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January 2007

 
 
  New Winship director
Johns receives alumni award
Medical professionalism takes center stage

Transitions
Focus on M1 class  
  Other outstanding kudos
New IOM member
Surgeon-scientists receive national award
Berkelhamer to lead AAP

           
         

New Winship director

Dr. Brian Leyland-Jones has been appointed Associate Vice President and Director of the Winship Cancer Institute. He previously served as the Minda de Gunzberg Chair in Oncology and Professor of Medicine at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He is a former Director of the McGill University Comprehensive Cancer Center.
     "Emory brings a tremendous array of resources to the fight against cancer," Dr. Leyland-Jones says. "I am very excited to come to Winship. We are well positioned here to harness the resources of the University as well as our partners in research and education at the American Cancer Society, the CDC, the Georgia Cancer Coalition, and the Georgia Research Alliance. Our work with Georgia Tech and our research ties to the University of Georgia will continue to grow. Through collaboration we can make significant strides in the development of prevention and personalized treatment for all types of cancer."
     During his tenure at McGill, he developed a clinical trials operation that integrated research with five clinical trial cooperative groups and more than 40 pharmaceutical companies. Cancer-related clinical trials at McGill currently include more than 100 protocols at any one time and are structured through nine multidisciplinary disease sections throughout the Cancer Centre. He also helped develop new epidemiology and cancer pharmacology sections and increased research space.
     Dr. Leyland-Jones is renowned internationally for developing individualized cancer therapies and novel clinical trials. His research interests are pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacogenetics in oncologic clinical trials; translation of preclinical models into the clinic; biomarker endpoints in Phase 1/2 clinical trials; and screening and mechanistic studies of novel targeted and chemotherapeutic anti-cancer agents. He serves in leadership roles at several national organizations.

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Johns receives alumni award

The University of Michigan Medical Center Alumni Society has awarded the 2006 Distinguished Achievement Award to Dr. Michael M.E. Johns, CEO of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center (WHSC) and Executive Vice President for Health Affairs, for his many achievements in his field. He received his MD with distinction from the University of Michigan Medical Center in 1969 and completed his internship and residency training there in 1975. He served as the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and vice president of the medical faculty at Johns Hopkins University from 1990 to 1996. Dr. Johns has led the WHSC since 1996 and has led a comprehensive strategy to position the WHSC as one of the nation's preeminent academic health centers. This strategy includes recruitment of world-class faculty, signficant innovations in curriculum, and reshaping of the research enterprise, which in 2005 attracted $331 million in funding. Moreover, Dr. Johns has led a consolidation and realignment in the clinical enterprise and the most extensive facilities improvement plan in Emory history. A noted otolaryngologist, he was elected to the IOM in 1993 and has served as vice chair of the Council of the IOM. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, chairman of the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) Council of Teaching Hospitals, and chairman of AAMC's Board of Advisors of the Institute for the Improvement of Medical Education.

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Medical professionalism takes center stage

During my recent State of the School address, I discussed a number of issues related to conflict of interest (COI) and medical professionalism. One thing is clear: Partnering with industry in various aspects of academia is important. But we are facing challenges and accountability in how we manage the inevitable conflicts that arise in a new era of technology transfer and increasing pharmaceutical, device, and equipment company support.
     As a result, I have appointed a new COI task force to advise me on how we should address our relationships with pharmaceutical and medical device companies. I have asked Drs. Tristram Parslow (Chair, Pathology) and Ned Waller (Associate Professor, Hematology/Oncology) to co-chair this committee. It will have broad representation from the School of Medicine and Emory Healthcare, as well as the School of Public Health, the School of Nursing, and the Yerkes Primates Center. I will communicate with you and provide ample opportunities to present your ideas and opinions.
     While I recognize that no policy will cover every situation, we must depend on the integrity of all of us to put the patient, the trainee, and the public first. We have made good progress in managing COI in research, but we need to address it in teaching and patient care. This will be a coherent new policy that will address certain basic elements and principles representing the highest standards and will include pertinent recommendations on how to best educate our faculty, staff, and trainees.
      We are already a national leader in this arena. Dr. Claudia Adkison, Executive Associate Dean, who helped draft the University's conflict of interest policy and oversees its compliance in the SOM, is a founding member and the first national chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges' Forum on Conflicts of Interest in Academie (FOCI Academe), which shares COI information and strategies and provides guidelines for managing conflicts in research. "In the future," she says, "we need to move further toward emphasis on a broader culture of ethics, not just compliance with a policy and set of rules. Basically, we just need to do the right thing."
A copy of the State of the School address is available online.

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Transitions

The SOM owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to Dr. Robert Smith III and Dr. Harold Ramos, both of whom retired recently from their posts as Medical Director at Emory Hospital and Emory Crawford Long Hospital, respectively. Their many contributions to the health care of Georgians, passion for quality patient care and scientific inquiry, and inspiration to generations of medical students, residents, and fellows will be felt for years to come.
Dr. Smith, who also served as Associate Chair of Surgery, led the medical staff at Emory Hospital for the past decade. Dr. Smith has combined administrative and clinical roles as a nationally known vascular surgeon throughout his distinguished four-decade career. He was involved in Georgia's first organ transplant and received special recognition in 2004 from Emory's surgical residents for his years of surgical teaching. He will serve as the John E. Skandalakis Professor of Surgery, Emeritus.
Dr. Ramos has served Emory for more than 40 years. He joined the SOM when Dr. Willis Hurst, then Chairman of the Department of Medicine, was in the process of consolidating the postgraduate programs in medicine at Emory Hospital, the VA Hospital, Emory Crawford Long Hospital, and Grady Hospital. Dr. Ramos developed a medical teaching program at Emory Crawford Long, where he was instrumental in establishing a coronary care unit. Additionally, he served on the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Board.

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Focus on M1 class

Our SOM class of 2011 has been in session for several months, but it is worth featuring our 114 newest students. We again have more women (62) than men (52), a trend likely to continue among medical schools nationally. Approximately a third of these students majored in an undergraduate subject other than science or engineering. Their cumulative undergraduate grade point average was 3.66 and average MCAT score was 33.3, and there were 48 applicants for each class slot. Their average age is 23, and they come from 29 states and 15 countries. Good luck to this very accomplished class!

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Other outstanding kudos


Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and Senior Medical Correspondent at CNN, recently received an Emmy for a special feature report during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. His report documented the plight of New Orleans' Charity Hospital, debunked offical reports that the hospital had been completely evacuated, and showed how doctors, nurses, staff, and patients struggled for days in extreme circumstances.



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New IOM member

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recently inducted Dr. Walter Orenstein into its class of new members. Emory now has 21 IOM members.
     IOM members are rigorously selected for their contributions to advancing medical sciences, health care, and public health.
"I am thrilled to now be a member of an institution I hold in such respect," remarks Dr. Orenstein. "I have always been impressed by its thoughtful assessments of scientific evidence and recommendations."
     He has served in the SOM as Director of Vaccine Policy and Development and Associate Director of the Vaccine Center since 2004. His prior contributions to vaccine development and delivery at the CDC and WHO have led to many advances in polio and smallpox eradication and measles and influenza control, to name a few.

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Surgeon-scientists receive national award

Drs. Christian Larsen and Thomas Pearson (Surgery) have received the Roche Award from the Transplantation Society. The award recognizes individuals' outstanding contributions in transplantation and for making a major international impact in the field. Dr. Larsen is Director of the Emory Transplant Center, and Dr. Pearson is Director of the Kidney Transplant Program.

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Berkelhamer to lead AAP

Dr. Jay Berkelhamer, Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and Clinical Professor in both Emory and Morehouse schools of medicine, has been named president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). He has been a national spokesperson for the AAP and an advocate for children's issues throughout his career. During his tenure at Children's,
     Dr. Berkelhamer has helped lead the organization in becoming one of the nation's best pediatric hospitals. Last year, Child magazine named it as one of the top 10 in the country.  

Thomas J. Lawley, MD
Dean, Emory School of Medicine
   
     
 

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