Dean presents vision at first town hall

Dean Giuseppe Colasurdo

Speaking before a packed audience at his first Town Hall meeting Oct. 9, Dean Giuseppe Colasurdo offered his vision for the Medical School and let listeners know that their input and involvement is essential.

“I did not train for this job as dean, and it is not a one-person job. You are all players in this vision of excellence, and we need to work together to be a strong team,” he said. “The Dean’s Office doors are always open to you, and I want to hear from you.”

The dean stressed that internal communication is essential for the health of the Medical School, and that if his door is open – all office doors, from chairs, chiefs, senior administrators, and others must be open to facilitate open communication.

Dean Colasurdo presented what he called a preliminary vision for the school, saying that it is too soon for him to define a long-term vision – having been dean for only one month. Areas of the vision include creating a culture of excellence that involves everyone; growing clinical services – but not at the expense of quality; pursuing best practices in the educational arenas; strengthening our affiliation with Memorial Hermann – Texas Medical Center and the Harris County Hospital District; and growing research.

With reaching more than $1 billion in net assets health science center-wide for the first time – a landmark achievement – the Medical School is poised to strengthen its financial outlook, Dean Colasurdo said.

“We have the people, the vision, and environment to be among the best – all we have to do is do it,” he said.

Dean Colasurdo then took questions from the audience, which ranged from space planning in the Replacement Research Facility – some existing faculty will be moved in with space to recruit new faculty; to the Recreation Center – there are no plans to re-open one in the Medical School.

Dean Colasurdo also talked about an increased effort to communicate about the Medical School to external audiences and the department chairs’ role in both communication and retaining our current faculty. There also was a question regarding performance evaluations, and Dean Colasurdo said that goals and expectations must be set for staff and faculty upon employment and then assessed periodically – that is owed to all Medical School employees.

The relative value unit (RVU) system sparked several questions, and that issue is being addressed both by the Faculty Senate and by a group headed up by Dr. Patricia Butler, associate dean for educational programs, he said.

“The RVU methodology has value, but there are non-RVU generating activities that the school absolutely needs. I do not have the chairs’ eyes, and I need their input,” he said.

The last question was about faculty compensation and was posed by a faculty member who said he was billing and seeing patients at the expected levels yet he was costing his department $80,000 a year. He asked how the dean would fix this clinical department problem.

Dean Colasurdo said that the productive faculty cannot be penalized for variables that they do not control, such as billing efficiency, and that individual issues must be brought before the department chairs for solution. “We, the school, will take ownership of this process and provide structure and resources to optimize the management operations, including billing,” Dr. Colasurdo said.

-D. Brown

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Savitz receives HHMI Early Career Award

Dr. Sean Savitz

Dr. Sean Savitz, a new assistant professor in neurology, has been awarded the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Physician-Scientist Early Career Award. 

The HHMI Physician-Scientist Early Career Award is a five-year, $375,000 grant that is open to alumni from the HHMI-NIH Research Scholars Program and the HHMI Research Training Fellowships for Medical Students and targeted to those a few years out in their faculty positions.  Between his second and third years of medical school at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Savitz took a year off to see if he wanted to pursue a research career and received support from the HHMI Research Training Fellowships for Medical Students program. 

“It makes sense to take the time to do a year of research between the second and third years of medical school,” Savitz said.  “Your worlds are about to change with respect to your education.  The second year is the last year of traditional education, and then in the third year you are in a completely different environment -- in the hospital learning to take care of patients.” 

Upon completion of medical school, Savitz went on to residency in the Harvard Medical School Neurology Program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Children’s Hospital in Boston, where he was chief resident.  He then completed a fellowship in Cerebrovascular Disease at Beth Israel, which was followed by a faculty position in the Department of Neurology at Harvard. 

Savitz was then recruited to UT and joined the faculty in the Department of Neurology, chaired by Dr. James Grotta, in July. 

“The stroke program here at UT is well established and internationally recognized.  I am thrilled to be a part of such a stellar program.  Dr. Grotta, and the Stroke Treatment Team have really put the field of stroke and UT on the map.  As my research is looking at new therapies for stroke, the stroke program’s research mission dovetails nicely with  what I do,” Savitz said.

Savitz plans to use his award to look at novel mechanisms of cell death in stroke and develop new types of neuroprotective therapies for treating stroke patients.  Specifically, Savitz wants to investigate the effects of novel necrosis inhibitors using improved animal models. 

“There is a need to test drugs in better animal models that are more akin to humans.  We want to develop approaches better simulating human disease and test new drugs and develop new therapies to treat stroke,” he explained. 

 -K. Mankiewicz

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Student project fights obesity in the classroom

Second-year students Amanda Goiffon and David Straughan teach fifth-grade students as part of an obesity awareness program started by UT Medical School students.

Exposing Houston fifth-grade students to hands-on concepts about nutrition and exercise, including healthy snacks, like frozen grapes, are the outcomes of an American Medical Association grant secured by two second-year Medical School students.

Andrea Elliott and Josh Strommen created the 14-week curriculum for three fifth-grade classrooms at MacGregor Elementary School to target obesity awareness as the result of the $1,000 grant.

“We did research and found out that autonomy and the ability to choose lifestyle habits begin in the fifth grade, and that children who are obese gain the increase in BMI usually after their fifth-grade year,” Strommen explained.

Strommen and Elliott selected MacGregor Elementary based on demographics --- it is majority minority population and at a higher risk for obesity, with about two-thirds of the students on the reduced lunch program.

“We created the curriculum for our target audience, coming up with homework, packets for teachers and students, including a take-home fitness challenge, which is made up of indoor and outdoor activities,” Elliott said.

The students rely upon volunteers to teach the 45-minute segments, and the class is broken into small groups of five to six fifth-graders with a ratio of one to two medical students.

“It is a lot of fun for the students, and we bring in interactive tools, like a model of 5 pounds of fat – and new things for them to try, like kiwi,” Elliott said.

More than 50 medical students have volunteered for the project.

“Most of the volunteers are repeaters, and the response from the school has been great – we even attended a parent night, and they were excited and receptive,” Elliott said.

At the end of this inaugural course, the students will not be tested, they will instead be treated to a field day that they will help create – with fun games and activities.

Donations have been procured from the John P. McGovern Museum of Health and Medical Science and a private donor. Additionally, the McGovern Center for Health, Humanities, and Human Spirit has provided clerical support and will help to take on the project when the grant expires. More donations, especially of used sporting goods and other physical activity items are needed and boxes will be available in the Leather Lounge.

For more information contact, Andrea.M.Elliott@uth.tmc.edu and joshua.j.strommen@uth.tmc.edu or see www.uth.tmc.edu/ama_tma/nutrition_mission

-D. Brown

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