Dean’s Message

Much has changed for the world and the OU College of Medicine since our last magazine reached you. The roll-out of COVID-19 vaccinations is bringing us closer to pre-pandemic times once again. Our faculty, students and staff have all played a vital role in providing those vaccines to people working on campus, and to many others who live in our community and across Oklahoma.

Even though a good portion of our lives have been consumed by COVID-19 related needs, the work of the College of Medicine as a whole has not slowed down. In this issue, you’ll read about some of the exciting developments across our mission areas of education, research and patient care. Notably, I encourage you to read the story that is reflected on our cover about the OU College of Medicine, the University Hospitals Authority and Trust, and OU Medicine, Inc. merging hospitals, clinics, and faculty practice into one unified organization, OU Health. This is truly an exciting time as we create Oklahoma’s first fully integrated, comprehensive academic health system.

In our section on education, you’ll see photos from Match Day, which was held in person, outdoors, for students on both campuses. There is also a story detailing the college’s medical school readiness program, where we offer a free MCAT prep course, along with extensive mentoring, to nearly 150 Oklahoma college students from populations that are underrepresented in medicine. This is an important component of building diversity in our college and in our physician workforce.

Our sports medicine fellowship programs on both campuses are spotlighted in this issue for their 30 years of training physicians to care for athletes of all levels. Graduates of the program work around the world in a variety of settings, and we feature two of them, along with our own Dr. Jim Barrett, the lead physician for the Oklahoma City Thunder and chair of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine.

The power of collaboration is seen in a story on Christian El Amm, M.D., who created a surgical visualization device in collaboration with the energy technology company Baker Hughes, our neighbor in the Oklahoma City Innovation District. Technology that Baker Hughes developed to create 3D reconstructions of rock specimens was used to develop a visor that allows Dr. El Amm to see both his patient and 3D data that he wants to superimpose on the patient.

In our research section, we’ve highlighted several projects from the college’s wide variety of investigations. Our work in geroscience continues to build with the renewal of a $5.3 million grant. An interdisciplinary group of researchers and clinician-scientists received a grant to establish standards of pain management for older adults that prioritize non-opioid medications. In addition, many of our researchers have participated in COVID-19 research in significant ways.

This has been a challenging yet fascinating time to work in an academic medicine setting. We have much to mourn as we emerge from a pandemic that took too many lives, yet we can take pride that our college has played a pivotal role in the medical response and associated research that has been lifesaving. I am more encouraged than ever about the future of medicine because our students strongly demonstrated during this time that they are willing to help however needed, and to do so with ingenuity and compassion. We are all fortunate to work in a field that can make such a positive difference in the lives of others.