NOTABLE

Craig Coopersmith, above, (surgery), associate director of the Emory Critical Care Center, was selected as a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

Stacy Higgins, above, (medicine) received the 2014 American College of Physicians W. Lester Henry Award for Diversity and Access to Care.

Pat Hudgins, above, (radiology) received the 2013 Gold Medal Award from the American Society of Head and Neck Radiology.

Dean Emeritus Thomas Lawley, above, (dermatology) will receive the Charles R. Hatcher, Jr., Award for Excellence in Public Health. The presentation will be March 6, 4:30 p.m., in the Klamon Room on the 8th floor of the CNR Building at the Rollins School of Public Health.

EVENTS

March 12: Dean's Distinguished Faculty Lecture and Award, Kerry Ressler (psychiatry), 5:30 p.m., 120 SOM.

March 18: Emory Core Day, 3-6 p.m., SOM lobby. More about core services.

March 19: Medical Education Day, 11:30 a.m.- 4 p.m., SOM atrium. RSVP by March 3.

March 19: 10th Hamilton Holmes Annual Lecture, Sheryl Heron (emergency medicine), 5 p.m., SOM 110.

March 26: Outstanding Women in Medicine, with Patricia Hudgins (radiology) and pathologist Jeannette Guarner (pathology), 2-3:30 p.m., SOM 120.

Conducting research that matters

Dean Christian Larsen

Several SOM departments have achieved top national rankings in amount of research funding awarded from the NIH last year, including the departments of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (3) and Pediatrics in partnership with Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (5). The rankings were independently compiled by the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research. Also ranking in the top 10 nationally were the departments of Emergency Medicine (6), Surgery (6), Radiation Oncology, when broken out individually (6), Microbiology (7), and Neurology (8). It is gratifying to see that Emory's SOM has such strong research programs, and I want to congratulate our departments and faculty for their success.

At the same time, we must take care not to get overly focused on rankings for funding—what truly matters, as always, is the impact of our research. Examples include Emory discoveries that led to new drugs for HIV and hepatitis C, clinical trials that allow aortic valve replacement without an incision, and definition of signaling pathways that can be targeted to unleash immunity to treat melanoma and other cancers.

Sheila Angeles-Han (pediatrics) studies juvenile arthritis and uveitis with hopes of identifying children at greatest risk for vision loss and blindness.

Careful with that brain!

High school students study brain structure at the SOM.

From suturing labs to brain anatomy sessions, SOM faculty, residents, and students are doing great work through the Emory Pipeline mentorship program and the Summer Science Academy (which is observing its 20th anniversary this year). The programs encourage minority students from Atlanta public schools to pursue careers in medicine and the sciences. The Office of Multicultural Medical Student Affairs offers these programs to increase minority enrollment in medical schools and, in turn, to increase diversity among practicing physicians. The confidence factor works: rates of college attendance among participants are higher, and they are—just as hoped—more likely to choose medical and science careers.

What happens when a cardiac surgeon, an electrical engineer, a computer scientist, and a medical resident share a table to problem solve? More than 100 attendees from Georgia Tech and Emory—including faculty, researchers, fellows, residents, and students—gathered at the first Medicine 2.0 conference last fall to find out. "It takes both engineers and doctors to make a new catheter or to develop software for scheduling patients," says Erik Reinertsen, a cofounder of Medicine 2.0, who hopes it will become a catalyst for biomedical innovation in Atlanta. "Several teams are moving forward with projects they thought of during the event."