Georgia Medicine Spring 2012

Georgia MEDICAL COLLEGE OF

VOL. 5 NO. 1 SPRING 2012

EDICINE M

A Remarkable Career Leader, friend, mentor and Vice Dean to retire after 30 years of service

Georgia MEDICAL COLLEGE OF

SPRING 2012

VOL. 5

NO. 1

georgiahealth.edu/georgiamedicine

EDICINE M A Publication of the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University

Medical College of Georgia Medicine is produced bi-annually by the Georgia Health Sciences University Division of Communications and Marketing with financial support from the Medical College of Georgia at GHSU.

GHSU President Ricardo Azziz, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A. Medical College of Georgia Dean Peter F. Buckley, M.D.

on the COVER

A Remarkable Career MCG Vice Dean to retire after nearly 30 years of service

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Vice President for Instruction and Enrollment and Associate Provost Roman Cibirka, D.D.S Art Direction/Layout P.J. Hayes Design Photographer Phil Jones Writers Toni Baker Damon Cline Christine Hurley Deriso Denise Parrish

Š2012 Georgia Health Sciences University

Medical College of Georgia Medicine welcomes letters to the editor and submissions to the Viewpoints column. Typed essays (approximately 750 words) on health care issues should be submitted to: Christine Hurley Deriso, Editor GHSU, AD-1108 Augusta, GA 30912 cderiso@georgiahealth.edu 706-721-2124 phone 800-328-6057 fax

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DEPARTMENTS 3 News at a Glance

9 Letters to the Editor

36 Gift Planning

38 Student Spotlight

LaShon Sturgis

42 Class Notes

From the Dean Peter F. Buckley, M.D.

Saying farewell to some, hello to others

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The Elusive Organ

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Fighting it Every Day

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Eye on the Prize

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Life After ‘Life After Life’

Much remains unknown about the brain

Grant will ensure GHS continues to fight HIV

Vision Center becomes reality

Alumus coined the term “near-death experience”

pring arrived a little early in Augusta this year, bringing color to a landscape that was quiescent over the winter months. It is a great time to be in the Garden City, to walk outside and celebrate the natural beauty that surrounds us.

I hope that many of you are sharing this stunning season with us at Homecoming 2012, a terrific opportunity to renew relationships with fellow graduates and your alma mater.

We’d also love for you to join us for other annual rites of academic passage: the State of College Address at noon May 4, our Hooding Ceremony at 2 p.m. May 10 – where we are pleased to say our distinguished speaker will be Navy Surgeon General and MCG graduate Matthew L. Nathan (read more on Page 5) – and, of course, graduation at 2 p.m. May 11.

This is an unprecedented academic year that we bid adieu. No doubt the biggest news is that Georgia Health Sciences University and our liberal arts neighbor, Augusta State University, will be consolidated by January 2013, with a new, even stronger research university emerging like this season’s spring flowers. GHSU President Ricardo Azziz, who will lead our new university, shares more about this important initiative on Page 9.

With many mixed emotions, I share with you another landscape change in the coming days: Dr. Ruth-Marie E. Fincher will be retiring as Vice Dean of Academic Affairs at MCG. After nearly 30 years here (20 as Vice Dean), Rhee will call out our graduates’ names for the last time on May 11. Then she plans to spend more time with her husband of 35 years, Dr. Mike Fincher, and pursue her many other joys and interests.

Although Rhee was characteristically gracious in giving us a long heads-up that this day was coming, it still feels odd. As employees and employers, we’ve always heard that everyone can be replaced, but Rhee is one of those people that give us pause about that adage.

She is a great leader and a terrific role model for the rest of us who are privileged to lead. MCG, GHSU and the field of medicine owe Rhee gratitude and best wishes.

Finally, with only the most positive emotions, I point out the story of Michael Bright (See Page 36), an executive from Wrightsville, Ga., who has pledged a gift that will help change the MCG/GHSU landscape.

Bright came to our GHS Health System to battle leukemia, and he was so touched by the care he received by folks such as Dr. Anand Jillella, Chief of Hematology/Oncology, that he wants to will us a significant portion of his assets so we can continue providing world-class care and clinical research.

I say that is exactly how we want our patients to feel and that we appreciate his faith in our skills and our future.

Together, we all are better.

Please always know that I want to hear what you have to say as well and encourage you to share your thoughts at mcgdean@georgiahealth.edu or call me at 706-721-2231.

My best to all of you and many thanks for your support of MCG. n

Message from Dr. Ricardo Azziz Many reasons to be excited about ASU-GHSU consolidation

W

hat a special time it is to be part of the Augusta State University and Georgia Health Sciences University community!

I am honored – humbled, in fact – to be part of the joining of these two great institutions.

It is without a doubt the most significant and exciting development I have seen during my three decades in academia.

The community is abuzz with anticipation, and rightly so, as this consolidation is about growth and collaboration, not cutbacks and reductions. Yes, there will be opportunities to find cost savings, but most of those will come by doing more with existing resources.

Unlike the three other university consolidations approved by the University System of Georgia, ours is a merger of two distinct institutions – a mostly graduatelevel health sciences university and a mostly undergraduate liberal arts university – that will

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create a comprehensive research university to rival some of the nation’s most celebrated names in higher education.

What does that mean? Well, it does not mean we will be an overgrown “medical school,” nor a liberal arts university with a health sciences “branch campus.”

A comprehensive research university simply means that education and training, research and scholarship, clinical care and community service, will all be an integral part of our mission, vision and values. Like other great American universities, it means we will have faculty who do research, and some who do not; some who provide clinical care and some who do not. It means we will have students of all stripes, from MBAs to MDs, from history majors to nursing majors, from the creative to the technical.

This is not only an optimal model for our new institution to grow, it will enable us to meet Gov. Nathan Deal’s vision for education in Georgia, which

seeks to add 250,000 new college graduates to the state’s workforce.

I can assure you that stakeholders and leaders from both institutions, as they map out the consolidation, are acutely aware of the significance of their task. The merger of these campuses represents the singlegreatest event in the history of our respective universities since GHSU became a free-standing health sciences university in 1950 and ASU became a four-year university in 1963.

And they understand that the new university will be stronger, with a future that is far more promising than that of either institution individually. Ten, 20 and even 100 years from now, generations will look back with gratitude for the endeavor that we now undertake.

These are special times, indeed. l

News at a glance ASU-GHSU consolidation speeds ahead n The consolidation of Augusta State University and Georgia Health Sciences University announced earlier this year by the University System of Georgia is progressing according to schedule, with a broadbased group recently submitting a proposed mission, vision and values for the new institution to the USG Chancellor’s Office for approval.

The group, known as the Consolidation Action Team, has also approved high-level organization charts proposed by ASU President William A. Bloodworth Jr. and GHSU President Ricardo Azziz, the latter of whom will lead the consolidated organization.

To view the charts and get updates, visit www.asughsu.org.

The proposed mission, vision and values, which will be reviewed by the USG Board of Regents at its May meeting, are: n Our mission is to provide leadership and excellence in teaching, discovery, clinical care and service as a student-centered comprehensive research university and academic health center with a wide range of programs from learning assistance through postdoctoral studies. n Our vision is to be a top-tier university that is a destination of choice for education, health care, discovery, creativity and innovation.

n Our Values: Collegiality – reflected in collaboration, partnership, sense of community and teamwork.

Compassion – reflected in caring, empathy and social responsibility.

Excellence – reflected in distinction, effectiveness, efficiency, enthusiasm, passion and quality.

Inclusivity – reflected in diversity, equality, fairness, impartiality and respect.

Integrity – reflected in accountability, ethical behavior, honesty and reliability.

Leadership – reflected in courage, honor, professionalism, transparency and vision.

State officials voted on Jan. 10 to consolidate ASU and GHSU, one of four such consolidations being implemented throughout the 35-member university system.

Day-to-day efforts will be led by the ASU-GHSU Consolidation Action Team, which consists of key leadership representatives from each institution. The process is expected to conclude in early 2013. A new name for the consolidated university is expected to be submitted to the Board of Regents this summer. l

GHSU President Ricardo Azziz (left) and ASU President William A. Bloodworth Jr.

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Transformation 2020 plan unveiled n The Georgia Health Sciences enterprise’s longterm strategic plan, Transformation 2020, was released March 9 and is available to stakeholders throughout the state at georgiahealth.edu/transformation2020.

The plan is a roadmap that articulates the ideals, beliefs and aspirations that will chart the university’s path toward its goal of becoming a top-50 research institution and solidify the university’s role in meeting Gov. Nathan Deal’s eightyear vision for improving health professions education and health care in Georgia.

It will eventually be amended to reflect GHSU’s consolidation with Augusta State University.

“This document is much more than simply words on paper,” GHSU President Ricardo Azziz said. “It is a living, breathing roadmap that includes priorities, goals and objectives to ensure we stay on course.”

The document is a culmination of several months’ worth of feedback that was open to all students, faculty and staff at the Georgia Health Sciences enterprise. Thousands participated in workgroups to determine strategic priorities, or provided feedback via surveys, meetings or other venues.

The plan was set in motion when Azziz formed the Enterprise-wide Strategic Planning initiative in August 2010 to launch a process of engagement, self-appraisal and planning. The ESP Task Force was charged with producing a roadmap in 90 days to guide and focus the initial efforts of the new administration while beginning to identify long-term needs. Task members identified problems and future-focused solutions within the primary pillars of educational excellence, research growth, clinical integration/development and workforce development. l

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Mental illness treatment method receives national accolades n An approach to treatment that focuses on recovery from mental illness, not the treatment of it, is gaining national acclaim for the Medical College of Georgia Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior at Georgia Health Sciences University.

Project GREAT, or the Georgia Recovery-Based Educational Approach to Treatment, encourages health care providers to empower patients to be part of their own care, while also changing the way providers think about treatment. It is based on the Recovery Model of psychiatric care, which developed in the 1980s as a way to deinstitutionalize mental illness.

While recovery-oriented treatment programs are sprouting up across the country, MCG has one of the first academic departments of psychiatry to take on the challenge of changing clinical services and educational curriculum.

The effort has earned the department the 2012 Award for Creativity in Psychiatric Education from the American College of Psychiatrists. The award was presented in February at the college’s annual meeting in Naples, Fla. “The model is really about a broader sense of hope for consumers,” says Dr. Alex Mabe, a Professor of Psychiatry and Health Behavior and faculty leader for the program. “The goal of our program is to let people be experts in their own care and offer them treatment plans that connect with life goals they provide.”

Project GREAT was the brainchild of MCG Dean Dr. Peter Buckley, former Chair of the department. “We took that concept and said we should be treating our consumers in a new way and we should be training our future workforce that way,” he said.

Project GREAT is a collaborative effort Dr. Alex Mabe supported by The Carter Center, the state’s Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities and Georgia’s Mental Health Consumer Network. l

Navy Surgeon General to speak at MCG Hooding Ceremony n Vice Admiral Matthew L. Nathan,

at naval hospitals in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Groton, Conn. the 37th Surgeon General of the Navy He spent the next several years and a 1981 graduate of the Medical on clinical assignments at naval College of Georgia at Georgia Health facilities in San Diego and Beaufort, Sciences University, is the 2012 speaker S.C., and working in administrative for his alma mater’s Hooding Ceremony roles in credentialing and quality at 2 p.m., May 10 at Augusta’s Bell assurance in Washington. In 2001, Auditorium. after a brief stint as Fleet Surgeon Nathan became Navy Surgeon to the Commander of the U.S. 7th General and Chief of the Navy’s Bureau Fleet aboard the USS Blue Ridge in of Medicine and Surgery in November Yokosuka, Japan, Nathan received 2011. his first hospital administrator “Dr. Nathan exemplifies the best of assignment at the Naval Medical our graduates: a natural leader who Center in Portsmouth, Va. has orchestrated significant change That was followed by successive to improve life,” said Dr. Peter Buckley, promotions that culminated in his MCG Dean. “Our armed forces deserve 2008 appointment as Commander no less and we are proud that Surgeon of the National Naval Medical General Nathan will join our Class of Center in Bethesda. With the recent 2012 as its members embark on their Vice Admiral Matthew L. Nathan consolidation of the Walter Reed futures with the symbolic presentation Army Medical Center, the joint-force of the classic academic hood for facility has been renamed the Walter Reed National Military medicine.” The classic Kelly green hood with silver, red, Medical Center. gold, black and blue accents is part of the graduation In 2005 Nathan received the American Hospital regalia.

Association’s Federal Health Care Executive Award for Nathan, the MCG alumnus with the highest military Excellence for distinguished service through leadership, rank in recent history, grew up in northern California and innovation and contributions to the mission of the federal came to the medical school on a Naval Health Professions health care system. His military honors include the Legion Scholarship after completing his undergraduate studies at of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal and Navy and the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1977.

Marine Corps Commendation Medals.

He completed his internship and specialty residency Nathan and his wife, Capt. Tammy Nathan, live in in internal medicine at the University of South FloridaBethesda with their daughter, Bobbie. l affiliated hospitals in the Tampa metro area before starting his naval career as an internal medicine specialist, with tours

Cline named Alumni Association President n Dr. Henry Cline, a 1982 graduate of the Medical College of Georgia, has been named the 2012-13 MCG Alumni Association President.

Cline, a native of Atlanta, practices Dr. Henry Cline radiation oncology at the Georgia Center for Total Cancer Care at Preston Ridge in Atlanta.

His interests include prostate cancer, brain tumors, lung cancer, breast cancer and general radiation oncology.

His reputation for innovation is reflected in such

accomplishments as developing and designing radiation treatment facilities, establishing prostate seed implant programs, helping pioneer the use of intensity-modulated radiation therapy and performing the first Stereotactic Radiosurgery and Gamma knife procedures in north Atlanta.

Cline, who also completed his residency at MCG, is board certified in radiation oncology and is a Fellow of the American College of Radiation Oncology. He and his wife have four children and two grandchildren. l

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High fructose consumption linked to cardiovascular disease in adolescents

Ronald McDonald House to locate near Children’s Medical Center

n Evidence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk is present in the blood of adolescents who consume a lot of fructose, a scenario that worsens in the face of excess belly fat, Medical College of Georgia researchers have found.

An analysis of 559 adolescents age 14-18 correlated highfructose diets with higher blood pressure, fasting glucose, insulin resistance and inflammatory factors that contribute to heart and vascular disease.

Heavy consumers of the mega-sweetener also tend to have lower levels of cardiovascular protectors such as such as HDL cholesterol and adiponectin. These dangerous trends are exacerbated by midsection fat, called visceral adiposity, another known risk factor for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The association did not hold up for adolescents with more generalized, subcutaneous fat.

“It is so very important to provide a healthy balance of highquality food to our children and to really pay close attention to the fructose and sucrose they are consuming at their home or anyone else’s,” said Dr. Vanessa Bundy, an MCG pediatric resident. Drs. Bundy and Norman Pollock, bone biologist at MCG’s Georgia Prevention Institute are co-first authors on the study published in The Journal of Nutrition.

“The nutrition that caregivers provide their children will either contribute to their overall health and development or potentially contribute to cardiovascular disease at an early age,” Bundy said.

The best way caregivers can support healthy nutrition is to be good role models, she said. A healthy diet with plenty of physical activity – not dieting – is the best prescription for growing children.

“Adolescents consume the most fructose so it’s really important to not only measure the levels of fructose but to look at what it might be doing to their bodies currently and, hopefully, to look at cardiovascular disease outcomes as they grow,” Pollock said.

Fructose, or fruit sugar, is found in fruits and vegetables but also in high-fructose corn syrup, the sweetener used liberally in processed foods and beverages. Researchers suspect growing bodies crave the cheap, strong sweetener and companies often target young consumers in ads.

The researchers noted that more study is needed to flesh out the relationship between high fructose consumption and cardiovascular risk and whether these early associations forebode adult disease. l

n Family members of children undergoing treatment at Georgia Health Sciences Children’s Medical Center will soon be able to make their visits without having to step foot in a car each and every time.

The University System of Georgia Board of Regents recently approved a plan for Georgia Health Sciences University to lease a half-acre section of campus, currently occupied by the Center for Telehealth building, to Ronald McDonald House of Augusta to use as its new location.

The new home, which would be located next to the parking deck due east of the Children’s Medical Center’s main entrance, would replace the current Ronald McDonald Home on Greene Street in downtown Augusta, which is more than a mile and a half away from the GHSU campus.

The board of the Augusta Ronald McDonald House has sought an on-campus location since 2007, Executive Director Betts Murdison said.

“We have been in our current location on Greene Street for 28 years and have wanted to move onto campus for a very long time,” she said. “Our families will only be steps away from their critically ill child and I know that will bring incredible peace of mind to everyone.”

The Center for Telehealth building, originally built as the residence of the university’s first president, will be demolished and replaced by a 22,500-square-foot, handicap-accessible home capable of housing up to 22 families. Murdison said the current 11-bedroom house cared for the families of 477 Children’s Medical Center patients during 2011.

David Hefner, CEO of MCG Health Inc. and GHSU Executive Vice President Clinical Affairs, said he is pleased the property will be better utilized.

“This arrangement will help us take our patient- and family-centered pediatric care to an even higher level,” he said. “Knowing that their loved ones are only a few steps away will not only improve the patient experience, but ease the burden on family members during a stressful period.” l

Drs. Vanessa Bundy and Norman Pollock

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MCG has major presence at AAMC annual meeting n The Medical College of Georgia had a major presence at the Association of American Medical Colleges’ 2011 Annual Meeting in November in Denver.

In all, 20 MCG administrators, faculty and students served as presenters, moderators or panel members at the annual event attended by 4,500 leaders in academic medicine, including: n Ricardo Azziz, speaker: “Transforming Academic Medical Center Culture to Achieve Health Equity” n Ronnie H. Zeidan, moderator: “OSR Breakout Session - Specialty Tracks: Customizing Your Residency Education;” and Minority Student Medical Career Awareness Workshop - College Students/OSR” n Linda Boyd, speaker: “Center for Workforce Studies Session: Medical School Expansion – Challenges with Increasing Medical School Enrollment” and “RIME Research Paper - The Question of Emotion in Medical School” n Christie Palladino, Brittany Bodie, Rachel Elam, Margo Villarosa, Lindsey West, Kirsten Wildermuth and Lara Stepleman: “Translating Evidence-based Assessment into Educational Practice: Building a DREAM” n Deborah Richardson, Margo Villarosa, Christie Palladino and Andria Thomas: “MedEdPORTAL Module Guides Evaluation of Faculty Fellowship” n Susan L. Barcus and David S. Hefner: “GIA Development Track Session: Using Strategic Planning to Envision your Future” n Peter Buckley, speaker: “Using Data to Spark Innovation: Improving Talent Management Processes through Evidence-based Practices” n LaShon Sturgis, recipient: The Herbert W. Nickens Medical Student Scholarship n Lara Stepleman, Andria Thomas, and Ruth-Marie Fincher: “The Development of an Education Discovery Institute (EDI) to Advance Awareness and Expertise in Health Sciences Education Research” n Andria Thomas and Jake London: “Creation of a Longitudinal Tracking System and Real-Time Curriculum Dashboard: SCOPE (Streamlining Curriculum Oversight and Program Evaluation)” n Andria Thomas, panelist: “Outcomes Based Education and Assessment: Best Practices from the Four Regions” n Andria Thomas, Rachel Whitaker and Jake London: “Relationship between Student Resource Utilization in Patient Care and Performance on Exams and Faculty Evaluations” n Rachel Whitaker, Andria Thomas, and Jake London: “How the Quantity of Patient Interactions During Third-Year Clerkships Affects Medical Student Performance” n Christie Palladino, Rachel Whitaker, Kirsten Wildermuth, Deborah Richardson, Lara Stepleman and Ruth-Marie Fincher: “Reasons for Campus Preference among Medical Student Matriculants: A Qualitative Study at the Georgia Health Sciences University (GHSU) Medical College of Georgia (MCG), Augusta and the GHSU-University of Georgia Partnership, Athens” n David Haburchak, Sharon Willis, Rachel Whitaker, Christie Palladino: “Problematic Resident Performance: Duty Hours are neither Cause nor Solution.” n Robert Nesbit, panelist: “Who Cares About the 4th Year of Medical School?” n James Coverdill, James G. Bittner, Mary Anne Park and Walter L. Pipkin: “RIME Research Papers - Challenges in Resident Training” For a full description of the meeting agenda, go to aamc.org/ download/259748/data/2011preliminaryagenda.pdf l

Drs. Kenneth C. Iverson (left) and Brian J. McKinnon

Cochlear implants may be safe, effective for organ transplant patients n Cochlear implants may be a safe, effective option for some organ transplant patients who’ve lost their hearing as an unfortunate consequence of their transplant-related drug regime.

A study by Dr. Brian J. McKinnon, an otologist and neurotologist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University, and Dr. Kenneth C. Iverson, Chief Resident in otolaryngology, showed patients can restore their hearing without additional health risks if they wait at least six months after the organ transplant and take the right antibiotic before and after the cochlear implant procedure.

Antibiotics and immunosuppressive drugs required by organ transplant patients can cause deafness by destroying the metabolically active cells in the inner ear that convert sound waves to neural impulses the brain can interpret.

Cochlear implants are less than an inch in diameter and are placed behind the ear in between the scalp and skull.

Georgia Health Sciences Health System has a cochlear implant program for adults and children. l

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Scholarship honors Dr. Turner W. Rentz Sr. n For more than 40 years, Dr. Turner W. Rentz Sr. was a family physician to the citizens of Miller, Baker, Decatur, Seminole, Mitchell and Randolph counties. He delivered more than 3,000 babies and was Dr. Turner W. Rentz Sr. a charter member of the Miller County Hospital Authority in his hometown of Colquitt, Ga. During his life, Rentz pledged a gift to his alma mater, the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University, that he asked be completed at his death.

To honor that request, the Dr. Turner Wayne Rentz Sr. Scholarship Fund has been established at MCG. The needs-based scholarship will provide financial support to an MCG student who is a resident or former resident of southwest Georgia.

Rentz’s four children – Frieda R. Fair of Milledgeville, Ga.; John R. Rentz and Dr. T. Wayne Rentz Jr., both of St. Simon’s Island, Ga.; and Judge Ronald H. Rentz of Colquitt – established the scholarship to honor their father’s wish to support MCG. “He loved the Medical College of Georgia and the people from this area and we can think of no better way to honor our father’s wishes nor anything that he would be more proud of than to establish this scholarship with his gift to help train future doctors for Southwest Georgia,” said Dr. T. Wayne Rentz Jr. Rentz Sr., who died in 2010, graduated from MCG in 1946. T. Wayne Rentz Jr. is a 1972 MCG graduate who serves as Assistant Dean for Curriculum of the college’s Southeast Georgia Clinical Campus for third- and fourth-year medical students which is based in Savannah and Brunswick.

To contribute to the scholarship fund send a tax-deductible donation to: The Medical College of Georgia Foundation Inc., 545 15th Street, Augusta, GA 30901. Please make the check payable to the MCG Foundation and note that the gift is for the Dr. Turner Wayne Rentz Sr. Scholarship Fund. l

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Researcher receives $7.5 million, five-year grant to support diabetes research n Two national efforts supporting diabetes research are again being coordinated by a Georgia Health Sciences University bioinformatics expert.

Dr. Richard A. McIndoe, Associate Director of the GHSU Center for Biotechnology and Genomic Medicine, is leading the Coordinating and Bioinformatics Unit for the Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Centers, which supports laboratory studies, and the newly revamped Diabetic Complications Consortium, which supports human and laboratory studies.

McIndoe has received a $7.5 million, five-year National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases grant to support studies of the disease which affects about 8.3 percent of Americans, according to the American Diabetes Association. Heart attack, stroke, vision loss and kidney damage are major complications.

The Mouse Metabolic Dr. Richard A. McIndoe Phenotyping Centers (see www.mmpc.org) makes the specialized, expensive mousetesting capabilities of six research universities available and affordable to researchers nationwide. Center expertise includes characterizing mouse metabolism, blood composition, energy balance, energy and exercise, organ function and morphology, physiology and histology.

The Diabetic Complications Consortium (visit www.diacomp. org) helps fund short-term studies in animals or humans to better understand complications, which are the primary causes of diabetes-related deaths, McIndoe said. The consortium replaces the Animal Models of Diabetic Complications Consortium, which was specifically designed to develop and share mouse models.

The raw data generated will be shared broadly with the scientific community. “I like the idea of providing a clearinghouse for diabetes complications data; there really is no other place that does that. You can think of it like an electronic lab notebook,” McIndoe said. “We organize and display it for anyone who needs it.”

Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Centers include Case Western Reserve University; University of California, Davis; University of Cincinnati Medical Center; University of Massachusetts Medical School; Vanderbilt University School of Medicine; and Yale University School of Medicine. l

letters to the editor

Letters may be edited for length and content. Send letters to: cderiso@georgiahealth.edu or GHSU c/o Christine Hurley Deriso, AD-1108, 1120 15th Street, Augusta, GA 30912

Howell profile brings back interns’ memories

Recollections of Dr. Titus Huisman

Thank you so much for the excellent profile of Dr. Charles Howell Jr., featured in “The Chair” section of the Fall 2011 issue of “Medical College of Georgia Medicine.” I must say, just the old black and white photo of Dr. Howell brought back a flood of memories.

There were three distinct recollections I would like to share. “Charlie” was my senior resident when I was a general surgery intern at MCG in 1976. He had a commanding presence – a Southern gentleman veneer over an intimidating character.

My first memory was in the operating room at Talmadge Memorial Hospital. It was during the initial week of my residency. Wanting to be useful, I poked my head in the room where Dr. Howell was operating and queried: “Do you need an assistant?” Without lifting his head, he raised his eyes (and eyebrows) and replied: “Son, I’ve got an assistant. What I need is some help!”

The next mental video I have is when Campus Crusade for Christ initiated an evangelistic campaign that began with “teaser” billboards around Augusta stating: “I found it.” Participants were to wear a button bearing the same slogan, intended to provoke the obvious question, the answer to which was, “I found new life in Jesus Christ, and you can find it, too.” At that time, I was rotating through the old VA Hospital (some may recall it was a converted hotel with military barracks erected behind it). The night before the donning of the button, all I could think about was Dr. Howell’s reaction. I took the elevator down for patient rounds the next morning, the doors opened, and I was staring into the eyes of... Dr. Howell, of course. He glowered and demanded: “What’d you find?” In the feeblest voice, I quavered out the response. He took a half step back and (as I braced myself for the ridicule) declared: “I like a man who stands up for what he believes!” Then he turned and walked away. Whew!

After that, Charlie and I developed a more collegial relationship, maybe even a friendship. And so my recall of future experiences with him is much more pleasant.

For example, during our long nights on call together, Charlie was trying to perfect riding a wheelchair on the back two wheels alone. A forceful push forward on the wheels, then a brisk pull back, and he was up. As he practiced the maneuver, I can still see him bug-eyed and moaning “oooooooh” as he realized that his center of gravity was too far back and he was going over.

After he mastered the technique, though, he taught me; and we would have rather impressive races down empty hallways, both on the back wheels, spinning to turn and go back to the starting point.

Charlie completed his residency; and although he returned to MCG, it was after I finished mine.

Disappointingly, I never had the privilege of spending time with him after his years with Dr. Koop; but I have been told by mutual friends that they were transformational. In any case, Dr. Howell has certainly left his mark on many lives. I know – I’m one of them.

Thank you, Charlie.

I thank you very much for the recent edition of “Medical College of Georgia Medicine” fall 2011. It brought back so many memories and provided me information I did not know of people I know quite well. I especially liked the article on Rhodes Haverty, a fellow classmate.

There are errors about Titus Huisman that I would like to inform you about. From 1960-65, I was faculty teaching biochemistry under Dr. Knowlton Hall, except for one year of medical residency and one year of special fellowship in Hematology. During this time I worked in Dr. Huisman’s lab and he was my mentor. I know for certain that he became a Regents Professor in the Department of Biochemistry under Dr. Knowlton Hall, not the Department of Hematology and Oncology as said in the magazine. I left in 1965 and I do not know what happened to his appointments after I left. While I was there Titus taught a course of clinical chemistry to the medical students. If Sam Singal is still alive you can confirm this by him.

The best confirmation can come from Dean Walter Rice. While I was there Titus got a fine fancy offer from elsewhere, I believe from Minnesota. They wanted to move his laboratory lock, stock and barrel and raise his salary. Dean Rice decided not to let that

Dr. Keith R. Bucklen Lincolnton, N.C.

happen, if he could help it. That is the first time I had ever heard of a Regents Professorship.

Dean Rice could not promise Titus he could become a Regents Professor because that had to be voted on by the legislature. But the legislature passed it and Titus became the first Regents Professor that I know anything about, and I believe the first at the MCG. Titus stayed and I do know he got everything he wanted from Dean Rice. If Dean Rice ever said “no,” I don’t know it.

When you are evaluating this, consider that I am 84 years old. My neurologist said I do not have Alzheimer’s disease. But I do know my memory is not what it used to be. I hope this information is helpful and interesting to you.

Dr. Bennett Horton (’53) Knoxville, Tenn.

(Editor’s Note: Dr. Titus Huisman led hemoglobin research and later the Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center from 1959-95. He held appointments in multiple departments during his career at MCG, including the Departments of Biochemistry and Hematology/Oncology. Regents’ Professorships are approved by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents. Dr. Sam Singal died in 2011.)

Torpin was ahead of his time Dr. (Richard) Torpin was a dedicated and unforgettable teacher. I was his resident from 1951-54. He really was one of the first teachers to support the treatment of eclampsia and preeclampsia with intravenous magnesium sulfate.

In 1952 a resident from a large Chicago hospital was at the Medical College of Georgia to observe our use of magnesium sulfate. He made disparaging remarks about our use of an “old blood pressure medication,” but Dr. Torpin stood by his treatment method that he described in his book published in 1948.

His contribution to the repair of the 4th degree colpocele with uterus prolapse seems to have gone unnoticed. In 1956, another doctor published an article describing a resection of the colpocele and after that the procedure was called the Mayo Clinic Operation. When 2nd and 3rd degree colpoceles gave me trouble in vaginal hysterectomy by having vaginal cuff prolapse, I was able to repair the defect by switching to abdominal hysterectomy and using the procedure Dr. Torpin described with excellent results.

It’s a shame that techniques that worked without many of the advancements that today’s surgeons enjoy should just die. There is the possibility that these techniques could be adapted to new surgical innovations such as laparoscopic surgery.

I hope today’s students at MCG appreciate the rich history of their school.

Dr. Jorge O. Escamilla (’50) Brooksville, Fla. P.S.: When I came to Augusta, Dr. Torpin and his friends took me on a night hunting trip in a neighboring town. In the usual adventures that accompany a walk in the dark, we returned with a small trophy.

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No Ordinary

MARCH T Day

Students celebrate annual event

Excitement abounded March 16 when 184 fourth-year students in the Medical College of Georgia participated in Match Day, the annual event that pairs medical students nationwide with hospitals where they will train in their chosen specialties.

At MCG, students’ matches are placed in an envelope and pulled out in random order. The students matched at residency programs in 32 states. Thirty-two students will stay in Georgia, 19 of those at GHS Health System. Of the 184 total students matching, 69 will pursue a primary care residency program – 34 in internal medicine, nine in family medicine and 27 in pediatrics.

Matches are determined based on student and hospital rankings. Rankings are submitted to the National Resident Matching Program, based in Washington, D.C. This year,

For a full list of residency appointments for the Class of 2012, visit georgiahealth.edu/communications/documents/residency_appointments_2012.pdf

more than 95 percent of U.S. medical school seniors – the highest rate in 30 years – matched to residency positions, according to data released by the NRMP.

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A Well-Deserved

“Rhee”tirement

BY TONI BAKER

MCG Vice Dean to retire after nearly 30 years of service

S

She struggled with whether to take care of patients, or the planet.

A high school chemistry teacher had planted the seed that just maybe Ruth-Marie E. Fincher should be a doctor.

She loved biology and, even as a child, liked putting projects and people in order. But it was a bit of an upstart notion for someone who had no physicians of any gender in her family, and at a time when women in medicine were generally rare.

In the late ’60s, when she got to Colby College in Waterville, Maine, environmental issues were top of mind. One of her favorite professors was trying to preserve nearby bogs, and Fincher’s fringed bell-bottom jeans, hair down to the middle of her back and anti-war black armband showed her predilection for social causes.

Rhee (a derivation of “Ruth-Marie” created by younger sister Camilla, who had trouble pronouncing her name as a baby) applied to both graduate and medical schools, thinking the decision would be made by whichever school accepted her first. It fell back to her when she got accepted to both. Ultimately the tug to take care of individuals led her to Dartmouth Medical School.

Fast-forward 40 years and find that Fincher has become not only a physician, but a leader in medical education whose national reach has helped shape generations of physicians.

In what would become her own back yard – the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University – she has helped steer the educational course for more than 5,000 medical students as well as the futures of countless young physicians struggling with their own decisions about what to do next.

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The consummate mentor “She is a legacy; she is awesome,” third-year student Lashon Sturgis said of MCG’s Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, who she describes as “intense but so calm you kind of forget how intense she is.”

Like many, Sturgis had heard of Fincher before they actually met and, unlike many, the reality lived up to the reputation. As a first-year student, Sturgis first met Fincher while serving on the Curriculum Committee (see related story on Page 38). Fincher made it clear from day one that students weren’t there because the bylaws required it – they were there because their input was invaluable.

“She would stop dead in the middle of a meeting and ask us for our opinion on a subject related to students,” Sturgis said.

Likewise, Sturgis said, when Fincher speaks, others listen. She has the ability to command a room “in a good way” – whether it’s an MCG Curriculum Committee meeting or a national gathering.

No one person can be given all the credit for shaping an institution, but Sturgis and others concur that Fincher’s

intensity and indefatigable interest in students and medical education no doubt helped MCG secure a reputation in medical education circles that’s as solid as her own.

When Dr. Lee Ann Merchen journeyed across the country from Washington state four years ago, she had no idea what to expect from the woman she met for the first time during her job interview. The young internist was relocating to Augusta with husband, Dr. Todd David Merchen, a transplant surgeon, and two small children, Patrick and Georgia.

“Medicine is a big world,” Merchen said. “You go through medical school and training and think you are doing all the right things and you come out and you actually need a torch in the cave.”

Fincher lit one when she asked that first day about Merchen’s plans and assured her that she would be there if she ever needed guidance or another perspective. Fincher was intuitive on many fronts. Even though she and husband Dr. Michael E. Fincher don’t have children, she seemed to understand the additional complexities – and joy – that a 2- and 6-year-old brought to Merchen’s extremely busy professional life.

In those first relationship steps, Fincher let the younger physician frame many of the conversations. “There is an earnestness and goodness about Rhee you almost sense early on, when you just meet her,” Merchen said.

“She speaks very exactly, choosing her words in such a meaningful way that when she is talking, you know it’s true.

In a world of fluffy clichés and not well-spoken people, I love that honesty about her.”

No doubt they have commonality. Merchen suspected early she wanted to be an educator. Her favorite part of training was trailing students, residents and faculty discussing how best to treat a patient. Later, Merchen found she also loved to impart knowledge, and Fincher’s straight talk helped her carve out a roadmap to help her do it well.

The mentor torch also would ignite a dear friendship.

While the kids are at Sunday school, the two walk the Merchens’ furry dog Honey Bear and talk about life.

“We talk about what girlfriends talk about. Sometimes we talk about work, sometimes we talk about career and transition and men,” Merchen said with a broad smile that acknowledges another thing the women share is great respect and love for their men.

The story of Drs. Mike and Rhee Fincher started in 1976, when they met while standing in line for the baccalaureate service the day before they graduated from Emory University School of Medicine.

Drs. Ruth-Marie Fincher (left) and Lee Ann Merchen

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Fincher had completed her first two years at an innovative program at Dartmouth that required her to go elsewhere for the last two; Mike had been at Emory all along. Both were there for internal medicine residencies and, coincidently, had been given the same rotations during their entire first year.

Even though they started in the emergency room at Grady Memorial Hospital signing each other out for opposite shifts, they were set on marriage within two months.

“There are a couple of things I have not looked back about once I made the decision,” she said. “I am pleased to say one of them is the decision to marry my husband.

Another was my decision to go down a road toward a career in medical education.”

Sometimes you have to eat even well-chosen words.

Fincher recalls telling her parents, Hannah and Wilber Griswold, that she never wanted to be a teacher, much less deal with the headaches of academic administration.

Her mother was a high school teacher; her father, a Ph.D., a Regional Campus Dean of the Hartford Branch of the University of Connecticut.

“Talk about eating your words,” said the inaugural Vice Dean of Academic Affairs who also knew early in her medical career that while she liked patient care, she loved teaching.

“I love medical students,” Fincher said flatly.

In fact, one of the few downsides she sees to her last 20 years as Vice Dean is not being able to spend as much time with students as she did in her first decade as a facilitator, preceptor and course director as well as Director of the Medicine Core Clerkship.

In another rather upstart move, Fincher, whose experience in early 1984 did not even require a staple to hold together her curriculum vitae, went after the clerkship director’s job when it became available just a few weeks after her arrival at MCG. “I passionately wanted that job. I loved teaching and wanted to do more of it,” said Fincher who would later help start the national Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine organization. “To me, teaching is an enormous privilege, it’s also an enormous responsibility to think about playing an important role, even an unimportant one, in the professional development of people who are going to become the physicians who care for real patients.”

From their first day of medical school, Fincher works to instill in students a desire to be lifelong learners and solid representatives of their profession. Her many efforts to mold a better curriculum have included a more integrated, active learning process at MCG. Rather than just sitting in a lecture hall hearing the basics of biochemistry, students

Dr. Fincher in 1953 with her parents, Hannah and Wilber Griswold.

study how normal body function is impacted by disease.

“The more we can help students learn science in the context of why it’s important for clinical care, the more likely they are to remember the science when caring for people with common problems or when they run into something they don’t understand,” she said. “They have a scientific framework to ask questions and look for answers.”

As a medical student, Fincher remembers feeling lost “in minutiae and little facts” she could not connect even though her school was among the earliest to embrace integrated learning. At MCG, she has helped ensure the learning process is continually reshaped by experience and results; by what faculty and students say; and by what she gleaned from other schools – good and bad – through her national activities, such as helping conduct 11 accreditation site visits for the Liaison Committee on Medical Education.

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Today, MCG has more small-group sessions enabling students to hash through a patient problem with each other. Standardized patients tell students what is allegedly ailing them as students learn communication skills and identify potential diagnoses, then receive immediate faculty feedback not only on whether the diagnosis is correct but about the people skills used to find it. Hand-held clickers give faculty immediate student feedback on whether they are understanding the salient points in the less-personal setting of a lecture hall.

This dynamic learning approach is backed up with congruent assessment, which is what Fincher says really drives learning. Twenty-five years in a variety of capacities with the National Board of Medical Examiners have helped her implement such testing at home and beyond.

The learning framework educators like Fincher help build in students must be solid enough to last well beyond medical school and earning a medical license. She tells students on their first day that medical school is a marathon, not a sprint.

“The concept is rather than cramming and learning for the short-term, taking a test, flush and forget what you learned then go on to the next segment, that the segments build on one another and it’s really lifelong activity,” Fincher said. Also, they can’t sprint forever so she reminds students to find balance in their lives, such as the woodworking and gardening she loves.

She has continuously flown the flag about the importance of education, realizing that in an academic health center such as GHSU, research and patient care tend to make the most noise. She helped found the university’s Educational Innovation Institute and Academy of Educators to foster educational research and stronger educators.

No doubt she was a perfect pick for the Vice Dean job 18 years ago, said Dr. Darrell G. Kirch, President of the Association of American Medical Colleges and the former MCG Dean who created the position to ensure that the college’s other “noise” never drowned out medical education.

“Not only was Rhee among the most highly regarded educators on the campus, but she had an established national reputation as a leader in educational innovation and educational research,” Kirch said. He points out the perfect symmetry that as a member of the AAMC Board of Directors, she is now his boss and, once again, she is a keeper. “She is respected as one of the most thoughtful and principled board members,” Kirch said.

Her multi-front approach has helped yield straightforward growth of quality educational programs, commented Dr. Dan Hunt, Secretary of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the accrediting body for the nation’s medical schools.

Hunt notes as well, her “careful, thoughtful” leadership as the medical class size needed to grow.

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“Not only was Rhee among the most highly regarded educators on the campus, but she had an established national reputation as a leader in educational innovation and educational research. She is respected as one of the most thoughtful and principled (AAMC) board members.”

–DR. DARRELL G. KIRCH, President of the Association of American Medical Colleges

Growing and going Fincher started her career during the last great physician shortage, when then-new Medicare and Medicaid were increasing physician demand and medical schools were responding by increasing their class size.

These days are eerily similar.

Georgia and the nation, anticipating the full impact of health care reform and growing in both population and age, once again find themselves needing more doctors and medical schools rising to the occasion. Over the past eight years, she helped orchestrate MCG’s first expansion since the 1970s, growing not just the class size but implementing a distributed educational model that has students learning across the four corners of the state, with regional campuses based in key cities such as Savannah and Albany, and a second, four-year campus – the GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership in Athens – in cooperation with the University of Georgia.

The idea is not just to accommodate more students but to enable them to learn in diverse settings – from complex-care hospitals in urban areas to solo physician practices in rural settings – that will inspire them to fan back across the expansive state when it’s time to set up practice.

In a little more than two years, the first class of 230 students will graduate. Plans call for growing to a total class size of 300.

Both will happen without Rhee Fincher.

When she finishes calling the graduating students’ names May 11, she will retire from MCG. While she cannot promise there won’t be a lump in her throat, she does promise that it’s the right time – exactly midway between MCG’s LCME full-accreditation site visits and before people start wondering when or whether she’ll go.

“For such a small-framed woman, she leaves such a large footprint,” said Merchen, now Chief of MCG’s Section of Internal Medicine and Associate Director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program. “Even in retirement, she is modeling so many great things for us.”

For Fincher, it’s time to grow herself, to spend more time with a husband who retired six years ago, to read books just for pleasure, to design more gardens and fashion more furniture in her woodshop. An avid marathon runner sidelined by a back injury, she is contemplating a hike and pilgrimage along the 400-mile Camino de Santiago through northern Spain.

Her hope is that MCG also will continue to grow and keep the education of future physicians as its heart.

“I have worked with wonderful people for a long time,” Fincher said. “I am sure there will be moments of tug, but they will only be transient moments because I feel so good about this being the right thing to do.” n

Awards/Honors/Service Highlights Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society n President, 2011 n Robert J. Glaser Distinguished Teachers Award, 1996 Association of American Medical Colleges n Board of Directors, 2011n Member, Educator Evaluation Task Force, 2010n Member, Research in Medical Education Section, 1999n Member, Undergraduate Medical Education Section, 1999n Merrel Flair Award for outstanding contributions to medical education and to the Group on Educational Affairs, 2006 American College of Physicians n Master, 2008 n Jane Desforges Distinguished Teaching Award, 2011 National Board of Medical Examiners n Member, Executive Board, 2007-11 n Edithe J. Levit Distinguished Service Award, 2011 n Chair, Test Material Development and Medicine Test Committee, 1996-98 Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine n Founding President, 1991-92 n Renamed their annual service award in honor of Fincher, 2006 University System of Georgia’s Regents Hall of Fame n Inaugural Inductee, 2004 Daniel S. Tosteson Award for Leadership in Medical Education n Carl J. Shapiro Institute for Education and Research, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, 2003 Editor-in-Chief n “Guidebook for Clerkship Directors,” First, Second and Third Editions More than 20 teaching awards from MCG students

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“Over the years, our understanding of the brain – how it works, what goes wrong when it is injured or diseased – has increased dramatically. However, we still have much more to learn.”

– June 17, 1990 proclamation by President George H.W. Bush designating the ’90s as “The Decade of the Brain.”

More than a decade later, clinicians and scientists say the three-pound mass of cells that controls us is still very much…

THE ELUSIVE ORGAN

BY DAMON CLINE

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© Can Stock Photo Inc. / Eraxion

he brain, in many ways, is still a mystery to those who research it and treat its diseases.

“We haven’t made as much progress as we had hoped since ‘The Decade of the Brain,’” acknowledges Dr. David Hess, Chair of the Department of Neurology Dr. David Hess at Georgia Health Sciences University’s Medical College of Georgia.

“Especially when it comes to stroke, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).”

However, Hess and his colleagues at GHSU continue to explore novel therapies to treat, prevent and detect some of the most debilitating and costly neurological disorders.

GHSU’s overall neuroscience program, which includes the Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute, is small but extremely focused on diseases that affect the neurovascular system (stroke), cognition and memory (Alzheimer’s), mental illnesses (schizophrenia), movement disorders (Parkinson’s) and epilepsy.

Stroke is a top priority because of its prevalence and impact on society. It is the leading cause of disability in developed nations and is the second-leading cause of death worldwide. Though the incidence of stroke has decreased nationwide, Georgia, like most of the South, remains a hot spot.

“The ‘stroke belt’ still exists,” Hess said, referring to the term used to describe the 11-state region with unusually high incidence of stroke and cardiovascular disease.

His stroke research focuses on rapid response, to minimize the damage caused by the blood flow disruption, and repair, to regrow damaged brain tissue.

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ON THE RAPID-RESPONSE FRONT, studies of 60 stroke patients by Hess and Dr. Susan C. Fagan, Assistant Dean for the GHSU program of the UGA College of Pharmacy, found that the common antibiotic minocycline is a safe treatment for stroke when used in conjunction with the clot-busting drug tPA, the only Food and Drug Administration-approved stroke therapy. The research showed the antibiotic inhibits white bloods cells and enzymes that can destroy brain tissue immediately after a stroke.

The tPA drug must be administered within a 4 ½-hour window to be effective. Fewer than 5 percent of stroke patients, particularly those who live in rural areas, get the chance to receive the drug.

To extend the expertise from the cities to more rural areas, Hess co-developed a telemedicine company that offers longdistance stroke diagnosis through a webbased platform. The company, REACH Health Inc. (see Telemedicine company wins award on Page 21), provides service to more than 100 U.S. hospitals.

As for repairing the damage, GHSU is one of 10 study sites for a Cleveland-based drug company’s stem cell therapy that may reduce stroke size and enhance patient recovery even if administered more than a day after symptoms begin. Athersys Inc.’s MultiStem therapy also can be used in conjunction with tPA for ischemic strokes.

About 140 adults with moderate to severe strokes resulting in movement and/ or speech deficits will be enrolled nationally

in the clinical trial; GHSU expects to enroll about 10 patients. Some participants will receive a placebo while others will receive a single, intravenous infusion of stem cells. Two different doses are being studied to assess safety and efficacy.

Hess is also collaborating with Dr. Steve Stice, UGA stem cell researcher and Georgia Research Alliance Scholar in Reproductive Physiology, to study the use of artificially produced pluripotent stem cells, a type of stem cell that can become any type of

“People think the AIDS virus is an epidemic, but the number of Alzheimer’s patients is five times that. The disease is hugely disruptive to families and, with a cost of $180 billion a year in the U.S. alone, it’s going to almost become unaffordable in the future.” –DR. ALVIN V. TERRY JR.

Dr. Alvin V. Terry Jr.

Dr. David Hess

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body tissue, including brain cells. While clinical trials of the cells for use in stroke are likely five to 10 years out, Hess hopes they will one day help patients whose brains have been irrevocably injured by stroke regain near-normal function.

ONE OF THE MOST PUZZLING diseases of the brain also happens to be the most common form of dementia – Alzheimer’s disease.

How the disease is caused is up for debate, but one of the prevailing theories to the disease’s cognitive deficits is a deficiency in the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. The theory is central to the work of Dr. Alvin V. Terry Jr., an MCG Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology, who works with choline analogs that may shield the neurons that use acetylcholine as a neurotransmitter from harm and even repair the damaged ones.

“We have some that are neuroprotective, some that are procognitive and some that do both,” Terry said.

The patented compounds Terry uses are based on the choline molecule (a precursor to acetylcholine) as well as nicotine, which, despite its negative effects on the cardiovascular system, has been shown to improve attention and cognition.

“The idea is to take the positive effects of nicotine and not the baggage,” Terry said. “The holy grail for Alzheimer’s, aside from early detection, is neuroprotection.”

Terry studies the compounds in vitro, where they have shown promise, as well as in animal models such as transgenic Alzheimer’s mice (mice genetically engineered to have Alzheimer’s) and advanced-age primates that show signs of dementia. Early results from animal tests indicate the compounds improve short term memory.

He is negotiating with investors who may purchase the compounds to license to drug companies. Such a drug would have an enormous impact on the quality of life for the world’s growing elderly population.

“People think the AIDS virus is an epidemic, but the number of Alzheimer’s patients is five times that,” Terry said.

“The disease is hugely disruptive to families and, with a cost of $180 billion a year in the U.S. alone, it’s going to almost become unaffordable in the future.” n

Telemedicine company receives award

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EACH Health Inc., a telemedicine company developed by the Department of Neurology, received a 2012 Georgia Bio Community Award for its significant contributions to Georgia’s life sciences industry.

The company provides Internet-based stroke-diagnosis services to more than 100 hospitals throughout the country, enabling physicians to more rapidly administer stroke medication during the narrow window in which it is effective.

Dr. David Hess, stroke specialist and Chair of the Department of Neurology, and his colleagues began working on the telemedicine technology in 2000 out of frustration that many stroke patients were arriving too late to get tPA, a drug that can reduce the damage caused by stroke.

“We wanted to give better stroke care,” Hess said.

The company has since branched out into other specialty diagnoses, such as critical and cardiac care.

“Anywhere we have time-critical situations or a severe shortage of specialists, the REACH system can perform,” said company CEO Richard E. Otto. REACH has offices in Alpharetta, Ga., as well as the Georgia Medical Center Authority in Augusta, a statewide authority to advance the life sciences.

The system, which works on a hub-and-spoke model, operates in more than 100 hospitals in a growing number of states that include Alaska, New York, Ohio, South Carolina and Louisiana.

Georgia Bio is a private, non-profit representing universities, medical centers, companies and others involved in developing products that improve the health and wellbeing of people, animals and the environment. n

Learn More georgiahealth.edu/medicine/discovery/bbdi

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Brain Power

A brief look at some key team players Dr. Bernard L. Maria Maria, Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, has spent more than a decade enhancing the knowledge and treatment of Joubert syndrome – a rare neurological disease in children characterized by brain malformation and poor coordination and balance control. He has brought national attention to pediatric neurology by initiating the annual Neurobiology of Disease in Children Symposium held in conjunction with Child Neurology Society Annual Meeting.

Dr. Sergei Kirov Kirov, Associate Professor of Neurosurgery, heads MCG’s Human Brain Lab, one of only a handful of facilities in the world where scientists can study living human brain tissue dissected from epilepsy patients who undergo the surgery to remove seizurecausing section of brain tissue. The tiny slices can be subjected to therapies and drugs that would otherwise be impossible to test in actual patients. Kirov also monitors real-time brain activity in human tissue and live mice to “see” a stroke as it occurs.

Dr. Lin Mei Mei, Director of the Institute of Molecular and Genetics and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, researches the underlying molecular mechanisms of nerve cell communication. His goal is to understand synapse formation and plasticity and how the processes are changed in patients with epilepsy, autism, muscular dystrophy and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He and his collaborators have identified the protein erbin as a critical insulator to the “wiring” of the peripheral nerve system, which could provide drug targets for conditions that involve disruption of the nervous system, such as schizophrenia.

Dr. Joseph Z. Tsien Tsien, Co-Director of the Brain & Behavior Discover Institute and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, had generated international attention with his research into NMDA receptors and the role they play in memory and behavior. Tsien, whose work with an NMDA subunit receptor called NR2B created the smart mouse “Doogie,” has also inhibited the receptors to create a mouse that can’t form memories. His latest research has shown NMDA receptors on dopamine neurons in the brain’s basal ganglia are essential to habit formation.

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Dr. Robert K. Yu Yu, Professor in the Institute of Molecular Medicine and Genetics and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, studies the role of complex compounds called glycoconjugates, which are involved in cellular interactions, cell signaling and other processes in the nervous system. He also researches the underlying mechanisms of a variety of neurodegenerative disorders, including autoimmune demyelinating neuropathies and multiple sclerosis.

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Seeing both sides of the problem New technology advances stroke care

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BY DENISE PARRISH

A new angiography suite at Georgia Health Sciences Medical Center is allowing doctors to more precisely evaluate and remove clots in stroke patients.

It enables what Neurosurgery Chair Dr. Cargill Alleyne describes as “seeing past the clot.”

“The suite’s imaging system delivers clear, three-dimensional pictures of the arteries and veins in the brain and neck so we can better pinpoint blockages,” he said. “You can’t do that with standard stroke imaging.”

The Primary Stroke Center at GHS Medical Center is the first in the state and one of the first three centers in the nation to acquire VasoCT. Physicians inject a contrast dye through the veins, which circulates through the heart and backflows to the other side of the blood clot, enabling them to see the location, size and direction of each clot before they go in.

“Previously, when someone came in with a stroke, we’d inject dye into the patient’s artery to find the clot, and the dye would stop at the clot,” said Dr. Scott Rahimi, a GHS vascular neurosurgeon.

“We really couldn’t see much else, until we went in.”

The technology combines diagnostics and intervention in the angiography suite, saving critical time – and brain cells – for each patient. Using a catheter to access the affected vessel, the clot can be removed mechanically or by direct administration of the clot-busting drug tPA. Following clot removal, a second dye study is done throughout the body to confirm that blood flow has been restored.

An intravenous dose of tPA is the first line of defense against a stroke, but it doesn’t always work. Time also is a

Dr. Cargill Alleyne

factor because tPA administered more than three to four hours after stroke symptoms may trigger a brain bleed.

The angiography suite extends that treatment window to about eight hours.

“After three to five minutes without oxygen, brain cells are in real danger,” Rahimi said. “The window for removing a clot and restoring blood flow is eight hours but, in reality, the clock starts ticking as soon as the brain is without oxygen. The sooner oxygen flow is restored, the better.”

Besides providing the only interventional stroke care in the region, the angiography suite enables neurosurgeons at GHS Medical Center to more quickly diagnose and treat hardening of the carotid artery as well as blood vessel defects such as arterial venous malformations and aneurysms.

“We can complete a variety of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures faster, and that means the patient is off

the table and on the way to recovery and discharge much sooner,” Alleyne said.

Stroke is the third-leading cause of death in the United States and the number-one reason for adult disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

GHS Medical Center, located in the heart of the Stroke Belt, is designated a Primary Care Stroke Center by the Georgia Department of Public Health Office of EMS and Trauma and the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations.

The medical center recently received the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association for achieving 85 percent or higher adherence to all of the national Get With The Guidelines Stroke Quality Achievement Indicators for two consecutive years. n

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FIGHTING IT EVERY DAY Grant funding helps keep disease at bay

BY TONI BAKER

Dr. Cheryl Newman, an infectious-disease specialist, is one of several physicians who treat the 1,300 HIV-positive patients at GHSU.

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When Dr. Cheryl Newman meets an HIVpositive patient, one of her first questions is whether he knows anyone else with the infection. The usual response is about dead relatives or friends.

“We talk about what that experience was and how, in all likelihood, his experience will be very different,” she said. “Yes, it’s the same virus and could have the same outcome if patients do not take advantage of treatment, but in no way does it need to be the same.”

Newman, an infectious-disease specialist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University, finished her training about the same time HIV infection began consuming her specialty. Back then, she saw many lives lost to HIV, but two-plus decades later, most patients are living well taking a single pill daily.

Rendering of the HIV virus

A $3.4 million, three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will help GHS maintain the new normal. Funds ensure that uninsured patients in the Augusta area get medication and other needed treatment and that the Ryan White Outreach Team continues its rapid testing, education and treatment referrals in the community.

GHSU has been funded since 1995 through the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act to provide these services in 13 nearby Georgia counties as well as Aiken and Edgefield counties in South Carolina.

“We have gotten considerably better at treating the disease,” said Dr. J. Peter Rissing, Chief of the MCG Section of Infectious Diseases and the grant’s Principal Investigator. “In better than 60 percent of our patients, their virus is undetectable, their

© Can Stock Photo Inc. / rbhavana

immune system is on the rebound, they don’t have opportunistic infections. They come see us every six months and we make sure their virus remains undetectable and that their immune system is continuing to mend.”

Dr. J. Peter Rissing Still, in what Rissing describes as “a dance between the immune system and the virulence of the organism,” the best partners are the Ryan White program that enables access, patients who take the improved medicines as prescribed and persistent, hitting-the-streets efforts to get people screened.

Today’s drug therapies keep the virus at bay

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Dorothy Stokes, a GHS patient advocate, works with drug manufacturers and the state to ensure proper medication for uninsured or low-income patients with HIV.

Learn more about the GHSU Ryan White Outreach Team at csrasafetynet.org.

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by attacking it from different directions to prevent it from multiplying, Rissing said. Most otherwise healthy patients require only a single pill that combines two or three of these drugs; more rigorous regimens are needed if symptoms such as severe diarrhea and weight loss suggest the virus has damaged the immune system, Rissing said. The virus can become similarly active if medicine isn’t taken as prescribed, he noted.

Newman is studying a once-a-day pill that prevents the virus from inserting itself into the DNA of cells in the body where it can live and eventually multiply. “We say it takes three active drugs to knock out the virus,� she said, optimistic that the drug she is studying will one day enhance the efficacy of one of the two-drug therapies on the market. MCG has participated in the clinical trials of most HIV drugs already in use.

Georgia Health Sciences Health System treats nearly 1,300 HIV-positive patients, most of whom are males age 45-64. The biggest patient increases in the past decade are at both ends of the spectrum. People younger than 23 are among the largest number of newly infected and the older population is increasing because patients are living much longer, said Larry Howell, Grant Manager.

Dorothy Stokes, a patient advocate, works with drug manufacturers and the state to ensure proper medication for uninsured or low-income patients. The state-run AIDS Drug Assistance Program is extremely helpful, although new patients face a waiting list. Drug manufacturers are helpful as well, Stokes said.

The Ryan White Outreach Team frequents popular gathering places, including ice cream parlors, nightclubs and, starting within the last six months, various area Walgreens.

The pharmacy chain is proving to be another good partner in outreach, which remains vital since an estimated 25 percent of infected individuals are unaware of their status, Howell said.

But experience has shown that when status is known and virus levels are kept low, so are transmission risks, Rissing said.

The 17-year continuum of testing and care has yielded additional benefits, including a cohort of patients large enough to enable the clinical trials that make the latest therapies available to area patients.

The GHSU/Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center Psychology Residency Program is one of 23 programs in North America to offer specialized HIV training as well as one of a handful to offer a yearlong experience that leads to a specialty in medical psychology with an HIV emphasis. (See Psychology of HIV on Page 27) Ryan White funds also help support a GHSU College of Dental Medicine residency program that provides dental care to HIV patients. n

Psychology of HIV Residency program lets psychologists specialize in HIV patients

D

r. Lara M. Stepleman saw early on how psychologists working in HIV clinics could help both patients and caregivers.

She was a psychology resident at Georgia Health Sciences University when the institution secured its first federal grant to support HIV treatment and testing in the late 1990s. Mental health care was a grant requirement.

“I saw the potential to really expand that aspect of the program, use it as a training ground for residents and fellows interested in working in psychology and primary care to get hands-on experience assisting patients on multiple levels, whether it’s taking their medication better or taking care of their emotional needs,” she said.

When she joined the GHSU faculty in 2001, she helped potential become reality with one of the first psychology residency sites in the United States and Canada to offer a major rotation in HIV psychology,

Dr. Lara M. Stepleman (second from right) and her Infectious Disease Clinic colleagues discuss a case.

placing residents in the HIV clinic a half-day weekly for four months.

The GHSU/Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center Psychology Residency Program also pioneered an intense, yearlong training period where residents focus on HIV patients for four months and a full day weekly the remainder of the year. They complete their training with a specialty in medical psychology with an HIV emphasis.

These medical psychologists are among a growing breed that focuses on specific patient populations including those with multiple sclerosis, diabetes or cancer. They see their increasing participation in multidisciplinary health care teams as a way to destigmatize the mental health support they provide, increase patients’ access to it and improve disease treatment, said Stepleman, Director of HIV and Multiple Sclerosis Psychological Services at GHSU. And, while perceptions about HIV have changed, a stigma persists about the infection itself, primarily because it’s still associated with activities that are considered aberrant, she said.

Patients may find themselves physically and emotionally taxed by their condition; others may have pre-existing mental health problems. Either way, mental health issues can hurt their medical treatment.

“Depression, substance abuse, an unresolved history of trauma or domestic violence or lack of social support, all those kinds of things serve as barriers to people taking care of themselves for a number of illnesses. Sometimes our patients with HIV seem to get a whole lot of those barriers at once,” said Stepleman, whose research correlates these issues with poor treatment compliance.

A regular presence in the HIV clinic enables the psychologists and trainees to ensure that every patient gets a mental health/substance abuse screening at least once yearly. When it’s negative, they can help support positive behavior such as getting a good night’s sleep, stopping smoking and finding a comfortable way of disclosing HIV status when needed. When it’s positive, they can help patients obtain more intense mental health counseling.

“If you asked the other health care providers, they would probably say we also serve as a support for them,” she said. “We are not providing any formal treatment, but this kind of work where you are taking care of people who have many challenges in their lives can be very stressful. We help provide encouragement, support and ideas around the behavioral aspects of their care.”

At GHS Health System, psychologists are part of the health care teams for juvenile and adult diabetes, pediatric and adult infectious diseases, multiple sclerosis and newly diagnosed breast cancer. They also help evaluate patients who will undergo potentially life-altering surgeries such as gastric bypass.

“The growing way is to serve as partners with the physician in the care of the whole patient,” Stepleman said. “I do this because I am passionate about it.” n

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EYE ON THE PRIZE

BY DAMON CLINE

Dr. Julian Nussbaum Chair, Department of Ophthalmology Co-Director, Vision Discovery Institute

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Spring 12

Nussbaum fulfills goal of building a vision center

T

he year was 2001, and Dr. Julian Nussbaum was ready for a change.

The retinal surgeon had been in Detroit for nearly 20 years at Henry Ford Hospital, the past 10 as Chair of its ophthalmology department. The small eye-care practice he took over in the ’80s had matured to a business with 12 locations and annual revenues exceeding $40 million. He needed a new challenge – and a change of scenery.

One day he received a letter from an old teacher and colleague, Dr. Malcolm Luxenberg, then-Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology in Georgia Health Sciences University’s Medical College of Georgia. Luxenberg had been Chair when Nussbaum completed his residency there in 1977-80.

The message of the letter was clear: Luxenberg was retiring, and there was an opportunity to return to Augusta.

“It was a smaller department and less money,” Nussbaum recalls. “But I had great memories from my time in Augusta, and there seemed to be an opportunity to build a true vision science program linked to a strong clinical department.”

Eleven years later, Nussbaum is still here, and what he initially saw as opportunity is now a reality.

The Vision Discovery Institute, in which he serves as Co-Director, is one of the five GHS science-based institutes designed to bolster translational research by promoting collaboration between clinicians and basic scientists.

The institute’s 35 faculty members cross four of the five GHSU colleges (Medicine, Allied Health Sciences, Dental Medicine and Graduate Studies) and focus their research on the leading causes of blindness, including diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, cataracts, age-related macular degeneration and corneal disruption.

“There was some collaboration, but not nearly at the level it is now,” said Dr. Sylvia Smith, a cellular biologist and Co-Director of the Vision Discovery Institute. “It’s been synergized and galvanized now under Julian.”

In the three years since the Vision Discovery Institute was formed, grants to GHSU from the National Institutes of Health’s National Eye Institute have increased 68 percent.

Longtime friends and colleagues say the institute is something Nussbaum has dreamed about for years.

“Julian is motivated to preside over the creation of new knowledge,” says Dr. David Bogorad, Vice Chair of the MCG Department of Ophthalmology. “He always wanted to do that at Henry Ford, but Henry Ford is not a university, per se. It was here where he was able to parlay his dream of creating this institute without walls concept.”

Early Influences Nussbaum was born in Havana, Cuba. His father was an optometrist from New York; his mother was a dentist and native of Cuba.

“My parents were a strong and guiding influence,” Nussbaum said.

“I can’t ever remember not wanting to go into medicine.”

The young couple that had met during the pre-Castro years decided to move out when the country began to change. They moved Nussbaum and his sister, Anita, to Florida, where they grew up in the North Miami Beach area.

At age 11, Nussbaum went through a battery of tests as part of a National Science Foundation pilot program to identify gifted students for early college admission. He ended up in the program’s math/ science track and finished high school at age 14.

“Like Doogie Howser,” he says, jokingly referring to the television series about a teenage doctor who also graduated high school early.

Nussbaum enrolled in Emory University to major in physics at age 14. He was four to five years younger than the typical freshman.

“It was unsettling for the first quarter,” he recalls. “After that I was able to adjust.”

He graduated in three years and decided to enroll in the University of Miami School of Medicine to be near his parents and grandparents.

After graduation, he came to MCG in 1977 to begin his residency in ophthalmology, which was followed by a two-year year fellowship in Boston at the Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and the Eye Research Institute of Retina Foundation.

CONTINUED

Drs. Julian Nussbaum and Sylvia Smith

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“I didn’t want to go into private practice, I wanted to teach,” Nussbaum said.

So his next move was to join the faculty at the Henry Ford Health System in 1982 and build its retina program. Nine years into his tenure, the renowned Dr. Cornelius E. McCole (who recruited Nussbaum) retired as Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology.

Bogorad, who was then also on the Henry Ford staff, nudged his friend to apply.

“I was 38 at the time and I didn’t think I was prepared for the chairmanship,” Nussbaum recalled.

But the advice and support of McCole and his close friend, J. Edward Lundy, the Ford Motor Co. Vice President who endowed the Cornelius E. McCole Chair of Ophthalmology, convinced Nussbaum that he could do the job.

“Objectively, I think he did very well,” Bogorad said. “He’s a highly skilled ophthalmologist, teacher and administrator who is also a very nice guy who engenders the respect of people around him with his words and deeds. That’s his ‘secret sauce.’”

Back at MCG After helping create one of the nation’s largest ophthalmology departments and residency training programs at Henry Ford, Nussbaum set his sights on a locale he was already familiar with: Augusta At GHSU, he saw the opportunity to build the vision research program he had longed to create.

“We already had outstanding clinicians and vision science faculty in the university,” he said. “It was like finding a hidden gem.”

One faculty member, in particular, caught his eye.

“I met a smart, beautiful woman with a smile that reveals a heart of gold,” Nussbaum says unabashedly.

That woman was Dr. Stephanie Goei, a pediatric ophthalmologist who joined the faculty in 1999. As Nussbaum was coming in as Chair, Goei was leaving for a job in Madison, Wis. For most of the six-month period they worked together, the relationship was strictly collegial.

“We got to know each other professionally before any romance cluttered the situation,” said Goei, now Director of Pediatric Ophthalmology

Services. “I thought he was a great guy. I had a sense that he was a truly good person.”

When the proverbial sparks flew, Goei changed her mind about leaving.

“He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” she says jokingly.

The couple discussed nuptials, but some administrative wrangling (namely assigning Goei to another academic department) had to occur before matrimony, since Nussbaum, as Chair, was Goei’s supervisor.

“With the blessing of the Dean, the legal department and everyone else, we were married in 2002,” Nussbaum says with a smile.

The couple – a case study in multiculturalism (he’s a half-Cuban Jew; she’s a Catholic-raised ethnic Chinese from Indonesia) – have two children, Noah, 9, and Mayah, 5. Including Nussbaum’s five children from his previous marriage (now aged 20 to 34), he has a total of 7 children and 10 grandchildren.

When not vacationing with the family at Walt Disney World (See At a Glance on Page 31), Nussbaum focuses on building the Vision Discovery Institute through grant funding and philanthropic contributions. During his nine years as Chair at Henry Ford, he raised $8 million in private-sector funds, and at MCG he is known as one of the more philanthropic-minded department heads.

“The institute is my dream, and I need to raise funds to sustain that dream,” he said.

What Nussbaum won’t say – but his wife will – is that he is more clinically active than the typical department chair, seeing patients on a near daily basis (Castle Connolly has recognized him annually as one of America’s Top Doctors since 2000).

“He probably should not be seeing patients as much as he does, but he really loves it,” Goei said. “As a physician, he really does care about every patient. He knows them as individuals and what is going on in their lives.”

A Different View Unlike many physicians, Nussbaum considers the brain an extension of the eye, instead of the other way around.

“A lot of what goes on in the brain is diagnosed through the eye,” he points out.

Nussbaum is also quick to point out the importance of generating new knowledge in the vision sciences, as techniques and technologies developed for the eyes are often applicable in other specialties (ultrasound, for example, was used in ophthalmology before obstetrics, and the first use of lasers in medicine was for the eyes).

And there’s also the critical issue of the burden that vision loss has on society – nearly two-thirds of the blind are unemployed and the estimated annual cost to the federal government alone exceeds $4 billion.

“The two afflictions people fear most are cancer and blindness,” he said. “So when you restore someone’s sight, it’s an extreme blessing.”

Science and medicine have made so many vision-saving advances that the public – at least in developed nations – has become more complacent about their eyes compared to, say, their heart

Dr. Julian Nussbaum with wife, Dr. Stephanie Goei

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Fa l l 1 1

Dr. Julian J. Nussbaum – At a Glance Clinical title: Chair, Department of Ophthalmology, Director, Retina Service Faculty title: Professor of Ophthalmology Education: n B.A., Physics: Emory University, 1972 n M.D.: University of Miami, School of Medicine, 1976 n Internship: University of Miami School of Medicine, 1977 n Residency: Medical College of Georgia, Ophthalmology, 1980 n Fellowships: Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, 1981; Eye Research Institute of Retina Foundation, 1982 Certification: American Board of Ophthalmology, 1983 Clinical interests: Diabetic eye disease, macular degeneration, swelling of the retina, inflammation Research interests: Diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration

Trivia:

Disney World is a favorite vacation spot for the family.

or cardiovascular system. Still, millions of Americans – including a disproportionate number in the population served by GHS – suffer from diabetic retinopathy, the leading cause of blindness among the country’s working-age population.

“We have a large contingent of individuals in the institute who study diabetic retinopathy as well as macular degeneration and glaucoma, and one of the reasons they work so well together is Julian,” Smith said. “He knows his clinical faculty. He knows the basic scientists.

When you see him at grand rounds interacting with residents and colleagues, you can tell that he is in the trenches with everyone else.”

Nussbaum’s thirst for collaboration will likely build new bridges between GHSU and Augusta State University, which will consolidate in 2013 as part of a University System of Georgia-backed plan announced earlier this year. He envisions having GHSU clinicians and scientists mentoring ASU science and pre-med students, and participating in collaborative population-based epidemiological studies.

“With ASU,” he said. “I think we have even greater potential.” n

Where Dreams Come True: Nussbaum and his family are world travelers, but one domestic spot remains a perennial favorite: Disney World. “I always characterize it as the ‘other holy land,’” he says jokingly. “To go to Disney is like to go to another world. I’ve always been awed at the customer experience. When you go to Disney, you feel like you’re special. I try to look at my patients the same way – that they are unique and they have my undivided attention.”

Running with the Tigers: Not long after his fellowship, Nussbaum received a call from the Detroit Tigers’ team physician requesting he see Tigers President James A. “Jim” Campbell, who had gone blind from a retinal detachment. “It was one of the worst detachments I have ever seen. I gave him a 50/50 chance [of having his vision restored]. He turned out to be 20/20.” As thanks, Nussbaum ended up with box seats and was named team ophthalmologist.

Papers, please: Nussbaum was granted a visa to go to Cuba in 1999 as part of an organized ophthalmology trip. He was detained upon arrival when officials – upon seeing Havana listed as his birthplace – failed to find any government records on him. (His family left Cuba when he was 2.) He was eventually released and enjoyed his trip. “It was an interesting experience,” he said. “I’d do it again.”

‘Celebrity’ patients: In addition to top Ford and GM executives, Nussbaum’s patients included Tom Bosley of “Happy Days” fame, golf legend Gary Player, and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit. “I didn’t charge clergy; back then, you could do that,” Nussbaum said.

“I figured I needed all the help I could get.”

Apple addict: Nussbaum is a fan of all things Apple. He keeps part of his collection of computers and devices in his office, including the first iMac, an early Mac PowerBook and an Apple eMate 300 (an early cross between a personal digital assistant and a laptop). “I still stuck with Apple during the non-Steve Jobs years,” he said. “Those were lean years, but I stuck with them.”

Where’s the Vision?: The forerunner to the Vision Discovery Institute was the Vision Sciences Center, which Nussbaum created with Dr. Sally Atherton, Chair of the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy. When former MCG Dean D. Douglas Miller launched the Discovery Institutes in 2008, vision was not originally in the mix. Nussbaum and Atherton persuaded Miller to reconsider by showing how many funded and respected vision scientists were already working alongside outstanding clinicians at GHS . “We were already doing a lot of collaboration, so there wouldn’t need to be as much of an investment to get our institute up and running,” he said.

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Spring 12

Expert of near-death experience ponders the unknowable

BY CHRISTINE HURLEY DERISO

H

aving studied logic most of his life, Dr. Raymond Moody Jr. concedes that the Mr. Spocks of the world might furrow their brows as he confides a recent development: “I do believe in an afterlife. It’s still a shock to me, to tell you the truth, but I do believe it.”

But he doesn’t consider his previous skepticism to be a breach of logic, even though his seminal 1976 book, “Life After Life,” unleashed nothing less than a tidal wave of afterlife obsession. The book’s anecdotes of near-death experiences – and the eerie similarities from one to the next – were never intended as anything other than Moody’s faithful retellings of the information relayed to him – information about experiences that spanned, in most cases, mere moments.

Eternity – or any variation thereof that suggested a soul outliving its body for any significant length of time – was another matter altogether for the Porterdale, Ga., native who earned his medical degree from the Georgia Health Sciences University’s Medical College of Georgia in 1976.

In fact, “I wasn’t raised with religion; religion was neither here nor there to me,” says Moody, who also earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Virginia. “And I was so clear in the book to say this is not scientific evidence of life after death. It’s not even yet a scientific question, but people didn’t want to hear that.”

Moody’s seminal work, “Life After Life,” remains popular nearly four decades after he coined the term “near-death experience.”

CONTINUED

Moody at the height of his popularity in 1977 following the release of “Life After Life.”

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And yet, some 35 years and dozen books later, he finds himself drawn to the inevitable implications of his life’s work marrying psychiatry with philosophy.

“The idea of an afterlife was very counterintuitive. But as I started reflecting on what I’d learned, it seemed whenever I tried to come up with some alternate explanation, I would find myself kind of running away from it.

It’s only been in the last three years that things sorted out for me.” (See, Does he believe in God? on Page 35)

The only reckoning

that seems to take place in the near-death experience regards the kindness shown others.

As Dr. Melvin Moore relates in his “Life After Life” preface, “when we die, our own lives are evaluated and interpreted not according to how much money we made or our status and prestige, but according to the love we shared with others throughout our life.”

This being the case, Moody is bullish about love. He has two grown sons and is now raising two adopted children with wife Cheryl.

“The best time to be a parent is in your 50s and 60s,” he says of the experience he considers profoundly joyful and rewarding. His books keep him busy on a worldwide lecture circuit, but “I like being home better,” he says.

And once he set the afterlife juggernaut in motion, he found himself immersed in the happiest of circumstances: his research subjects came to him. The floodgates opened with the tremendous success of his first book (13 million copies sold and counting), with one story begetting another, and that one begetting a dozen more, etc., etc. ad infinitum.

In fact, the stories opened up whole new avenues for exploration, including the “shared death” experience that Moody first encountered in medical school. A faculty member – one who had never been religious – relayed a story of sharing the out-of-body experience immediately after her mother died in her arms. She talked of accompanying her mother through a tunnel, moving toward a light, witnessing her mother’s “very tender” reunion with deceased loved ones . . . then the tunnel closing down “in an almost spiral fashion, like a camera lens, and the light was gone.”

She felt great comfort in what she perceived as the peace and joy associated with her mother’s passing, and Moody seized on the anecdote – and the many like it that followed – as an indication that drugs, oxygen deprivation, hallucinations or other tricks of the mind could not explain the near-death or shared-death phenomena.

More broadly, the experiences increasingly convinced Moody that the human mind needs to stretch its capacity to better comprehend life, death and everything in between.

“In my logic work, which is really what drew me into this, the conceptual problems are the ones that are really interesting to me,” he says. “I think we have systems of logic that enable us to investigate a question in a genuinely rational way, not pseudoscience.”

He references seemingly circular questions – for instance, if a creator set the world in motion, then who or what created the creator? – and thinks we have more capacity than we realize to formulate meaningful hypotheses.

“The traditional thinking is that if

something is nonsensical, logic has to stop at that point. We can’t follow the path of inquiry anymore. But I think that’s the point at which we have to switch to another set of logical principles that can open us up to new ways of investigating.”

Indeed, Moody

relishes nonsense. He’s intrigued, for instance, that the seemingly disordered thinking of schizophrenics shares patterns and logic all its own.

“Nonsense is absolutely knowable; it is a form of language. All nonsense is derived from meaningful language by respecting some rules of language but violating others so that the result is nonsense,” he says. “I’ve identified over 70 different patterns of meaningless, unintelligible language and found the universal structural principal that lies behind all of them.

One of the many outcomes is that it gives people a logical, rational way of thinking about things that have heretofore been outside the province of logic.”

He has lectured to experts in countless walks of life – engineering, business, medicine, Today, Moody lives in Alabama with his wife and their two adopted children.

Seeing the light: Moody’s books continue to explore the concept of the afterlife.

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the military, etc. – to explore the implications, which he thinks are virtually limitless. Indeed, one of those implications takes him full circle: the ability for people who experience near death to better articulate and understand their experience.

“Is there a ‘moment’ of death?” Moody muses. “This argument has gone on for centuries because it’s based on an incoherent basis. (Philosopher) David Hume says some new species of logic and new faculties of the mind are needed to comprehend incoherence or unintelligibility. What I’m saying is that problem is now solved.”

Many colleagues – including Moore, who holds the Bigelow Chair of Consciousness Studies at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas – endorse his views.

“He remains on the cutting edge of scientific research and will always be about 25 years ahead of the rest of us,” Moore says.

Moody insists that his solutions aren’t merely a matter of vocabulary, but of a new

Does he believe in God?

way of thinking and experiencing the world.

He loves the challenge of seeking out previously unexplored dimensions of the mind and laments that culture gives short shrift to such ponderous pursuits.

“I see the decline of critical thinking, and that is worrisome to me,” he says. “Some things can’t be mastered by a sound bite. Some issues are more complex.”

He is also troubled that in an age where more information than ever is at one’s fingertips, the human inclination seems to be to seek out an echo chamber. “You can get on the Internet and find somebody to support any opinion you have,” he says. “The fun of life to me is coming up with new things.”

In fact, he’s still learning new things even about himself. His latest book, “Paranormal: My Life in Pursuit of the Afterlife” (HarperOne, 2012) is a memoir that inspired deep introspection. He relays in the book how an undiagnosed thyroid disorder, myxedema, led to a 1991 suicide attempt that gave him greater empathy than he ever thought possible.

“When one man said to me – as others have – that his near-death experience drained him of strength yet filled him with hope,” Moody writes, “I understood completely how that could take place. I also understand that to accept such a contradiction, one often has to experience an altered state as powerful as illness.”

His memoir

nudged him toward acceptance of another condition as well. “When I was a student at MCG, a psychiatrist told me I had autistic tendencies. Recently, a psychiatrist friend pointed out the same thing. I kept resisting it; I thought it was just a faddish diagnosis.

But when I finally came to the realization that they were right, I thought, ‘Holy mackerel, I’ve always been socially awkward. I’ve always been obstinate. I can’t keep my shirttail tucked in or my shoes tied.’ It was a very interesting revelation. It helped me understand what group I fall into.”

Then again, he has a distinct aversion for sorting people into groups. All of us, he insists – the mentally ill, the seemingly healthy, the criminally insane he worked with as a psychiatry resident, the living, the dying, the dead – have much more in common than we realize.

The more open-minded we are, he insists, the better we can understand and optimize the human condition. “I don’t think there will be a magic bullet that will make us all love each other,” he says. “I tend to look more at specific things that could be helped a lot.”

His excitement, he notes, lies in the fact that the list keeps growing. n

“When somebody asks me, ‘Do you believe God exists?’

I say, ‘Absolutely not.’”

But he qualifies. “I think any ideas I could formulate about a god would be bound to be way off base. The notion of God is much bigger than the human concept of existence. What I say is I have a relationship with God.” He has no relationship, on the other hand, with formal religion, and he thinks his research supports his aversion. As noted, the near-death experiences he has shared in his books carry many similarities – such as leaving the body and going through a tunnel toward a bright light – but none of them suggest religious underpinnings or quid pro quos.

Other than living to tell the tale of narrowly escaping the jaws of death, the cases he’s reviewed “don’t have much, if anything, to do with a person’s religion. It doesn’t matter if they’re old or young, or what brought them close to death, or anything else.”

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Education Commons campaign underway

Tony Duva, J.D.,M.P.A., Senior Director of Development for Gift Planning

A

growing population, an aging population and a population plagued by chronic diseases are driving the escalating demand for health professionals to meet the state’s health care needs.

As the state’s dominant academic producer of physicians, Georgia Health Sciences University is responding to these needs by expanding the reach of our academic programs – and one strategy is through the construction of new facilities to house our expanding enrollment.

This past September, GHS officially cut the ribbon on an impressive $112 million facility that houses the College of Dental Medicine, a journey we began more than six years ago. We now have our sights set on a companion building—a 116,000-square-foot structure that will provide much-needed educational space for our growing classes of physicians and dentists.

Design work is still underway, but the facility will have a minimum of two 300-seat classrooms, two 150-seat classrooms and several other unique learning spaces, including - thanks to a generous donation from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation – a stateof-the art clinical simulation laboratory.

The $62 million Education Commons project will also encompass a renovation and expansion of the existing gross anatomy lab, a facility you all know is critically important in the education of future physicians. Our new Education Commons will be the perfect blend of traditional teaching and cutting-edge techniques, a critical addition to the GHSU campus.

We successfully shepherded the College of Dental Medicine project from blueprint to beautiful building—and we will do the same with the Education Commons. But we need your help.

Will you join us by making a donation to support the construction of the Education Commons?

Your gift is an investment in the future of your alma mater … and the health of the people served by the graduates of the Medical College of Georgia.

Sincerely,

Susan Barcus Senior Vice President, Advancement and Community Relations Chief Development Officer, Georgia Health Sciences University and Health System

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Standing on the shoulders of giants

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Patient’s gift will shape institution for decades to come As Vice President-Project Manager for Houston-based Frontera Petroleum Resources Inc., Michael Bright has a very big job. Part of those responsibilities includes overseeing his investment group’s major project in West Africa, which will include a deep-water port, an oil refinery and up to 30 micro-industries that will bring jobs and economic stability to the region.

Putting it simply, Michael Bright is a “giant” – but not just because he coordinates gigantic multi-national projects from his home in Wrightsville, Ga.

GIFT planning

Michael is a giant because he is doing something that will improve health education, research and clinical care at GHS for generations to come.

But first, you need the backstory.

Two years ago, Michael was not feeling very well. By the time the 55-year-old executive worked a doctor’s visit into his hectic schedule, he was very sick indeed.

The diagnosis was worse than he could have imagined: acute myeloid leukemia, a very rare and persistent form of blood cancer. The timing added insult to injury – he was diagnosed just one day after his wife retired from her job as a teacher, which meant he no longer had her employersponsored benefits. It would be a full two months before Michael could get on his own company’s plan.

“I was basically very ill and without health insurance,” he said. “I had a letter from my company saying that they would cover any future charges, but nobody wanted to take me. I was essentially indigent.”

That was, until, he met Dr. Anand Jillella, a leukemia expert and Chief of MCG’s Section of

Hematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant. “The people at MCG didn’t even turn their head,” Michael said. “They took care of my needs without question. It was like I was at home.”

He was so touched by the care, which included participation in Jillella’s high-dose Decitabine trials, that he decided to will a portion of the future earnings from his West Africa investment to MCG and all of GHS. Based on 15-year revenue projections, the unrestricted gift could be gigantic, and that’s exactly what Michael is hoping for.

“Without MCG, I wouldn’t be here,” he said. “I may not be around to enjoy the investment, but I am going to try to do everything I can so that the university has what it needs to become a major research institution.”

A giant move, by a giant individual, at an institution that has a rich history of giant personalities.

We stand on the shoulders of those giants: Antony, Ford, Eve, Kelly, Pund, Moretz, Sydenstricker, Ellison and Jennings.

They have taken us to the present. Giants like Michael Bright will be the ones everyone speaks of 30 years from now as having the vision and actionable forethought to invest in GHS.

Whether you are quoting the complete metaphor from Greek Mythology or crediting Sir Isaac Newton with this “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants” retrospective and historically informative thought, or for the first time hearing the quote in movies from today (The Social Network; Jurassic Park), this thoughtprovoking phrase not only pays homage to the past, but sets a new rock-solid foundation of appropriate recognition for the future.

Having the courage to step up, speak up and give is critically important as the enterprise’s next chapter will be the most challenging yet, requiring an even greater investment. As Georgia’s health problems and its shortage of medical professionals grow, so must our commitment to investing.

Your gifts will help MCG and the enterprise reach new heights of collaboration and innovation, sharing our strengths with local, state and regional communities. Whatever your passion or goal, you can make an impact! n

Dr. Anand Jillella

For information on making a gift contact Tony Duva at 1-800-869-1113, 706-721-1939 or aduva@georgiahealth.edu

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Student Spotlight

Making a Community Better Medical student receives national scholarship for improving minority health access, education

BY DAMON CLINE

When third-year medical student LaShon Sturgis goes out on Saturdays to mentor youngsters at her church in Thomson, Ga., she sees faces that looked very much like her at that age.

Ambitious, but a bit puzzled.

“Neither of my parents went to college. I knew I wanted to go, but there was no clear path on how to get there,” Sturgis said. “Even little things like filling out the paperwork, it was all new to us.”

That was then. Sturgis is now using the experience of being the first in her family to attend college on academic scholarships to reach out to disadvantaged and under-represented minorities in the hopes of eliminating inequities in medical education.

And for her efforts, she earned the Association of American Medical College’s Herbert W. Nickens Medical Student Scholarship – one of only five awarded each year to students demonstrating leadership to support the educational, societal and health care needs of racial and ethnic minorities.

Sturgis, who already holds a doctorate in physiology from Georgia Health Sciences University, has promoted diversity and cultural competency since her first year of medical school, when she served on numerous committees in her capacity as Curriculum Vice President. As the coordinator for the Students for Community

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“She has engaged in a multitude of leadership activities that have left her community better.”

–DR. KIMBERLY HALBUR, MCG ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR DIVERSITY AFFAIRS

“What makes LaShon stand apart from others is that she combines her academic prowess, warmth, compassion, leadership qualities, motivation and persuasion, organizational skills and deep commitment to leave the world a better place than she found it.”

–DR. RUTH-MARIE FINCHER, MCG VICE DEAN FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS

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Outreach elective, which taught medical students how to teach middle school students about healthy living, she developed a game to help the children make better food choices (which earned her the Elaine J. Stone Award from her peers).

She served as the curriculum coordinator for the Junior Medical League, a collaboration between MCG students and the local Boys and Girls Clubs that exposes the children to careers in the medical field while encouraging them to establish goals and work toward academic success.

“She has engaged in a multitude of leadership activities that have left her community better,” wrote Dr. Kimberly Halbur, MCG Associate Dean for Diversity Affairs, in a nomination letter to the Nickens scholarship committee.

If Sturgis appears to be an overachiever in the role model department, it’s because role models were few and far between when she was growing up in the Decatur section of metro Atlanta.

“When most of my classmates find out I’m from Decatur, I have to tell them, ‘Not the part of Decatur you’re thinking of,’ ” she said.

Her neighborhood lacked quality public schools, but Sturgis was able to attend a small private school, Cathedral Academy, that was operated by Chapel Hill Harvester Church. Her mother, Lorna, worked there as a preschool teacher.

The school provided a safe learning environment, but it was far too small to have college prep courses or a guidance counselor.

Still, Sturgis was a star student, particularly in science and math, and she graduated valedictorian in 1998. As the youngest of four in a working-class family, Sturgis had no other choice.

“I knew my only ticket to college was an academic scholarship,” Sturgis said.

She sought advice on applying to colleges from a Paine College alumnus her family knew in Atlanta. She specifically applied to schools that would waive their application fees, which Paine did. Sturgis was accepted and ended up

graduating Magna Cum Laude in 2002 with a degree in biology.

Sturgis’ interest in the health sciences was piqued early by her father’s coronary problems. He had his first bypass surgery when she was a toddler and had several heart attacks while she was growing up.

Sturgis recalls feeling condescended to by doctors when she would inquire about her father’s condition, and the experience has shaped her philosophy on patient-physician communication.

“I never want another kid to feel like that,” she said. “Being able to communicate to anyone at any age level is important to me.”

Sturgis had long wanted to attend MCG and took every opportunity she could to get on campus while attending Paine, including spending summers participating in MCG’s research program for undergraduate students, the program now known as the Student Training and Research (STAR) program.

She earned her doctorate in physiology in 2007 and was selected the following year to be in the inaugural class of the Medical Educators Training Program. A program for basic scientists to receive advanced, handson instruction in medical education at Ross University School of Medicine in the Caribbean nation of Dominica.

“I didn’t have this grand plan to be this M.D./Ph.D.” she said. “I just didn’t feel prepared to go straight to medical school.”

To see her now, you would have never known there was ever any apprehension.

“As I contemplate the more than 5,000 MCG medical students I have known in my career, LaShon stands out as one of the most exceptional,” wrote Dr. Ruth-Marie Fincher, MCG Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, in a nomination letter. “She is an excellent student, but there are many excellent students. She is a warm, compassionate human being, but there are many warm, compassionate human beings. She is an effective leader, motivator and organizer, but there are many who share these characteristics. What makes LaShon stand apart from others is that she combines

her academic prowess, warmth, compassion, leadership qualities, motivation and persuasion, organizational skills and deep commitment to leave the world a better place than she found it.”

Sturgis said she is deciding between family medicine and emergency medicine for her specialty.

She also wants to practice in a small town like Thomson, where she lives with her husband Jimmy, a Thomson native.

“I grew up in an urban area, but I enjoy rural areas,” she said. “In a large city, you don’t have as much sense of community.” n

Nomination letter

by Dr. Fincher

The late Herbert Nickens Dr. Herbert W. Nickens was the founding Vice President of the Association of American Medical Colleges Division of Community and Minority Programs, which is now the Diversity Policy and Programs unit.

Prior to joining the AAMC, Nickens was the first Director of the Office of Minority Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. He also served as Director of the Office of Policy, Planning and Analysis of the National Institute on Aging, a part of the National Institutes of Health, and was Deputy Chief of the Center on Aging of the National Institute of Mental Health at NIH. His efforts resulted in a multitude of programs and initiatives that advanced the career development of minorities in medicine.

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Class Notes

Awards? Professional Honors? Special Activities?

1980s

1950s

1970s

Dr. Lois T. Ellison, ’50 of Augusta, was honored with a lectureship by the Medical College of Georgia. Ellison’s affiliation with Georgia Health Sciences University has spanned 60 years and she retired as Professor Emeritus and Provost Emeritus in 2000. She works as the GHSU’s Medical Historian in Residence.

Dr. Richard A. Brown,

’70

Dr. Julian D. Sharpton,

’74

Dr. Louis Scharff,

’59

of Evans, Ga., has been named the 2011 Jewish Humanitarian of the Year by the Augusta Jewish Community Center. Scharff works in the Spinal Cord Injury Unit of the Charlie Norwood Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center. He previously severed as commander of a field hospital in Desert Storm and Desert Shield.

1960s Dr. Betty B. Wray,

’60

of Augusta, Ga., received a Lifetime Achievement Award for distinguished service to the Southeastern Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Society. Wray is a GHSU Professor Emerita in Pediatrics and Medicine and is a past President and longtime member of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. She earned its Gold-headed Cane Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2007. Wray has served as a Delegate to the Medical Association of Georgia through the Richmond County Medical Society and received its Distinguished Service Award in 1999. She earned the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Lifetime Achievement Award from the Georgia Chapter in 2000. Wray received the Medical College of Georgia Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2000.

Dr. Bruce Gillett,

’64

of Marietta, Ga., published “Quarter-Peeled Oranges,” a book of poetry. All proceeds from the book support Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Gillett owns Marietta Neurological Associates.

Dr. Paul E. Stanton Jr.,

’69

of Johnson City, Tenn., retired as President of East Tennessee State University after 15 years of service.

He was named President Emeritus by the Tennessee Board of Regents and will continue to work part-time.

Prior to being named President, Stanton served as Dean of Medicine.

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of Huntsville, Ala., has retired after 38 years of practice at Gleneagles Family Medicine Associates.

Brown helped create Alabama’s first family medicine residency program in 1973. He will continue volunteering at the Downtown Rescue Mission and the Community Free Clinic, two Huntsville-area programs that he helped establish years ago.

of Royston, Ga., joined the Athens, Ga., office of Reddy Urgent Care. Sharpton previously operated a family practice in Royston, Ga. He is board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine.

Dr. J. Sydney Cochran,

’76

of Bainbridge, Ga., was honored by the Decatur County Board of Commissioners, which proclaimed Sept. 13 Dr. Sydney Cochran Day in recognition of his years of community service. Cochran serves on the Bainbridge and Decatur County Hospital Authority Board and is Chairman of the Decatur County Board of Education. He completed his residency at Memorial Medical Center in Savannah.

Dr. James K. Elsey,

’79

of Lawrenceville, Ga., has been appointed to the Board of Regents of the American College of Surgeons. Elsey is a general and vascular surgeon in private practice and is affiliated with Gwinnett Medical Center. He is a visiting Professor of Surgery at Emory University School of Medicine and has been a Fellow of the College since 1989. He served as President of the College’s Georgia Chapter from 2008-10.

Dr. Patrick E.T. Godbey,

’79

of St. Simons Island, Ga., was elected to the Board of Governors of the College of American Pathologists.

Godbey is Laboratory Director for Southeast Georgia Health System’s Brunswick Campus and is founder of Southeastern Pathology Associates.

Dr. Mercedes Dullum,

’79

Dr. P. Merrill White,

’79

of St. Croix, Virgin Islands, has been appointed Virgin Islands Health Commissioner by Gov. John deJongh Jr. Dullum completed her general surgery residency at the University of Mississippi Medical Center and her thoracic surgery residency at George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

of Knoxville, Tenn., has been named President-elect of the Tennessee Orthopaedic Society. White practices at Tennessee Orthopaedic Clinics. Previously, he served as an assistant professor of orthopedic surgery at North Carolina Baptist Hospital. He is a member of North American Spine Society and American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. White completed his residency in orthopedic surgery at North Carolina Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, N.C., and an adult spine surgery fellowship at Rothman Institute and Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia.

Dr. Howard T. Walpole Jr.,

’81

Dr. Guy Gober,

’84

Dr. Mark L. Mudano,

’84

Dr. John Meier,

’85

Dr. Tillman Pearce,

’85

Dr. Jack M. Chapman,

’88

Dr. Melissa Holmes,

’89

of Nashville, Tenn., has joined Okyanos Heart Institute as Chief Medical Officer and Interventional Cardiologist. Previously, Walpole served as the Chief of Cardiac Sciences at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, Tenn. Walpole received a bachelor of science from the University of Georgia and a master’s degree in business administration from Emory University.

of Tiger, Ga., has retired from the U.S. Army National Guard. He served as a medical officer and was mobilized five times during conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and received the Iraq Campaign Medal with two campaign stars and the Army Commendation Medal. He owns the Tiger Urology practice in Rabun County, Ga.

of Milledgeville, Ga., has joined Effingham Health System as an Orthopedic Surgeon. Prior to joining Effingham Health System, Mudano was with Southeastern Orthopedics in Milledgeville. He completed a fellowship in reconstructive knee surgery and sports medicine at the Medical College of Georgia. He is board certified through the American Board of Orthopedic Surgery.

of Hickory, N.C., has been recognized by Best Doctors Inc. as one of the best doctors in North Carolina.

Meier, of Gastroenterology Associates, was one of 34 in the gastroenterology specialty recognized in the November 2011 issue of “Business North Carolina” magazine.

of San Francisco, was appointed Chief Medical Officer of Threshold Pharmaceuticals. Pearce, a hematologist, will oversee the development of oncology drugs.

Prior to joining Threshold, Pearce served as Chief Medical Officer for KaloBios Pharmaceuticals. Pearce will oversee the development of Threshold’s TH-302, a clinical stage hypoxia-targeted cancer therapeutic currently being evaluated in a variety of cancers.

He has a bachelor’s from Tulane University and is a board-certified internist and hematologist.

of Gainesville, Ga., was appointed to the Georgia Board of Community Health by Gov. Nathan Deal.

Chapman serves on the Board of Directors of the Medical Association of Georgia Foundation, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, the Alliant/Georgia Medical Care Foundation, the Georgia Partnership for Telehealth and the Physicians Institute.

of Greenville, S.C., was appointed to the South Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

Holmes completed her residency at the Medical College of Virginia and is a member of the faculty at the Medical University of South Carolina.

We would love to hear what’s new with you. Contact Christine Hurley Deriso, Editor, at 706-721-2124 or email cderiso@georgiahealth.edu.

1990s Dr. Marion O. Lee Jr.,

’91

Dr. James E. “Jep” Paschal,

’93

of Cordele, Ga., has been reappointed to the Georgia Composite Medical Board. Lee is an anesthesiologist and pain management consultant with Centers for Pain Management in Tifton, Cordele and Douglas.

Drs. Ronald and Russell Dandy

’97

in 2012 will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Savannah Family Vision Center, the practice started by their father, Dr. Alphonso Dandy. The twin brothers and ophthalmologists completed their residencies and fellowships at the Cleveland Clinic and Louisiana State University’s Ochsner Clinic, respectively.

of Madison, Ga., was recently profiled in the Morgan County Citizen. Paschal is the owner of Paschal Orthodontics. He completed his residency at the University of Texas.

2000s

Dr. David C. Duncan,

Dr. Joanna C. Ghegan,

’03

Dr. Elizabeth Johnson and Dr. Cynthia Shepherd

’04

’92

of Arlington, Va., has completed a master’s degree in business administration in medical services management from Johns Hopkins University’s Carey School of Business. Duncan is the Senior Physician Advisor and Medical Director for Case Management and Utilization at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va. He is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University, George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Schools. Duncan is board certified in internal medicine and lives in Arlington, Va with his wife Joan and his two sons, Adam and Zachary.

Dr. Ken Howard,

’92

of Rome, Ga., has been named to the Georgia Academy of Family Physicians’ Board of Directors.

Howard practices at Harbin Clinic in Calhoun, Ga. He is board certified by the American Board of Family Practice.

Dr. Douglas W. Lundy,

’93

of Mableton, Ga., was named as a Top Doc in orthopaedics by “U.S. News & World Report.” Lundy practices at Resurgens in Marietta, Ga. He completed a residency at Georgia Baptist Medical Center in Atlanta and a fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. He is board certified by the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgeons and is a member of the American Orthopaedic Association and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

Dr. David Flowers,

’95

Dr. Lisa Marrache,

’95

Dr. Colleen A. McCoy,

’96

of Columbus, Ga., has joined Columbus Regional Pediatrics. He completed his residency at the Medical College of Georgia and is board-certified by the American Board of Pediatrics.

of Mount Pleasant, S.C., joined Parkwood Pediatric Group as a pediatrician. Ghegan completed a residency at the Medical University of South Carolina.

were recently profiled by the Athens Banner Herald.

Johnson completed a residency at Emory University; Shepherd completed a residency at Vanderbilt University. Johnson works in internal medicine in the offices of Dr. Thomas Kias. Shepherd works at the Northeast Georgia Cancer Center, Athens Regional Medical Center and St. Mary’s Hospital.

Dr. Rhett Shirley

’04

of Greenville, S.C., has joined the Greenville Hospital System as an Infectious Disease Specialist. He completed his residency and infectious disease fellowship at the University of Alabama-Birmingham and spent the past two years at Kijabe Mission Hospital in Kenya working in patient care, education and HIV/AIDS relief leadership.

Dr. Jessica C.E. Thomas,

’06

of Nashville, Tenn., has joined Tennessee Neurology Specialists at Middle Tennessee Medical Center in Murfreesboro, Tenn., as the Medical Director of the Epilepsy Monitoring Unit. Thomas earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia and a master’s in public health epidemiology from Emory University.

She completed her residency in neurology at The Ohio State University in Columbus and a fellowship at Vanderbilt University.

Alumni We’d like to hear from you Changed addresses lately?

Have a question or concern?

Want to learn more about participating in alumni programs?

Contact: Scott Henson Executive Director, Alumni Affairs

shenson@georgiahealth.edu 706-721-4416

of Waterville, Maine, has been appointed by Gov. Paul LePage to a state committee to explore opportunities for new relationships with its Canadian neighbors.

Marrache previously served in the Maine House of Representatives for six years and the Maine State Senate for four. She is a primary care physician for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Chelsea, Maine.

of Collegeville, Penn., joined the staff of Finger Lakes Health at Geneva General Hospital and Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hospital. Previously, she worked as Director of the Hospital Medical Group at Kaiser Foundation Hospital. McCoy completed her residency at the University of California at San Francisco.

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Dr. Leila DaughtryDenmark MCG’s third female graduate dies at age 114 Dr. Leila Daughtry Denmark, the third female graduate of the Medical College of Georgia and one of the world’s oldest people, died April 1 at age 114.

Denmark, a retired pediatrician who died at the home of her daughter in Athens, Ga., was born Feb. 1, 1898 in Portal, Ga. She earned her medical degree from GHSU in 1928, then became the first resident of the newly opened Henrietta Egleston Hospital for Children, now Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and admitted its first patient.

Following the birth of her daughter, Mary, Denmark opened a pediatrics practice in her Atlanta home in 1931 and continued to practice until her retirement in 2001 at age 103. At the time of her retirement, she was the oldest practicing physician in the United States.

She received the 1935 Fisher Award for outstanding research and diagnosing, treating and preventing whooping cough and was named Atlanta’s 1953 Woman of the Year. She received alumni awards from Tift College, Mercer University, Georgia Southern University and GHSU. She received honorary degrees from Tift , Mercer and Emory University. Denmark received the Shining Light Award from the Atlanta Gas Light Company and the Atlanta Business Chronicle Lifetime Achievement Award.

She was a member of the American Medical Association and the Georgia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

A book Denmark wrote about childrearing in the early 1970s, “Every Child Should Have a Chance,” is in its 14th printing.

“Leila was the kind of physician we hope all of our graduates become—a pioneer in their field, a caring and kind caretaker and a consummate professional,” said GHSU Medical College of Georgia Dean Peter F. Buckley. “She led by example, counseling us to be better parents, to raise healthier children and to set an example ourselves—to ‘live right and eat right,’ as she would say.”

Survivors include daughter Mary Denmark Hutcherson, two grandsons and two great-grandchildren. She was predeceased by her husband of 61 years, John Eustace Denmark.

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Dr. Leila D. Denmark and the Class of 1928

Feb. 1, 1898 - April 1, 2012 Observations of a life well-lived Editor’s note: The following quotes in a recent article about Dr. Denmark in Georgia Medicine Magazine attest to a sterling career, indomitable personality and stalwart character.

“I never had a bad day in my life [at MCG]. That’s a wonderful school. You couldn’t go to a better school than the Medical College of Georgia.”

—Dr. Leila Daughtry Denmark “All of her life, she said she wanted to mend things, to fix things. If an animal got sick on a farm, or if the flowers were wilted, she would want to fix them.”

—Mary Hutcherson, Denmark’s daughter “She has just meant a great deal to the medical college. I just wish I could say the words and have them be as meaningful as they should be.”

—GHS Medical Historian in Residence Lois Taylor Ellison “[The MCG Admissions Committee] was trying to deny her [upon her application in 1924], and she said, ‘I will not be denied; I want this.’”

—Dr. James D. Hutcherson, Denmark’s grandson and a 1991 MCG graduate “Pediatrics is somewhat trendy. One decade they say one thing and the next, they recommend something else.

Her recommendations were just very practical and made sense to me.”

—Madia Bowman, a “Denmarker” who used Denmark as a pediatrician for 10 of her 11 children

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Class Notes Obituaries Dr. Kathleen Byers-Lindsey,

’43

of Atlanta, died Feb. 11. She was 95. The Augusta native completed her internship at New York’s Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital and her residency at Bellevue Hospital under the renowned Dr. Emery Rovenstine. She practiced briefly at the Baptist Hospital in New Orleans before settling in Atlanta in 1947 to work as a staff anesthesiologist at Piedmont Hospital. She was one of the first female board-certified anesthesiologists in the U.S. and the first in Atlanta. She is preceded in death by her husband, William John Lindsey, and her son John Byers Lindsey. She is survived by daughter Patricia Ann Weiss of Potomac, Md.; two grandchildren, Tamara Elizabeth Weiss of Ramat Gan, Israel and George Arthur Weiss of Potomac.

Dr. Frank Bartow “Gus” Graham III,

’45

died Nov. 25. He was 90. The Atlanta native and Chattanooga, Tenn., resident graduated from Mercer University in 1942 and completed a surgery internship at Georgia Baptist Hospital. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps and completed a surgery residency at The Baroness Erlanger Medical Center and a surgery fellowship at the Lahey Clinic. He practiced in Chattanooga until retirement in 1990. He was also retired as Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery from the University of Tennessee Medical School. Graham was a Diplomat of the American Board of Surgery and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He was a past President of the Chattanooga/Hamilton County Medical Society, past Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Medical Assembly, past President of the Chattanooga Academy of Surgery, and a founder, past President and longtime board member of The Chattanooga Surgical Foundation. He is survived by his wife, Dorothy Hall Graham, his children, Cary Harpe of Signal Mountain, Tenn.; Frank B. Graham IV of Nashville; Gale Allison of Tulsa, Okla.; and Ashby Patterson Graham of Lookout Mountain, Tenn.

Dr. Loy G. “L.G.” Hicks,

’51

died Sept. 25. He was 86. The Godfrey, Ga., native and resident of Winchester, Va., was a graduate of Clarkesville High School and attended Piedmont and Young Harris colleges before joining the U.S. Navy during World War II. He later completed undergraduate studies at the University of Georgia. He practiced family medicine with Habersham Medical Group, and was a member, deacon and trustee of Clarkesville Baptist Church. He served as Chairman of the Board of Health for Habersham County Health Department for 30 years and was a lifetime member of the Georgia Academy of Family Practice. He is survived by his daughters, Murphy Henry, Dr. Claire Hicks, Argen Hicks, Nancy Pate and Dr. Laurie Hicks; seven grandchildren and one great grandchild.

Dr. William “Bill” Franklin Kent,

’61

died Nov. 4. He was 73. The Adel, Ga., native and resident of Statesboro, Ga., graduated from Cook County High School and Valdosta State University. He completed his residency at Georgia Baptist Hospital and practiced at Ogeechee Clinic. He was also on the staff of East Georgia Medical Center. He was a member of the Valdosta Rotary Club, Forest Heights Country Club and Eastern Heights Baptist Church. He is survived by his wife, Judy Roof Kent; four children, Bill Kent, Jr. of Pitts, Ga.; Danny Kent of Jacksonville, Fla.; Lisa Lomax of Cumming, Ga.; and Kim King of Statesboro, Ga.; and eight grandchildren.

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Dr. Robert G. Bursey,

’67

Faculty

’68

Dr. Geoffrey Edgar King died Dec. 22. He was 83. The Winteron, England, native graduated from London’s Charing Cross Medical School in 1954 and was a faculty member at the Medical College of Georgia for 30 years. During his career, he contributed to advancements in cardiology, dentistry and biomedical engineering. King enjoyed woodworking and his Renaissance-era musical instrument replicas.

He was a strong supporter of the arts and was a violinist with the Augusta Civic Orchestra. King is survived by his wife, Arlene Queen King; daughters, Hilary King of London, England and Brittany Griffin King of North Augusta, S.C.; sons, Chris King of Berkley, Calif., Oliver King of Frederick, Md., and Julian King of Athens, Ga.; stepson Robert Queen of Baca Raton, Fla,; and four grandchildren. He is preceded in death by brother, Richard King of Adelaide, Australia.

of Herndon, Va., died Feb. 1. He was 70. The Boston, Mass., native earned a bachelor’s degree from North Georgia College & State University and a doctoral degree from Clemson University. He was president of Ajinomoto Corporate Services, where he had worked for 15 years in nutritional biochemistry. Bursey had previously worked for the National Dairy Board as Senior Vice President of its nutrition and dairy foods research program, as well as for Kraft Foods, where he worked in nutrition research and product development. He also held leadership positions with professional organizations, including the Institute of Food Technologists. Survivors include his wife, Betty Johns Bursey of Herndon; two daughters, Heather Lopane of Charlotte, N.C., and Tara Cooksey of Washington, D.C.; one brother; and four grandsons.

Dr. Daniel G. Phillips,

of Spokane, Wash., died Jan. 3. He was 68. The Augusta, Ga., native earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia and completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Emory University.

Phillips was a Flight Surgeon in the United States Air Force. Later, he Obstetrics and Gynecology, and delivered more than 6,500 babies. Survivors include his wife Bonnie Phillips; his daughters, Laura Harper, Lisa Westbrook, Lydia Myers and Leah Southard; his brother, Thomas Phillips; two nephews and two greatnephews.

Dr. Kenneth Lamar Mullis,

’68

Dr. Wesley Glisson,

’87

of Rome, Ga., died Dec. 19. He was 69. The Eastman, Ga., native was a graduate of Mercer University and completed his internship at Washington Hospital. He was a Diplomate of the American Board of Family Medicine. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps. He practiced in Dublin, Ga., for 5 years before moving to Rome, where he practiced emergency medicine for 30 years at Floyd Medical Center. Three weeks after their first meeting, he married the love of his life and wife of 43 years, Linda.

He was a member of St. Peters Episcopal Church in Rome. He is survived by his wife, daughter Rachael, sons Michael and Daniel, mother Lois and mother-inlaw Blanche.

died Nov. 25. He was 50. The Thomaston, Ga., native and resident of Opelika, Ala., was a graduate of the University of Georgia and completed his residency at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He was a radiation oncologist with East Alabama Medical Center. He was a member of Auburn United Methodist Church. Glisson is survived by his wife, Shirley Rose Neugent Glisson, his sons, John Clayton Glisson, Kyle Chambless Glisson and Lucas Clark Glisson; his father, Huey Long Glisson; and his brothers, Emory Bruce Glisson, John Vaughan Glisson and George Michael Glisson-Munier.

Dr. Sam Singal died Dec. 28. He was 95. The Toledo, Ohio, native was an accomplished scientist and a respected artist. He earned his doctoral degree in biochemistry at the University of Michigan and was hired as an instructor at the Medical College of Georgia in the early 1940’s. He became a full Professor and conducted extensive research on sickle cell disease. He served as Dean of the School of Graduate Studies from 1974-84, retiring in 1985 to begin a second career as an artist. He had several exhibitions throughout the years and helped bring live theater to Augusta. He was one of the founders of Amnesty International’s Augusta chapter, was active in developing minority enrollment programs at MCG and established a scholarship fund to help future art students at Augusta State University. He is survived by brother-in-law Jerry Brody, many nieces and nephews and many dear friends in the Augusta area.

MCG Alumni Association Past year marked by change, opportunity

It has been my distinct honor to have

the opportunity to serve as President

White Coat Ceremony; launched the HOST program to support

of the Medical College of Georgia

students traveling for resident interviews; continued its support

Alumni Association for this past year.

for the RAFT Debate; and for the first time this year, was an

This opportunity occurred at a time

exhibitor at the Medical Association of Georgia’s House of

of substantial change at our alma

Delegates.

mater, which presented multiple new

The association was actively involved in Family Day and the

One of our most effective ways to reconnect with fellow

opportunities for alumni to be engaged in efforts to facilitate the

alumni is through the regional receptions, which this year

ongoing success of MCG and Georgia Health Sciences University.

occurred in Albany, Athens, Atlanta Augusta, Macon and Rome.

As an alumnus from the class of 1974, and being a current

Of particular significance was the opportunity I had to use

member of the GHSU faculty, I have had a unique perspective of

the alumni’s hosting of the regional reception as a platform

not only the challenges our alma mater faces, but the multiple

to introduce Dr. Peter Buckley to our alumni, giving him the

ways in which we as alumni can respond to the needs of the

opportunity to personally connect while presenting MCG’s

university and MCG to ensure ongoing growth and success. My

accomplishments as well as outlining its ongoing needs for

communications with alumni concerning MCG’s plans to expand

continuing success.

the size and quality of its teaching and research capacity was

facilitated by my role as Co-Chair of GHSU’s strategic planning

the excellent support I received from the MCG Alumni staff, the

process, Transformation 2020.

Board of Directors and the leadership of many MCG faculty.

Our alma mater will continue to thrive even in tough economic

During this year, I had the unique opportunity to reconnect

As my tenure as President winds down, I am reminded of

with colleagues and to meet even more colleagues who share

times because of this type of ongoing alumni commitment. I

my commitment to promote the success of MCG. Together we

look forward to a continued and heightened engagement of

have learned multiple examples of engagement that promote and

the alumni under the capable hands of its new President, Dr.

increase the ongoing success of this venerable medical college.

Henry Cline (Class of 1982, see page 5), to be installed during the

upcoming Homecoming weekend.

This year, alumni provided mentorship for students interested

in health sciences by hosting the “Dinner with 12 Strangers”

in Atlanta and Savannah. Similar efforts to provide mentoring

the MCG alumni in support of our alma mater as it strives for

for students interested in medicine were expanded to include

continuing growth and greatness.

I am extremely grateful to have had this opportunity to serve

members of last summer’s Student Educational Enrichment Program (SEEP) in Augusta.

The Alumni Association is very proud of the opportunity to

host students from MCG and its regional campus in Athens for this year’s Freshman Brunch. Many alumni take great pride in putting these types of events together, and it always seem to reaffirm

Dr. Joseph Hobbs President, MCG Alumni Association

their ongoing commitment to connect with future MCG graduates.

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By the Numbers Spring 2012 MCG Applicants 2,500

2,036

2,162

2,144

2,104

2,130

STUDENTS Students: 852 M.D./Ph.D. Students: 19 Female students: 369 Male students: 483 Under-represented minority students: 104 (12.2%) Average GPA: 3.7 RESIDENTS Total: 439 in 42 programs Postdoctoral fellows: 141

0

Fall 2007

Fall 2008

Fall 2009

Fall 2010

Fall 2011

MCG Total Extramurally Sponsored Grants and Contracts $ 93.5

$100M TOTAL

$72.7M $ 75.9 9.3 20.6

10.3

$ 84.7

11.8

8.4

10.8

22.0

20.6

20.4

22.5 59.7

55.6 42.9

$ 89.6

58.4

43.1 Public Service/Education Grants and Contracts Sponsored Research NIH Research

0

FY 2007

FY 2008

FY 2009

FY 2010

MEDICAL COLLEGE OF GEORGIA Peter F. Buckley

John D. Catravas Joseph Hobbs William Kanto Walter J. Moore Anthony L. Mulloy

GHSU-UGA Medical Partnership Campus Dean Barbara Schuster

48

Spring 12

Associate Deans Andrew T. Albritton Linda Boyd Cheryl Dickson Kimberly Halbur

OPERATIONS Academic departments: 19 Academic centers, institutes and service lines: 11 Campuses: 1 main, 1 partnership, 3 clinical FINANCIAL Operating budget (FY12): $289 million Extramural grants and contracts (FY11): $90 million ($58.4 million National Institutes of Health) Sources: GHSU Divisions of Communications and Marketing and Institutional Effectiveness; and MCG Dean’s Office

Administration

Senior Associate Deans

Ruth-Marie E. Fincher

FACULTY/STAFF Full-time faculty: 493 Part-time faculty: 164 Clinical/adjunct: 1,242 Full-time staff: 713 Part-time staff: 84 Endowed chairs: 47

FY 2011

Dean

Vice Dean for Academic Affairs

ALUMNI Living located alumni: 7,658 Alumni residing in Georgia: 4,196 (54%) Alumni association members: 1,033

Kathleen M. McKie Shelley Nuss Marsha O’Connor W. Scott Richardson Terrence E. Steyer Andria Thomas Christopher White

Chief of Staff Jeanette K. Balotin Director of Operations Joel Covar Communications Manager

Assistant Deans Kathryn Martin Leonard Reeves T. Wayne Rentz Jr.

Toni Baker

MEDICAL COLLEGE OF GEORGIA Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage

PAID

Burlington, VT Permit No. 152

MCG Dean’s Office 1120 15th Street Augusta, Georgia 30912 CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

Wrong address? Need to update your information?

Tell us by email at: updateinfo@georgiahealth.edu Go online to: www.georgiahealth.edu/updateinfo Or call us at: 706-721-4001

g e o rg i a h e a l t h . e d u / g e o rg i a m e d i c i n e

Focus on Education Educators were center stage at the Fourth Annual Education Day on March 9, sponsored by Georgia Health Sciences University’s Educational Innovation Institute and Academy of Educators. Highlights included a grand rounds presentation by Dr. D. Craig Brater, Dean of the Indiana University School of Medicine, and a series of workshops led by GHS educators.

“Education is central to GHS’s mission and essential to the future of health care in Georgia,” said Dr. Chris White, one of 18 members of GHS’s Academy of Educators and Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Educational Achievement for the Medical College of Georgia. “Education Day highlights the folks who not only teach but assess teaching and identify better ways to do it.”

The Academy of Educators consists of faculty with demonstrated, sustained excellence in educational activities and scholarship. The Educational Innovation Institute fosters student and faculty research in health sciences education.

Students and faculty attend the research poster session during the Fourth Annual Education Day March 9.