What you do

“What you do has far greater impact than what you say”

– Stephen Covey

 

July 19, 2013

 

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

Life Saver…Popular Science…Making a Real Difference

No doubt many of you have heard about the life-saving abdominal aortic tourniquet created by our own Dr. Richard Schwartz along with Dr. John Croushorn, Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Trinity Medical Center in Birmingham, Ala. They designed it to stop soldiers from bleeding out from highly lethal injuries to the body’s largest blood vessels where  the trunk and legs come together, but it has important stateside application as well for trauma patients. Early last year, we told folks about this insightful invention resulting from Drs. Schwartz and Croushorn’s frontline experiences as well as their time in civilian emergency rooms. It earned a Popular Science Invention Award later that year and now this publication has followed up with a story about the first uses of this device on an Afghan man injured by an improvised explosive device as well as a gunshot victim in Birmingham, see http://bit.ly/18lpnjm.  As we talked about last week, our Department of Emergency Medicine has a true impact on saving the lives of the world’s citizens and we are rightly proud.

 

Outstanding Southern Educators…Interactive Approach … Congratulations…

We send our congratulations to Drs. Thom Gaddy, Amy Medlock, and Mike Russell at our Athens campus who were awarded the 2013 Outstanding Poster Award at the Southern Group on Educational Affairs (SGEA) meeting in Savannah, Ga. Their poster, “Interdisciplinary Teaching: Integrating Medical Science Education using Interactive, Team-Taught Sessions” was evaluated as part of the Medical Education Scholarship Ward (MESA) program and the authors were rated highly for presentation skills, content, and design of the poster. Moreover, this was a fantastic opportunity for MCG faculty to show off how vital it is to use an integrated approach as we work to prepare the next generation of physicians.

 

Go Glasgow … Savoring Savannah … the Difference Our Partners Make for Many …

A little further south, our Southeast Campus students recently treated medical students from the University of Glasgow in Scotland to a Savannah Sand Gnats baseball game. The Sand Gnats are a popular minor league team there and our students shared some hotdogs, fellowship and fun with these fellow medical students who are in Savannah doing rotations at the our fabulous educational partner St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System. It’s a cool educational tradition that has lasted for 25 years and started when MCG alum Dr. Leslie Wilkes attended a medical conference in Scotland and met the Glasgow Dean. Dr. Wilkes has been shepherding this noteworthy migration ever since. In fact, he and his wife along with fellow MCG alum Dr. John Duttenhaver and his wife joined in the baseball fun.  Each year four Glasgow students come to take elective clinical rotations in cardiology, ophthalmology, gastroenterology, and rheumatology during their fourth and fifth years of medical school – it’s a five-year degree there – and to sample sights and sounds of beautiful, historic Savannah.  Savannah, St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System and Dr. Wilkes are incredible hosts for them and partners for us and we thank them for their ongoing commitment.

 

Point of Pride … National News

Our consolidation takes the lead in a Time magazine piece with Dr.  Azziz on the financial and other business benefits of bringing together two great universities to make an even greater one. Please take a few moments to read the piece athttp://nation.time.com/2013/07/19/cash-strapped-universities-turn-to-corporate-style-consolidation/?iid=tsmoduleand share it with friends and colleagues. Please also take a few moments to reflect on the tremendous work done by so many to get us here.

 

Significant Summit …2020 Vision…

Several of our faculty attended the recent 2013 Primary Care Summit, sponsored by the Georgia Statewide AHEC Network and held at Clayton State University. The summit’s mission is to develop strategies to help meet the primary care physician workforce needs for the citizens of Georgia by 2020. Last year’s conference focused on important pipeline programs that inspire and prepare young people to become medical students. This year focused more on how to optimize interest in primary care practice and selection of Georgia GME programs to pursue that interest. Prioritized recommendations included creation of a community-based faculty tax credit for precepting  third- and fourth-year Georgia medical students and creation of a Primary Care Dashboard, and other strategies to encourage selection of Georgia GME programs. Certainly some interesting ideas and leads were generated by the more than 100 professionals from undergraduate education, medical education, graduate medical education, hospitals, physician practices, state agencies, professional organizations, and state government present. We applaud Denise Kornegay, her AHEC team and our state – and of course our faculty – for giving this incredibly important issue the attention and direction it deserves.  Not unlike our police and firefighters, our primary care physicians are essentially to our wellbeing and we simply need more of them.  For more info on summit findings please visithttp://gru.edu/ahec/summit.php .

 

Excellent Educator…Enduring Endowment

No doubt many of you know Dr. Jerry Allison, a medical physicist who worked in our Department of Radiology for 35 years! His department now wants to establish an endowment in his name that will help defray costs for fabulous speakers at the bi-annual W.H. Pool Jr. Society Weekend for radiologists, technologists and other health care professionals. Support of this ongoing educational effort is a great way to honor a man who inspired learning for so many of our students. You may be getting a letter about this shortly from Drs. James Rawson and Lloyd Schnuck. If you don’t and would like to know more, contact Becca Bruni in Advancement at rbruni@gru.edu. Endowments are truly a way to enhance our present and strengthen our future!

 

External Eyes …. Looking Good

Our new Center for Pharmacy and Experimental Therapeutics, led by Dr. Susan Fagan, recently got an external review to ensure we are on target with this important initiative to enhance the  40-year partnership with the University of Georgia pharmacy program at GRU and strengthen both institutions’ acumen at successfully translating scientific findings to better patient care. As with everything we do, there is an important educational component. You may not realize that about 30 UGA doctor of pharmacy students spend the final two years of their studies at our campus. We also host a graduate program, post-doctor of pharmacy residency training program and an extramurally-funded program to facilitate treatment of transplant patients. We should officially hear any day now about this important, collaborative initiative but our take is that all went swimmingly. Certainly more to come on this topic.

 

Internal Eyes …. Also Seeing Great Things Emerge

A final note that this week Drs. Osborne and Thompson from the MCG Foundation joined us for a quick tour of our J. Harold Harrison M.D. Education Commons. Awesome! Even with our heavy rains the crews are making great progress and you can clearly see the footprint for what will be the home of MCG’s academic programs next year. Very exciting and a (growing) concrete reality of the great days ahead.  Our thanks to Jennifer Smith and her team for keeping this important project rolling!

 

Upcoming Events…

July 31- Aug 1– Orientation including the freshman brunch (see below), information sessions, and two social outings.  Please check this event on our MCG Facebook to follow details- http://on.fb.me/15N7Mk2

July 31 – The MCG Alumni Association will have a Freshman Brunch at 10:30 a.m. at the Augusta Marriott Hotel and Conference Center.

Aug. 1 – Early decision dates– AMCAS Application deadline and Secondary Application deadline due today.

Aug. 5 – First day of class.

Aug. 15 – Please mark your calendars for a kick-off to start the new school year while celebrating and learning more about the full spectrum of services at GRU and GRHealth. From 3-7 p.m., the Christenberry Fieldhouse on the Forest Hills Campus will be filled with exhibits, information and representatives from throughout the university and health system.

Sept. 13 – Mark your calendars for noon and the first MCG Faculty Senate meeting for the 2014 academic year. The event will be held in the Lee Auditorium.

Sept. 17-18– Please join the GRU Research Community at the Innovation Summit at the Kroc Center. To learn more, follow this link http://www.gru.edu/oic/is13/

Sept. 26-27– The Southern Translational Education and Research (STAR) Conference 2013 will be held at the Augusta Marriott. Investigators in the field of clinical and translational science are invited to submit abstracts to be considered by Aug. 30th. Please contact Kim McKenzie at kmckenzie@rx.uga.eduand visit the website, www.rxugace.com/starfor more information.

Oct. 12 – The White Coat ceremony will be held at the Bell Auditorium at 3 p.m. and the reception will be immediately following at the Old Medical College. Please check this event page on our MCG Facebook to follow details-http://on.fb.me/15N7Tfi

Oct. 15 – Grand opening of the Northwest Georgia campus based in Rome.

 

Check out our MCG Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/grumcgand Twitter page as well #Follow.

 

Enjoy your weekend!