Online bidding for Art Wall Silent Auction starts Dec. 1

The third-annual Art Wall Silent Auction features more than 25 pieces of art created by members of the Medical School community and their families. The donated art includes photography, watercolors, computer compositions, collages, color pencil sketches, and charcoal drawings.

The auction begins Dec. 1 with online bidding, and on-site bidding, at the Art Wall on the ground floor of the Medical School Building, will begin at noon Wednesday, Dec. 3. The auction will end at 12:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5.

An online preview of the art up for auction will be available Monday, Nov. 24 at www.uthoustonartwall.org. This is also where online bidding is accepted.

All auction proceeds go to support the maintenance of the Art Wall.

“When we reach the endowment goal of $30,000, the Art Wall maintenance costs will be covered in perpetuity and any further proceeds from future auctions will be donated to the Organization of Faculty Wives & Women Faculty Doris Simon Scholarship Fund for medical students,” explained Lynne Arnett, chair of the Art Wall Committee.

In years past, the auction has raised about $4,000 toward the endowment – which currently stands at $23,000.

The Art Wall accepts check or credit card – Master Card, Visa, or Discover – for payments.

-D. Brown

Murray presents White lecture

Dr. Barbara Murray, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Internal Medicine and co-director of the Center for the Study of Emerging and Re-Emerging Pathogens, recently was honored as the 10th Arthur C. White lecturer in Infectious Diseases at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis.

Murray, who also is the J. Ralph Meadows Professor and vice-chair for research in the department, presented her lecture, “Enterococci: Is There More to Making this Second-Rate Pathogen into a First-Rate Problem than its Antibiotic Resistance?” Oct. 9.

Arthur C. White established the Infectious Disease Division at the Indiana University School of Medicine in 1967 and served as director until 1988. White was one of a handful of clinician-scientists who established infectious diseases as an important field in medicine in the United States. In recognition of his many contributions to the university, to medical education, and to the field of infectious diseases, a lectureship was established in his name in December 1998.

“The lectureship has provided the opportunity for the faculty and trainees at Indiana University to interact with international leaders in infectious disease,” explained Dr. Clinton White, chair of the Infectious Diseases Division at UTMB and son of Dr. Arthur White. “Barbara Murray is recognized as a world authority on antibiotic resistance and a national leader in infectious diseases. Her presentations were thoughtful and well received.”

“I was very honored as I had known Arthur White and his work from years back and know his son ,” Murray said, adding that she gave a second “after dinner” lecture to an audience of medical professionals, donors, and the White family. “It was an ‘inside view’ of antibiotic resistance, which I’m told, was understandable by all and highlighted why resistance continues to develop.”

White said he heard numerous positive comments about Murray’s lectures, and the second presentation was “an outstanding talk that was greatly appreciated by a diverse audience including the chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine, the infectious diseases faculty and fellows, and friends and family of Dr. White.

“This is a difficult task,” he said, “but, Dr. Murray wowed everyone. Everyone was thrilled.”

-D. Brown

Baylor honors Azizzadeh

The Baylor University Alumni Association has named Dr. Ali Azizzadeh, assistant professor of cardiothoracic and vascular surgery, as one of five winners of the 2008 Herbert H. Reynolds Outstanding Young Alumni Awards.

Azizzadeh graduated from Baylor in 1994 and attended Baylor College of Medicine. He completed a general surgery internship and residency at Baylor College of Medicine and a vascular surgery fellowship at Barnes Jewish Hospital at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He joined the Medical School faculty in 2004.

“It is a great honor to be recognized by my alma mater,” he said. “I am also humbled to be included in such a distinguished group of Baylor alumni.”

Azizzadeh also serves as director of endovascular surgery at Memorial Hermann Heart and Vascular Institute and has authored or co-authored more than 60 scientific publications and 10 book chapters in medical journals and textbooks.

Azizzadeh received the award Oct. 31 at the Baylor Homecoming. Other recipients included Dr. Tina Payne Bryson of San Marino, Calif.; Collin Cox of Houston; Kimberly Hightower of McGregor; and David Phelps of Culleoka, Tenn.

-D. Brown

Researchers focus on health information overload

Many health care providers are overloaded with information. And more is coming. At The University of Texas School of Health Information Sciences at Houston (SHIS), research trainees are learning how to address the many issues raised by the explosion in e-information.

SHIS recently received a 5-year, $1.3 million grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to teach six young investigators how to conduct research in health information technology. Four of the positions have been filled.

“There is a huge move to use health information technology to improve health care,” said Dr. Todd Johnson, the grant’s principal investigator and co-director, and associate dean for academic affairs at SHIS. “The problem is that the current technology is not designed to efficiently support the information needs of clinicians. As a result, there have been many cases where the introduction of health information technology resulted in a decrease in efficiency and an increase in medical errors.”

An Institute of Medicine report estimates that as many as 44,000 to 98,000 people die in hospitals each year as a result of medical errors and that medical errors cost the nation about $38 billion a year.

“Most medical errors are caused in part by information overload,” said Dr. Eric Thomas, co-director of the training grant, director of the University of Texas-Memorial Hermann Center for Healthcare Quality and Safety and the Griff T. Ross Professor in Humanities and Technology at the Medical School. “People are trying to process an enormous amount of information.”

The trainees are working on projects designed to increase patient safety.

One of the trainees, Dr. Mona Sawhney, is focusing on how best to design information communication systems so that physicians don’t miss patients’ abnormal test result notifications. “Some doctors receive more than 60 to 70 alerts per day of various types of notifications and prioritizing them can be a challenge. Here is where system design can help,” she said.

Another, Roxana Maffei, M.S.N., R.N., wants to improve emergency room decision making.

“Presently, the information needed to make these decisions is buried in medical charts or must be obtained by talking to several other clinicians,” Johnson said. “She’s working on an information dashboard that could be used to improve clinician decision making about how to allocate their time among patients and other activities, such as charting and viewing labs.”

The trainees are working with researchers at other Texas Medical Center institutions through the Gulf Coast Consortia, which is administering the grant. The consortia is comprised of the Baylor College of Medicine, Rice University, University of Houston, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

The trainees also will receive instruction from faculty members of the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS), a collaborative initiative involving the UT Health Science Center at Houston, the UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and the Memorial Hermann Healthcare System. The center was created in 2006 with a National Institutes of Health grant to fast track the application of scientific knowledge to patient care.

-R. Cahill

Medical schools increase enrollment, notable gains by Latinos

U.S. medical schools continue to expand their enrollment to meet the country's increasing demand for physicians, according to data released by the AAMC last week. First-year enrollment at medical schools this year increased nearly 2 percent over 2007, to more than 18,000 students — the highest enrollment in history. In a boon to the medical education community's efforts to increase diversity in medicine, the number of Latino first-year enrollees rose by more than 10 percent this year. The number of Native American first-year enrollees increased by more than 5 percent, and the number of African American first-year students remained nearly the same as in 2007.

After a five-year increase in applicants to medical schools, the number of applicants leveled off this year at more than 42,200. While the overall applicant pool is one of the largest in more than a decade, the number of first-time applicants decreased by 3 percent. On average, there were more than 2 applicants for every available opening at a medical school.

Information: Go to http://www.aamc.org/newsroom/pressrel/2008/081021.htm

-AAMC

Arts & Crafts for all

There were plenty of goodies to be purchased at the annual Holiday Arts & Crafts Fair sponsored by the Medical School Employee Relations Committee.