Dean's Weekly Message
October 14, 2019
Dear colleague:
The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $4.2 million, five-year grant to researchers at the Adult and Child Consortium for Health Outcomes Research and Delivery Science (ACCORDS) to support a new center for cancer prevention and control in rural areas. The grant is part of the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Moonshot Research Initiatives and supports a national consortium of centers working to translate research into clinical practice quickly and effectively. Initially, the ACCORDS team will focus on lung cancer screening in rural areas, first in Colorado and then nationally. The goal is to develop and share models and methods for cancer control programs and guidelines that would address all areas of cancer control. Russell Glasgow, PhD, research professor of family medicine, is the principal investigator.
C. Neill Epperson, MD, chair of psychiatry, will be the featured speaker at the Chancellor’s Faculty Forum on Monday, October 21, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Krugman Conference Hall on the second floor of Research Complex 2. Neill will make a presentation with a question-and-answer session. All campus faculty are invited. No RSVP is necessary. Attendees should bring faculty ID for entry. Drinks and hors d’oeuvres will be served.
The seventh annual Leaders Empowering the Advancement of Diversity in Education, Research and Science in Women’s Health conference was hosted in Denver by the School’s Center for Women’s Health Research on Friday, October 4. The event brings together endowed chairs and key leaders in the field of women’s health from across the United States and Canada. Among this year’s speakers were Janine Austin Clayton, MD, director of the National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women’s Health, and C. Noel Bairey Merz, MD, director of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center, at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. Thanks to Judy Regensteiner, PhD, director of the Center for Women’s Health Research and a member of the group’s steering committee, and her team for organizing the meeting.
The School of Medicine Office of Medical Education is recruiting candidates to serve as an Acting Internship Director. The position is responsible for creating and overseeing the fourth-year internships. Details are available in the posted job description. It is a 0.1 FTE position. An MD, PhD, or DO degree and School of Medicine faculty appointment is required. Applicants should submit a letter of intent and CV to Brooke Baker, brooke.baker@cuanschutz.edu, by Friday, October 25.
Condolences to family, friends, and colleagues of Owen Patrick O’Meara, MD, who died Wednesday, September 25. Pat served on the CU School of Medicine faculty and had a passion for teaching pediatrics to students and house staff. He served for 28 years on the intern selection committee for the pediatric residency, helping recruit about 600 residents to the program. Pat graduated from the CU School of Medicine in 1965 and completed internship and residency here as well, serving as chief resident under C. Henry Kempe, MD. Pat’s wife Carol, sons John and Brian, and daughter Meghan are planning a memorial in early November.
Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and former Dean Richard Krugman, MD, was a featured speaker at a briefing, “Violence and Health,” in Washington, D.C., hosted by the journal Health Affairs on Thursday, October 10. Dick is one of the country’s leading experts on matters related to preventing child abuse and neglect and his voice has been loud and clear for decades that our society must address these matters as a public health crisis. In a passionate article he wrote for the October issue of Health Affairs, he discusses how “gaze aversion” has contributed to a national failure to put adequate resources into the prevention of child abuse and neglect and its consequences. “Twenty-one years after the publication of the seminal Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study by Vincent Felitti and colleagues that clearly linked childhood abuse and neglect to major health conditions in adulthood, how can it not be standard for physicians and specialists to ask patients about possible histories of abuse and neglect in childhood?” he writes. “How can millions of dollars be awarded annually to researchers on suicide, depression, and obesity, with no complementary study of the contribution of abuse and neglect to these conditions? This is gaze aversion, and it needs to end.” Toward that end, he and a former patient, Lori Poland, founded the National Foundation to End Child Abuse and Neglect to make strides similar to those made by the March of Dimes, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, and others in addressing other health concerns.
Have a good week,
John J. Reilly, Jr., MD
Richard D. Krugman Endowed Chair
Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and
Dean, School of Medicine
The Dean’s weekly message is an email news bulletin from John J. Reilly, Jr., MD, Dean of the CU School of Medicine, that is distributed to inform University of Colorado School of Medicine faculty members, staff, students and others about issues pertaining to the School’s mission of education, research, clinical care and community service. For clinical news and patient stories from UCHealth, please visit UCHealth Today
If you would like to receive these emails directly, please contact Cheryl.Welch@ucdenver.edu.