Dear colleague: 

One of the University of Colorado’s responsibilities is to serve our entire state and last Tuesday I traveled to Grand Junction to strengthen connections with alumni, representatives of the Western Colorado Area Health Education Center (AHEC) and members of the Mesa County Medical Society. Brian Davidson, MD ’03, president and CEO of St. Mary’s Medical Center and a member of the Department of Anesthesiology faculty until 2014, hosted a group of CU alumni for lunch. I also met with Tom Huerkamp, a Delta County business executive who is president of the Western Colorado AHEC, to express our gratitude for his efforts to raise money in support of a rural scholarship for a local student to attend the School of Medicine. Tom also has worked with our pipeline programs to expose local high-school students to health careers. 

The Department of Medicine is holding its annual Research Day on Friday, Oct. 14, to highlight achievements in basic and translational research. Highlights of the day will include a poster session, program updates on the Transformational Research Funding programs, a presentation by Kathleen Barnes, PhD, director of the Colorado Center for Personalized Medicine, and a keynote speech by Charles Dinarello, MD, professor of medicine and immunology. The event, which will be held in Hensel Phelps West, is open to everyone on the Anschutz Medical Campus. 

The Eugene S. Farley, Jr. Health Policy Center has been formally established as a center under the University’s policies and has been approved by Chancellor Don Elliman. The center is sponsored by the CU Department of Family Medicine and named in honor of a former chair. It aims to develop and translate evidence into policy to advance comprehensive, integrated strategies that improve individual, family, and population health. In September, the Farley Health Policy Center announced that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation had awarded it a $1 million grant to establish a mechanism to better address health policy and payment that can advance integrated healthcare. 

The University’s Environmental Health and Safety Occupational Health Clinic is once again offering free quadrivalent flu shots and a sticker to School of Medicine clinical faculty and staff with University of Colorado Hospital badges. Call 303-724-9145 for an appointment. The clinic is located at the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center, 12348 E. Montview Blvd. Your badge must be presented at time of appointment. Flu shots will also be offered at a site convenient to researchers with location, date and time to be announced soon. 

Faculty members who practice at University of Colorado Hospital (UCH) and Children’s Hospital Colorado are reminded to work with their department administrators and our clinical partners on holiday scheduling. Due to differences in holidays recognized by the University of Colorado and by our affiliate hospitals, we must coordinate to make sure patients are not inconvenienced when they expect to see a physician on days when the hospitals are open for business as usual.

• For FY2017, the days that are different between the School of Medicine and UCH are Dec. 23 and Dec. 30, 2016, and Jan. 2, Jan. 16, and Feb. 20, 2017. If you choose to take the University-granted holidays, please cancel your UCH clinical obligations as usual, but no later than 60 days prior to the holiday. If School or University Physicians, Inc., staff are required for UCH clinic operations, your department/division needs to arrange adequate staffing.
• For faculty at Children’s Hospital Colorado, clinic templates for Friday, Nov. 25, and Friday, Dec. 23, 2016, and Monday, Feb. 20, 2017 are automatically open. You should notify your administrative leadership to close your templates for those days, unless you choose to hold clinic on one or more of those days.

If faculty members choose to work when their hospital is open on a School of Medicine holiday, they may take that holiday before the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2017. 

The Academy of Medical Educators is accepting applications for the Rymer Endowment Innovation Small Grants Program. The Academy annually provides small grants ($3,500 or less, although occasionally grants of up to $5,000 will be considered) to support efforts to create, implement and evaluate innovative medical education programs and to develop scholarship in medical education. Grant funds are provided with support from the Rymer Family Endowment, the Office of Faculty Affairs and the Academy of Medical Educators. Check the Academy’s website for more information and the application process. Applications are due Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2016.  

Congratulations to Mona Abaza, MD, MS, associate professor of otolaryngology, who has been named to the board of directors for the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) for a term that runs three years beginning September 2016. The ACGME accredits sponsoring institutions and residency and fellowship programs, confers recognition on additional program formats or components, and dedicates resources to initiatives addressing areas of import in graduate medical education. 

Philippa Marrack, PhD, distinguished professor of immunology and microbiology at the School of Medicine and chair of the Department of Biomedical Research at National Jewish Health, and John Kappler, PhD, professor of immunology and microbiology, have received the 2016 Novartis Prize for Immunology for discoveries about the basic biology of the immune system. Along with Harald von Boehmer, PhD, professor emeritus of Harvard Medical School, they discovered how the immune system learns what should be tolerated in the human body and what should be attacked as an external threat. Prize recipients, chosen once every three years, share an award of approximately $100,000. 

A reminder to investigators involved in child health human subject research at Children’s Hospital Colorado that they should have recently received an email from Jena Hausmann, president and CEO of Children’s Hospital Colorado, and me that asks for participation in a survey to gauge satisfaction with current research administrative processes and support. The anonymous survey, which is only for investigators involved in child health human subject research, will be conducted through Friday, Oct. 21. Those who complete the survey by Friday, Oct. 14, will be redirected to another site to be entered into a drawing for two club-level tickets to the Jan. 1 Denver Broncos game against the Oakland Raiders. 

Have a good week,

John J. Reilly, Jr., MD
Richard D. Krugman Endowed Chair
Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and
Dean, School of Medicine