UW School of Medicine Online News 1-4-08

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University of Washington School of Medicine

Online News

Vol. 12, No. 1
Jan. 4, 2008
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To view an archived version of Online News on the UW
Medicine Web site, visit:
http://www.uwmedicine.org/Global/NewsAndEvents/somnews/index.htm

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MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN: Help ensure a safe workplace by knowing violence prevention and response procedures and resources


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This week’s news:

* UW researcher Joel Kaufman to lead center examining mechanisms through which air pollution causes cardiovascular disease and heart attack

* Nominations being accepted now for Scribner Courage in Health Care Awards

* Reflection in medical education is topic for Jan. 7 Education in Medicine Lecture

* Many UW Medicine people honored or appointed to new positions in late 2007


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MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN

Dear Colleagues:

As we begin a new year, I would like to apprise you of important activities and resources designed to ensure a safe workplace. The newly established Violence Prevention and Response Program (VPRP) provides violence prevention and response resources and training for the UW. Every individual at UW Medicine needs to know the following violence prevention policies and contacts in the event of perceived, threatened, or actual violence.

Four key UW policies outline what is protected and prohibited conduct:
* The UW Policy & Procedure on Violence in the Workplace prohibits violent or threatening behavior in any UW work location by or affecting any UW faculty, staff or student, and establishes reporting requirements. Violence in the workplace includes relationship violence that intrudes into the workplace, endangering a person in the relationship or others in the workplace.
For more information, visit:
http://www.washington.edu/admin/hr/polproc/work-violence/index.html

* The student conduct code establishes an instructor’s authority to exclude a disruptive or disorderly student from a classroom and requires the instructor to report the matter to the dean of the school or college if the disruptive behavior persists.
For more information, visit:
http://www.washington.edu/students/handbook/conduct.html

* The faculty code prohibits any behavior that would: injure or endanger the health, welfare, and safety of individuals; damage facilities; or disrupt classes. Sanction processes are outlined at:
http://www.washington.edu/faculty/facsenate/handbook/Volume2.hmtl

* The general conduct code applies to anyone within UW grounds or facilities and prohibits behavior that endangers the health, welfare, safety or free movement of others. (Chapter 478-124 WAC)


The protocol for reporting urgent and imminent threat is:
* Call 911 (5555 at Harborview Medical Center) for policy/security response; and then,
* When you and others are safe, report to your supervisor or department head and to 685-SAFE (7233), which arranges post-event assistance and support for the workgroup or those affected.

The protocol for perceived or potential threats of violence is:
* Report the situation to 685-SAFE (7233); and
* Report the situation to your supervisor or department head.

The phone number 685-SAFE is answered by the Violence Prevention and Response Team, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and, after 5 p.m. and on weekends or holidays, at Harborview Medical Center by the Community Care Line.

Fortunately, actual violence is very rare -- but it is serious, and concerns about possible violence should be taken very seriously. It is also essential to know warning signs that may indicate a possible pathway or response to violence and in which early intervention may help individuals in distress. Signs of distress include increased moodiness, overreaction to situations, decreased concentration or productivity, stress over personal life, failing in school, a fascination with firearms, or multiple injuries and excuses (possible relationship violence).

I urge members of the UW Medicine community to work to develop risk abatement and safety plans within your units. VPRP team members are ready to help you with those plans or assist in triaging concern over potentially threatening distressing behavior. Contact them at 685-SAFE (7233) or find more resources online at:
http://www.safecampus.washington.edu


UW Alert: A New System for Emergency Communications

UW Medicine community members should also take advantage of a new system, UW Alert, which disseminates official information during emergencies or crisis situations. The program delivers messages to subscribers on a “best effort” basis to e-mail and to Short Message Service (SMS) text-capable wireless devices, such as many cellular telephones. For more information or to sign up, visit:
http://www.washington.edu/alert/index.php

UW Alert complements other tools already used to communicate with the UW community during emergencies, such as special alerts posted to the Web, the UW information line at 206-UWS-INFO (897-4636), mass e-mail, and official messages disseminated via the local media.

Please talk openly and often about these procedures and issues with other faculty, staff, students, and trainees. Working together to communicate and implement the actions outlined here, we can help minimize violence and maximize the right responses to signs of distress or potential violence.

Sincerely,

Paul G. Ramsey, M.D.
CEO, UW Medicine
Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, and
Dean of the School of Medicine
University of Washington


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PROJECT TO EXAMINE LINKS BETWEEN AIR POLLUTION AND CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE

The mechanisms of how traffic-related air pollution can cause cardiovascular disease will be the focus of a new NIH-funded research center at the UW. Joel Kaufman, professor of environmental & occupational health sciences, epidemiology, and medicine, will lead the center, which includes five projects at the UW and a collaboration with the University of British Columbia.

The center is funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health. It is one of three centers started recently by NIEHS through a grant program called DISCOVER: Disease Investigation Through Specialized Clinically-Oriented Ventures in Environmental Research, a new initiative that aims to closely link patient-oriented research with more basic research in underlying mechanisms of disease. The other two centers are at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, both focusing on environmental factors in childhood asthma.

Kaufman and his colleagues have previously shown links between heart disease and air pollution caused by motor-vehicle traffic, but scientists still do not fully understand the mechanisms through which pollution affects the cardiovascular system. The center will focus on how exposure to air pollution can cause constriction of vascular walls and can accelerate atherosclerosis, the chronic inflammation and hardening of arteries seen in cardiovascular disease.

The center will include projects studying the following:
* The mechanism underlying vascular response in people exposed to diesel exhaust;
* Genetic modifiers related to the effects of traffic-related air pollution on vascular response and atherosclerosis in a population;
* The role of systemic inflammation in the vascular response to diesel exhaust;
* The impact of diesel exhaust exposure on injury and cell death in heart muscle tissue;
* Reactive oxygen molecules and oxidative stress in the vascular response to diesel exhaust.

Michael Rosenfeld, professor of environmental & occupational health sciences and of pathology, is the deputy director of the center, and David Siscovick, professor of medicine and epidemiology, is the center's lead physician-scientist. The projects will be led by and will include several other UW faculty members.


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SCRIBNER AWARD NOMINATIONS DUE FEB. 29

Nominations are being accepted now for the Scribner Courage in Health Care Award, given to a health care professional who has made an extraordinary contribution to the health of people in the Pacific Northwest through the exhibition of personal courage, within or outside of traditional systems. Emphasis is given to extraordinary service, innovation and professional courage over time that has resulted in meaningful change and improvement in health care. Any living health care professional doing his or her work primarily in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, or Montana is eligible for the award. The award event will take place on Sept. 24.

The award is named in honor of the late kidney dialysis pioneer and bioethicist Belding Scribner, a longtime UW faculty member. Scribner's groundbreaking clinical research at the UW in the early 1960s changed terminal kidney failure into a survivable condition with the invention of the Scribner shunt. This device made long-term dialysis a feasible treatment for kidney failure, and has since saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children the world over.

The Scribner Awards program is a partnership between First Choice Health and the Washington Academy of Family Physicians, and was created as a benefit for the Northwest Kidney Centers to recognize and inspire courage and innovation in health care. The award was established in 2004, and has been given to only two people since its inception: Alvin Thompson, former president of the Washington State Medical Association, and Robert Wood, director of the HIV/AIDS program at Public Health - Seattle/King County.

To submit a nomination, send a statement describing why the nominee deserves the award to the address below. Please include contact information for yourself and the nominee. Further information may be requested about those individuals who are selected as finalist nominees.

The deadline for nominations is Feb. 29. Send nominations to: Scribner Courage in Health Care Awards, First Choice Health, Attn: Dr. Ze'ev Young, 600 University Street, Suite 1400, Seattle, WA 98101. For more information, please call 206-268-2430.


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EDUCATION IN MEDICINE LECTURE WILL FOCUS ON REFLECTION

The UW School of Medicine's Education in Medicine Lecture series returns for the year on Monday, Jan. 7. Karen Mann, professor of medical education at Dalhousie University in Canada, will speak on Reflection in Medical Education: What Is its Role and How Can it Help?

Mann is the director of the Division of Medical Education at Dalhousie University, and is a past president of the Canadian Association for Medical Education. In 1996, she received that association's award for distinguished contributions to medical education, and in 2000 she received the Dalhousie Instructional Leadership Award.

The lecture will be held from noon to 1 p.m. in Turner Auditorium, Room D-209 of the UW Health Sciences Center. It will be broadcast live at Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, Room A-7932, and Harborview Medical Center, Boardroom, Ground EH-72. The lecture is free and open to all.

In February, the UW will host Kevin Grigsby, vice dean for faculty and administrative affairs at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, for the Education in Medicine Lecture. Grigsby will speak on the topic of Difficult Conversations, from noon to 1 p.m., Monday, Feb. 25, in Turner Auditorium. The lecture will also be televised at Children's Hospital, Room A-7932; Harborview Research and Training Building, Room 115; and Swedish Hospital, room TBD.


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MANY UW MEDICINE PEOPLE HONORED IN 2007

Many UW Medicine faculty, students, residents and fellows have been honored for their accomplishments or selected for various positions in the second half of 2007. Listed below are some of those honors that have not previously been reported in the Online News:

Gregory Gardner, professor of medicine in the Division of Rheumatology, has received the UW School of Medicine Outstanding CME Teacher Award for 2006-7. The award recognizes Gardner's teaching and direction of continuing medical education courses and his service on the CME Advisory Committee.

Richard Gower, clinical associate professor of medicine, has been elected president-elect of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. Gower, a physician at Marycliff Allergy Specialists in Spokane, Wash., has previously served as the organization's vice president and treasurer, and as a regent on its Board.

Luis Fernando Santana, associate professor of physiology and biophysics, has been named an Established Investigator by the American Heart Association. The award provides $500,000 in funding over five years, and supports mid-term investigators who are in a phase of rapid career growth, show unusual promise, are committed to studies of the cardiovascular system, and have an established record of accomplishments. The grant will support Santana's research on the function of calcium channels in vascular smooth muscle and the role of the channels in hypertension.

Sherilyn Smith, associate professor of pediatrics and head of the Big Sky College in the School of Medicine Colleges system, was a nominee for the 2007 Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Humanism in Medicine Award. Smith was part of a select group of 42 nominees for the AAMC award, which is given to an outstanding physician who advances the ideals of medicine, such as compassion, understanding, and partnership. Smith was recognized as a positive and caring role model, and a physician whom students would like to emulate.

Frederick Rivara, the George Adkins Professor of Pediatrics, has been appointed to the Board on Children, Youth, and Families in the National Academies. The board was created in 1993 under the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine. Rivara studies the cost-effectiveness of trauma care, the impact of domestic violence on women and children, and the effectiveness of interventions in childhood and adolescence.

Ronald Maier, professor and vice chairman of surgery, has received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Trauma Resuscitation from the American Heart Association. Maier is the chief of surgery at Harborview Medical Center, and he specializes in trauma and surgical critical care. The award was presented at the heart association's Resuscitation Science Symposium, an international forum for basic scientists, translational/clinical investigators, population researchers, and care providers to discuss advances in treating cardiopulmonary arrest and life-threatening traumatic injury.

Adrienne Fairhall, assistant professor of physiology and biophysics, has received the 2007 Society for Neuroscience Career Development Award. The award recognizes outstanding neuroscience researchers in the early stages of their careers who have already published substantial contributions to science, and show indications of leadership within the scientific community.

Douglas Paauw, professor of medicine and head of general internal medicine at UW Medical Center, received the Laureate Award from the American College of Physicians (ACP) Washington Chapter. The award honors ACP fellows and masters who have demonstrated a commitment to excellence in medical care, education, and research, and who have provided service to their communities and region. Paauw holds the Rathmann Family Foundation Endowed Chair in Patient-Centered Clinical Education, and is the department coordinator for student teaching and for clerkships.

Roger Rosenblatt, professor and vice chair of family medicine, has received the 2007 Malcolm Peterson Award from the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility. Rosenblatt has been involved in caring for under-served populations as founder of the WWAMI Rural Health Research Center and as director of the medical school’s Rural/Underserved Opportunities Program (R/UOP). He also works on pressing environmental issues, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the university’s Program on the Environment. He was a co-founder of the Collaborative on Health and the Environment-Washington chapter, is the head of a faculty team investigating the human health effects of climate change, and is working with the UW provost and other faculty members to design a new College of the Environment at the UW.


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Justin Reedy, editor:
206-685-0382, jreedy@u.washington.edu

Online News is copyright 2008. All rights, including electronic
redistribution, are reserved.

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