Martin Describes Growing Local, Global Network

Photo by Liza Green, HMS Media Services In his annual State of the School speech, Dean Joseph Martin described HMS’s growing collaborative research in the context of globalization and world-wide change.

In his eighth annual State of the School speech, HMS dean Joseph Martin described the ways in which the School’s growth and changes over the past year have hinged on interconnected networks of information that span Boston, Cambridge, and the globe. Citing journalist Thomas Friedman’s theory that the world has “flattened” as a result of technological, political, and economic changes, Martin pointed to changes in HMS’s internet and intranet services that allow students, researchers, and professors to exchange information and collaborate no matter where they are located; new programs in systems and chemical biology that bring the strategies and expertise of outside disciplines to bear on medical problems; and HMS publications that are reprinted in languages including Arabic, Indonesian, Turkish, and Russian.

“Complexity is a way of life here,” said Martin. “If you ask what the nature of the structure that we operate within is, we don’t have a hub-and-spoke model, there’s no single center with spokes that connect to it.... What we have is a neural network of nodes that intersect and interact with each other and to a large degree are self-organizing in their activities.”

Part of the School’s growth has been in the area of information technology. “Renovations have put network wires throughout Countway Library, which means you can access everything in our library from your home computer anywhere in the world,” said Martin. Other advances, such as the development of MyCourses, eCommons, and the new CNS course led by David Cardozo, HMS assistant professor of neurobiology, allow students to become more engaged with their research and with medical practice.

In addition, Countway Library has recently added a new Center for Bioinformatics, led by Isaac Kohane and Alexa McCray, which Martin described as developing into “a living laboratory unequalled anywhere else.”

Med Ed Reform
The dean described the Medical Education Reform mission as being in a period of implementation and ongoing design. “Students receiving their application materials are being warned that if they come here, they may be going through an entirely new curriculum experience,” he commented. New classes will include Introduction to the Profession, the Fundamentals of Medicine, the Principal Clinical Experience, Advanced Experiences in Clinical Medicine and Research, and the In-depth Educational Experience. Pilot programs for the Principal Clinical Experience are under way at Cambridge Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and another is being planned at Massachusetts General Hospital (see Focus, Oct. 14).

Other educational innovations include the creation of an MD–MBA dual degree program, a track for MD–PhD social scientists, and a new Center for Teaching Excellence within the Academy at HMS.

The Allston Campus
Harvard is in the process of building and designing a science campus in Allston, the first phase of which could be completed as early as 2010. Planners are considering moving systems biology, chemical biology, the Stem Cell Institute, and bioengineering to the new campus. “This creates anxiety on the part of us here in the Longwood area,” said Martin, “about the impacts of losing potentially some of our best people to the Allston site. And you will be hearing a more lively debate over the next few months about what the impact of this might be.” Martin noted that moving these programs would affect not just the Quad, but the hospitals as well.

Collaborating Globally
In the past year, the School’s efforts have stretched around the world. Martin pointed to the Division of AIDS, which works at 10 sites in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, and to the 65 HMS students who participated in international projects in the past year. In addition, the Department of Social Medicine is conducting 15 projects in 11 countries, and HMS has partnered with Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to create the HMS Dubai Center Institute for Postgraduate Education and Research. Even in those places where HMS students, faculty, and staff are not working, articles, books, and newsletters from Harvard Health Publications along with collaborations with magazines such as Newsweek and Better Homes and Gardens are able to provide health information by reaching millions of readers around the globe.

Neural Nodes
Near the end of his talk, Martin pointed to a map of HMS and its affiliates, saying that he and Nancy Andrews, HMS dean for basic sciences and graduate studies, had drawn arrows representing those collaborations between the hospitals, schools, and research centers that they could think of “off the top of our heads.” He pressed a button and arrows whizzed from one point to another, forming a dense web across the slide. Looking at the screen, Martin urged the audience to “keep the nodes humming.”

A PowerPoint presentation of the State of the School speech is available for download here.

—Rebecca Tinkelman

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