Dean’s first town hall set for Oct. 9

Dean Giuseppe Colasurdo

Dean Giuseppe Colasurdo will host his first Medical School Town Hall meeting for all faculty, staff, and students at noon Oct. 9 in MSB. 3.001.

The dean will present his vision for the Medical School and take questions from the audience. Advance, anonymous questions may be e-mailed to Sheila.R.Donnell@uth.tmc.edu or M.Darla.Brown@uth.tmc.edu.

The event will be broadcast live to Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital for Medical School employees to watch in Annex classroom 212-213, and the video will be posted online on the dean’s Web site after the meeting.

Lunch will be available for the first 150 attendees and for the first 30 at LBJ.


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$1.5M NIH grant to create network for clinical research

Elizabeth Jones

Developing a community network to efficiently conduct clinical trials of any neurological emergency will be the result of a new five-year, $1.5 million National Institutes of Health grant, with Elizabeth Jones, assistant professor of emergency medicine, at the helm.

The funding establishes the Southeast Texas Neurological Emergency Treatment Trial (SETNETT), one of 10-15 clinical hubs around the country focused on performing clinical trials on neurological emergencies. The Medical School will coordinate the studies at its hub made up of Memorial Hermann, Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital, St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital, the Methodist Hospital, Memorial Hermann Southwest, Memorial Hermann Memorial City, Memorial Hermann Baptist Beaumont Hospital, Texas Children’s Hospital, and Memorial Hermann Baptist Orange Hospital.

“Most of these types of emergencies happen so infrequently that one hospital can’t answer the question,” explained Jones, the principal investigator on the program grant. “The hub is coordinating effort, making it easy to provide the expertise and research nurses to sign the patients up to help identify them for a targeted study.”

Established by funding from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the network will be involved in two to three clinical studies at a time, with an estimated 100 enrolled patients a year.

“The University of Michigan is heading up the study at the national level, and they will assign the studies, and I’ll decide which study is best for our local hospitals – for instance trauma for Memorial Hermann, or a pediatric study at Texas Children’s,” Jones explained.

The network will be connected through a secure Web site that will house the clinical trial data to facilitate enrolling patients. The Houston Fire Department also will collaborate to help identify patients at an early stage.

“This study will help improve emergency neurological clinical trials because these studies will be done simultaneously in 150 hospitals throughout the country with a diverse patient population. Improving our patient numbers through this network will be the main benefit, which, in turn, will help improve patient care. We are just now on the forefront of providing new neurological treatments, such as hypothermia for brain injury,” Jones added.

-D. Brown

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Pediatricians Part of First Nationwide Effort Aiming to Improve Care for Newborns

Pediatricians at the Medical School are participating in an American Academy of Pediatrics project, with the goal of improving the care given to newborn babies.

A total of nine nurseries and 13 pediatric clinics nationwide, including the Harris County Hospital District’s Lyndon B. Johnson Pediatrics Clinic and Well Baby Nursery, were chosen to take part in this pilot project, “Safe and Healthy Beginnings.” The project’s two objectives are to improve the rates of the early detection of neonatal jaundice and to promote breastfeeding.

Taking a close look at risk factors, targeting the early diagnosis of this common infant ailment, will help improve newborn safety, reduce the number of return trips a new parent has to make to a pediatrician, and lessen the risk of re-hospitalization for phototherapy.

“Although it is quite rare, the yellow pigment that can build up in a baby’s skin and eyes can also affect the brain. Many first-time parents may be alarmed at jaundice, and even experienced parents may have a baby that has this condition, when their earlier babies did not,” said Dr. Laura Ferguson, associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics and medical director of the LBJ Hospital’s Well Baby Nursery. “If we can detect it early, we can reduce the chances of this condition worsening and help calm parents’ fears.”

Neonatal jaundice is a yellowing of the skin and other tissues caused by increased levels of bilirubin in the blood. In most cases, this jaundice will disappear after a few days, often without any special treatment.

To improve breastfeeding, new mothers will have better access to lactation support, more maternal comfort with breastfeeding, and more information on the benefits for both mother and baby.

“Breast milk happens to be the perfect food for infants. It contains the right amount of protein, sugars and fatty acids which are essential for the development of a growing baby,” said Dr. Lisa de Ybarrondo, assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics and LBJ Pediatric Clinic director. “Breast milk also has immunological benefits. Studies suggest that breastfed infants have decreased incidents of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), diabetes, leukemia, lymphomas, obesity, allergies, and asthma. Breast milk can also protect an infant against all types of bacterial and viral infections, many of which can be life threatening.”

Each month, the staff at the LBJ Pediatric Clinic and Newborn Nursery will participate in educational conference calls and review charts to ensure continued improvement with regard to documentation of risk factors for jaundice and the success of breastfeeding.

When the pilot project has finished in 2008, the American Academy of Pediatrics will use the information and tools developed for chart review and education to put together “toolkits” that other practices may use to improve quality of care nationwide. This data also will help develop future pilot projects for quality improvement in other areas of pediatric practice.

-M. McDonald

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