Dr. William E. Rainey confers with Dr. Silvia Monticone, a physician scientist at the University of Torino, Italy. Monticone worked with Rainey for a year in his laboratory at Georgia Health Sciences University on research linking a genetic mutation found in some adrenal gland tumors to increased sodium retention and worsening blood pressure in patients.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Nearly 40 percent of the small adrenal tumors that cause big problems with high blood pressure share a genetic mutation that causes patients to retain too much sodium, researchers report.

The study of  47 human, benign adrenal gland tumors also showed a mutation of the gene KCNJ5 is twice as likely to occur in women – 71 versus 29 percent – as it points to potential new treatments for some patients who don’t respond to current hypertension regimens, said Dr. William E. Rainey, Scientific Director of the Adrenal Center at Georgia Health Sciences University.

Addititionally, when scientists put the mutated gene into an adrenal cell, it immediately starts producing the sodium-retaining hormone aldosterone.  “We found it turned on a whole series of genes that cause the cell to produce aldosterone,” Rainey said.

Typically, KCNJ5 appears to help normalize levels of the sodium-retaining hormone aldosterone by regulating how much potassium is pumped in and out of aldosterone-producing cells on the outer layer of the adrenal glands. Abnormal protein produced by the mutated gene alters the cells’ electrical status.

“When this gene has a mutation, the cells lose control and just start producing aldosterone all the time,” said Rainey, corresponding author of the study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

“The combination of too much salt and too much of this hormone leads to high blood pressure and tissue damage,” said Rainey. He notes that the vast majority of the 311 million Americans consume too much salt, even if they never pick up a salt shaker, because of high content in breads, processed and fast foods and the like. An estimated 33 percent of Americans are hypertensive and an estimated 1 in 10 have adrenal problems as the cause.

A 2011 study led by Yale University and published in the journal Science showed that the tumors had a KCNJ5 mutation. GHSU researchers, along with colleagues at University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor; University of Torino and University of Padova, Italy; University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas; and Keio University,Tokyo linked the gene to aldosterone production.

Now the GHSU Adrenal Center is moving forward with studies to determine why women with adrenal tumors have more of the mutated gene – Rainey suspects it’s estrogen-related. They also want to know if any of the dozen potassium channel inhibitors already on the market for heart and other disorders can help these patients as well.

Rainey said the gene mutation is one that occurs after birth – when most mutations occur – and the cause is unknown.  About half the people who produce too much aldosterone have tumors, which tend to affect only one of the 2-by-1-inch glands that sit like hats on top of the two kidneys and surgical removal typically fixes their problem. Unexplained enlargement of both glands likely also has a genetic basis and may be medically managed, Rainey said.

One of the many goals of the GHSU Adrenal Center, one of a handful of multidisciplinary centers in the nation, is to better define genes which can result in whole families being impacted. To date, only three genes are known to contribute to the familial form. Aldosterone excess, by whatever means, also is suspected when people under age 40 become hypertensive for no other obvious reason.

The adrenals are extremly efficient glands, producing three additional hormone groups that help maintain homeostasis including cortisol needed for glucose/carbohydrate metabolism, weak sex steroids that likely are the major source of androgens, or male hormones, in women; and the fight or flight hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine.  In the event both glands are removed, the vital hormones must be supplemented, Rainey said.

Patients typically come to the GHSU Adrenal Center with unexplained hypertension that isn’t responding to traditional therapy. “They are typically on three or four medications and their blood pressure is still not under control,” said Dr. Michael A. Edwards, Clinical Director of the Adrenal Center and Chief of the MCG Section of Minimally Invasive and Digestive Diseases Surgery. Computerized tomography done for other reasons can detect over-sized glands or tumors that may be the culprit.

For more information, visit http://www.mcghealth.org/adrenal/GhsuContentPage.aspx?nd=367.

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Chris Bonham, Administrative Director at the Georgia Health Sciences Neuroscience Center, and his dance pro, Brandie Rozier.

Bonham and the other celebrities, all paired with professional dancers, are performing to raise funds for the Georgia chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. Each dollar they raise counts as a vote. Supporters can vote for their favorite pair in the weeks leading up to the event and during the gala dance competition.

Bonham will show off his moves in front of a panel of judges during the second annual competition on Friday, June 8 at the Bell Auditorium. Tickets for the event can be purchased online at www.dancingstarsofaugusta.com .

Find about more about Bonham’s progress on his official dancing page at www.dancingstarsofaugusta.com/ChrisBonham.

The Finance Committees of both boards will also meet telephonically at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, May 29. The meeting can be accessed by calling 888-224-7958.

For more information, call Tracy Townsend at 706-721-6569.

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“I am excited about the opportunity. I want to see the Southwest Georgia Clinical Campus become the choice, particularly for students who want to practice primary care or rural medicine,” said Simmons, who is Chief Medical Information Officer for Tift Regional Medical Center. “It’s a great place to learn how things really are and to get to do them.”

The Georgia Health Sciences University MCG Southwest Georgia Clinical Campus, based at Phoebe Putney Health System in Albany, enables third- and fourth-year medical students to live and learn alongside Southwest Georgia physicians. Established in 2005, it was the college’s first regional clinical campus in support of its mission to provide more physicians for the state. In 2010, the campus received residential status that lets students remain in the region for up two years.

“Granville’s knowledge of the individuals and institutions that constitute health care in Southwest Georgia coupled with his enthusiasm for medical education make him an ideal choice for this position,” said Dr. Linda Boyd, MCG’s Associate Dean for Regional Campus Coordination. “His leadership will help the campus expand quality learning opportunities for students and ensure that the physicians, clinics and hospitals that open their doors to our students are recognized for the invaluable role they play in the health of our state.” She noted that more than 140 physicians throughout Southwest Georgia help teach MCG students.

Simmons, who grew up in Southwest Georgia, has practiced pediatrics in the area for nearly 40 years. He parlayed an early knack for science and math into a medical career that has focused on treating children in rural areas of Georgia and giving back to a profession he loves. “I learned from doctors who were practicing so it’s a sense of paying back,” he said.” It’s also the reality that bringing students to Southwest Georgia increases the chances of recruiting them back as practicing physicians.”

The 1973 graduate of MCG, who completed his pediatric residency at the GHS Health System, has served as Pediatric Clerkship Director for the Southwest Georgia Clinical Campus since 2010 and as a pediatric preceptor for third-year students since 2005.  He also is a clinical preceptor for the physician assistant program at the University of St. Frances, Albuquerque, N.M., campus and for the licensed practical nurse, nurse practitioner and physician assistant programs at Albany State University, Georgia Southwestern University, South University, Moultrie Technical College and East Central Technical College.

“Granville is an incredible role model and our students love him,” Boyd said. “He practices hands-on primary care in Tifton and its surrounding community, serving children and families from all backgrounds. He truly walks the walk and is the best person to lead our students into a life of service.”

Simmons founded his practice, Children’s Medical Center, PC, as a solo practitioner in 1983 and is now CEO of the group which includes five pediatricians, five nurse practitioners and offices in Tifton, Fitzgerald and Omega, Ga.

He co-chairs the Committee on Rural Health of the Georgia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He earned a certificate in medical management from the American College of Physician Executives and a master’s degree in medical management from Tulane University.

MCG offers students clinical training opportunities in approximately 100 sites across the state with the goal of exposing future physicians to the full spectrum of medicine, from tertiary/quaternary care hospitals to small-town solo practices and inspiring them to set up practice across the four corners of the state.

MCG has two additional clinical campuses, the Southeast Georgia Clinical Campus based at St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System in Savannah and the Southeast Georgia Health System in Brunswick, and Northwest Georgia Clinical Campus, based in Rome, which will be fully operational next year. A second, four-year campus in Athens, the GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership, in cooperation with the University of Georgia, has enabled class growth from 190 to 230 students. Additionally, GHSU is moving toward construction of an Education Commons facility that will support additional growth of medical and dental classes in Augusta.

Dr. W. Vaughn McCall, has been named Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior.

AUGUSTA, Ga. –  Dr. W. Vaughn McCall, Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at Wake Forest University Health Sciences, has been named Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University.

“Vaughn is established as an innovative, passionate leader, scientist and clinician,” said Dr. Peter F. Buckley, MCG Dean. “He will be invaluable to us as we continue to strengthen our Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior and move the Medical College of Georgia forward.”

“The Department of Psychiatry at GHSU is about to embark upon an exciting period of clinical and academic growth, and is poised to capitalize upon prior success,” McCall said. “I am fortunate to be able to join a department with a great history and look forward to being part of its future.”

Dr. Stewart Shevitz, Interim Chair since 2010, will continue in the role until McCall starts July 1. “I cannot say enough about Stewart’s leadership and service to his department, college and university. He is the consummate professional,” said Buckley, who chaired the department for a decade before being named Interim Dean, then Dean.

“Vaughn’s leadership and experience will be critical to helping Georgia Health Sciences Health System meet the mental health needs of our state, through direct provision of care as well as strategic collaboration,” said David S. Hefner, GHSU’s Executive Vice President for Clinical Affairs and Chief Executive Officer of Georgia Health Sciences Medical Center. A key alliance is the three-year-old partnership between GHSU and the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, which has the university managing East Central Regional Hospital, a state facility specializing in mental illness, substance abuse and mental retardation. The partnership has resulted in additional faculty recruits as well as a dedicated educational unit at a hospital that was struggling to survive.

“Vaughn McCall has been a colleague, collaborator and friend for over 25 years,” said Dr. Frank E. Shelp, Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities.  He is the right person to continue the collaboration between GHSU and the State Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities and Georgia Regional Hospital Augusta.”

The new chair’s clinical and research interests include depression, electroconvulsive therapy, sleep disorders and depression. His research has been continuously funded by the National Institute of Mental Health since 1995 and he has authored or co-authored 148 peer-reviewed journal articles and 15 book chapters.

“Vaughn’s established record as a federally-funded, well-published clinical investigator is very much on par with the university’s plan to not only provide excellent care but to raise the threshold for care across our state and nation,” said Dr. Gretchen B. Caughman, GHSU Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost. “We are happy to welcome him to the leadership team.”

McCall, a faculty member at Wake Forest since 1991, is Medical Director of the Sleep Center at Wake Forest University Health System and previously served as Vice Chair of Psychiatry and Head of the Section on Geriatric Psychiatry at Wake Forest University Health Sciences.

He is an examiner for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and Editor of the Journal of ECT. McCall is a member of the Board of Directors and a former President of the Association of Convulsive Therapy and currently a faculty member for its Certificate Course. He is a former Director of the Board of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. His honors include the 2005 American Association of Chairs of Departments of Psychiatry Distinguished Visiting Professor Award.

He completed his medical degree and postgraduate psychiatric training at Duke University and a master’s degree in epidemiology from Wake Forest University in 1999. He is board certified in general psychiatry, geriatric psychiatry and sleep medicine.

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A student at the 2011 Future Scientists Camp

Georgia Health Sciences University will host two science and leadership camps this summer for teenagers age 14-18 with sickle cell disease.

Participants in the GHSU Future Scientists Camps receive hands-on laboratory experience in sickle cell research, develop self-advocacy and leadership skills, and learn about health sciences career opportunities.

The free overnight camps run June 11-15 and July 9-13 and include meals and accommodations on the GHSU campus in Augusta. A limited number of spaces are still available for the June session.

The program is endorsed by the GHSU Sickle Cell Center and funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.

For more information, contact Leah Taylor at letaylor@georgiaheatlh.edu or Robert Gibson at rgibson@georgiahealth.edu or call 706-721-3641.

Drs. Michael Dinkins (from left), Guanghu Wang and Erhard Bieberich

AUGUSTA, Ga. – When brain cells start oozing too much of the amyloid protein that is the hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, the astrocytes that normally nourish and protect them deliver a suicide package instead, researchers report.

Amyloid is excreted by all neurons, but rates increase with aging and dramatically accelerate in Alzheimer’s. Astrocytes, which deliver blood, oxygen and nutrients to neurons in addition to hauling off some of their garbage, get activated and inflamed by excessive amyloid.

Now researchers have shown another way astrocytes respond is by packaging the lipid ceramide with the protein PAR-4, which independently can do damage but together are a more “deadly duo,” said Dr. Erhard Bieberich, biochemist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University.

“If the neuron makes something toxic and dumps it at your door, what would you do?” said Bieberich, corresponding author of the study published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. “You would probably do something to defend yourself.”

The researchers hypothesize that this lipid-coated package ultimately kills them both, which could help explain the brain-cell death and shrinkage that occurs in Alzheimer’s. “If the astrocytes die, the neurons die,” Bieberich said, noting studies suggest that excess amyloid alone does not kill brain cells. “There must be a secondary process toxifying the amyloid; otherwise the neuron would self-intoxicate before it made a big plaque,” he said. “The neuron would die first.”

One of many avenues for future pursuit include whether a ceramide antibody could be a viable Alzheimer’s treatment. In the researchers’ studies of brain cells of humans with Alzheimer’s as well as an animal model of the disease, antibodies to ceramide and Par-4 prevented astrocytes’ amyloid-induced death.

Ceramide and Par-4 get packaged in lipid-coated vesicles called exosomes; all cells secrete thousands of these vesicles but scientists are only beginning to understand their normal function. When exosomes become deadly, they are called apoxosomes.

Ceramide and Par-4 are typically not in a vesicle, rather in two distinct parts of a cell. Ceramide appears to take the lead in bringing the two together when confronted with amyloid. Bieberich and colleagues at the University of Georgia reported in 2003 that the deadly duo helps eliminate duplicate brain cells that occur early in brain development when their survival could result in a malformed brain. They suspected then that the duo might also have a role in Alzheimer’s.

Risk factors for Alzheimer’s include aging, family history and genetics, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Increasing evidence suggests that Alzheimer’s also shares many of the same risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure and inactivity.

Drs. Guanghu Wang, research scientist, and Michael Dinkins, postdoctoral fellow, are co-first authors on the study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

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Each year Popular Science editors look at hundreds of “homebrew” inventions to determine if they are truly inventions that solve serious problems and have a chance to become real-world products. One of 10 Inventions Awards for 2012 went to what the magazine categorized, a “Soldier Saver,” an abdominal aortic tourniquet designed to prevent soldiers from rapidly bleeding out in the field. The tourniquet was developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University, and Dr. John Croushorn, Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Trinity Medical Center in Birmingham, Ala. The first shipment of the tourniquet is being delivered to the U.S. Army in June and discussions are underway with other friendly military organizations across the world. The doctors will be teaching courses on how to use the tourniquet to the military and law enforcement. Device development was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense.
Related links: Emergency medicine physicians develop device to stop lethal bleeding in soldiers.

Dr. Joe Tsien

AUGUSTA, Ga. – He’s built a smarter mouse and taken a snapshot of a memory in his efforts to decode the brain.

“We are looking at the software code that runs the brain machine,” said Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, neuroscientist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University. Answering questions like how a memory forms and what it takes to conjure it up will provide the kind of objective biomarkers needed to better diagnose and treat debilitating brain disorders, such as Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia, he noted. “(Doing otherwise would be) like trying to diagnose and treat diabetes if you didn’t know it had anything to do with insulin and blood glucose.”

Tsien’s more than two decades of memory science have earned him the 2012 International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society’s Distinguished Scientist Award. He is being honored during the society’s14^th Annual Meeting May 15-19 in Boulder, Colo.

The society lauded the Co-Director of GHSU’s Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute as a prominent leader in elucidating the molecular and neural mechanisms of learning and memory. He was noted as a pioneer in the development of Cre/loxP techniques, key tools for developing disease-specific animal models widely used by scientists to study divergent medical problems.

Cre/loxP techniques make use of a virus’ ability to insert itself into the DNA – Tsien likens it to DNA scissors – to selectively remove or manipulate existing genes or even add disease genes to particular cells or organs. “You really want to know when you manipulate a certain gene, how that affects cognition or behavior, for example,” Tsien said.  “Cre/loxP gives you a tool to selectively manipulate any gene in a given cell type or tissue at a given time.”

He’s used it to help dissect how memories form, what they look like and how to selectively erase or even enhance them. A focal point for his studies is NMDA receptors, essentially small pores on brain cell membranes that let ions in, increasing brain cell activity and communication.

Tsien garnered international acclaim in 1999 by using genetic techniques to make “Doogie,” a smart mouse that over-expresses a subunit of the NMDA receptor called NR2B. Young brains have more NR2B, which enables faster learning by leaving communication channels between brain cells open longer. A decade later, he used the same approach to produce the smart rat, Hobbie-J.

In some of his latest work, published in 2011 in the journal Neuron, Tsien showed that NMDA receptors in the basal ganglia, a clustering of cells involved in procedural memories such as habits, are critical to habit formation. He used Cre/loxP to selectively remove the receptors from dopaminergic neurons in adult mice, noting that if the gene for NMDA receptors had been deleted from the entire body before birth, the mice would not have survived.

Now he has early images of what a memory looks like once it becomes a habit and evidence of how a habit might be selectively erased. Tsien has done similar work documenting how declarative memories are made, what they look like and how to selectively erase them.  “If you forget a memory, what happens to that neural network?” he mused. “Are the patterns formed to make the memory just gone? How can we restore them?”

The “image” of a memory is the unique electrical pattern relevant brain cells make as a memory is recalled. “The way we measure memory, whether it’s a habit or episodic memory, is based on recall,” Tsien said, but more object measurement is needed.

“You are nodding your head indicating you are listening to me, but are you just being polite? Is your mind really elsewhere? We are looking for real-time brain markers, the activity pattern markers that represent a particular thought and action.  We are very fascinated by these types of questions,” the researcher said. New avenues include social behavior, such as how friendships develop.

Tsien is the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Cognitive and Systems Neurobiology.

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To address these and other public health challenges, Georgia Health Sciences University has established an Institute of Public and Preventive Health integrating the enterprise’s public health research initiatives, hosting community programs and cultivating a public health fellowship program.

“Georgia is ranked near the bottom nationwide in type 2 diabetes, infant mortality, pre-term, low-birth and teen-birth rates, obesity, tuberculosis, hepatitis and AIDS,” said GHSU President Ricardo Azziz in announcing the institute. “We must address these health inequities and examine the social, racial and economic causes of poor health in order to provide better health for our citizens, with greater cost-effectiveness and economic benefit for our state.”

Initially, the institute will focus on community-related service activities and on interdisciplinary research programs that concentrate on health management and administration, epidemiology, behavioral health and health education, environmental and occupational health, and biostatistics.

Nearly 40 faculty scholars from GHSU’s five colleges will staff the institute, and additional research faculty are being recruited.

Researchers of the new institute already receive more than $6 million in external grant support annually.

“The GHSU Institute of Public and Preventive Health will conduct cutting edge research and provide services responsive to emerging community health needs,” said College of Allied Health Sciences Dean Andrew Balas, who will serve as founding Director of the institute. “The new institute will bring great energy and new scientific evidence to our efforts at improving public and preventive health in Georgia.”

The Georgia Prevention Institute will integrate with the new institute and be renamed the Georgia Prevention Center. It will continue its focus on behavioral health and health education research and childhood obesity.

A health management and information studies component will build on expertise and resources in the College of Allied Health Sciences Department of Health Management and Informatics. Population studies will be supported by the College of Graduate Studies Department of Biostatistics.

The new institute will also establish a community health network group to respond to emerging public health needs, support new networks and provide population data management infrastructure.

An advisory board of community stakeholders will support and counsel the institute to ensure quality, relevance and progress.

Ultimately, the institute will develop innovative multidisciplinary public health research, apply and test novel public health strategies and technologies, and advocate for effective public health policy and law, Balas added.

Illustrative 2012 activities include:

• Grant program for research addressing community health needs
• Health behavior screening and education to address needs of the elderly
• Forum focused on health issues of teens and young adults
• Community health updates for public and private stakeholders
• Public health seminar series
• Consortium of regional employee health benefits managers
• Collaboration with Ft. Gordon on health issues of military personnel

For more information, call 855-TAKESTAND (855-825-3782).

Drs. Andrew L. Mellor (left) and Lei Huang at Georgia Health Sciences University have shown a system called DNA nanoparticles, used to deliver genes or drugs directly into cells to treat a variety of diseases, may help arthritis without delivering anything.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – A DNA-covered submicroscopic bead used to deliver genes or drugs directly into cells to treat disease appears to have therapeutic value just by showing up, researchers report.

Within a few hours of injecting empty-handed DNA nanoparticles, Georgia Health Sciences University researchers were surprised to see increased expression of an enzyme that calms the immune response.

In an animal model of rheumatoid arthritis, the enhanced expression of indoleomine 2,3 dioxygenase, or IDO, significantly reduced the hallmark limb joint swelling and inflammation of this debilitating autoimmune disease, researchers report in the study featured on the cover of The Journal of Immunology.

“It’s like pouring water on a fire,” said Dr. Andrew L. Mellor, Director of the GHSU’s Medical College of Georgia Immunotherapy Center and the study’s corresponding author. “The fire is burning down the house, which in this case is the tissue normally required for your joints to work smoothly,” Mellor said of the immune system’s inexplicable attack on bone-cushioning cartilage. “When IDO levels are high, there is more water to control the fire.”

Several delivery systems are used for gene therapy, which is used to treat conditions including cancer, HIV infection and Parkinson’s disease.  The new findings suggest the DNA nanoparticle technique has value as well for autoimmune diseases such as arthritis, type 1 diabetes and lupus. “We want to induce IDO because it protects healthy tissue from destruction by the immune system,” Mellor said.

The researchers were exploring IDO’s autoimmune treatment potential by inserting the human IDO gene into DNA nanoparticles. They hoped to enhance IDO expression in their arthritis model when Dr. Lei Huang, Assistant Research Scientist and the paper’s first author, serendipitously found that the DNA nanoparticle itself produced the desired result. Exactly how and why is still being pursued. Early evidence suggests that immune cells called phagocytes, white blood cells that gobble up undesirables like bacteria and dying cells, start making more IDO in response to the DNA nanoparticle’s arrival. “Phagocytes eat it and respond quickly to it and the effect we measure is IDO,” Mellor said.

Dr. Tracy L. McGaha, GHSU immunologist and a co-author on the current study, recently discovered that similar cells also prevented development of systemic lupus erythematosus in mice.

Follow-up studies include documenting all cells that respond by producing more IDO. GHSU researchers already are working with biopolymer experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, Berkeley and the Georgia Institute of Technology to identify the optimal polymer.

The polymer used in the study is not biodegradable so the researchers need one that will eventually safely degrade in the body. Ideally, they’d also like it to target specific cells, such as those near inflamed joints, to minimize any potential ill effects.

“It’s like a bead and you wrap the DNA around it,” Mellor said of the polymer. While the DNA does not have to carry anything to get the desired response in this case, DNA itself is essential to make cells express IDO. To ensure that IDO expression was responsible for the improvements, they also performed experiments in mice given an IDO inhibitor in their drinking water and in mice genetically altered to not express IDO. “Without access to the IDO pathway, the therapy no longer works,” Mellor said.

Drs. Andrew Mellor and David Munn reported in 1998 in the journal Science that the fetus expresses IDO to help avoid rejection by the mother’s immune system. Subsequent studies have shown tumors also use IDO for protection and clinical trials are studying the tumor-fighting potential of an IDO inhibitor. On the flip side, there is evidence that increasing IDO expression can protect transplanted organs and counter autoimmune disease.

Mellor is the Bradley-Turner and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Molecular Immunogenetics at MCG.  The research was funded by the Carlos and Marguerite Mason Trust and the National Institutes of Health and a patent is pending on the findings.

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Hometown fans have another chance to see Columbia County boys Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood and to help raise funds for the region’s only children’s hospital. $5 from every ticket purchased (from a limited number of inventory) for the May 23 performance at James Brown Arena will go to the Children’s Medical Center.

To purchase tickets and support the Children’s Medical Center, visit http://bit.ly/JYwtSe and enter promotional code GAHEALTH.

For more information about this fundraiser, call Rebecca Bruni in the office of Advancement and Community Relations at Georgia Health Sciences University at 706-721-4002

About GHS Children’s Medical Center
The 154-bed Georgia Health Sciences Children’s Medical Center is the second largest children’s hospital in the state, providing the highest level of pediatric critical care and neonatal intensive care as well as a wide range of general and complex health care for children.

About Lady Antebellum
Lady Antebellum is a country music group that formed in 2006 in Nashville, Tenn. Its members include lead vocalists Charles Kelley and Hillary Scott, and background vocalist, guitar, mandolin and piano player Dave Haywood. Lady Antebellum’s quick rise to fame has earned the group dozens of awards, including seven from the Academy of Country Music, six from the Country Music Association, two American Music Awards and seven Grammys. For more information, please visit ladyantebellum.com.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Her maturity and commitment to patients led a professor to dub her “Captain Cook.”  But for Katie Cook, the nickname was not a complete misnomer.

After graduating from Notre Dame in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, she began her military career at Fort Stewart, Ga., where she coordinated training for 27 army medics and maintained more than $6 million in medical equipment. She was deployed to Iraq in 2002 and as 1^st Lt. Executive Officer, she led, trained, disciplined and ensured the health and morale of 85 soldiers. She received the Bronze Star Medal and the Combat Medical Badge for support work – all amid active ground combat during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

She returned from Iraq in 2003 and earned a master’s degree in clinical anatomy from Creighton University. There, she worked as a teaching assistant in the medical gross anatomy lab, teaching 120 first-year medical students what they could learn from their “first patients.”

“Her journey into (that lab) led Katie to her first patients, the cadavers for whom she held such respect and esteem and ‘who served as my first teachers of medicine and of reverence for the human body,’” wrote Dr. Kathleen McKie, Associate Dean for Student Affairs in GHSU’s Medical College of Georgia. Cook took on the same role in 2009 after her first year of medical school.

“She (fulfills) the meaning of the word physician, which is ‘teacher,’ in (that) role,” McKie wrote. “She imparted not only the anatomic knowledge of the body but reverence and respect for the human being.”

Those qualities also carried over to Katie’s care of living patients.

“Katie is a constant patient advocate and she considers the emotional needs of patients in addition to their challenging clinical problems,” wrote Dr. Steven Holsten, Associate Program Director of the general surgery rotation in the Department of Surgery. “She was particularly effective in the (Surgical Intensive Care Unit) working with a patient and her family that had terminal ovarian cancer. The patient had severe sepsis and was non-responsive, yet Katie was very concerned with the patient’s dignity and the emotional state of the family. She was a key player in providing compassionate care in a setting that can be stale and clinical, and I admire her for that.”

In a similar story, Dr. McKie wrote “Katie had the fortune to get to know a couple from rural Georgia when the husband was hospitalized at GHS Medical Center following a stroke. She spent many hours listening to the couple talk of their family and recount tales of their grandchildren noting that she could not cure or offer solutions, but she could listen and relate. The time she spent answering questions, explaining situations, reassuring when she could, and providing the support and the human touch of a health care provider will not be forgotten by Katie or by the couple she cared for and supported through such challenging events.”

Katie’s compassion, sensitivity and willingness to help others has earned her GHSU’s 2012 John F. Beard Award for Compassionate Care. She received the award and earned a medical degree during commencement May 11.

The $25,000 annual Beard Award is endowed by William Porter “Billy” Payne and his wife, Martha, to a graduating GHSU student who exemplifies caring and compassion in health care. Payne, Chairman of the Augusta National Golf Club, established the award in 1998 to memorialize his father-in-law, who died of cancer in 1997. The award honors GHSU President Emeritus Francis J. Tedesco and Mr. Beard’s physician, Dr. Mark F. Williams, a 1988 MCG graduate who treated Mr. Beard during his hospitalization at MCG.

“I would let (Katie) care for my wife and children, and if you know surgeons, that is the highest compliment I can pay my friend,” Holsten said.

Challenging the emerging generation of health care professionals to “leave a big footprint,” Nobel Prize Laureate Ferid Murad counseled hard work, persistence and patience as guest speaker at Georgia Health Sciences University’s 2012 commencement ceremony May 11.

“You can be sure that the medicine and research practiced in the next 20 to 30 years will be quite different than it is today,” Murad told the university’s 795 graduates.

Murad, who with two colleagues received the 1998 Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology for discovering the role of nitric oxide in the cardiovascular system, challenged the graduates to establish and continually reassess long-term professional goals while forging strong personal relationships and having fun.

Murad, the son of poor immigrants who was the first member of his family to attend college, recalls memorizing the orders of customers in his family’s small restaurant. He also tallied their bills in his mind “as a game and mental exercise,” he said. “In my free time, I would do math problems, crossword puzzles and memorize license plate numbers, lists of random numbers and words in the dictionary. These mental games proved very useful later when I was learning medicine and chemistry.”

Seven-hundred and ninety-five future health care professionals were recognized as the newest graduates of Georgia Health Sciences University.

The exercises also reinforced his strong sense of discipline and resilience, qualities that came in handy as he worked his way through college.

After graduating first in his class in Case Western Reserve University’s M.D./Ph.D. program, he completed a combined clinical and research fellowship at the National Heart Institute, finally completing his training at age 34. “I thought about more fellowship training but decided it was time to get a real job and support my wife and five children,” he said with a laugh.

As Director of the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Signaling at George Washington University, Murad revels in a career that draws on skills in clinical medicine, basic research, business and teaching. “I have enjoyed all of these aspects of my career and can assure you that I must continue to learn,” he said. “My students and trainees generally teach me more than I teach them. Indeed, this learning process should never end as your profession advances. The development of long-term learning skills and self-discipline is probably more important than some of the factual data you will learn.”

As exciting as his Nobel Prize was, he is more excited by the potential that his findings unleashed. “Although we have learned a great deal about the biological effects of nitric oxide, I believe much more can be learned to maximize its application in medicine in the future,” he said. “Nitric oxide research has become one of the most popular areas in biology. Many drugs have been developed and many more are in clinical trials. Our research has influenced the health care of millions of people.”

Quoting Jonas Salk, he said, “I feel that the greatest reward for discovering is the opportunity to do more.”

Such a noble footprint is within reach of every GHSU graduate, he assured the class, noting, “There may be a future Nobel Laureate in this graduating class.”

Videos:

• Augusta State University Commencement Ceremony
• GHSU’s 183rd Commencement

Oliver Smithies

Nobel Laureate Oliver Smithies’ pioneering role in genetically altering laboratory mice has dramatically changed the landscape of biomedical research.

But esoteric expertise wasn’t what he wanted to convey during a May 10 visit to campus.

As the Department of Physiology’s ninth Mahesh Lecturer, he wanted to impart more basic lessons gleaned from humble roots in a small English village.

“Even though it was a little village, it did produce a Nobel Laureate,” he said of the lush green countryside of Halifax, Yorkshire that he called home. “An adjacent village produced two Nobel Laureates, both taught by the same teacher. There must have been something magical about the place. I’ve decided it was the water.”

Of course, his tongue was firmly in cheek. The common denominator of the three Nobel Laureates, he said, was boundless curiosity and teachers who challenged and inspired them.

Smithies, whose PowerPoint presentation consisted of handwritten notes and formulas compiled over a 60-plus-year career, challenged the filled-to-capacity audience to tap into their own homespun wisdom as they advance their careers.

For instance, it was early in Smithie’s career that he invented gel electrophoresis by recalling the tendency of his mother’s laundry starch to become gelatinous in water. He continues to jerry-rig his own inventions to this day when needed, including one to expedite polymerized chain reaction. His students have affectionately dubbed the inventions NBGBOKFO (no bloody good but OK for others). Necessity, Smithies noted, is the mother of invention, recalling that his lack of a camera as a young man led him to hand-draw his assays and other laboratory observations.

Speaking of no-frills supplies, he urged his audience to keep good notes. “Then, when your cell phone rings or your Tweeter twits,” he said to laughter, “you’ll remember where you were.”

Collaboration is also vital, he said. “You can ask people for help. Good scientists will always help. If they won’t help others, they don’t classify in my mind as scientists. But the reciprocal is that you have to help others.”

Another bit of advice? Respect the basics. When he started genetically analyzing proteins, he sought out the first literature ever published on the subject: a 1910 paper describing sickle cell disease. “The best way to learn about a new subject is to go back to when it was first discovered,” he said. “The first papers are relatively simple and easy to understand.”

But a good scientist can never read too much, he stressed, noting that one of his favorite parts of teaching is that “if you teach things, you have to read carefully.”

Smithies also counsels fledgling scientists to boldly pursue avenues that may reap few rewards. He joked that his first published paper in 1948 has the distinction of “never having been quoted by anybody. Then you have to ask yourself: What was the point? The answer is that I learned good science doing it. And if it doesn’t matter what you do, you better enjoy it.”

He still works evenings and weekends “doing crazy experiments,” he said, “because it’s not work. Find something that you like to do.”

The parting words of Smithies, Weatherspoon Eminent Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill whose 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine attests to a prolific and well-loved career, were, “I don’t know.”

As the words flashed on the screen, he explained, “That’s what makes science exciting.”

The regents voted Jan. 10 to consolidate the universities and charged a 21-member Consolidation Working Group to oversee the process. The committee unanimously endorsed a draft of the mission after broad-based feedback from members of both universities before submitting it to the regents.

“It was important that the new mission reflect the true breadth and scope of the new comprehensive research university, which would include an aligned and integrated health system,” said GHSU President Ricardo Azziz, who will oversee the consolidated university. “Our focus will remain on educational quality, excellence and success, but it is important that our mission reflect the new reality – that we will be a completely new comprehensive university, competing with peers in the state and beyond, acting like the great American institution we will be, adapting and accepting change, responding rapidly and decisively, emphasizing the training and responsibility of our leaders and focused on growth and development.”

“This is a time of great change for our universities and this new mission statement, developed with input from faculty, staff, students and the community, will lay the foundation for what we expect to be as a consolidated institution,” added ASU President William A. Bloodworth Jr. “It will guide us in more effective planning for the consolidation by serving as a guidepost for what we stand for—and that is always excellence in all that we do.”

The mission will become effective after accreditation by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, expected next January, after which the Board of Regents will formally approve the consolidation.

The mission of the new university will be “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.”

Next steps include submitting three proposed names for the new university to the Board of Regents by July 1. The board is expected to review those names at its August meeting.

Augusta, Ga. –

• Breast ultrasound
• Mammography
• Computed tomography
• Magnetic resonance imaging
• Nuclear medicine
• Positron emission tomography
• Ultrasound

Additionally, the Georgia Health Sciences Breast Health Center was named an ACR Breast Imaging Center of Excellence in 2011 for superior imaging results in mammography, stereotactic breast biopsy and breast ultrasound.

The ACR gold seal of accreditation represents the highest level of image quality and patient safety. It is awarded only to facilities meeting ACR Practice Guidelines and Technical Standards after a peer-review evaluation by board-certified physicians and medical physicists who are experts in the field. Image quality, personnel qualifications, adequacy of facility equipment, quality control procedures and quality assurance programs are assessed. The findings are reported to the ACR Committee on Accreditation, which follows up with a comprehensive report the practice can use for continuous improvement.

ACR-accredited facilities are characterized by:

• A hospital, clinic or health center that has voluntarily completed a rigorous review process to ensure nationally accepted standards.
• Personnel well-qualified through education and certification to perform and interpret medical images and administer radiation therapy treatments.
• Equipment appropriate for a given test or treatment, and a facility that meets or exceeds quality assurance and safety guidelines.

The ACR is a national professional organization serving more than 34,000 diagnostic/interventional radiologists, radiation oncologists, nuclear medicine physicians and medical physicists with programs focusing on the practice of medical imaging and radiation oncology and the delivery of comprehensive health care services.

In addition, Georgia Health Sciences participates in the Image Gently campaign, an initiative of the ACR and Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging to minimize radiation exposure in children.

The GHS Children’s Medical Center, the region’s only children’s hospital, performs radiology scans only when necessary, scanning only the indicated region, and only once, to minimize radiation exposure. GHS radiologists also explore alternatives to radiation, such as ultrasound or MRI.

GHS Medical Center is the only medical facility in the area with two full-time board-certified medical physicists who work directly with the radiology team to design and optimize imaging techniques. In addition, several GHSU faculty are Fellows of the American College of Radiology, where they study, then put into practice the latest techniques to improve patient care.

For more information about imaging services at Georgia Health Sciences Health System, call 706-721-XRAY (9729).

The six-banner exhibit explores the lives of African Americans who served as nurses and surgeons during the Civil War, and shows how their roles as health care providers challenged the prescribed notions of race and gender.

“By hosting the exhibition, we pay tribute to the contributions of African Americans to the fields of science and medicine,” said Dr. David N. King, Interim Director of Libraries at GHSU. “It is important that we do not overlook this important piece of history.”

In addition to the panel exhibit, GHSU will present the Civil War Medicine Symposium Wednesday, June 6 from 2 to 5 p.m. in room 108 of the Greenblatt Library. The symposium will feature presentations and discussions with Dr. A. Jay Bollet, Dr. Shauna Devine and Dillion J. Carroll.

Bollet, author of “Civil War Medicine: Changes and Triumphs,” and co-author of “Images of Civil War Medicine,” will discuss An Evaluation of the Quality of Medical Care During the Civil War. He served as Chair of the Department of Medicine at State University of New York at Brooklyn and Medical College of Georgia, and Professor of Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, University of Virginia and Wayne State University. Bollet received his medical degree from New York University.

Devine, Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Duke University and Managing Editor of the Journal of the History and Medicine and Allied Sciences, will discuss Producing Knowledge: Civil War Bodies and the Development of the Medical Sciences in 19^th Century America. She holds a doctorate in medical history from the University of Western Ontario.

Carroll, a doctoral candidate at the University of Georgia studying the intersections of gender, trauma, medicine and public health during the American Civil War, will discuss The Living Souls, the Bodies’ Tragedies: A Comparative Analysis of Amputation and PTSD in the Civil War. His dissertation focuses on the impact of physical and psychological injuries on Civil War soldiers and their struggles to reintegrate into civilian society.

A reception will follow in the library’s Historical Collections and Archives Room.

For more information, contact Renee Sharrock at 706-721-3444.

In the spirit of partnership Augusta Ballet will be the first community organization to host an event in the College of Dental Medicine and ASU and GHSU employees will receive discounted admission to the event.

The gala pays tribute to the surrealist art movement of the 1920s including creative menu, live music, dancing and silent auction.

The event takes its cue from the Salvador Dali-inspired sculpture Four Stages of Higher Learning, exhibited in the College of Dental Medicine.

Gala entertainment includes Heidi Rosenau, New York City’s celebrated dancer with partner Joe McGlynn. The duo recently performed for the Museum of the City of New York and Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Gala dress is black-tie optional with guests encouraged to wear attire evoking the event.

Proceeds fund Augusta Ballet’s programming including its collaborative fight against childhood obesity. Tickets are available via www.augustaballet.org or (706) 261-0555.

For more information, visit www.augustaballet.org or call (706) 261-0555.

Important Note: In order to obtain the ASU/GHSU discount ($75 vs $125), buyers must select “Young Friends” rate via our website (they can also call our office to obtain).  Tickets must be bought prior to event, fast approaching Sat. May 12, as we have limited reservation space. To enter event, ASU/GHSU ID must be presented at reservation check-in (front desk, College lobby).

AUGUSTA, Ga. –

Patients and families will share their experiences at the GHS Children’s Medical Center during the 2012 Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals Celebration, a telethon that will broadcast live from the hospital lobby from noon to 6 p.m. Sunday, June 3 on WRDW-TV Channel12. This special event celebrates the funds raised by sponsors and donors to benefit programs and services at GHS Children’s Medical Center, the area’s only children’s hospital. In addition, hospital staff, local volunteers and celebrities from Channel 12 will man the Knology-provided phone bank, accepting donations for the medical center during the fundraiser.

The broadcast will include video tours of the hospital; conversations with patients, donors and staff; and recognition of committed sponsors. Viewers also will get a first-hand look at the specialized care found only at a children’s hospital, including the pediatric transport team that cares for critically ill babies and children during ambulance rides and life flights and the Child Life specialists who interact with patients daily to take their minds off being in the hospital.

More than $858,000 was raised in 2011 for the not-for-profit GHS Children’s Medical Center. The hospital has been a beneficiary of Children’s Miracle Network proceeds since 1986. Donations have helped fund the many resources needed to enhance and maintain the quality of care children receive – everything from bandages to precision surgical instruments. For more information or to make a donation, call 706-721-4004, or visit giving.georgiahealth.edu.

The 154-bed Georgia Health Sciences Children’s Medical Center is the second-largest children’s hospital in the state, providing the highest level of pediatric critical care and neonatal intensive care as well as a wide range of general and complex health care for children.

Augusta, Ga. –

Pratt was cited for being a skilled mentor, educator and nursing hero who lives by the mantra that “You can never be wrong if you always do what is best for the patient.” She also received the Nurse Administrator of the Year award at the banquet.

Pratt joined Georgia Health Sciences Health System in 2002, where she oversees 20 Operating Rooms; two Women’s Operating Rooms; Perfusion Services; Anesthesia Services; the Post Anesthesia Care Units; Same Day Services; Endoscopy; Central Sterile Reprocessing and OR Purchasing/Materials. During her tenure, she significantly reduced the average cost per surgery as well as the amount of blood used. She is also credited with improving employee retention and reorganizing Perioperative Services into a patient-focused, service-oriented team.

Previously, she was Director of the Surgical Services Division at Mount Sinai Medical Center and Miami Heart Institute in Miami Beach, Fla. Pratt earned an AA degree in nursing from Manatee Community College in Bradenton, Fla., and Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Health Administration from the University of St. Francis in Joliet, Ill.

Pratt is a member of the Association of Operating Room Nurses, Georgia Nurses Association and the University HealthSystem Consortium Perioperative Council. She is also active in the local Heart Walk that  benefits the American Heart Association.

In all, there were 14 GHS nominees for Nurse of the Year, and two other nominees received recognition awards: Margaret Johnson, Senior Staff Nurse in Adult Perioperative Services was awarded Nurse Educator/Researcher of the Year, and Sue Andrews, Perianesthesia Manager, was awarded Nurse Manager of the Year.

Furthermore, the following GHS nurses received Spirit of Nursing awards at the Showcase for reflecting a positive image of the nursing profession and serving as role models and mentors to other nurses:

• Brenda Pitt, Emergency Department
• Dieredre Grzeskiewicz, Emergency Department
• Sarah Cartwright, Adult Perioperative Services
• Debra Marranci, Adult Perioperative Services
• Neva Harrsion, Medical Office Building
• Tod Schnetzler, Medical Office Building
• Susan Gurley, Children’s Medical Center
• Leesa Mary Hancock, Children’s Medical Center
• Pamela Gardner, Patient Care Services
• Rochelle Hunt-Kahn, Patient Care Services
• Kathryn Mathis,  Patient Care Services
• Kelli Holder, Patient Care Services

The Georgia Association of PeriAnesthesia Nurses also recognized GAPAN member Mariamma John, a Same Day Care Nurse on 8 West at GHS Medical Center, with a Spirit of Nursing award.

According to the American Nurses Association, there are about 3 million registered nurses in the United States today. Often described as an art and a science, nursing is a profession that has grown tremendously over the years. Most people associate nurses with hospitals, but hospitals are just one of the many areas where today’s nurses practice.

National Nurses Week is celebrated annually beginning on May 6, also known as National Nurses Day, through May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing.

The 478-bed Georgia Health Sciences Medical Center is operated by the Georgia Health Sciences Health System, a not-for-profit corporation that manages the clinical operations of Georgia Health Sciences University. The health system also includes a Critical Care Center, housing the region’s only Level I trauma center ; the 154-bed Children’s Medical Center, providing the highest level of pediatric critical care and neonatal intensive care; and more than 80 outpatient clinics that provide primary and specialty care inside the Medical Office Building.

Mariana D'Amico assists a patient in the GHSU Low Vision Rehabilitation Lab.

Nearly 14 million Americans – about one in every 20 people – have visual impairments and 61 million more are at high risk of serious vision loss. To help with this growing problem, Georgia Health Sciences has opened a Low Vision Rehabilitation Center.

The center, a collaboration of the Georgia Health Sciences University Medical College of Georgia Department of Ophthalmology; the College of Allied Health Sciences Department of Occupational Therapy and Driving Simulation Laboratory; and the GHS Medical Center Department of Rehabilitation Services, offers care strategies to patients with low vision.

“This is the first step in uniting vision research science with practicing ophthalmologists and occupational  therapists in an environment that enriches a visually impaired person’s life,” said Dr. Julian Nussbaum, Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology, who hopes to expand the program throughout the Southeast.

He plans to eventually integrate research and teaching components into the program through the university’s Vision Discovery Institute.

People with low vision tend to struggle with everyday tasks such as reading, shopping, cooking, paying bills and watching TV, even with corrective lenses, medication or surgery. They comprise the third-fastest-growing group in need of health services in the United States, outpaced only by those with arthritis and heart disease. Contributing to the burgeoning visually impaired population are aging baby boomers and people living longer with chronic diseases such as diabetes.

Treatment for patients with low vision typically has been limited to complex aids such as high-end magnifiers, which often become “expensive paperweights,” Nussbaum said. “People aren’t trained to use these devices, and they frequently don’t suit a person’s particular needs. There’s a whole host of complaints related to low vision and each person has a different priority. We have dedicated practitioners who can sort through this menagerie of things people want, whether it’s being able to sew, play cards or see their grandchildren’s faces.”

Once referred to the center by an ophthalmologist, patients complete a comprehensive evaluation of daily living activities, including orientation, cognitive ability, visual skills, balance, mobility and the need for adaptive techniques and equipment.

“Once we have a realistic assessment, we develop specific strategies in a customized therapy program,” said Mariana D’Amico, Associate Professor of Occupational Therapy and Director of the Low Vision Rehabilitation Center. “Our goal is to help individuals with vision impairment remain safe and independent as they adapt to challenges in their home and community environments.”

Grants from the John and Mary Franklin Foundation have funded the purchase of specialized assessment equipment, adaptive devices and other assistive technologies. A Community Reintegration Lab housed within the occupational therapy department includes a kitchen, restaurant, bank, grocery store and work simulation center.

D’Amico collaborates with Dr. Abiodun Akinwuntan, Associate Professor of Physical Therapy and Director of the GHSU Driving Simulation Laboratory, to assess and rehabilitate patients with driving concerns.

“This service is very much needed,” D’Amico said. “As the population ages, the need will only increase because it’s inevitable that there is some form of vision impairment, such as macular degeneration, glaucoma and cataracts.”

For more information, contact D’Amico at 706-721-3641 or mdamico@georgiahealth.edu.

AUGUSTA, Ga. –

Smithies, who helped develop methods to strategically modify mice genes, enabling development of animal models for human disease, will discuss “On Being a Scientist for 60 Years” at 9 a.m. Thursday, May 10 in Room 1222 of the Health Sciences Building.

Nobel Laureate, Ferid Murad, also to speak at GHSU graduation

He shared the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Mario R. Capecchi and Martin J. Evans. The  two-time recipient of the Gairdner Foundation Award for outstanding medical discoveries also received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the 2003 Wolf Prize in Medicine.

The Mahesh lectureship, established in 2001 by the MCG Department of Physiology to bring leaders in endocrinology to campus, honors Mahesh, Chair Emeritus of the department.

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The core includes enhanced student recruitment and retention, expanded research and educational portfolios, building a more robust clinical structure and increased quality focus, Buckley noted.

Over the last year, the college has increased efforts to attract and train tomorrow’s medical leaders. Accomplishments have included a 10 percent increase in applications to MCG – in 2011, 2,167 people applied for 230 slots. Among that 230, the average grade point average was 3.7 and the average score on the Medical College Admissions Test was 30.3 – both well above the national average, Buckley said. Students at MCG also posted a 99.5 percent pass rate on Step 1 of the U.S. Medical Licensing Exams and above-average pass rates on Step 2.

The college has also renewed its focus on training translational researchers in its M.D./Ph.D. program, with 19 students currently enrolled. “It is our job to train the world’s next physician scientists,” Buckley said.

The college has continued to increase its educational portfolio by expanding its regional campuses. Students in Athens will begin clinical rotations this fall, after completing their first two years of core curricula. “This is very exciting and a great opportunity,” Buckley said. The first batch of students who completed the Leadership and Advocacy Training Program at the Southwest Georgia Clinical Campus in Albany will graduate this month and MCG faculty are working to develop more opportunities for graduate medical education in that area. The Southeast Georgia Clinical Campus, based in Savannah and Brunswick, saw its first group of seven students spend their third year of medical school in the area and is enjoying new office space at St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System. The Northwest Georgia Clinical Campus in Rome is set to open in 2013.

But as the focus on undergraduate medical education increases, so will the need for residency programs, Buckley noted.

Georgia ranks 40th in physicians per capita and medical schools have done a good job at increasing class size, but the state has lagged behind on graduate medical education opportunities. A federal redistribution of residency slots completely overlooked the state and more federal budget cuts threatened growth. However, the University System of Georgia conducted a yearlong needs assessment and recommended that the system at Georgia Hospitals work together to create 400 new residency positions across the state. Research has shown that physicians are likely to practice where they train.

MCG is also working with University Hospital to expand an existing surgery rotation, re-start an obstetrics/gynecology rotation and begin a new hospitalist rotation. Pending approval by University’s Board of Trustees, those programs will start July 1.

The college’s research portfolio has strengthened, despite the trickling off of funds provided in President Barack Obama’s 2009 Stimulus Package. Extramural grants totaled $90 million in fiscal year 2011, with $58 million of that coming from the National Institutes of Health. The college also ranked ninth nationally in funding from the American Heart Association.

“Our researchers are reaching out globally through collaborations,” Buckley noted. “They are becoming increasingly sought after and known for their high-quality work.”

The college also is working to leverage research in key areas with clinical expertise, he added.

Georgia Health Sciences Medical Center and Children’s Medical Center are also working hard to improve efficiencies in a challenging health care environment. MCG officials are partnering with hospital administrators to ensure an integrated – academic and clinical – approach to providing care. Measuring quality is also increasingly crucial to clinical success. “We have moved quickly to put quality front and center,” Buckley said, “not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it will increasingly affect how hospitals are getting reimbursed.”

“It has been a whirlwind of a year,” he added. “We are in a time of unprecedented change, including structural and functional integration across our campus and we are moving at a remarkable pace.”

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Two Augusta physician leaders honored by MCG Dean
Georgia tries to keep medical students in state

Dr. William L. Farr Jr.

Dr. William L. Farr Jr., Chief Medical Officer for University Hospital for a dozen years, received the MCG Community Advocate Award from Dean Peter F. Buckley. Dr. Anthony L. Pearson-Shaver, Chief of the Section of Pediatric Critical Care at MCG and Clinical Service Chief of Pediatric Medicine at the Georgia Health Sciences Children’s Medical Center, received the Professionalism Award.

Award recipients were announced Friday by Buckley during his second State of the College Address.

“We want in a very public manner to recognize community advocacy and professionalism, two key areas of development, focus and importance to this medical school and really to any organization,” said Buckley, who presented the inaugural awards last year to Karyn Nixon, Executive Assistant to Augusta Mayor Deke Copenhaver  and the now-deceased Dr. Alan Roberts, Associate Professor of Medicine at MCG, whose many accomplishments included starting the medical school’s Mini-Med School for the public and serving as a strong advocate and educator of physician ethics.

Farr, an internist with a master’s degree in business administration, oversees clinical quality, patient safety, case management  and performance improvement at University Hospital, a large community facility that is strengthening its affiliation with Georgia Health Sciences University and its medical school.

The agreement, which will be fully operational this summer, expands resident and medical student education at University Hospital, which served as the teaching hospital for GHSU from the university’s founding in 1828 until it opened its own hospital in 1956. “University Hospital is dear to the hearts of many of our alumni, and now future generations will have these memories as well,” Buckley said.

“Dr. Farr has embraced the sentiment of reuniting on the important ground of educating physicians for our community and state,” Buckley said. He characterizes Farr as a “senior physician leader, wonderful partner and highly regarded member of the Augusta community. He could not be more helpful,” the dean said.

Dr. Anthony L. Pearson-Shaver

Pearson-Shaver is “a gentle giant of the institution,” who exemplifies professionalism and routinely exceeds the call of duty for patients, families, colleagues, students and residents, Buckley said. “This man is a leader. He has a remarkable ability to be introspective and critical about issues where we need to improve while remaining very positive and committed to our institution. He encourages us to make things better. This is a great skill many of us do not have. In addition to all those other aspects of professionalism and leadership with respect to patient care, training, modeling, mentorship, he also is someone who ‘shows up’ for things,” the dean said. “You can count on Tony to be there.”

Pearson-Shaver joined the MCG faculty in 1986 after completing his pediatric critical care fellowship at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. He served as Medical Director of the Pediatric Critical Care Transport Team for a decade and of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit for 13 years. He chairs the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Management Group.

He is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section of Transport Medicine Conference Planning Committee and served for many years on its Committee on Hospital Care, which earned him a Service Award in 2009.  Pearson-Shaver earned the 2011 Distinguished Faculty Award for Patient Care from the MCG Faculty Senate.

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Related Story: Medical College of Georgia building strong future, Dean says

Dr. Paul M. Wallach has been named Vice Dean for Academic Affairs for the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University.

Wallach, currently Vice Dean for Medical Education at New York Medical College, joins the MCG faculty Aug. 1. His previous appointments include Vice Dean for Educational Affairs at the University of South Florida Health Morsani College of Medicine. Wallach also served as Vice President and Founding Dean of Touro University College of Medicine in New Jersey, an initiative of Touro College, a Manhattan-based not-for-profit institution of higher and professional education. Touro opted not to proceed with the new school, instead becoming affiliated with New York Medical College in 2011.

“Paul brings tremendous knowledge, insight and passion for medical education,” said Dr. Peter F. Buckley, MCG Dean. “Working with our outstanding leadership team and a faculty that is truly dedicated to students and medical education, he will enable our college to continue to shine as a provider of a first-class education whose graduates do great things for our state and nation.”

“Paul’s extensive academic credentials and his commitment to educating medical students in the same way they will practice – as part of health care team that uses synergy, compassion and technology to optimize patient care – make him a huge asset to this university and to our medical college,” said Dr. Gretchen B. Caughman, GHSU Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost.

“Through outstanding medical and health sciences education, we help build the health care providers and scholars of the future,” said Wallach. “Those are the people who will take care of us and our communities. If we do this well, we have the opportunity to have a profoundly positive impact.

“What is amazing about the opportunity to come to MCG and GHSU is it follows over two decades of great work by someone I hold in incredible esteem,” he said of Dr. Ruth-Marie E. Fincher, MCG Vice Dean, who retires this month after almost 30 years of service, including nearly 20 years as the college’s inaugural Vice Dean. Fincher and Wallach have been colleagues for two decades in their national academic activities.

“Dr. Fincher’s footprint in medical education is truly tremendous,” Buckley said. “We all find it difficult to imagine our college without her leadership, which makes the recruitment of someone of Paul’s caliber all the more critical.”

Wallach is a member of the Executive Board of the National Board of Medical Examiners and Chair of the Board’s Advisory Committee for Medical School Programs. He also is the Board’s representative to the Composite Committee for the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination, which the Board develops and manages along with the Federation of State Medical Boards.

Wallach recently completed a term as Chair of the USMLE Step 2 Committee; Step 2 is the portion of the physician exam focused on clinical knowledge and skill. He previously chaired the Ambulatory Medicine and Anatomy Test Material Development Committees and is a longtime member of the Interdisciplinary Item Review Committee.

Wallach also chairs the International Foundations of Medicine and is a site visitor for the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredits medical schools. He is an author on more than 80 articles and abstracts.

The 1984 graduate of the University of South Florida Health Morsani College of Medicine in Tampa received the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2011.

A devoted family man, Wallach said the fact their youngest of three children is heading to college, makes it an ideal time for he and wife Rae Adler Wallach to make a move.

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Recipients of GHSU Research Institute Awards were: Dr. Gregory Harshfield, Mahesh Distinguished Research Award; Dr. Jay Hegde, Emerging Scientist Award; Dr. Martha Tingen, Distinguished Research Award; and Dr. Gary Whitford, Lifetime Achievement Award.

Recipients of Outstanding Faculty Award, presented by the University Faculty Senate, were: Dr. Judith Stallings, College of Allied Health Sciences; Dr. Kalu Oguburke, College of Dental Medicine; Dr. Krishnan Dhandapani, College of Graduate Studies; and Dr. Christy Berding, College of Nursing.

Dr. David Hess was honored both as a recipient of a 2012 Distinguished Research Award and a 2012 Outstanding Faculty Award for the Medical College of Georgia.

Dr. Gregory Harshfield

Harshfield, a Professor of Pediatrics, Physiology and Graduate Studies, Director and Regents Professor at the Georgia Prevention Institute and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Pediatrics, was honored for his sustained contributions to research into mechanisms of disease prevention, detection or therapy.

Over the past 33 years, Harshfield’s hypertension research has yielded a better understanding of underlying mechanisms of the disease, particularly among African Americans. He developed a non-invasive method of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring that has become the gold standard for blood pressure assessment, as well as intervention methods for hypertension in specific populations. He is a principal investigator on a National Institutes of Health-funded study examining stress-related mechanisms of hypertension risk.

He received a 2008 GHSU Outstanding Research Faculty Award a 2009 GHSU Distinguished Research Award for Clinical Research.

He is a member of the American Heart Association and fellow of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, the American Society for Pediatric Research and the Council for High Blood Pressure Research. He is a founding member and continues to serve on the executive committee for the International Pediatric Hypertension Association.

Dr. Jay Hegde

Hedge, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmalogy and Graduate Studies and a member of the Brain and Behavior Discovery and Vision Discovery Institutes, was honored for outstanding contributions early in his career to research into the mechanisms of disease prevention, detection or therapy.

A GHSU faculty member since 2008, Hegde researches neural mechanisms behind vision. He works with the U.S. Army to better camouflage solders while training troops to identify camouflaged enemy soldiers. He also studies visual rehabilitation techniques following a stroke or traumatic head injury.

Hegde is an editor and reviewer for several publications related to neuroscience and vision. He is a full member of the Collaborative Research in Computation Neuroscience panel for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the German Federal Ministries of Education and Research; a full member of the Behavioral and Cognitive Science Grant Review panel; and an Ad hoc grant reviewer for several federal agencies. Hegde has been published in nearly 50 research journals, reviews/commentaries and abstracts.

Dr. Gary Whitford

Whitford, Regents Professor Emeritus in the College of Dental Medicine and world-renowned fluoride scientist, was honored for his lifetime contributions to research.

A GHSU faculty member for 39 years, Whitford has analyzed fluoride in body fluids and hard tissues and developed therapeutic fluoride for anti-cavity benefits without causing impairing tooth enamel.

He authored “The Metabolism and Toxicity of Fluoride” (S. Karger Press, 1996) and is a fluoride metabolism consultant to Peru, Sweden, Mexico, Brazil and Columbia, as well as organizations including the U.S. Public Health Service, the American Dental Association, the Pan American Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and the Environmental Protection Agency.

His work has been funded by 10 National Institutes of Health grants, as well as a current  Borrow Foundation grant.

Dr. Martha Tingen

Tingen, who holds the Charles W. Linder Endowed Chair in Pediatrics and is a  Professor of Pediatrics and Co-Director of the Child Health Discovery Institute, was honored for sustained contributions to research into mechanisms of disease prevention.

Tingen’s work has focused on educating families and children, particularly in rural Georgia, about the risks of early tobacco use, with the ultimate goal of cancer prevention. She has implemented a statewide tobacco-prevention program in school systems and works with families in local communities and public housing.

She received 2003 and 2005 Outstanding Research Awards from the Beta Omicron Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International and a 2009 GHSU Outstanding Clinical Science Faculty Research Award. She was appointed to the NIH’s Community-Level Health Promotion Study Section in 2011. Tingen is Interim Program Leader for the GHSU Cancer Center’s Cancer Prevention and Control Program.

She is a 1983 graduate of the GHSU College of Nursing and served as Vice Chair of the University Faculty Senate in 2007-08.

Dr. Judith Stallings

Stallings, Director of Admissions and an Assistant Professor in the Physician Assistant program, is a board-certified physician assistant who earned her master’s and doctoral degrees from GHSU.

Stallings has received a Georgia Association of Physician Assistants Faculty Achievement Award and two Outstanding Faculty Awards from graduating classes of the physician assistant program.

She serves as a physician assistant for GHSU Student Health Services and is a member of the Georgia Association of Physician Assistants.

Dr. Kalu Oguburke

Ogbureke, Interim Chair of the Department of Oral Biology, is a 2010 Fulbright Scholar who spent 10 months in Nigeria examining HPV16-associated oral cancers and the expression of SIBLING proteins to predict oral cancer. His SIBLING work, focusing on specific bone proteins that, depending on the type, can increase or decrease risk for oral cancer, is also funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Ogbureke joined GHSU in 2005 and earned the GHSU Research Institute’s 2007 Emerging Scientist Award. He was a co-recipient of the 2011 IADR/Glaxo-Smith Kline Award for Innovation in Oral Care Research. A member of the editorial board of Oral Diseases, he is also a reviewer for journals related to oral pathology and oncology.

Ogbureke also holds joint appointments in the College of Graduate Studies and the Medical College of Georgia.

Dr. Krishnan Dhandapani

Dhandapani, Associate Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery, earned his doctoral degree in molecular medicine with distinction from GHSU.

His research includes the use of curcumin and the dye brilliant blue G in reducing swelling after traumatic brain injury. His work is supported by a $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health and a grant from the TriServices Nursing Research Program of the Department of Defense.

Dhandapani received a 2011 GHSU Distinguished Faculty Basic Sciences Award. He mentors students, postdoctoral fellows, junior faculty and residents. He is a member of the National Neurotrauma Society and the Society for Neurosciences and is panel co-chair for the American Heart Association, Brain 2. A reviewer of a number of neuroscience-related journals, he has been published in more than 100 research and refereed publications.

Dr. Christy Berding

Berding, Assistant Director of the undergraduate nursing program at the College of Nursing’s Athens campus and Assistant Professor in Department of Biobehavioral Nursing, is an inductee of the GHSU Educational Innovation Institute and the Academy of Nurse Scholars in Education. She has received three Outstanding Faculty Awards from the College of Nursing in Athens.

She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at GHSU, and was a graduate of the first cohort of Doctor of Nursing Practice students at GHSU in 2007. She also completed clinical training in mind-body medicine at Harvard Medical School.

She is a member of the American Nurses Association, the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, the American Holistic Nurses Association, the Georgia Nurses Association, the International Alliance of Teacher Scholars and the Southern Nursing Research Society. In 1997, she was one of only 10 faculty members in the state to participate in the Governor’s Teaching Fellowship Program.

Dr. David Hess

Hess, an innovator in stroke treatment who chairs the Medical College of Georgia Department of Neurology, is a founder and Chairman of the Board of REACH Health, Inc., which pairs the need for rapid stroke care with the emerging capabilities of the Internet to provide care remotely. REACH received the 2012 Georgia Bio Community Award. Hess also studies the potential of stem cells and an antibiotic to better treat stroke.

He is a member of the American Heart Association Telestroke Committee, the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Vascular Neurology Board Examination Committee and American Stroke Association Scientific Sessions Committee. He is on the Editorial Board of the American Heart Association journal Stroke, as well as Cell Transplantation.  He is a member of the Clinical Trial Data and Safety Monitoring Committee of the National Institutes of Health’s Stenting Versus Aggressive Medical Management for Preventing Recurrent Stroke in Intracranial Stenosis study and Chair of Pfizer’s Data and Safety Monitoring Committee.

Hess also is Chief of the Neurology Service at the Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Augusta.

The assembly also honored faculty members retiring this year from the university. They are: Donna Domyslawsi, Michael Frentzel and Steve Harrison, from the College of Allied Health Sciences; John Stockstill, Stephen Hackman, Robert Loushine, Wayne Herman, Norman Weller and Gary Whitford (now part-time), from the College of Dental Medicine; William Kanto, Jill Miller, Priscilla Gilman, Ruth Marie Fincher, Ruth Neal and Chris White, from the Medical College of Georgia; and Cathy Green, Gerald Bennett and Judith Salzer from the College of Nursing.

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AUGUSTA, Ga. – Seven-hundred and ninety-five future health care professionals will be recognized as the newest graduates of Georgia Health Sciences University at 2 p.m. Friday, May 11, at Augusta’s James Brown Arena.

Ferid Murad M.D., Ph.D., Nobel Laureate in Medicine or Physiology, professor, physician and scientist, will be the guest speaker for this year’s commencement.

Nobel Prize recipient, Dr. Oliver Smithies, also speaks at GHSU. Both GHSU and ASU will be streaming their Graduation ceremonies live online during their respective times.

Dr. Murad is a University Professor and Director of the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Signaling at the George Washington University (“GWU”) in Washington, D.C., where he currently also leads a laboratory in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Upon earning his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry, on the Pre-Medicine track, from DePauw University, Dr. Murad enrolled in one of the earliest physician-scientist training programs, earning his M.D./Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in 1965. His training included an Internal Medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and a fellowship with the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Murad served as faculty and Chairman of various departments at the University of Virginia, Stanford University, Northwestern University, and the University of Texas–Houston, prior to joining GWU in 2011. He has also advised and developed many biotechnology companies over the years, serving, for instance, as the Vice President of Research and Development at Abbott Laboratories from 1988 to 1993. Over the years, Dr. Murad has advised approximately 140 trainees in his laboratories, many of whom have gone on to become academic and pharmaceutical industry leaders.

His revolutionary findings demonstrated the important role of Nitric Oxide in the body as a signaling molecule to increase cyclic GMP and dilate blood vessels; for his work on Nitric Oxide, Dr. Murad earned the Nobel Prize along with Drs. Furchgott and Ignarro. This work has immensely impacted medicine, patient care, and drug development, illuminating, for instance, how nitroglycerin and similar drugs work.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Dr. Murad has earned various other distinctions such as the Albert and Mary Lasker Award for Basic Research; the AHA Ciba Award; the AAMC and University of Texas Research prizes; and 13 honorary degrees. He is a member of many foreign academies as well as the National Academic Society, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Each of the university’s five colleges also will hold individual year-end ceremonies as follows: College of Allied Health Sciences Honors Convocation, 6 p.m., May 10, Bell Auditorium, 712 Telfair St.; College of Dental Medicine Hooding Ceremony, 10 a.m., May 11, First Baptist Church, 3500 Walton Way; College of Graduate Studies Hooding Ceremony, 8 a.m., May 11, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 605 Reynolds St.; Medical College of Georgia Hooding Ceremony, 2 p.m., May 10, Bell Auditorium; and College of Nursing Convocation, 10:30 a.m., May 11, Bell Auditorium.

Watch GHSU Graduation Live

“One person may experience joint pain and fatigue while another battles skin rashes and sudden weight loss. But there is hope for lupus sufferers, and that’s the message we want to share with patients and caregivers at our upcoming event,” said Dr. Alyce Oliver, a rheumatologist at Georgia Health Sciences Medical Center and an Associate Professor in GHSU’s Medical College of Georgia.

Georgia Health Sciences University and the Georgia Chapter of the Lupus Foundation will present the third annual “Living with Lupus Symposium,” a free patient education seminar, from 1-5 p.m. Saturday, May 19 at the GHSU Alumni Center, 919 15th St.

Lupus, diagnosed based on a thorough physical exam and blood testing, is often treated organ by organ, but because so many systems can be affected, multidisciplinary care is the best approach, according to Dr. Oliver.

The Lupus Multi-Specialty Clinic at GHS Medical Center, which diagnoses and treats systemic lupus erythematosus, includes specialists in rheumatology, nephrology, dermatology and pathology in order to provide continuous comprehensive care, improve treatment outcomes advance research on this complex disease.

“There are many misconceptions out there about lupus,” said Dr. Oliver. “It’s not hopeless. There are effective drugs and treatments that can improve a patient’s quality of life.”

For more information about the Lupus Symposium or to register for the event, call 770-333-5930 or visit lupusga.org.

To schedule a consultation at the GHS Lupus Multi-Specialty Clinic, have your primary care physician call 706-721-1450 for further information.

Augusta, Ga. –

That’s why Kohl’s Department Store, through the Kohl’s Cares® cause merchandise program, and the Georgia Health Sciences Children’s Medical Center are teaming up again to provide asthma screening and education on Saturday, May 5, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Kohl’s parking lot at 4227 Washington Road in Evans. This free event is the second in a series of asthma education initiatives funded by a nearly $32,000 grant from the Kohl’s Cares program. The formal check presentation is also part of Saturday’s event.

“With asthma cases rising in both numbers and severity, we want to do everything we can to provide education for patients and families,” said Jennifer Anderson, Director of Respiratory Care Services at GHS Children’s Medical Center. “Our goal is to help patients manage their asthma and prevent adverse events.”

A condition affecting about 226,000 children in Georgia, asthma is a lifelong disease that targets the lungs, causing wheezing, breathlessness, chest tightness and coughing. Asthma triggers include smoke, mold, pet dander and air pollution.

Although there is no cure, most people can control symptoms and prevent asthma attacks by avoiding triggers and correctly using prescribed medicine.

For more information, call Anderson at 706-721-3225, or visit georgiahealth.org/kohlscares.

Kohl’s commitment to Georgia Health Sciences Children’s Medical Center is made possible through the Kohl’s Cares® cause merchandise program. Through this initiative, Kohl’s sells $5 books and plush toys where 100 percent of net profit benefits children’s health and education programs nationwide, including hospital partnerships like this one. Kohl’s has raised more than $180 million dollars through this merchandise program. In addition to the merchandise program, Kohl’s Cares® features the Kohl’s Cares® Scholarship Program, which last year recognized more than 2,100 young volunteers with a total of $410,000 in scholarships and prizes. Through Kohl’s Associates in Action volunteer program, more than 500,000 associates have donated more than 1.6 million hours of their time since 2001 and Kohl’s has donated more than $47 million to youth-focused nonprofit organizations. Kohl’s also offers fundraising gift cards for schools and youth-serving organizations. For more information, visit www.Kohls.com/Cares.

About GHS Children’s Medical Center

The 154-bed Georgia Health Sciences Children’s Medical Center is the second largest children’s hospital in the state, providing the highest level of pediatric critical care and neonatal intensive care as well as a wide range of general and complex health care for children.

About Kohl’s Department Stores

Based in Menomonee Falls, Wis., Kohl’s (NYSE: KSS) is a family-focused, value-oriented specialty department store offering moderately priced, exclusive and national brand apparel, shoes, accessories, beauty and home products in an exciting shopping environment. With a commitment to environmental leadership, Kohl’s operates 1,134 stores in 49 states. In support of the communities it serves, Kohl’s has raised more than $208 million for children’s initiatives nationwide through its Kohl’s Cares® cause merchandise program, which operates under Kohl’s Cares, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kohl’s Department Stores, Inc. For a list of store locations and information, or for the added convenience of shopping online, visit www.Kohls.com, or join the discussion on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/kohls or Twitter http://twitter.com/Kohls.

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Fort Gordon’s U.S. Army Signal Corps Band and Post Ceremonial Detachment Color Guard also will be featured.

The Georgia War Veterans Nursing Home, operated through an interagency agreement between Georgia Health Sciences University and the Georgia Department of Veterans Service, is located at 1101 15^th St. For more information call Karen Yonce, 706-721-2531.

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David Adams has been named President of the Academy of Graduate Embalmers of Georgia, Inc.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – David Adams, Coordinator of Georgia Health Sciences University’s Anatomical Donation Services, has been named President of the Academy of Graduate Embalmers of Georgia, Inc.

The academy was established in 1954 to promote continuing education and fellowship among licensed embalmers. It is the second-oldest organization of this kind in America.

Adams is a Certified Funeral Service Practitioner who came to GHSU in 2002 and has been a professionally licensed embalmer and funeral director in Georgia and South Carolina for more than 30 years. He is a member of the Georgia Funeral Directors Association, South Carolina Funeral Directors Association, National Funeral Directors Association and the Academy of Professional Funeral Service Practice.

Adams also serves as a Director of the North American Division of the British Institute of Embalmers.

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Dr. Ricardo Azziz is the guest speaker for McDonough Lectureship May 18

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Dr. Ricardo Azziz, President of Georgia Health Sciences University and CEO of GHS Health System, will discuss “The Needs and Expectations of Current and Future Faculty Leaders” during the Fifth Paul G. McDonough Lectureship and Symposium  May 18 at GHSU.

The lectureship, which begins at 8 a.m. in the Large Auditorium of Auditoria Center, was established by former fellows and faculty to honor McDonough, who directed the Section of Reproductive Endocrinology, Infertility and Genetics at the Medical College of Georgia at GHSU from 1966-94.

Azziz’s talk begins at 1:00 p.m.  Other topics at the daylong symposium include the future of generic versus name brand drugs, embryo donation and the fertility of cancer survivors.

Azziz, a reproductive endocrinologist with expertise in androgen excess disorders, has master’s degrees in business administration and public health. Azziz, the eighth president of GHSU, also is leading the consolidation of the state’s health sciences university and academic health center  with Augusta State University, a liberal arts university.

Dr. Keith A. Hansen, Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of South Dakota in Sioux Falls, is Chair and Moderator of the 2012 lectureship.

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AUGUSTA, Ga. – Dr. Norman B. Chutkan, Chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University, has been appointed an oral examiner for The American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery.

An oral and written examination is given to orthopedic surgeons seeking board certification and more than 700 candidates take the oral examination each summer in Chicago. Board certification is voluntary and shows adequate education, training and practice in a particular specialty.

Chutkan also was recently appointed to the Continuing Medical Education and International Education Committees of the North American Spine Society.

He also was selected Section Editor of Evidence-Based Medicine for the journal Orthopaedics.

Chutkan, a specialist in treating spinal deformities, such as scoliosis, as well as spine trauma, came to MCG in 2002 from Louisiana State University Health Science Center as Chief of Orthopaedic Spine Surgery and was named Chair in 2007.  He is a member of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Spine Program Subcommittee, Georgia Orthopaedic Society Board of Directors and the American Orthopaedic Association’s North America Traveling Fellowship Committee.

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AUGUSTA, Ga. – Dr. R. Clinton Webb, Chair of the Department of Physiology at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University, is the 2012 recipient of the Carl J. Wiggers Award from the American Physiological Society.

The award, memorializing the founder of the society’s Cardiovascular Section, honors a scientist for a lifetime of outstanding and lasting contributions to cardiovascular research. Awardees also display a history of commitment and service excellence to the section.

Webb has served on the Cardiovascular Section’s Nominating Committee and National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Liaison Committee. He researches the physiology of vascular smooth muscle, including vascular reactivity in hypertension and diabetes, penile and clitoral erection in sexual dysfunction and cellular and subcellular mechanisms of contraction and relaxation of vascular smooth muscle. He research is supported by the NIH and the Society for Women’s Health Research.

Webb has served as President of the Association of Chairs of Departments of Physiology and is Immediate Past Chair of the American Heart Association’s Council for High Blood Pressure Research. He is a member of the council’s committees for Scientific Sessions Program, Leadership, Fall Conference and Awards. He serves on the American Heart Association’s Ethnicity and Gender Working Group, Scientific Sessions Program and Council Operations Committees as well as the International Mentoring Program. He is a member of the Isis Cardiovascular Network of the Society for Women’s Health Research.

He is an Editorial Board member for the journals Hypertension, Journal of the American Society of Hypertension, Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology, Vascular Pharmacology, Current Hypertension Reviews and Current Cardiology Reviews.

Webb, a Regents’ Professor who holds the Herbert S. Kupperman Chair in Cardiovascular Disease, received the 2009 Distinguished Basic Research Award from the GHSU Research Institute.

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Offices will reopen on Tuesday, May 29.

Dr. Elizabeth Kenimer Leibach

The College of Allied Health Sciences honored Dr. Elizabeth Kenimer Leibach, Senior Research Scientist and Project Lead on the Evidence-based Laboratory Medicine Project for the Division of Laboratory Science and Standards at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Leibach, the former Chair of the GHSU Department of Medical Technology, earned her bachelor’s degree in medical technology in 1972 and a master’s degree in cellular and molecular biology in 1976.

Leibach joined the faculty in 1973 as a Clinical Instructor in the Department of Medical Technology. After working at hospitals throughout the country, she started Healthcare Management and Educational Services, Inc., in 1992, to provide consultation related to rural health care delivery and laboratory services. She returned to GHSU as an Assistant Professor in 1993.

She is a lifetime member of the College of Allied Health Sciences Alumni Association and Secretary/Treasurer of the GHSU College of Graduate Studies Alumni Association. She is a member of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi and is a six-time recipient of the Georgia Society for Clinical Laboratory Science’s Contributions to the Profession Award. Leibach also serves on the Boards of Directors for Walton Technologies and Walton Innovations.

Dr. Grant Loo

The College of Dental Medicine honored Dr. Grant Loo, a general dentist in Augusta and a 1990 graduate. Loo has served on the College of Dental Medicine’s Building Imperative Steering Committee since 2006 and was an initial donor to the college’s Thousand Thanks Campaign to raise money for the new building, which opened last year.

He is past President of the College of Dental Medicine’s Alumni Association and serves as a delegate of the Eastern District of the Georgia Dental Association. He is a member of the American Dental Association, The Academy of General Dentistry and the Thomas P. Hinman Dental Society. Loo is a member of the International College of Dentists and the Pierre Fauchard Academy. For more than 20 years, he has mentored GHSU dental students and hosted visiting foreign dental students.

Dr. John Copland

Honored in the College of Graduate Studies was Dr. John A. Copland, Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Senior Associate Consultant for Cancer Basic Science at the Mayo Clinic. He received his master’s degree in endocrinology in 1983 and his doctoral degree in physiology and endocrinology in 1992.

Copland researches urological and thyroid cancer, translating clinical observations into new therapeutic targets. He is the principle investigator on two National Institutes of Health RO1 grants and co-investigator on several NIH and Department of Defense Foundation Grants.

He is a member and grant reviewer for the American Association for Cancer Research, a member of the American Thyroid Association, the American Urological Association, the Society for Basic Urologic Research, the Society of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Biology and the Endocrine Society. He is a member of the Department of Veterans Affairs Merit Review Subcommittee for Oncology and a Senior Editorial Board Member for the American Journal of Cancer Research.

Dr. Cecil F. Whitaker Jr.

Dr. Cecil F. Whitaker Jr. received the Medical College of Georgia’s Distinguished Alumnus Award for Loyalty. A retired obstetrician and gynecologist from Columbus, Ga., he received his medical degree in 1962 and returned to GHSU in 1965 to complete his residency after serving in the U.S. Navy.

Whitaker retired as President of Obstetric and Gynecologic Associates of Columbus, Ga., P.C. The $1.5 million Cecil F. Whitaker, Jr., MD Chair in Cancer, held by the GHSU Cancer Center Director, is named for him. In 2011, St. Francis Hospital in Columbus honored Whitaker with the Dr. Clarence C. Butler Service and Leadership Award.

He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Medical College of Georgia Foundation and served as its Chair from 1997-99. He was President of the Medical College of Georgia Alumni Association from 1995-96 and the Georgia Obstetrical and Gynecological Society from 1987-88. He also serves on the advisory boards of the South Atlantic Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the South Central Obstetrical and Gynecological Society, LLC.

Dr. Patricia C. Davis

Dr. Patricia C. Davis received the Medical College of Georgia’s Distinguished Alumnus Award for Professional Achievement. Davis, a 1977 graduate, is a radiologist at Northwest Radiology Consultants in Atlanta.

Davis completed a residency in diagnostic radiology and a fellowship in neurovascular radiology at Emory University. She served as a Professor in Emory’s Department of Radiology and, in 1990, started the pediatric neuroradiology service at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s Egleston campus.

She is an examiner for the American Board of Radiology’s Diagnostic Oral Boards and received the board’s Lifetime Service Award in 2009. She is a Fellow of the American College of Radiology and a member of its Expert Panel on Neuro Imaging. She is past President of the American Society of Pediatric Neuroradiology and a member of its Research Committee. Davis is past President of the Southeastern Neuroradiological Society.

Dr. Karen J. Minyard

Dr. Karen J. Minyard, Director of the Georgia Health Policy Center at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, received the College of Nursing’s E. Louise Grant Award for Excellence in Clinical Practice, Administration and Community Service. She received her master’s degree in nursing administration from GHSU in 1979.

Minyard leads policy, research and technical assistance programs for the GHPC, focusing on end-of-life care, child well-being, health philanthropy, rural health, cancer and access to care for the uninsured. She also teaches doctoral-level seminar and management courses at Georgia State. From 1979-86, she was an Assistant Professor in the GHSU Department of Nursing Administration.

In 2002, Minyard was named Distinguished Researcher of the Year by the Georgia Rural Health Association. In 2005, she served on the board of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s Steering Committee for the Healthcare Prevention Initiative. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the Georgia Rural Health Association, the National Network of Public Health Institutes, the American Project Access Network and Georgia Health Decisions.

Dr. Marion Broome

Dr. Marion Broome, Dean and Distinguished Professor of Nursing at the Indiana University School of Nursing, received the College of Nursing’s Phoebe Kandel Rohrer Founder’s Award for Excellence in Research and Education. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from GHSU in 1973. She received her master’s degree in family health nursing from the University of South Carolina and her doctoral degree in Child and Family Development from the University of Georgia.

Broome’s research on interventions for children coping with acute and chronic pain has been funded by the NIH, American Cancer Society and other sources for more than 20 years. More recently, she has focused on research ethics related to informed consent and assent for children and research misconduct in clinical trials. Her work has been published in more than 50 refereed nursing, medicine and interdisciplinary journals. She also has published five books.

In 2004, Broome was appointed a charter member of the NIH’s Nursing Science Study Section: Children and Families. She is a past President of the Society for Pediatric Nurses, and has been a member of the Boards of Directors for the Association for the Care of Children’s Health and the Midwest Nursing Research Society. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of its official journal, Nursing Outlook.

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Dr. Askiel Bruno, stroke specialist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University. He’s a Clinical Principal Investigator on a National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke-funded study that should determine whether intravenous delivery or the usual shot of insulin works best.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – About 40 percent of ischemic stroke patients arrive at the hospital with high blood glucose levels that can worsen their brain damage, say physicians working to stop the additional loss.

Insulin, a hormone that enables cells to use glucose as energy, can help, but questions remain about the optimal way to give it, said Dr. Askiel Bruno, stroke specialist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University. He’s a Clinical Principal Investigator on a National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke-funded study that should determine whether intravenous delivery or the usual shot of insulin works best.  Other Clinical Principal Investigators for the trial enrolling 1,400 participants nationally are Dr. Christiana E. Hall, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and Dr. Karen C. Johnston, University of Virginia School of Medicine.

A quick finger prick to check blood glucose levels is part of the early evaluation of all stroke patients in the emergency room, whether or not they are diabetic, Bruno said. It’s important not only because of the association with increased damage but because the symptoms of low glucose can mimic stroke symptoms.

“When blood glucose is high the damage is worse so lowering that glucose right away, should result in less damage and better outcomes for patients,” he said.

Exactly why blood glucose levels rise dramatically with a stroke is not completely understood, but it’s known that stroke triggers the release of stress hormones that interfere with insulin’s ability to coax glucose into cells, Bruno said.  A leading theory is that free radicals produced by stroke also pile on the damage.

”The body just does not respond to insulin as it should and stress hormones interfere with the response,” Bruno said. In a more chronic situation, an elevated blood glucose also is a major risk factor for stroke, he noted.

When acute high blood glucose levels are detected in stroke patients – 150 milligrams per deciliter or greater versus a healthy 100 or less  –  most typically get a shot of insulin. When those evels are particularly difficult to control, patients may get an intravenous dose instead, which requires closer monitoring but seem to work faster and better at getting and keeping levels safe.

The SHINE Trial directly compares stroke outcome using the two approaches to determine the most efficacious, Bruno said. Study participants will receive insulin for up to three days – when the brain’s circulation should be more stable –  then resume standard care. At three months, stroke recovery will be objectively assessed.

“How are you doing? That is the key question. We may find intravenous works better for some patients than others,” said Bruno who led a small pilot study at Indiana University School of Medicine that showed that within four hours, intravenous insulin reduced stroke patients’ blood glucose levels 31 percent more than shots.

Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States, affecting nearly 800,000 Americans annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 85 percent of strokes are ischemic, which means portions of the brain aren’t getting enough oxygen. The remainder result from brain bleeding. The clotbuster tPA is currently the only Food and Drug Administration-approved drug therapy for ischemic stroke and only about 5 percent of patients receive the drug which must be given within four-and-one-half hours after the onset of symptoms.

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Dandruff sufferers will soon have a non-toxic product to treat the condition, says a researcher at Georgia Health Sciences University.

“Most current effective anti-dandruff shampoos contain ingredients that are toxic to humans and the environment,” according to Dr. Stephen Hsu, GHSU Professor of Oral Biology. “Our green tea shampoo uses technology without coal tar, sulfate, sulfur or toxins. It’s environmentally friendly, and it works.”

Lipadan technology, Hsu’s patented green tea formulation, can penetrate the skin’s waterproof barrier, unlike water-soluble green tea. This enables the hair-friendly green tea components to combat major causes of dandruff: excessive cell growth, oxidative stress and inflammation.

Coal tar, a common ingredient in conventional dandruff shampoos, works by slowing the production of skin cells, but it is carcinogenic in high doses and banned for cosmetic use in many countries. Anti-dandruff shampoos also typically contain selenium sulfide, sulfur and salt. Side effects can include scalp and skin irritation as well as hair loss, discoloration and dryness.

“The manufacturers put all that in shampoos for people to put on their head,” Hsu said, noting that coal tar also stains and smells bad. “The goal of our research and development has been to replace those potentially hazardous agents with green components that have no risk for humans or the environment.”

Green tea polyphenols promote the skin’s metabolic equilibrium, shield against autoimmune diseases and provide antioxidant, anti-microbial, anti-cancer and anti-inflammation properties.

“We cannot put green tea in a bottle and expect it to work. It has to have the Lipadan technology,” Hsu said. “We tried many times using a water-soluble molecule, but that will not work. It will not work, period.”

Hsu began developing the product based on his “remarkable results” with tests on mice. His company, Camellix LLC, markets products based on his green tea technology. In addition to ReviTeaLize anti-dandruff shampoo, a hair-loss shampoo will soon be launched and upcoming products may include shaving cream, body wash, dish soap, facial soap, hair conditioner and gel. Patents are shared with Georgia Health Sciences University.

The business is supported by two grants from the Georgia Research Alliance, which helps entrepreneurs such as Hsu grow Georgia-based technology businesses while promoting innovation and local economic growth.

ReviTeaLize anti-dandruff shampoo is available from Camellix LLC at www.camellix.com or 1-888-483-7775. A limited number of free samples are available through dermatologists and at selected dermatology clinics, including GHSU.

Dr. Alvin Head, Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University and the Director of the Perioperative Service Line at GHS Health System.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Economics may be the force behind changes in the practice of anesthesiology but patients are the focus, said the leader of the South’s oldest academic department.

The present and future include:

• Leading new team-based processes that optimize time and cost savings while improving quality and outcomes from a patient’s first preoperative visit through discharge home
• Anesthesiologists everpresent in critical care units monitoring multiple patients simultaneously using tele-medical approaches
• Personalized medicine that allows tailoring medications to patient profiles gleaned from a single drop of blood, optimizing drug effectiveness and minimizing side effects
• Applying medications in nanoparticles targeted directly to a specific organ that needs treatment or gene modification or, just maybe, using magnetic or electro-pulse therapy for pain and amnestic control instead of drugs.

“Patient satisfaction and quality are always at the top of the list,” said Dr. Alvin Head, Chair of the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University and the Director of the Perioperative Service Line at GHS Health System.

“Health care reform is forcing us to be extremely efficient and cost effective. But that is okay if we can get you through the system faster and you have a better outcome and go home earlier. Then we all win,” Head said.

The 75^th anniversary celebration of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at MCG during GHSU Homecoming April 26-29 prompted Head to gauge the past and future of his specialty and department. Festivities include a welcoming reception at the Marriott Hotel and Suites April 26 and an open house and tour of the department on April 27 followed by a dinner gala at the Marriott.

The medical college was an early player in academic anesthesiology with Dr. Perry P. Volpitto establishing the department at a time when there were only four major ones in the country and none in the South. As Head, who has led the department for a decade, looks back he feels pride and stability. As he looks forward, he feels inspired. “We have a long track record of success and it has been focused primarily in the clinical direction. Now we have the opportunity to be a truly outstanding academic department,” he said.

The profession has weathered some tough times with reimbursement rates falling behind other specialties, a dearth of new drugs and not enough physician anesthesiologists or mid-level providers for that matter, to go around.

But these struggles have pushed efficiencies and new directions in a specialty that enables surgical treatment of disease by supporting essentials like breathing and heart rate as well as desirables such as pain control and short-lived amnesia.

“What we try to do is control your physiologic state to keep it as normal as possible while your body is basically put into a coma and under tremendous stress,” Head said. “One of the greatest accomplishments of surgery is the ability to have the patient safely under anesthesia to perform these life- saving procedures.”

His department, which has a large residency program, is increasing its fellowship training. A pain fellowship is in place, a critical care fellowship starts this summer and a pediatric fellowship should be operational within two years. While Head wants to help replenish the shallow anesthesiology pool, he hopes to also “grow some of our own” who will stay at MCG and GHS Health System to support the growing complex care services provided.

Targeted faculty recruits also are helping grow innovative research such as those genomic studies that will enable an anesthesiologist to hand pick the best drugs for an individual patient, rather than just giving what works for most. “I think in the future we will be able to keep you away from drugs that make you nauseated and toward those that provide you the best pain control,” Head said. “Today, all drug dosing is based on 50 percent of the population. But you may need half of that or twice as much. You can be on either side of the curve,” said Head who has seen both ends of the spectrum play out in patients of the same gender and similar size and age. While dosing today is educated, it’s not nearly so personal. “There is not a test I can do on you that says give you this much of this and don’t you give that,” Head said.”I think that’s what we need.”

New research initiatives also will seek those tiny molecules that deliver strategic pain relief as well as other new drug therapies. Anesthesiologists may give a patient a dozen drugs over the course of an operation for everything from pain control to heart arrhythmia. But even the newer drugs, such as the opioid pain reliever remifentanil and hypnotic anesthetic propofol, are old drugs by today’s standards, Head said. Still older inhaled agents are going by the wayside because delivery directly into the bloodstream enables better control. Personalized medicine will help anesthesiologists make the best of existing drugs while they search for new ones, Head said.

In related studies, MCG anesthesiologists are using in vivo video microscopy to look inside a live mouse model at how red and white blood cells adhere to tiny blood vessels walls causing pain, obstruction and eventually organ damage in sickle cell disease and how different drugs may reduce the destructive adhesion. In patients, Head is leading efforts that already have shown that inhaling nitric oxide appears to safely and effectively reduce pain crises in adults with sickle cell.

“It’s an exciting time,” Head said. “A lot of that excitement is making things better.”

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Dr. Georges Benjamin

Dr. Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association, will be the keynote speaker at a conference and public forum on delivering value in public and preventive health May 15 at the Augusta Ray & Joan Kroc Corps Community Center, 1833 Broad Street. The conference, hosted by Georgia Health Sciences University, will begin with an 8:30 a.m. breakfast and opening remarks from GHSU Senior Vice President for Research Mark Hamrick. The conference will conclude at 5:30 p.m.

The conference will include an announcement at 11:30 a.m. by GHSU President Ricardo Azziz of a new public and preventive health initiative of the university, said College of Allied Health Sciences Dean Andrew Balas.

“Improving public health unites people and inspires communities,” Balas said. “The conference’s focus on value in public health should lead to productive partnerships between biomedical research and motivated communities, ultimately benefiting everyone.”

Benjamin will speak at 9:30 a.m. on strategic priorities for public health. Benjamin has led the APHA, the nation’s oldest and largest organization of public health professionals, since 2002. He has been named one of the top 25 minority executives in health care by Modern Healthcare Magazine, selected numerous times among the 100 most influential people in health care and designated one of the nation’s most powerful physician executives. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the National Academy of Public Administration, a fellow emeritus of the American College of Emergency Physicians and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health.

The remainder of the morning will examine the greatest needs and best opportunities to improve public health. The panel, moderated by Balas, will include:

• Col. Christopher Castle, Commander, Eisenhower Army Medical Center
• Dr. Ketty Gonzalez, Health Director, East Central Public Health District
• David Hefner, GHSU Executive Vice President for Clinical Affairs
• Dr. K.B. Martin, Pastor, Antioch Baptist Church
• Carol Rountree, Executive Director of Student Services, Richmond County School District

Lunch at noon will be followed by remarks from Augusta Commissioner Matt Aitken.

The afternoon will focus on public health innovation, with sessions on partnering with business, preventing accidents and injuries, reimbursement reform and new public health initiatives for Georgia. Speakers include:

• Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, Commissioner, Georgia Department of Public Health
• Andrew Webber, President and CEO, National Business Coalition on Health
• Dr. Gail Wilensky, Senior Fellow, Project Hope, economist and former director of Medicare and Medicaid; member, Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
• Dr. Linda Degutis, Director, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control
• Dr. Robert Campbell, Medical Director, Christ Community Health Services
• Angela Overstreet-Wright, Medical Director, Belle Terrace Health Clinic
• Dr. Martha Tingen, Charles W. Linder, M.D. Chair in Pediatrics, Georgia Prevention Institute
• Dr. Deborah Young-Hyman, Professor of Pediatrics, Georgia Prevention Institute
• Dr. Lovoria Williams, Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Nursing, GHSU College of Nursing
• Dr. Pavani Rangachari, Assistant Professor of Health Informatics, GHSU College of Allied Health Sciences
• Dr. Richard Sattin, Professor of Emergency Medicine and Biobehavioral Nursing, GHSU Medical College of Georgia and College of Nursing

A concluding roundtable audience discussion on GHSU public health research and service priorities will be led by Dr. Greg Harshfield, Director of the GHSU Georgia Prevention Institute.

To RSVP, contact Laurie LaChance at 706-721-7720 or llachance@georgiahealth.edu.

“This truly is a victory lap for the people of the state of Georgia,” Deal said, citing fiscal 2012-13 legislation that includes $94 million in additional funding for higher-education enrollment growth, $28 million in bond funding for GHSU’s Education Commons and funding for 400 new residency slots statewide.

“We have to invest in this expansion,” Deal said of the residency funding. “Without these slots, many of those who have been educated in Georgia have to leave our state for a residency, and unfortunately, many never return.”

Likewise, the Education Commons funding will help ensure growing enrollment for GHSU’s Medical College of Georgia and College of Dental Medicine, increasing GHSU’s already considerable economic impact on Georgia and addressing health care workforce needs throughout the state.

Deal also reiterated his commitment to MCG’s ascendance as a top-50 medical school nationwide.

“That’s a strong promise,” President Ricardo Azziz said, thanking the Governor for recognizing Georgia Health Sciences’ statewide significance as a “great asset and growing economic engine. As the next great American university, we are committed to excellence.”

Vice Admiral Matthew L. Nathan is the speaker for the 2012 Medical College of Georgia Hooding Ceremony.

Augusta, Ga. – Vice Admiral Matthew L. Nathan, the 37^th Surgeon General of the Navy and a 1981 graduate of the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University, is the 2012 speaker for his alma mater’s Hooding Ceremony at 2 p.m., May 10 at Augusta’s Bell Auditorium.

Nathan will discuss “Navy Medicine: Caring for Today’s Military Personnel and Their Families Around the World.”

Nathan became Navy Surgeon General and Chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery in November 2011.  He previously served as the Navy’s Component Commander to the largest military medical integration and construction project in history: combining Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., with the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. to form the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.  He served as Commander of the consolidated facility as well as Navy Medicine for the National Capital Area before being named surgeon general.

“Dr. Nathan exemplifies the best of our graduates: a natural leader who has orchestrated significant change to improve life,” said Dr. Peter Buckley, MCG Dean. “Our armed forces deserve no less and we are proud that Surgeon General Nathan will join our Class of 2012 as its members embark on their futures with the symbolic presentation of the classic academic hood for medicine.” The classic Kelly green hood with silver, red, gold, black and blue accents is part of the graduation regalia.

Nathan is a 1977 graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology. He completed internal medicine training at the University of South Florida before being named Internal Medicine Department Head of the Naval Hospital in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Two years later he transferred to the Naval Hospital in Groton, Conn., to lead the Medical Mobilization Amphibious Surgical Support Team. Nathan next transferred to the Naval Medical Center San Diego as Head of the Division of Internal Medicine with additional responsibilities to the Marine Corp’s 1^st Marine Division, headquartered at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

Later he served as Acting Department Head of the Naval Hospital in Beaufort, S.C., and worked with the Naval Clinics Command in London to forge military relationships with Eastern European countries of the former Soviet Union.  Nathan was the fleet surgeon and Commander for the Seventh Fleet USS Blue Ridge, out of Yokosuka, Japan, before being named Deputy Commander of the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, Va. In 2004, he became Commanding Officer of the Naval Hospital of Pensacola as well as 12 clinics in four states where he oversaw Navy medical relief efforts following hurricanes Ivan, Dennis and Katrina. His command received the TRICARE/Department of Defense award for highest patient satisfaction in a medium-sized facility despite the devastating weather-related damage to the area and to the facilities.

He was named Fleet Surgeon of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., in June 2006 and returned to Portsmouth in 2007 as Commander.

Nathan is a member of the Advisory Board of the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences and the faculty at National Naval Medical Center, both in Bethesda. While in Pensacola, he received the American Hospital Association’s 2005 Federal Health Care Executive Award for Excellence for distinguished service through leadership, innovation and contributions to the mission of the federal health care system in addition to Department of Defense honor. His military honors include the Distinguished Service Medal, five Legion of Merit Medals, two Meritorious Service Medals and Navy Commendation and Achievement Medals. Nathan earned a master of science degree from Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National Defense University, in Washington, D.C. in 1999.

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Dr. Peter F. Buckley, Dean of the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University, will give his State of the College Address at noon Friday, May 4.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Dr. Peter F. Buckley, Dean of the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University, will give his State of the College Address at noon Friday, May 4 in the Lee Auditorium of the GHSU Auditoria Center.

Buckley, a psychiatrist and expert in leadership development, will discuss “Continuum of Leadership II: Building on our Momentum,” during his second State of the College Address. He chaired the MCG Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior for a decade before being named Interim Dean in 2010 and Dean in 2011.

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The Governor has been a tremendous champion of the Georgia Health Sciences enterprise, noting in his 2012 State of the State Address, “Georgians deserve a world-class, public medical university, and it will be a priority of this administration to have a medical college among the top 50 nationally. This is something we can do, and with your help, we will!”

“We look forward to continuing to work closely with the Governor as we actualize our mission of leading Georgia and the world to better health by providing excellence in biomedical education, discovery and service,” said GHSU President Ricardo Azziz.

Conceptual drawing of the GHSU Education Commons building

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Georgia Health Sciences University has received notice of an $8 million grant from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation to help build an interprofessional state-of-the-art simulation center in the university’s planned Education Commons building.

The commons is slated to be a five-story, 160,000-square-foot building with classroom space for GHSU’s College of Dental Medicine and Medical College of Georgia. The lab will include state-of-the-art standardized patient rooms and high-fidelity patient simulators. The simulation lab will be used by the various health professions disciplines. The total construction cost of the project, including the simulation lab, is $76.5 million.

“Partnerships like this one with the Woodruff Foundation are critical in advancing the vision of Georgia Health Sciences to be a globally recognized research university and academic health center, while transforming the region into a health care and biomedical research destination,” said GHSU President Ricardo Azziz. “Research has repeatedly shown that students and clinicians trained with simulation demonstrate markedly better knowledge, skills and behaviors at the bedside.”

Funding for construction of the Education Commons was included in Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal’s budget recommendations, released in January and approved by the Georgia Legislature in March. The governor has 40 days from the adjournment of the 2012 General Assembly session to sign the 2013 Fiscal Year budget. State officials also called on the university to secure funding from private philanthropy. To date, GHSU has secured $23 million for the project, including the Woodruff grant.

“This significant commitment from the Woodruff Foundation not only allows us to keep pace with national trends in health professions education, but is a testament to the future of our enterprise,” added Azziz.

“We are energized by this unprecedented level of philanthropic support,” said Susan Barcus, GHSU Senior Vice President for Advancement and Community Relations and Chief Development Officer. “This significant gift from the Woodruff Foundation, combined with the other support we have received, will help us transform health education in Georgia and rise to meet the health care needs of our state and our region.”

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The elimination of 528,814 pounds of waste was achieved by using reusable surgical products versus all disposable products in the medical center’s operating rooms and labor and delivery.

“This award is a testament to the inspired environmental commitment of all surgical staff members to the ‘greening’ of health care,” said SRI Surgical CEO Gerald Woodard.

Perioperative services began its Green Initiative in 2004 to move from ‘disposable to reusable,’ according to Missy Pratt, GHS Assistant Vice President for Perioperative Services.

“We found that each procedure had its own custom pack, which contained significant disposable products like basins and gowns,” Pratt said. “We wanted to consolidate packs, while ensuring high quality for patients and physicians.”

Over the last three years, perioperative services has consolidated 40 types of packs to 11 and moved to standardized surgical custom pack components. Results include three fewer hours of labor a day, an estimated $23,400 savings in handling costs and projected savings of almost half a million dollars for procedure packs in fiscal year 2011-12. In 2011 alone, the new packs kept 71,040 pounds of waste out of the landfill, Pratt said.

Representatives from SRI Surgical will present the award to Medical Center staff at the enterprise Earth Day Event, Friday, April 20. For a full schedule of Earth Day events, visit http://www.georgiahealth.edu/green/earthday/

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Dr. Alvin V. Terry Jr., pharmacologist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Soldiers in war zones and farmers tending their fields can have in common chronic exposure to chemicals that impact their nerves.

In large doses these agents, called organophosphates, are proven, rapid killers of people and pests that can also produce chronic disabilities such as problems with learning and memory, headaches  and pain, said Dr. Alvin V. Terry Jr., pharmacologist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University.

A Department of Defense grant is helping him document the less understood – and probably more common -  consequences of low-dose exposure for long periods.

“The use of these chemicals is like making the Faustian bargain,” said Terry. “They are great for enhancing farming productivity and getting rid of vector-born illnesses like malaria and yellow fever, but they are almost ubiquitious in our environment.” Conceding the last thing he wants is to encourage elimination of useful agents, he hopes instead that a prospective look at their cumulative toll will help identify ways to stop the ill effects.

“Once we have identified there is a problem and we know the mechanism, we have a much better chance of treating people,” he said. Terry will be looking at varying doses of chlorpyrifos, an insecticide used by farmers and the military during the Gulf War, as well as the nerve agent, diisopropylfluorophosphate.

He is the first to look at the agents’ impact on the axons, which enable brain cells to communicate.

“We are talking about the highway,” he said of the pathway that has information, molecules, growth factors and other things made by the cells moving constantly in both directions. Terry is finding this fundamental brain function may be a particular target of chronic exposure to organophosphates. He’s already shown animals with chronic exposure have impaired communication in the body.

Now he’s looking in the brain at axons as well as the white matter, which surrounds and helps insulate the nerve fibers to ensure clear communication. Brain studies have documented a shrinkage of white matter in some Gulf War veterans; Terry want to see if chronic exposure has a similar impact: enough to hamper but not destroy communication.  He was corresponding author on a paper published earlier this year in the journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology that indicates chronic, low-level exposure leads to chronic spatial learning and memory deficits.

Dr. Nathan Yanasak, Director of GHSU’s Core Imaging Facility for Small Animals, is collaborating on the new study that will do baseline then follow-up brain images of rats after low-level exposure for 30 days. Then researchers will follow the rats until the agents are no longer detectable in the body. A manganese tracer will gauge activity up and down axons.

“We are looking at real time axonal transport changes in the brains of living animals after organophosphate exposure which has never been done before,” Terry said of a perspective that should provide direct evidence of the agents’ impact on the brain. “If it’s being slowed down, that would tell us the stuff that needs to get down that axon is not getting there fast enough. So how is the traffic moving?” In addition to the images, behavioral testing will measure impact on working memory and the spatial reference memory that helps people navigate.

Like a muscle recovers after overuse, it’s possible – but not likely – that once the agents clear the body, any damage they do will resolve. “We don’t know until we do these studies if it’s persistent or not,” Terry said.

Organophosphates block an enzyme that breaks down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine so the brain doesn’t get overstimulated, Terry said. At large doses, the response includes immediate seizures, spasms and respiratory paralysis or failure. Their use as insecticides during the Gulf War from 1990-91 continues to make headlines with about a quarter of the 697,000 U.S. veterans who served experiencing ongoing problems with memory, concentration, headaches and widespread pain.

However, the soldiers’ exposure to multiple other agents –  including depleted uranium, anthrax vaccine, burning fuels and infectious agents – could be causing or at least contributing to the problems, Terry said, which is why direct cause and result studies are needed.  Gulf War veterans may have been at additional risk because the nerve agents sarin and cylcosarin likely were released during the 1991 destruction of an Iraqi munitions storage complex.

Terry notes that while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency strictly regulates exposure, many countries do not. Even still, a decade-old survey of 1,000 Americans found 96 percent had detectable levels of a metabolite of a common insecticide in their blood, he said. Pesticide applicators and organophosphate producers are two other groups that may get chronic exposure.

Terry also is a faculty member in the GHSU College of Graduate Studies and Director of the university’s Small Animal Behavior Core Laboratory.

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Robert Arnold has been named Chief Nurse Executive at East Central Regional Hospital and Director of Mental Health Partnerships at Georgia Health Sciences University College of Nursing.

ECRH is largest of six state psychiatric facilities. Its two campuses provide services for individuals with developmental disabilities as well as forensic and mental health services. GHSU has a partnership agreement with the hospital to provide clinical, educational and research opportunities designed to improve quality of mental health services.

Arnold will direct mental health nursing services at ECRH. He also will collaborate with Dr. Deborah Natvig, GHSU Associate Dean of Academic Nursing Practice, on a strategic plan to recruit and retain nurses at the facility; promote the ECRH/GHSU inter-professional partnership on community, state and national levels; and assist College of Nursing faculty in the development of psychiatric mental health nursing curriculum.

Previously, Arnold was Chief of Community Behavioral Health Services at Eisenhower Army Medical Center on Fort Gordon.

“Mr. Arnold brings to ECRH a reputation as a skilled clinician with leadership skills that contribute to increased morale and productivity,” said Regional Hospital Administrator Nan Lewis. “He sets high standards and promotes nursing excellence, teamwork and compassion. He will be a key contributor in the growth and development of the partnership between GHSU, ECRH and the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities.”

As a Major in the U.S. Army, Arnold served as Director and Assistant Professor of the inaugural Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Program at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. He also served in Mosul, Iraq, where he was Officer in Charge of the Combat Stress Control Fitness Team. His success in the combat theatre led to his selection by the Department of Defense to create and direct a new master’s level program to train military and U.S. Public Health Service registered nurses as Adult Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners.

He received numerous military awards, including two Meritorious Service Medals, two National Defense Service Medals, two Army Commendation Medals and three Army Achievement Medals.

Arnold, a certified Adult Psychiatric Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist, is a member of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association and Sigma Theta Tau National Honor Society.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Texas at El Paso, where he was Nursing Student of the Year in 1995, a master’s degree in health care management from Troy University and a master’s degree in nursing from Kent State University.

Dr. Darrell W. Brann received the International Cooperation Award in sciences and technology from the government of China’s Hebei Province.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Dr. Darrell W. Brann, Regents Professor and Associate Director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine and Genetics at Georgia Health Sciences University, has received the International Cooperation Award in sciences and technology from the government of China’s Hebei Province.

Brann, who also is Director of GHSU’s graduate program in neuroscience, received the highest award for international collaboration in science and technology for his neuroscience- and endocrinology-advancing work with investigators at Hebei United University.

His four-year relationship with Hebei United University researchers has resulted in publication of a dozen scientific papers in journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Topics include the signaling that enables estrogen to benefit the brain and how aging and menopause decrease the brain benefits of the female hormone. Brann is Honorary Director of the Institute of Neurobiology, which the Chinese university established in 2010.

Hebei United University, one of 10 key universities in the Hebei Province, has 31 colleges, offering 76 undergraduate programs and 138 master’s degree programs. The university has established relationships with more than 20 universities across the world.

Brann, a neuroscientist, is a 1990 graduate of the GHSU College of Graduate Studies and a faculty member in Graduate Studies as well as the Medical College of Georgia. He is a member of the National Institutes of Health Integrative and Clinical Endocrinology and Reproduction Study Section. He chairs the Brain Region II Study Section of the American Heart Association. He is an Editor for the journal PloS One and an Associate Editor for BMC Neuroscience.  He is on the editorial board of Current Psychopharmacology, Brain Disorders & Therapy, Journal of Clinical and Experimental Cardiology, Neuroendocrinology, Open Neuroendocrinology and ISRN Endocrinology.

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