15. we want your news!

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1.  UPCOMING EVENTS

SPECIAL FACULTY OF MEDICINE MEETING

--Tuesday, August 2, 2005, 5:00 PM, Levin Hall North Auditorium

Galveston National Laboratory groundbreaking symposium

--Wednesday, August 10, 2005, Noon, William C. Levin Hall, Clark W. Thompson Auditorium (Main Auditorium)
Members of the UTMB community are cordially invited to a ceremony celebrating the groundbreaking of the Galveston National Laboratory. The keynote speaker will be Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health. Details on the groundbreaking and a related scientific symposium-Facing the Future: Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases-are available online from the following link. Watch Impact and iUTMB for additional details. Click for more information

HONORS AND AWARDS PROGRAM AND WHITE COAT CEREMONY

The Honors and Awards Program recognizes outstanding students and faculty; the White Coat Ceremony is the School of Medicine's formal welcoming and introduction of our incoming medical students to the profession of medicine. This event will take place on Monday, August 22, 2005 at 4:30 PM in the Levin Hall Main Auditorium.

Founders Day Weekend

October 28-29, 2005

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2. DR. VINCENT J. HILSER APPOINTED DIRECTOR OF CENTER

Vincent J. Hilser, Ph.D., recently has been appointed as Director of the Sealy Center for Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics. Dr. Hilser succeeds Dr. James Lee, who has served as Interim Director of the Center since 2002. See full message from the Dean of Medicine
 

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3. EXECUTIVES AT UTMB ATTEND WORKSHOP TO IMPROVE PATIENT SAFETY

Karen H. Sexton, R.N., Ph.D., CHE, Vice President and CEO for Hospitals and Clinics, and Valerie M. Parisi, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., Dean of Medicine, attended a workshop in Memphis, Tenn., to learn how techniques used for improving safety in the aviation industry might be applied to health care.  See full story
 

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4.  DR. MARTHA A. HARGRAVES ELECTED/APPOINTED TO STATE AND NATIONAL POSITIONS

Martha A. Hargraves, Ph.D., M.P.H., Associate Professor and Director, Health Policy and Health Services Research, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, has been elected and appointed to the following state and national positions:

State of Texas:

• Gubernatorial appointment (by Governor Rick Perry) for a two-year term, 2005-2007, as Chair of the Health Disparities Task Force. Dr. Hargraves has been serving on the Legislative Health Disparities Task Force since 2002.

 National:

• Vice President of the Society for the Study of Social Problems for the year 2004/2005. Dr. Hargraves has been a member of SSSP serving in various capacities since 1991

• Steering Committee for the Institute of Medicine’s Quality of Care Initiative to develop strategies toward implementing the recommendations of IOM’s study entitled "Quality Through Collaboration, The Future of Rural Health."

• National Rural Health Association (NRHA) Policy Board for 2005.

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5.  DRS. Bengi B. Melton & Kathleen L. O’Connor NOMINATED TO PARTICIPATE IN seminar
Bengi B. Melton, M.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, and Kathleen L. O'Connor, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, have been selected to submit an application to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Early Career Women Faculty Professional Development Seminar scheduled on December 3-6, 2005 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The seminar is designed for women early in their first faculty appointment who are aiming for a leadership position in academic medicine. Details about the program may be found at: http://www.aamc.org/meetings/specmtgs/ewim05/start.htm.
 

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6.  DR. GARVIN H. DAVIS NOMINATED TO PARTICIPATE IN PROGRAM

Garvin H. Davis, M.D., M.P.H., Assistant Professor, Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences, was chosen to submit an application to participate in the AAMC Minority Faculty Career Development Seminar which will be held on September 17-19, 2005 in Washington, DC.  The program is designed for junior faculty (senior fellows, instructors, and assistant professors) who are members of underrepresented minority groups and who aspire to positions of leadership in academic medicine.  Details about the program are available at: http://www.aamc.org/meetings/specmtgs/minfac05/start.htm.

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7. UTMB GALVESTON COURSE WINS LIBRARY RESOURCE INTEGRATION AWARD

The first annual UT Library Directors’ Award for Excellence in Library Resource Integration was presented at the Innovations in Online Learning (IOL) Conference in Austin on June 2, 2005 to the UTMB course, Practice of Medicine Year 2. The course creators, Dr. Mark Holden, Dr. Bernard Karnath, and Dr. Cheryl Vaiani, were honored for their exceptional use of library resource integration in order to achieve desired learning outcomes.

The course was chosen among nominations received from across the UT System. Four courses were named as finalists. In addition to the winning submission, finalists included UT Brownsville’s Perspectives on Professional Nursing Practice, UTMB's Applied Research Methods, and UT Austin’s Architecture and Society.

In presenting the award, Jeanne Pyle, Director of the Robert R. Muntz Library at the University of Texas at Tyler said, “Practice of Medicine Year 2 was selected due to the advanced integration of library materials, the focus placed on search strategies, the structured interaction and evaluation between students and librarians, the use of a collaboratively authored resource by faculty and librarians, the emphasis on information literacy skills, and the use of these skills for lifelong learning.”

This award was created to recognize outstanding online, web-enhanced or hybrid courses within the UT System that utilize library resources to increase interactivity and reach course learning objectives. It is believed that the award is the first of its kind to encourage the use of library resources.
 

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8.  School of Medicine among top producers of Hispanic doctors
According to Black Issues in Higher Education magazine’s list of top 100 degree producers for 2005, UTMB's School of Medicine graduated more Hispanic physicians than any other medical school in the United States. The magazine also listed UTMB as 10th in the number of medical degrees awarded to minorities, including Hispanic-American, African-American, Asian-American and American Indian students. See the UTMB press release...

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9. DR. MICHAEL R. HOLBROOK APPOINTED AS DIRECTOR OF SHOPE LABORATORY

Michael R. Holbrook, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology, has been appointed as Director of the Robert E. Shope BSL-4 Laboratory, effective 1 July, 2005. Dr. Holbrook succeeds Dr. Ramon Flick, who has the led the laboratory through its first successful year of operations. Dr. Flick will now serve as Associate Director, allowing him to better focus his efforts on his increasingly recognized research program.

Dr. Holbrook received his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts in Molecular and Cellular Biology with an emphasis on receptor binding and trafficking. He spent six years as a post-doctoral fellow at UTMB with Dr. Alan Barrett working primarily with tick-borne flaviviruses, before assuming a faculty position at the University of New Mexico. He received his BSL-4 training under the mentorship of Dr. Heinz Feldmann at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and was closely involved with the commissioning of the Shope BSL-4 Laboratory at UTMB. His current research focuses on the role of the host immune response in the development of viral hemorrhagic fever. The Shope Lab management team now consists of Dr. Holbrook, Director; Ms. Dee Zimmerman, Safety Officer; and Mr. Miquel A. Grimaldo, Biocontainment Specialist.
 

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10. ATTENTION ALL DEPARTMENTS REGARDING CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM @ UTMB: How will the content management system (CMS) at UTMB impact your department's web site?

UTMB has purchased a web content management system (CMS) from Stellent, Inc. to provide a safer web environment for UTMB’s Internet (external facing sites) and UTMB’s Intranet (internal UTMB sites). By now, individuals who own or manage web sites should have completed a Web Infrastructure Survey, to assess needs, web site audience, etc., as the university plans for the migration of all external web sites to the new web environment by August 31, 2005. Internal or private sites will also be transitioned to the new environment eventually; however, the priority during this first phase is to concentrate on moving and securing external facing sites.  There are two options for transitioning into the new environment which involve using a lightly managed tool set or a fully managed tool set.  Lightly managed will allow continued use of design software such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage with the security of the content management server; fully managed involves using the Stellent Content Management tools including "Site Studio" to design web pages, as well as the ability to build a workflow and approval process into a web. A significant change with the new infrastructure will be two separate web locations for UTMB web sites that will differentiate between pages intended for internal use, intranet.utmb.edu, versus universal access, www.utmb.edu. The new UTMB intranet will feature any content that is intended for internal use and will not be available to the public. Thus, many pages will no longer be available to the internet browsers from off-campus sites and broadband connections.   This includes the iUTMB home page, MyUTMB (ClinWeb), Invision, POE, HR, mainframe, EMR, and PeopleSoft.  WebMail, WebCT, and Job Opportunities will be available without special preparation. Staff and students who will require access to the UTMB intranet web from off-campus will need to utilize a Virtual Private Network (VPN).  Instructions and help with setting up VPN connections will be available soon.  The UTMB Internet will be public, remain accessible from anywhere and host all information that is appropriate for any audience. The new environment will not restrict internal traffic (UTMB web users) from access to the Internet or public portions of UTMB's web presence.

If you have any questions or need additional information, please visit the following web site www.utmb.edu/cms or contact Jim Koppe, ext. 73933; Susan Guedry, ext. 73882; or Cathy Leonard, ext. 73862 in Information Services.
 

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11. CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: Excellence in Clinical Teaching Awards

Each year, five faculty (four from clinical clerkships and one from the Practice of Medicine course) will be selected for the John P. McGovern Academy of Oslerian Medicine Excellence in Clinical Teaching Awards. This award recognizes the fundamental concept, exemplified by Sir William Osler, that the development of outstanding physicians occurs primarily in clinical settings. Candidates may be nominated by students, residents, patients, faculty, or other health care providers. The deadline for nominations is 5 p.m., Sept. 1, 2005. Get details...

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12. Appointments to Endowed Positions

The following faculty were appointed to endowed chairs/professorships (all have been approved by System):

Alan D.T. Barrett, Ph.D., Professor and Vice Chair for Research, Department of Pathology, and Associate Director for Basic Science, Sealy Center for Vaccine Development, be appointed holder of the JOHN S. DUNN DISTINGUISHED CHAIR IN BIODEFENSE.

William J. Calhoun, M.D., Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, and Director, Division of Allergy, Pulmonary, Immunology, Critical Care and Sleep, be appointed holder of THE SEALY & SMITH DISTINGUISHED CHAIR IN INTERNAL MEDICINE.

Christopher K. McQuitty, M.D., Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Internal Medicine, Departments of Anesthesiology and Internal Medicine (Professor of Anesthesiology effective 9/1/05), be appointed holder of the CLARA TIBBETTS PHILLIPS PROFESSORSHIP IN ANESTHESIOLOGY.

J. Regino Perez-Polo, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Human Biological Chemistry & Genetics, be appointed holder of the I.H. KEMPNER PROFESSORSHIP IN HUMAN GENETICS.

J. Marc Shabot, M.D., FACP, FACG, Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, be appointed holder of the RAYMOND L. GREGORY PROFESSORSHIP IN INTERNAL MEDICINE.
 

Randall J. Urban, M.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Internal Medicine, be appointed holder of the EDWARD RANDALL AND EDWARD RANDALL, JR. DISTINGUISHED CHAIR IN INTERNAL MEDICINE.

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