Dear Colleague: 

Today, we welcome our Class of 2028 students in the MD program and on Friday, July 26, we’ll celebrate the start of their medical school journey by presenting our new students with white coats and stethoscopes at our matriculation ceremony. These events are filled with great hope and are a source of inspiration for all of us. As my first matriculation ceremony as Dean, I am as excited as our new students!

On our school’s matriculation ceremony webpage, you’ll find a link to watch the livestream of Friday’s festivities. Our Office of Student Life introduced our communications team to three incoming students who are featured in profile articles on the webpage:

• Feruth Kidane, whose parents immigrated to the United States to escape war in Eritrea, graduated from Duke University in 2018 with a degree in evolutionary anthropology. She says she wants to reduce maternal mortality rates, particularly the disproportionate rates among women of color.
• Will Cordett graduated from University of California Santa Barbara with a degree in biopsychology and then worked for two years as an in-home caregiver for an elderly man with dementia.
• John Gregory, who graduated from Colorado State University and had considered veterinarian school, changed his plans due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After working as an EMT, he’s on his way back to school at our branch in Fort Collins.

If we could profile all 184 of our new students, we would because they are all quite impressive. To select our incoming class, we start with about 10,000 initial applications, we review thousands of completed applications, and we conduct hundreds of interviews. It’s a massive effort that requires thorough and careful work by hundreds of faculty members and staff. Many thanks to all those individuals for their their effort and dedication, and especially to Jeffrey SooHoo, MD, MBA, assistant dean of admissions and student affairs and associate professor of ophthalmology, for leading the team.

Cancer Moonshot Update
Top White House science official Arati Prabhakar, PhD, visited our campus last Wednesday to have a conversation with school leaders, clinical partners, and Colorado elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette and Lt. Gov. Dianne Primavera.

Prabhakar, who is director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, asked for a briefing on our campus efforts regarding research, patient navigation, and public health. The panel of speakers included CU Cancer Center members Eduardo Davila, PhD, associate director for cancer research training and education coordination, Sabrina Spencer, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry at CU Boulder, Linda Cook, PhD, associate director of population sciences, and Andi Dwyer, director of the Colorado Cancer Screening Program.

An article in the School of Medicine newsroom summarizes the conversation, features great photos of the event, and offers many details about the outstanding efforts happening here. Many thanks to James DeGregori, PhD, deputy director of the CU Cancer Center, for guiding the enlightening conversation.

Faculty Updates
Laura D. Scherer, PhD, associate professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology and investigator with the Adult and Child Center for Outcomes Research and Delivery Science, is corresponding author of original research published July 16 by Annals of Internal Medicine that presents survey results related to breast cancer screening for women in their 40s. Six co-authors are from our School of Medicine. They found that a considerable proportion of the women surveyed prefer to delay screening, especially after a decision aid intervention. NPR reported on the study.

Michael Ho, MD, PhD, professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology, and Sheana Bull, PhD, MPH, professor in the Colorado School of Public Health, are featured in a video posted July 15 by the NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory discussing the Chat 4 Heart Health trial , which aims to improve control of cardiovascular disease risk factors. Their study will compare effectiveness of three text messaging delivery strategies that have been shown to improve individuals’ self-management of health behaviors, including physical activity and medication adherence.

Elizabeth Goldberg, MD, associate professor of emergency medicine, is corresponding author of a comment published July 11 in npj Digital Medicine that describes the transformative approach of UCHealth’s virtual health center in supporting clinicians, achieving efficiencies, and positively impacting patient outcomes. Five co-authors, including Richard Zane, MD, chair of emergency medicine are from our campus.

James A. Feinstein, MD, MPH, associate professor of pediatrics and investigator with the Adult and Child Center for Outcomes Research and Delivery Science, is corresponding author of an original investigation published July 15 by JAMA Network Open that provides an update of the pediatric Complex Chronic Condition system. The Children’s Hospital Association includes that system as part of the Pediatric Health Information System and makes the software freely available.

Rebecca Shay, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics, is corresponding author of a quality improvement article published July 18 by the Journal of Perinatology that describes guidelines for non-emergent neonatal intubations that were created by a multidisciplinary team at Children’s Hospital Colorado. Six co-authors are Department of Pediatrics faculty members.

Vinaya Manchaiah, PhD, professor of otolaryngology – head and neck surgery, is a co-author of an original investigation published July 11 by JAMA Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery that shows that self-fit over-the-counter hearing aids can offer comparable long-term benefits to audiologist-fit hearing aids for individuals with mild to moderate hearing loss.

Colleen Julian, PhD, associate professor of biomedical informatics, describes her work identifying treatments for neonatal pulmonary hypertension in an article published last week in the department’s newsroom. Colleen regularly travels to cities located in the Andes mountains of South America and is working with researchers in Bolivia. She is corresponding author of a symposium review published earlier this year by The Journal of Physiology.

Philippa Marrack, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Immunology and Microbiology at CU and chair of immunology and genomic medicine at National Jewish Health, is corresponding author of a research article published July 12 by Science Immunology that describes a study of T cell receptor variability in CD4 T cells. Several colleagues from National Jewish Health and our campus are co-authors.

2024 CU-CSU Summit
Each year, the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute hosts a conference to foster collaborations across institutions and research areas. This year’s CU-CSU summit will focus on research innovations in health AI and will be held Tuesday, August 13, in the Elliman Conference Center in the Anschutz Health Sciences Building. There will also be a poster session and investigators whose work features artificial intelligence in medicine, health care, bioscience, informatics, and other fields are invited submit abstracts. The deadline to submit an abstract has been extended to July 24. Registration and abstract submission links are available on the institute’s CU-CSU summit webpage.

Have a good week,

John H. Sampson, MD, PhD, MBA
Richard D. Krugman Endowed Chair
Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and
Dean, University of Colorado School of Medicine