Noteworthy | More about Emory's best



Doyle Stulting

 



True Emory vision

While you may have seen television ads showing the "Emory Vision Center" dissolving into something else, it's actually about to become the real thing -- Emory Laser Vision.

Confused? Here's what happened.

Emory has been associated with a nationally known laser surgery center since the earliest days of refractive surgery. Ten years ago, the name "Emory Vision" was licensed to an independent group of ophthalmologists, including Doyle Stulting, who now heads the new Emory Laser Vision. The independent group later renamed itself and widely advertised its off-campus center as the "Emory Vision Correction Center" or, more recently, "Emory Vision." While it used the Emory name and while some of its doctors held faculty appointments in ophthalmology, the Emory Vision Correction Center was legally a completely separate company. It was never owned by or a part of Emory.

Recently, this decade-long licensing arrangement ended and Emory Vision or Emory Vision Correction Center was dissolved. A new for-profit, non-Emory entity was created by former Emory physicians, George Waring and Keith Thompson.

However, Stulting will continue as a professor of ophthalmology here and is leading the effort to combine the research strengths of academic medicine with excellent care at Emory Laser Vision, located at Emory's Perimeter Clinic on 875 Johnson Ferry Road. He has been involved in refractive surgery research and clinical trials over the past 10 years, performed more than 2,000 LASIK (laser in-situ keratomileusis) procedures, published often-cited papers in the field, and is recognized internationally as the expert consultant for patients with questions about their refractive surgery outcomes. He was one of the physicians approved in 1998 to perform LASIK using a surgical system developed by Emory researchers. This was the first time the Food and Drug Administration, which typically approves devices or drugs for manufacturers, had granted approval directly to a physician team for a surgical system. Stulting is also the editor of the journal Cornea.

Three other surgeons from the Emory Eye Center's renowned cornea and comprehensive sections - Diane Song, John Kim, and Brad Randleman - bring their combined years of experience and academic expertise with refractive surgery to Emory Laser Vision and are backed by more than 100 years of eye care at Emory.

For more information, call Marika Chasse at Emory Laser Vision, 404-778-2SEE.

 

 



Steven Roser

 



Repairing divisions

In Central and South America, the high incidence of cleft lip or cleft palate - 1 in 300, compared with about 1 in 1,000 in the United States - may stem from genetic or environmental influences. Most of the population are farmers and are regularly exposed to pesticides, says Steven Roser, Emory's new chief of oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMFS).

In March, Roser spent a week at a government hospital with a team of volunteers, including local doctors, in Monta, Ecuador, where they surgically repaired children's cleft lip and cleft palate deformities. He's taken many such trips to Central and South America since 1991, often returning to the same locations for follow-up care with former patients. "These children are from very poor families who can't afford care," he says. He hopes to recruit an Emory team for a similar trip next year.

Closer to home, one of the tasks before Roser is to reacquaint the Emory community with its OMFS program -- "who we are and what we do." OMFS was part of Emory's School of Dentistry, which closed in 1990. The division has since been housed in the Department of Surgery, where Roser, three full-time faculty, and an enthusiastic volunteer faculty now provide a full range of services for adults and children -- corrective jaw surgery, wisdom and other teeth extractions, temporomandibular joint surgery, and dental implant reconstruction. They also treat injuries to the face and mouth (maxillofacial trauma), snoring and sleep apnea, facial deformities (congenital and acquired), and diseases of the mouth.

The division offers two residency tracks in oral and maxillofacial surgery for dental school graduates: a four-year program and a six-year program, which includes a medical degree and a year in general surgery residency. As Roser explains, about half of all OMFS training programs in the United States incorporate the medical degree into the curriculum. The MD/oral surgery track is based on models of medical practice in Europe and Great Britain, where the majority of oral maxillofacial surgeons are licensed as both dentists and medical doctors.

Currently, Emory OMFS faculty and residents see patients at The Emory Clinic, Emory University Hospital, Emory Crawford Long Hospital, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, Grady Hospital, and the Atlanta VA Medical Center. As a result, they treat a diverse number of patients with a variety of clinical problems. With time, Roser hopes to expand their practice, broaden their research base, and collaborate more with colleagues in private practice.

"My goal is to make this the No. 1 oral and maxillofacial surgery program in the country," says Roser, who arrived at Emory in January after directing graduate medical education at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and spending 20 years at Columbia University as director of oral and maxillofacial surgery. "It's a very dynamic time to be here. Being new gives me an opportunity to kick all the tires and turn over all the stones."

 

 

Kudos

SANJAY GUPTA, medical correspondent for CNN and an Emory faculty member, is one of the "40 sexiest men alive" according to People magazine. He was the only brain surgeon on the list.

CORRECTION

In the fall 2003 issue of Momentum, we regrettably misspelled the name of Carla Gober, owner of Renewal, a specialty boutique in the Winship Cancer Institute that stocks items such as wigs, scarves, and prosthetics. We also mistakenly identified Ms. Gober, an oncology nurse who worked in the field for five years, as a cancer survivor. She is not, she told us, although her parents are.

In this issue

From the CEO / Letters
Heart and soul
Good bone structure
Big Idea: The code breakers
Moving forward
Noteworthy
On Point:
  Insuring America's health
 

The Southeastern Branch of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science named KIMBERLY BENJAMIN and FRANKLIN VELASQUEZ, both in the division of animal resources, as Technician of the Year and outstanding frontline animal care technician involved in the husbandry of laboratory animals, respectively.

Susan Butler, Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH), received an Award of Excellence from the Georgia Alliance for Tobacco Prevention for the school's support and assistance in tobacco control efforts.

Dean James Curran, RSPH, received the John P. Snow Award for excellence in epidemiology practice or research from the American Public Health Association. Cam Escoffery, behavioral sciences and health education, received the Early Career Award from the group.

ERICA FRANK was recognized as a Local Legend from Georgia, an honor bestowed upon women physicians who have demonstrated commitment, originality, innovation, or creativity in their field of medicine.

Eric Hunter, one of the world's leading experts on retroviruses, including HIV, will join the medical faculty this fall as a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar. He will join efforts to develop effective vaccines against HIV and AIDS while expanding his own research on how the AIDS virus reproduces itself and is transmitted from person to person. He comes to Emory from the University of Alabama at Birmingham along with his wife and collaborator, Susan Allen, who is internationally recognized for her research regarding HIV prevention and spread in the African nations of Rwanda and Zambia. She will join the RSPH as a professor of international health with a joint appointment in the School of Medicine.

WALTER A. ORENSTEIN directs the new Emory program for vaccine policy and development. He spent 26 years in the CDC's immunization program where he led the global effort to eliminate many of the world's most common vaccine-preventable diseases.

Nurse clinician Denise Wood, Emory University Hospital, recently received the outstanding service award from the Society of Otorhinolaryngology and Head-Neck Nurses.

John Young, director of the Georgia Center for Cancer Statistics, received the NCI Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program Lifetime Achievement Award.

Of 32 recently named Georgia Cancer Coalition Eminent Scholars, 15 are from Emory. The first two GCC scholars from the nursing school are Roberta Kaplow, who provides ongoing education to oncology nurses at Grady, and Jill Hamilton, whose research focuses on African-American patients. Also named were Winship Cancer Institute endocrinologist Vasileios Assikis for research on translational prostate and endocrine cancer; pediatrician Donald Durden for signal transduction pathways research; public health expert Karen Glanz for cancer education and social epidemiology; pediatrician Anna Janss for work on pediatric brain tumors; Peter Johnstone for identification of the impact of cancer on quality of life; Andrew Karellas for imaging research on early detection of breast cancer with mammography; Fadlo Khuri for work on translational aerodigestive tract cancer; David Kooby for molecular and genetic interventions in model tumor systems; public health expert Joseph Lipscomb for health economics; Jack Mandel for his public health work on cancer epidemiology and prevention research; Ruth O'Regan for translational breast cancer research; Surasak Phuphanich for clinical research on brain tumors; and Shi-Yong Sun for translational research on apoptosis and B-cell malignancies.

 

In Memory

WILLIAM S. DOMIN died in January following a fall while caving with his sons in Tennessee. He was 47. A member of The Emory Clinic, he was the department chair and later chief of medical staff at Emory Adventist Hospital from 1997 to 1999.

Igor Stojiljkovic, microbiology and immunology, died in October after a long illness. He was only 44. He was recognized internationally as an outstanding young investigator in microbial pathogenesis, and his enthusiasm for research and his dedication as a mentor attracted numerous students and postdoctoral fellows to his laboratory. For information on the Stojiljkovic Lecture Memorial Fund, call Charles Sparkman at 404-712-2346.

 


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Web version by Jaime Henriquez.