also endowed several funds at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
In MemoriamRuthanne Simmons, HMS clinical instructor in ophthalmology at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, died Nov. 8 at the age of 43. A graduate of HMS ('87), Simmons was a glaucoma and cataract specialist with Ophthalmic Consultants in Boston. She was inspired to enter medicine by her father, Richard Simmons, an internationally known surgeon, glaucoma specialist, and former HMS faculty member. Although her passion in medicine was clinical practice, surgery, and patient care, Simmons was also an active researcher. She was director of research at the New England Eye Research Foundation and authored multiple chapters in major ophthalmology textbooks, as well as numerous scientific journal articles, primarily dealing with new methods of glaucoma surgery and laser treatments. She was also a frequent lecturer and course director at national and international ophthalmology meetings. Simmons was a member of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American Glaucoma Society, the New England Ophthalmological Society, and the American Eye Study Club. She leaves her husband, Robert Stern, associate professor of psychiatry and neurology at Brown University Medical School; two children, Nicholas and Laura Simmons-Stern; her mother, Anna Simmons of Orleans, Mass.; a brother, Richard of Windham, N.H.; and two sisters, Sarah Cousins of Lincoln, Mass., and Katharine of Acton, Mass.
Honors and AdvancesDavid Torchiana, HMS associate professor of surgery and chief of cardiac surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, has been chosen by the board of trustees of the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization to become its new CEO and chairman, effective Jan. 1. He succeeds Peter Slavin, who will become the new MGH president. The organization is the largest multispecialty group practice in New England. The National Patient Safety Foundation will present the Janssen Elder Care Award during a ceremony in March to the advanced biosystems group in biomedical engineering at Massachusetts General Hospital, which includes Nathaniel Sims, HMS assistant professor of anesthesia, and Jeffrey Cooper, HMS associate professor of anesthesia. The group was selected for "Infusion Pumps with 'Drug Libraries' at the Point of Care: a Solution for Safer Drug Delivery." The award carries a $10,000 prize. E. Kent Yucel, HMS associate professor of medicine, has been inducted as a fellow into the American College of Radiology. The Brown University Alumni Association awarded the 2002 Brown Bear Award to Augustus White, the Ellen and Melvin Gordon professor of medical education and master of the Holmes Society. The award recognizes outstanding and wide-ranging personal service to the university. Ronald Hunt, HMS professor emeritus of comparative pathology and former director of the New England Regional Primate Research Center, has been named a distinguished member of the American College of Veterinary Pathologists. This honor recognizes Hunt's significant contributions to the advancement of veterinary pathology throughout his career. During the American Dental Association annual session in October, Judy McIntyre, HSDM '03, received first place at the 2002 ADA/Dentsply Student Clinician Program for her table clinic and poster, "Dental water bacteria levels: before and after microfiltration." The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Minority Medical Faculty Development Program has awarded a four-year fellowship to Sonia Archer, HMS assistant professor of surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Archer is one of 11 in the nation to receive the prestigious fellowship given to minority physicians who have demonstrated superior academic and clinical skills and who are committed to careers in academic medicine. Her research will focus on deciphering the mechanisms involved in the effect of fiber on colon cancer. Robert Goldwyn, HMS clinical professor of surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, was honored by the Iberian and Latin American Plastic Surgery Society at its 25th anniversary meeting for his numerous and substantial contributions to the field and for serving as editor since 1979 of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Joseph Bonventre, the Robert H. Ebert professor of medicine and master of HST, delivered the Osler Oration at the meeting of the Royal College of Physicians in London in October. The award lecture is given every three years with the awardee receiving a gold medal. |
