Dear Colleague, 

It was the last busy week for a while – until next year at least.  The executive committee of the School met and reviewed plans for further improvement in our Phase 3 clinical curriculum.  A small grants program will be available to clinical departments to allow planning over the next three months before the Class of 2016 starts its clinical years. 

The executive committee also heard from a department chair who provided immediate feedback to a senior faculty member from another department after that senior faculty member had interacted disrespectfully with a resident. The senior faculty member then apologized to the resident (and hopefully extinguishes such behavior in the future).  It was personally enormously gratifying to hear how this incident was handled because we at the School have struggled for some time in dealing with incidents of student (and resident and staff) mistreatment.  I truly believe that if we can foster a culture of immediate feedback – pointing  out inappropriate and unprofessional behavior as contrasted to “reporting and investigating” it, or worse, silently and passively accepting it – we will be a much better place.  It would be a great New Year’s resolution for all of us. 

Wednesday evening, there was a huge celebration of the career of Tony Ruiz, who has been vice president for operations and facilities for University of Colorado Hospital for many years.  Tony will be retiring at the end of the month.  He has been involved in the build-out of every part of University of Colorado Hospital since the last millennium!  He will be missed. 

Thursday evening, our education team and I visited Colorado Springs again. This time we met with the executive team at Penrose-St. Francis Health Services.  It was a good opportunity to continue to engage that community in our School’s branch and dispel the continuous stream of misconceptions about what is happening there.  One of the physicians attending the meeting, for example, asked how “Penrose” physicians could participate in “Memorial’s medical school.” I explained that any physician in Colorado Springs who is interested could be appointed as a clinical faculty member of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, which has a branch in Colorado Springs.  It is not the UCCS medical school, the University of Colorado Health medical school or the Memorial Hospital medical school.  As the only public school of medicine in Colorado, we rely on clinical faculty, who work at all the health systems or who are in private practice, to teach our students.  And we have alumni working in all of them. Once Erik Wallace, MD, arrives in January as the School of Medicine’s associate dean of the Colorado Springs branch, the confusion should begin to abate.  

The A.F. Williams Family Medicine Center at Stapleton has been recognized as the “Patient Centered Medical Home Best Practice” by the Colorado Academy of Family Physicians. The award will be given at the academy’s annual scientific conference in April. The academy noted that its board was “very impressed with the outstanding care that you provide to your patients and the quality initiatives and improvements of your practice.” Congratulations. 

James Borgstede, MD, professor of radiology, has been elected to the board of directors of the Radiological Society of North America and he will serve as the board liaison for international affairs. 

Folio: Magazine earlier this month recognized the April 2013 issue of Neurology Clinical Practice with an “Eddie” award for editorial excellence. John Corboy, MD, professor of neurology, is editor of the journal, which won in the business-to-business category for healthcare/medical/nursing. Among the articles in the issue was a piece by Maria Nagel, MD, assistant professor of neurology, and Don Gilden, MD, the Louise Baum Professor of Neurology. Congratulations to all. 

The Anschutz Health and Wellness Center is seeking participants from campus for its State of Slim Campus Challenge, based on the book State of Slim by James Hill, PhD, and Holly Wyatt, MD, the center’s executive director and associate director respectively. The cost to participate is $99, which includes the book, educational lectures and cooking demonstrations. One male and one female winner at the end of the 16-week program will each be eligible for a minimum $2,500 prize based on their percentage of weight loss and an essay about their transformation. The participants must agree to before and after photos. Start date is Jan. 27 and winners will be announced by June 7. 

Finally, thanks again to Celia Kaye, MD, PhD, our senior associate dean for education who is retiring this month, for a wonderful eight years here, and best wishes to all of you for the happiest of New Years.  It promises to be another really interesting year.  The next WGOH will be Jan. 6, 2014.

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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