News Capsules 09/16/05

NEWS

A team of Minnesota health professionals left this week for Lafayette, La. Operation Minnesota Lifeline is the first group deployed through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact to provide primary care to Hurricane Katrina victims. The group includes 70 to 80 volunteer doctors, nurses and other providers, including 22 from the University of Minnesota’s Medical Reserve Corps. Other coalition members are the American Refugee Committee, the Mayo Clinic, and the College of St. Catherine. In two weeks, the team will be replaced by new personnel arriving from these Minnesota organizations.

The Minnesota Medical Foundation raised $78.3 million in fiscal year 2005--its highest annual fund-raising total. It also had its largest number of donors, 22,738, since the organization was founded in 1939. The private gifts and pledges support research, education, and service at the Medical School, School of Public Health, Cancer Center, and related centers and affiliates. The foundation’s previous record was $57.9 million in fiscal year 2000. Benefactors include: 4,764 alumni, faculty, and staff; 943 corporations; 265 organizations; 156 foundations; and 16,610 individuals. The year’s single largest gift was $28 million from the Frederick B. Wells Jr. Trust in support of the Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry. The gift is part of a series of interrelated trusts created by the late Frederick Brown Wells Sr. and will support the study, prevention, management, and treatment of schizophrenia. The foundation also received a $10 million pledge from the Masonic Cancer Center Fund, Inc., which is marking its 50th anniversary of supporting cancer research and care at the University of Minnesota.
For more, go to http://www.mmf.umn.edu/news/story.cfm?id=260.

Keep your eyes and ears open next week for the launch of a health care advertising campaign for the University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview and University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital, Fairview. The ads focus on University hospital's strength as an academic medical center and its internationally respected teams of physicians and health care professionals. University of Minnesota Physicians doctors are showcased in the ads. The campaign--featured in television, radio, newspaper, and magazine ads--runs through late November.

The Community-University Health Care Center’s Governing Board and staff have initiated a strategic planning process that will determine CUHCC’s vision and direction for next five years. “We hope to leverage CUHCC’s strengths--its capacity to provide comprehensive care, its multicultural staff--to enhance its model of care,” said Deanna Mills, administrative director. “We have a great opportunity to advance community health through our experiences.” Leading the process are Executive Director Karl Self, Finance Director Kris McKeon, Clinical Director Chris Reif, and Mills. Mills and Reif are the newest staff members of the CUHCC leadership team and together have more than 40 years of community health experience. A leader in providing culturally competent medical, dental, and mental health services, CUHCC remains at the forefront of community clinics serving low-income Twin Cities residents. More than 9,000 people each year benefit from CUHCC services, about 75 percent of them are people of color, immigrants, or refugees.

PEOPLE

Public health pioneer Ruth Stief died Sept. 4 in Winona. She was 94. Stief earned an M.P.H. from the School of Public Health and helped develop the school’s nutrition program. She directed the program for 13 years before retiring in 1976. Previous to her work at the University of Minnesota, Stief’s served as a nutritionist with the Minnesota Emergency Relief Administration, worked for the Works Progress Administration and the War Public Services Administration, and supervised the Nutrition Unit at the Minnesota Department of Health. Services were held Sept. 8 in Winona.

The University is hosting a memorial celebration for Clarence Dennis on Sept. 16, 3 p.m., at Mayo Memorial Auditorium. A reception will follow at 4:30 p.m. in Nils Hasselmo Hall. Brief tributes will be offered by a number of speakers, including family members, University faculty members, and former colleagues. Dennis is world-renowned for his invention of a heart-lung machine that helped initiate the field of open-heart surgery in the 1950s.

Program in Occupational Therapy students recently received the following awards: Rachel Gamm and Amy Welbourn are fellowship recipients of the Richard J. McCauley award for contribution to diversity in the profession of occupational therapy; Kelly Jo Bloedel and Wendy Rufeldt were selected for the Borghild Hansen Memorial Fellowship for academic excellence in the field of occupational therapy; Megan Kiefer, Ann McQuillian, and Brooke Thompson were awarded the McCauley and Friends Fieldwork fellowships; and Jennifer Fair and Katie Phillippe were selected for the CCR Optional Fieldwork Fellowship.

Carolyn Fairbanks, College of Pharmacy, has been selected as the recipient of the 2005 New Investigator Grant in Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics, and Drug Metabolism by the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists.

Dave Halvorson, College of Veterinary Medicine, received the Bruce W. Calnek Applied Poultry Research Achievement Award at the American Veterinary Medical Association/American Association of Avian Pathologists meeting in July. Halvorson was honored for his pioneering work on the control of avian influenza. For more information about the award, visit  http://www.cvm.umn.edu/about/awardwinners/Halvorson.html

Dana Johnson, Medical School, pediatrics, testified this week before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe regarding Romania’s ban on inter-country adoption.  Johnson advocates eliminating the ban. 


ANNOUNCEMENTS

The AHC Office of Education presents “Team Learning: Overview of a New Teaching Strategy for Health Professions Education” by Boyd Richards, Baylor University College of Medicine, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Monday, Sept. 19, Moos Tower 2-530. Beverages and cookies will be served. For more information, call 5-3972 or write to mailto:smit0387@umn.edu.

A symposium on obesity prevention efforts will take place Sept. 19, 9 to 11 a.m., at Cowles Auditorium. National experts in psychology and public health will discuss whether a connection exists between obesity prevention and eating disorders. The title of the symposium is Do Obesity Prevention Interventions Cause Eating Disorders? A Dialogue About What Has Been Learned in the Past Ten Years. The event, hosted by the University’s Obesity Prevention Center, is free and open to the public. Map and directions are at http://onestop.umn.edu/Maps/HHHCtr. Symposium questions and speaker bios can be downloaded at http://www.obesityprevention.umn.edu.

The CHIP Student Center is also collecting donations to Hurricane Katrina victims, which can be dropped off at room 1-425 of Moos Tower. The expressed need is for hand sanitizer, bottled water, diapers, baby formula, clothing (especially in children’s sizes), feminine products, and shoes. For more information, contact Kassy Nystrom at 625-7100 or mailto:nyst0060@umn.edu. Also, a benefit for Katrina survivors will be held Sept. 25, noon until 3 p.m., at Northrop Plaza, featuring live music, artistic performances, and inspirational readings. Non-perishable food items, clothing, and monetary donations will be accepted. Questions? Write to mailto:ansa0028@umn.edu. 

The Community-University health Care Center will hold its third annual open house on Sept. 29, 4:30 to 7 p.m., at the clinic, 2001 Bloomington Ave. S.

Registration for Mini Vet School II is now open. Mini Vet School will take place on six Tuesday evenings beginning Oct. 11, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. The cost is $125. For more information, contact Veterinary Continuing Education at 624-3434, 800-380-8636 or mailto:vop@umn.edu. You can also register online at http://www.cvm.umn.edu/outreach.

The Center for Entrepreneurial Studies (CES) at the Carlson School of Management is creating a campus-wide faculty research discussion group to carry out and support cross-disciplinary research for faculty members interested in entrepreneurship and technology innovation. The name of the group is Management, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship. CES will organize the effort and provide small grants for publishable research on approved topics. The organizers initially plan to invite faculty from Institute of Technology; the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences; the Medical School; the College of Biological Sciences; and the Office of Business Development.  For more information, contact Sharon Hansen at mailto:shansen@csom.umn.edu, or 624-0226.

Would you like to learn some tips and tricks for finding full-text journal articles more easily? Are you interested in setting up a class blog but need some help getting started? Would you like to learn more about Google Scholar or how to go beyond bookmarks to organize references to Web sites you use frequently? The Bio-Medical Library offers classes about these topics and more.  For a complete class listing and descriptions of each class, visit http://www.biomed.lib.umn.edu/inst/lcclasslistcat.html. To register for classes, call the Reference Desk at 626-3260 or register online at http://www.biomed.lib.umn.edu/inst/lcclassregfm.html.

The Bio-Medical Library also offers classes by special arrangement, on topics ranging from nursing information databases to evidence-based healthcare literature to using Google more effectively. The library also supports teaching by tailoring library sessions for specific academic courses. For more information, please see the library's Instruction Page at http://www.biomed.lib.umn.edu/lc.html.

Leemore Dafny  will present “Do Report Cards Tell Consumers Anything They Don't Already Know? The Case of Medicare HMOs” on Oct. 6, 3 to 4:30 p.m. in Coffman Memorial Union’s Campus Club conference rooms. Dafny is assistant professor of Management and Strategy at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. The event is sponsored by the School of Public Health’s Division of Health Services Research and Policy.

The Boynton Health Service provides tuberculosis testing every other month during its walk-in clinic. The clinic uses the Mantoux PPD skin test, which is the most reliable way to test for exposure to tuberculosis (TB). The test is covered under the AHC/Student Health Benefit Plan. The dates and times of the walk-in clinic are: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sept. 20 and 22, and Nov. 15 and 17. For more information, go to  http://www.bhs.umn.edu/services/international.htm#mantoux, or contact Maria Rangel, 626-5520, or Dave Golden, 626-6738.

Want to learn more about myU, the online learning and teaching tool? Attend one of the upcoming myU portal training sessions at the AHC Learning Commons, 535 Diehl Hall:

Orientation to the Portal
Sept. 19, 1 to 2 p.m.
Oct. 13, 10 to 11 a.m.

Student Portal Workshop
Sept.27, 1:30 to 3 p.m.

Staff and Faculty Portal Workshop
Oct. 19, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.

You can register online and find more information at http://uttc.umn.edu/training/resources/portal.