HMS Academy Announces New Center for Teaching and Learning

In a March 1 celebration, the Academy at HMS announced the opening of the Academy Center for Teaching and Learning, directed by Charles Hatem (left), the Harold Amos Academy professor in medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Mt. Auburn Hospital. The center will develop and implement faculty educational programs, assess faculty teaching, and support the faculty in their educational activities as an element in academic advancement. In his introductory remarks, Academy director George Thibault described the purpose of the Academy, elaborating on its effort to provide service to educational faculty, which the new center will lead. He called the center “a resource for all the teaching faculty.” Likewise, HMS dean Joseph Martin touched on the School’s broad initiative of medical education reform, pointing to the question of how teaching should be done as the focus of the center. “How to teach is what we’re all about,” he said.

Prior to the introduction of center director Hatem, Jules Dienstag, HMS dean for medical education, explained that the Center for Teaching and Learning was modeled on the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University, which seeks to strengthen education at the college. Referring to the establishment of the new center, Dienstag said, “This is just a fabulous event for the Medical School, an incredibly important milestone for us.” Hatem then referred to historical figures, mentors, and colleagues to sketch some principles of effective teaching and a planned, federalist role for the center within the Harvard Medical community. “We hope within the Center for Teaching and Learning that we can act in a catalytic way that will help the faculty in our sister institutions reach their own sense of fruition,” he said.

Keynote speaker Michael Sandel (below), the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass professor of government at Harvard and a renowned teacher there, addressed some of the fundamentals of teaching, which he called more of an art than a science. He demonstrated the art using a storyteller’s pacing and voice modulation, not to mention humor. He explained that “teaching is first and foremost about capturing and holding attention.” If you hear a lot of coughing, he said, you are probably boring the students. That’s rule number one. And rule number two is that the teacher must never forget what it is like to be a student.

Chief Medical Officer Named in Cancer Care

Lisa Diller, HMS associate professor of pediatrics at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, has been named chief medical officer of Dana–Farber/Children’s Hospital Cancer Care and clinical director of Pediatric Oncology at DFCI and Children’s Hospital Boston, of which she had served as interim clinical director since 2005.

Diller has specialized in treating children with cancer at the two hospitals since 1988. She is director of the neuroblastoma program and the founder and medical director of Dana–Farber’s David B. Perini Jr. Quality of Life Clinic, a program for survivors of childhood cancers.

“The pediatric oncology program thrived during Lisa’s appointment as interim clinical director,” said Edward Benz Jr., president and CEO of Dana–Farber.

“Lisa has the skills and the vision to further synergize the efforts of Dana–Farber and Children’s to provide the best possible care for children with cancer,” said James Mandell, president and CEO of Children’s.

Countway Exhibits Changing Face of Medicine

“Changing the Face of Medicine,” a traveling exhibit that explores the history of female physicians in the United States, will come to Countway Library on March 13. The collection is part of an exhibit that was originally on display at the National Library of Medicine from 2003 until 2005 (see Focus, Oct. 24, 2003). “Changing the Face of Medicine” covers almost 150 years, featuring pioneers such as Florence Sabin, one of the earliest woman physicians to work as a research scientist; Antonia Novello, the first female U.S. Surgeon General; and HMS’s Leona Baumgartner, the first female commissioner of the New York City Department of Health. In conjunction with the exhibit, the library will display two presentations from its own collection, “The Stethoscope Sorority: Stories from the Archives for Women in Medicine,” and “Refocusing Family Planning: Selections from the Abraham Stone and Alan Guttmacher Papers.” The Countway will host “Changing the Face of Medicine” until April 20. A celebration will take place on March 23, featuring a reception at 5 p.m. followed by a panel discussion at 6 p.m. on the experiences of women in medicine. The exhibit was organized by the National Library of Medicine and the American Library Association.

Photos courtesy of Countway Library

Appointments to Full Professor

The following full professors were appointed in January.

Sue Goldie
Professor of Health Decision Science
Harvard School of Public Health
Goldie is an internationally recognized expert in decision analytic methods, mathematical modeling, cost-effectiveness analysis, and technology evaluation. Her work involves developing and validating computer-based models linking the basic biology of a disease and its epidemiology to population-based outcomes, with a major focus on viruses that cause chronic diseases such as human papillomavirus, HIV, and hepatitis C virus. She will be assuming a leadership role in the HSPH Program in Decision Sciences.

Sharon Inouye
Professor of Medicine
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Inouye’s primary research focuses on delirium and functional decline in hospitalized older patients. She developed and validated a new instrument for identification of delirium called the Confusion Assessment Method, which is now the most widely used standard in the field. She also established the Hospital Elder Life Program, which was demonstrated to be successful in reducing delirium by 40 percent. At the Aging Brain Center at Hebrew Senior Life, Inouye now plans to examine the interface of delirium and dementia with multiple studies to investigate whether delirium alters the course of dementia and whether delirium itself leads to long-standing cognitive impairment and pathologic changes in the brain.

Eng Lo
Professor of Radiology
Massachusetts General Hospital
Since 1991, Lo’s laboratory has investigated the pathophysiology of brain injury and neurodegeneration using a combination of in vivo imaging, pharmacology, and molecular biology. His work has significantly advanced the current understanding of how perturbations in cell–cell and cell–matrix signaling mediate neurovascular dysfunction in brain disease. Lo is also a member of the HMS Program in Neuroscience.

Jeffrey Saffitz
Mallinckrodt Professor of Pathology
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Saffitz’s research is focused on structural and molecular determinants of intercellular electrical coupling in the heart. He uses genetically engineered mouse models and in vitro preparations to understand the functional properties of specific cardiac connexins and determine how gap junction remodeling in the diseased heart contributes to development of lethal ventricular arrhythmias.

Honors and Advances

• The American Academy of Political and Social Science will name Felton Earls, HMS professor of social medicine and HSPH professor of human behavior, as a Mahatma Gandhi fellow at a symposium on April 24. Earls will be the first physician inducted into the academy as a fellow since the fellowships, which recognize distinguished scholarship in the social sciences, were begun in 2000.

• Rakesh Jain, the A. Werk Cook professor of radiation oncology (tumor biology) at Massachusetts General Hospital, was presented with the Distinguished Service Award at the Nature Biotechnology Winter Annual Symposium in Miami on Feb. 7. The award is given to researchers whose contributions have helped biological research and its practitioners advance on a broad front.

• Helmut Rennke, HMS professor of pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, was given the 2006 Jacob Churg Award at the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology meeting on Feb. 12. The award is presented annually to an individual who has made major contributions to the field of nephropathology.

• The Society of Cardiovascular Pathologists presented its 2006 Distinguished Achievement Award to Frederick Schoen, HMS professor of pathology and health sciences and technology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The ceremony took place during the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology meeting on Feb. 12. Schoen was honored for his contributions to cardiovascular pathology, including a textbook he wrote on the subject and his research on the pathology of cardiac valvular prostheses.

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