January 29, 2004
Health Sciences News Briefs
Faculty development
A faculty development workshop called “Juggler’s Aid Society: Resolving Competing Imperatives of Profession and Life” is scheduled from 8:30 a.m. to noon, Tuesday, Feb. 10, in room 303 of South Campus Center. The School of Medicine workshop will offer both practical advice and theories about how busy professionals, especially health professionals, can maintain or regain their vitality and balance their lives. Dr. Linda Hawes Clever, clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, is the main presenter. For more information or to register, call the Department of Medical Education and Biomedical Informatics at 206-543-2259 or go to the Web site at http://www.dme.washington.edu/facdev.html
Ethics award
Dr. J. Randall Curtis, associate professor of medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, has received the 2004 Grenvik Family Award for Ethics from the Society of Critical Care Medicine. Curtis, who practices in the Intensive Care Unit at Harborview Medical Center, was honored for promoting the ethical and humane delivery of critical care. The award is given in memory of Christer Grenvik, a Pittsburgh physician who died early in his career and whose father is a founder of the society. Curtis directs the End-of-Life Care Research Program, which conducts projects to improve the care of patients nearing death and teaches physicians, nurses, social workers, and chaplains how to talk with patients and families about palliative care. Curtis and Dr. Gordon Rubenfeld, also an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, are co-editors of the book, Managing Death in the Intensive Care Unit: The Transition from Care to Comfort, published by Oxford University Press.
Urology Board
Dr. Paul Lange, professor and chair of urology, has been elected to a six-year term on the American Board of Urology. The eight-member board sets the standards and policies for resident education and the certification of urologists in the United States. Dr. Michael Mitchell, professor of urology, has just completed a six-year term on the board.
In-cites interview
An interview with Dr. Norman Breslow, professor of biostatistics in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine, has been posted on the Web site in-cites, maintained by ISI Essential Science Indicators. Breslow was interviewed about his paper, “Approximate Inference in Generalized Linear Mixed Models,” published in 1993 by the Journal of the American Statistical Association. The paper is the most-cited in the field of mathematics over the past decade. In the interview, Breslow, who is also a member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, talks about the work behind the paper and its long-run importance. See it at http://www.incites.com/papers/DrNormanBreslow.html
Operation a success
Operation Peanut Butter, the Division of General Surgery’s holiday effort to collect peanut butter for local food banks, yielded more than 4,200 pounds. This was significantly more than the goal of 2,341 pounds, which was the estimated combined weight of the division’s surgeons. Rosemary Mitchell, research coordinator in the division, coordinated the drive.
