Dear colleague:

University of Colorado Denver Chancellor Don Elliman and I made a quick 80-hour trip to Chiba, Japan, last week with colleagues from Colorado State University, the Colorado lieutenant governor and the head of the state’s economic development office to meet with U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy. Our objective was to garner support for a Japan-U.S. government program that would bring a carbon ion radiation facility to Colorado to advance our universities’ joint veterinary-human cancer research and treatment programs.  CSU, which has been working on this project for the past five years, is also involved in work with Japan’s National Institute of Radiological Sciences on the impact of the Fukushima disaster. Getting a carbon ion radiation facility in Colorado has always been a very long shot. We hope that this trip may have improved the odds to make it just a long shot. 

I returned to Colorado in time to attend several events over the weekend. Saturday noon I stopped by the fifth annual rural preceptor training organized by David Gaspar, MD, associate professor of family medicine. I thanked them for their efforts on behalf of our students all these years. On Sunday afternoon, more than two dozen of our underrepresented in medicine faculty met for dinner and conversation at the home of Brenda Allen, PhD, the university’s associate vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion. The heavy snow outside was a distinct contrast to the warmth of the event. 

Representatives from executive search consulting firm Spencer Stuart are here today, launching the search for my successor. They will meet with many interested parties during the next two days and then come back to meet with the search committee, which has its first meeting in two weeks. I expect that there will be a website set up for updates on how this process is going. 

At last Tuesday’s Faculty Senate meeting, which I missed due to the trip to Japan, John Moorhead, PhD, associate dean of research affairs, presented a new, comprehensive clinical trials web page designed to help researchers advertise trials to potential participants and community physicians. The web page contains all COMIRB- and WIRB-reviewed trials at the School of Medicine. We know there is a demand for this information. The previous clinical trials page, which listed far fewer trials, was the School of Medicine’s 11th most-visited web page in 2013 with more than 34,000 hits. Any department or program wanting an automated list of specific trials on its website should contact Michael Miller. Researchers can run a free ad on the site by filling out the web ad form. 

The Denver Post had an excellent article on Thursday, April 10, about a program led by Paula Riggs, MD, psychiatry professor and director of the Division of Substance Dependence, to help Adams City High School address concerns with some students caught intoxicated or using marijuana at school. The program is intended to provide early intervention and help young people identify the triggers and temptations that lead them to substance abuse. This program, based on Paula’s clinical research, is currently funded on a grant and is the first of its kind to be integrated into a school system. 

The April 2014 edition of the Faculty Matters newsletter is now available online. Among those featured in this issue are Jeffrey Glasheen, MD, professor of medicine, and the accomplishments of the first cohort in the Institute for Healthcare Quality, Safety and Efficiency, and Jeannette Guerrasio, MD, associate professor of medicine, and her work to help struggling students improve. These examples of high-quality service to our community and our students are achievements that everyone should know about. 

The Dean’s Distinguished Seminar Series continues this week with a lecture by Mitchell A. Lazar, MD, PhD, chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. The lecture, “Coordination of Circadian Rhythms and Metabolic Physiology,” will be Tuesday, April 15, at 4 p.m. in the Hensel Phelps West Auditorium. 

Tax Day is tomorrow.  I look forward to joining hundreds of others in the just-before-midnight trip to one of the local post offices. My experience is that sending it in at the last minute means the check doesn’t clear for 6-8 days. I have these small annual spasms of passive aggressiveness, which are normally buried away in my otherwise congenial personality. 

Have a good week,

Richard D. Krugman, MD
Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and
Dean, School of Medicine

"What’s Going On Here" is an email news bulletin from Richard Krugman, MD, Dean of the CU School of Medicine, that is distributed to inform University of Colorado School of Medicine faculty members about issues pertaining to the School’s mission of education, research, clinical care and community service. See the UCH-Insider →

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