MAGAZINE MedicalAlumnfall i2008 volume 49 | no 2 Building a Campus at Parnassus Also inside... HIV/AIDS CARE IN BRAZIL | HOMECOMING 2008 | WELL-BEING PROGRAM Inside departments MedicalAlumni 1 from the editor 6 president’s letter 16 class notes MAGAZINE Fall 2008: Volume 49, Number 2 EdiTOR-IN-CHief: Kenneth H. Fye, MD ’68 MANAGING EdiTOR: Anne Kavanagh CONTRIBUTING EdiTORS: Gary Bernard, Debra Holcomb, Jean Murray WRITERS: Lisa Cisneros, Jody Duncan, Anne Kavanagh, Kate Volkman, Tina Vu PHOTOGRapHERS: Noah Berger, Earl McCowen, Fabricio Meneses, Susan Merrell, Mary Lane Vaz EdiTORiaL AssisTANTS: Gina Martinez, Michelle Pardo DesiGNER: Laura Myers Design Administrative Council 2008–2009 OFFICERS Lawrence Lustig, MD ’91, President; Lawrence Hill, MD ’67, President-Elect; TBD, Vice President (Northern California); H. John Blossom, MD ’70, Vice President (Central California); Ronald P. Karlsberg, MD ’73, Vice President (Southern California); Donna Hoghooghi, MD ’98, Secretary/Treasurer COUNCILORS AT LARGE features Robert J. Albo, MD ’59; Kenneth M. Bermudez, MD ’92; Caley Castelein, MD ’98; Neal H. Cohen, MD ’71; Timothy J. Crowley, MD ’80; Ruth Goldstein, MD ’79; 2 A Brazilian Love Story Uri Ladabaum, MD ’91; Tomas Magana, MD ’95; How Irene Adams, MD ’63, came to care for – and cherish – Brazil’s street kids. Mary Eleanor Margaretten, MD ’03; Gary Mizono, MD; Willis Navarro, MD ’90; Harlan B. Watkins, MD ’63; Jane Phillips, MD, President, Association of the 3 Black Caucus Honors Longtime UCSF Leader Clinical Faculty; Albert Hall, MD ’52, Councilor Emeritus; Statue pays homage to former dean of the School of Medicine, Haile Debas, MD, Robert C. Lim, MD ’60, Councilor Emeritus and his dedication to transforming health worldwide. PAST PRESIDENTS Gordon L. Fung, MD ’79; David N. Schindler, MD ’66; 4 Record-Breaking Homecoming Judith A. Luce, MD ’74; John Fletcher, MD ’57 You came, you enjoyed, and you donated in droves to honor your class reunions. HOUSESTAFF REPRESENTATIVE TBD 5 Alumnus of the Year STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE Champion of neuro-ophthalmology, William Hoyt, MD ’50, receives the Medical Daniel Orjuela, MS5 Alumni Association’s highest honor. EX-OFFICIO J. Michael Bishop, MD, Chancellor 6 Your Medical Alumni Association Sam Hawgood, MB, BS, Interim Dean, Meet the new MAA president and learn how members support UCSF. UCSF School of Medicine UCSF School of Medicine 7 UC: Under Construction Medical Alumni Association The history behind building the medical school on the hill. 220 Montgomery Street, 5th Floor San Francisco, CA 94104-4709 1 5 When the Student Doctor’s Not Well Tel: 415/476-1591 Well-being program helps stressed and depressed medical students. Toll free: 866/904-2400 Fax: 415/476-3264 Email: [email protected] ON THE COVER: Looking southwest toward Sutro Forest from the Lange Website: www.ucsfalumni.org Dairy at Cole and Carl streets in 1892. Inset: Parnassus campus map, 2008. See story, page 7. © 2008 UCSF School of Medicine, MAA. All rights reserved. FROM THE EDITOR An Institution of the Mediocre Elite? he cost of a gallon of gasoline is not the only thing increasing T in San Francisco. Parking, the Golden Gate Bridge toll, beer, and, not least, the cost of a medical education are all more expensive than in years past. Of those items, the cost of medical education will clearly have the greatest impact on the future character of the UCSF medical student. One of our greatest strengths as an institution has been the diversity – gender, ethnic and financial – of our student body. We have traditionally been able to attract the best students, in part, because UCSF offered an outstanding medical education for bright students who couldn’t afford higher-priced private institutions. The quality of the education is as good as ever, but affordability has become a Ken Fye, MD ’68 thing of the past. The annual fees at UCSF now approach $26,000, while “The quality of the education is as good as ever, but affordability our available scholarships provide has become a thing of the past. The annual fees at UCSF now barely half of that amount to our neediest students. That translates to approach $26,000, while our available scholarships provide a minimum four-year debt of more than $50,000 for those students who barely half of that amount to our neediest students.” get the BEST support offered by the University and a much higher debt for the average student. support programs. There is even create such an endowment would be At the same time that our fees are a move among those institutions painful, since it could divert funds rising, competitor institutions, such as with robust endowments to offer a from capital campaigns already Harvard, Penn, Yale and Michigan free medical education to all students earmarked for other important have responded to the skyrocketing accepted into their programs. priorities. However, the creation of a cost of medical education by If something is not done the scholarship endowment will be no less dramatically increasing the financial UCSF student body could, within a painful in one year or five years, since support they offer to their students, generation, be made up of wealthy there will always be competing needs. including full scholarships to deserving applicants who were rejected by other The earlier we address this issue the students. Other schools, such as schools offering full scholarships. better, even if the first endowment Stanford, are contemplating similar UCSF would become an institution monies are modest and able to fully programs. It would be nice to think of the mediocre elite. support just a few needy students. that the excellence of our program and What is to be done? The state is On a sadder note, health issues are the privilege of living in San Francisco in a real financial crisis, and there are forcing me to retire as editor of the would allow us to continue to compete pressures on the state budget from UCSF Medical Alumni Magazine. I have for the best and the brightest, but that every sector of society. Even if some relished my tenure in that role and will is simply not the case. The financial funds could be made available for miss the opportunity to regale you differential between UCSF and next year or the year after, the all with my free-ranging editorials. our competitors is already forcing problem of annual state funding would Good bye and good luck. deserving students, who have been be an ongoing political nightmare. accepted at UCSF and who would The real solution would be for UCSF prefer to come here, to choose other to create a meaningful scholarship institutions with more comprehensive endowment, similar to those of Kenneth H. Fye, MD ’68 competing institutions. To rapidly medical alumni magazine | 1 ALUMNI PROFILE A Brazilian Love Story BY Kate VOLkman ot long after Irene Adams, MD ’63, AIDS,” says Adams. “It was the rescue moved to Belo Horizonte, Brazil, of these kids. They have no idea N in 1986, she met some street about their bodies – they don’t know kids who stole her heart. about STDs, pregnancy, wound care. “These children go on the streets at That’s why our mission statement is 5, 6, 7 years old,” she says. “They’re ‘education for life through health.’ I’m sexually active at a very young age. not there to treat their illnesses; I’m They’re using drugs. Their parents aren’t there to help them find themselves.” part of their lives and they don’t go to In the process, Adams found herself, school. They steal – that’s how they get as well. “My life took on significance money. They have very low self-esteem. and meaning,” she reflects. “Dr. Irene” gives at-risk children check-ups If you don’t like yourself, think you’re After graduating from UCSF School at the AMMOR Clinic. no damn good, why would you protect of Medicine in 1963, Adams moved to yourself against anything – traffic New York for a residency in internal into school and then set off for the accidents, drug overdose, AIDS. ...” medicine and oncology at Cornell local university, offering her medical As a doctor who recently had Medical School and Memorial Sloan- services. Over the years she picked up learned about AIDS, Adams was deter- Kettering Hospital. She married Dutch new specialties and interests, one of mined to educate these children about economist A.C. Bruinsma, who took a which was immunology. So when they the new disease. With financing from job with Shell International Petroleum arrived in Belo Horizonte, Adams the National Institutes of Health, and Company. They moved to London, wanted to learn about a new disease in collaboration with Johns Hopkins where their daughter was born; called AIDS. School of Medicine and the Federal Maracaibo, Venezuela, where their son She attended a lecture and saw a University of Minas Gervais in Brazil, was born; Caracas; Santiago, Chile; slide which showed the structure of Adams helped found the AMMOR and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. the AIDS virus. “It was love at first Clinic (www.ammor.org.br). AMMOR In 1986, Adams and her husband sight,” she says. “Immunology is is an acronym in Portuguese, which decided the family would stay in Brazil fascinating to me.” translates to Multiple Professional because they felt they could make a Simultaneous to her work with the Action with Children at Risk. difference there in a way they couldn’t AMMOR Clinic, Adams began a Its original intent was to offer general in the U.S. or Holland. That’s when private practice where she treated health services to street kids and he left Shell and took a position at a HIV-positive patients.