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University of Washington School of Medicine
Online News
Vol. 11, No. 36
Sept. 14, 2007
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This week’s news:
* UW partners with Children's Hospital and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center on research consortium studying gene therapy
* Harborview Medical Center honored as only top performer in national benchmarking project for palliative care practices
* Ninety-four UW doctors included in Seattle Magazine's 7th Annual Top Doctors Guide
* AAMC report outlines looming physician shortage in the United States; WWAMI states expanding medical education program to deal with shortfall
* Joann Elmore kicks off Science in Medicine Lecture series Sept. 19 with discussion of breast cancer screening
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UW TAKING PART IN CONSORTIUM STUDYING GENE THERAPY
The UW is partnering with two other local institutions in a major grant for the study of a type of gene therapy. The Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute, the UW School of Medicine, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center are taking part in the five-year, $23.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Children's Hospital will receive $13.2 million and UW faculty based at Children's will lead the entity created by the grant, the Northwest Genome Engineering Consortium. The UW will receive $5.3 million and the FHCRC will receive $5.2 million. Andrew Scharenberg, a UW associate professor of pediatrics who is based at Children's, will lead the consortium.
The consortium includes 11 projects aimed at developing methods for gene repair, a type of gene therapy that involves manipulating defective DNA sequences to restore them to the correct order. Scientists hope that by fixing the defective DNA, they can help a patient's genes work properly and prevent or cure an inherited disease. The consortium will work at first on single-gene inherited disorders like immune deficiencies, Sickle Cell Disease, and thalassemias.
The grant is funded through the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, which supports large, interdisciplinary projects that tackle complex biomedical problems. It is one of only nine consortiums being funded around the country through this program. Other centers include a genome-based drug discovery center at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, a center for neurological therapeutics at the University of California, Davis, and a consortium at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, where scientists will examine a systems-based approach to organ design and engineering.
For more information about the genome consortium, including profiles of its researchers, visit:
http://research.seattlechildrens.org/ngec
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HARBORVIEW RECOGNIZED AS NATIONAL LEADER IN PALLIATIVE CARE
Harborview Medical Center has been selected as the only top performer in a national benchmarking project for palliative, or end-of-life, care. The University HealthSystem Consortium sponsored a review of 44 hospitals around the country, with a goal of identifying the best practices in caring for patients with terminal illness.
The palliative care team at Harborview is led by Darrell Owens, clinical assistant professor of medicine, and includes people from medicine, nursing, social work, and spiritual care. The Harborview-based team of UW faculty and staff has been invited to make a presentation on its practices at the consortium's Palliative Care Knowledge Transfer Conference in Oak Brook, Ill., in October.
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SEATTLE-AREA BEST DOCTORS LISTED IN MAGAZINE
Ninety-four physicians on the full-time faculty of the University of Washington (UW) School of Medicine were listed among the best local physicians in Seattle magazine's 7th Annual Top Doctors Guide in its September issue. A number of other local physicians on the UW medical school's volunteer faculty, who teach medical students and residents in their offices, were also include in this year's Top Doctors guide, as were many graduates of the UW School of Medicine or its residency or fellowship programs.
The list was determined by asking doctors in King, Pierce, Snohomish, and Kitsap counties to name the physicians they would seek out for themselves or a loved one in 63 specialty areas, regardless of hospital, clinic, or health plan affiliation. Surveys were mailed to 11,000 doctors, and the response rate was 8 percent. More than 4,100 physicians were nominated, and those named the most often in each specialty appeared on the list. Several UW physicians listed were named the best in more than one specialty area.
A list of UW physicians among the 2007 Best Doctors can be seen at:
http://tinyurl.com/35fclm
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AAMC REPORT CHARTS IMPENDING PHYSICIAN SHORTAGE; WWAMI STATES TAKING STEPS
The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has issued a new report summarizing recent research on the impending shortage of physicians in the United States.
The report, Recent Studies and Reports on Physician Shortages in the United States, was completed by the AAMC's Center for Workforce Studies. It provides an overview of the many studies completed in the past several years predicting a nationwide physician shortage. The studies were conducted at the national, state, and medical specialty levels.
Of the 15 state-based studies compiled by the AAMC, most concluded that society will struggle with a shortage of doctors in the next 10 years to 20 years. Some states are already facing a physician shortage. Many of the studies found that elderly and underserved populations are most likely to be affected by a future physician shortage.
The specialty-based studies concluded that many medical specialties are dealing with shortages now or will in the future. The studies also found that primary-care specialties will be in high demand, as will specialists providing care for the aging population.
The AAMC report cites three national studies, from the Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Council on Graduate Medical Education, and Merritt, Hawkins & Associates, a health care consulting and staffing firm. The studies all predict significant gaps between the demand for physicians and the actual number in practice. The studies suggest that by 2020, the nation could have a shortage of between 55,000 and 90,000 physicians, or as much as 10 percent of the optimal physician workforce.
A copy of the AAMC report is available on its Web site:
http://www.aamc.org/workforce/recentworkforcestudies2007.pdf
The state governments participating in the five-state WWAMI medical education program are already taking steps to address the issue of a physician shortage by increasing medical school enrollment. Washington has added 20 new seats in the UW School of Medicine's WWAMI program, with a new first-year medical school site being added in Spokane, Wash. Wyoming has increased its role in the program by 60 percent in the past three years, going from 10 seats to 16. Alaska has doubled the number of its seats in the WWAMI program this year, from 10 seats to 20. Idaho has added two seats in the program, giving it 20 overall. Montana is also concerned about physician shortages and is discussing plans to address them.
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JOANN ELMORE TO DELIVER SCIENCE IN MEDICINE LECTURE ON BREAST CANCER SCREENING
Joann Elmore, UW professor of medicine and head of general internal medicine at Harborview Medical Center, will kick off the 2007-2008 Science in Medicine Lecture Series this month. Elmore, a breast cancer researcher, will lecture on Trade-offs in Breast Cancer Screening: The Good, the Bad, and the Unexpected.
Elmore's lecture is scheduled for noon, Wednesday, Sept. 19, in Hogness Auditorium, Room A-420 of the UW Health Sciences Center. It is free and open to all, and no registration is required.
The lecture will be simultaneously televised at Harborview's Research and Training Building, Rooms 117/121. It will also be shown at three locations in the VA Puget Sound Health Care System: Seattle Division, Building 1, Room 518; American Lake Division, Building 2, Room 343; and the VA HSR&D Met Park Main Conference Room, Suite 1400.
For more information, contact Vee White at veewhite@u.washington.edu . To request disability accommodations, contact 206-543-6452, dso@u.washington.edu
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Justin Reedy, editor:
206-685-0382, jreedy@u.washington.edu
Online News is copyright 2007. All rights, including electronic
redistribution, are reserved.
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