Boston University OpenBU http://open.bu.edu BU Publications BUSM News and Notes 1985-03 BUSM News & Notes: March 1985 no. 85 https://hdl.handle.net/2144/22078 Boston University News & Notes Boston University School of Medicine March 1985 Issue #85 BUSM FORMS NEW AFFILIATIONS Joseph J. Vitale, Sc.D., M.D., associate dean WITH CHINA AND ISRAEL for international health and director of the BUSM Nutrition Education Program, recently spent several weeks in northern China to finalize an affiliation between the School of Medicine and several medical centers there. Vitale visited the medical schools and hospitals of participating medical centers in the provinces of Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Jilin. In addition, an affiliation has been developed between the School of Medicine and the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem, Israel. Vitale, Dean Sandson, Ernest H. Blaustein, Ph.D., associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts, and Leonard S. Gottlieb, M.D., a professor and chairman of the Department of Pathology, participated in the ceremony establishing the affiliation held at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Both affiliations will allow an exchange of students and faculty, and will promote the joint sponsorship of continuing medical education conferences and research activities. The exchange programs are similar to ones already in place between BUSM and medical schools in Egypt, Columbia (South America), Ireland, and Mexico. LOWN TO SPEAK ON NUCLEAR Bernard Lown, M.D., president of MENACE AT ALUMNI MEETING International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and founder and first president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, will be the keynote speaker at the BUSM Alumni Association's annual meeting and banquet to be held May 11 at the 57 Park Plaza Hotel. According to S. Donald Kaufman '60, president of the Alumni Association, Lown will speak on "The Moral Imperative Confronting Physicians," a subject that has commanded his interest for many years. Lown currently is a professor of cardiology and director of the Cardiovascular Research Laboratory, Department of Nutrition, at Harvard School of Public Health. The annual Alumni meeting and banquet is a highlight of Alumni Weekend, May 10 and 11, when BUSM alumni come together to celebrate their five-year reunions. Other activities on May 11, to which all BUSM alumni and faculty are invited, will include the presentation of scientific papers by members of the Class of 1960, followed by a luncheon in the Hiebert Lounge. -more- -2- BUSM RECEIVES BEQUEST FROM Boston University School of Medicine has ALUMNUS HAYES' ESTATE received a large bequest from the estate of John J. Hayes, M.D., Class of '32, to establish the John James Hayes and Olive Johnston Hayes Student Revolving Loan Fund, to be used primarily to finance the education of first- and second-year BUSM medical students. The Fund is one of the largest gifts made to the School of Medicine by an alumnus. Hayes, 80, of Pound Ridge, N.Y., died on Jan. 15, 1985, following a long illness. Hayes completed his internship at Massachusetts Memorial Hospitals, now University Hospital, and was a resident in pathology at the University of California following his graduation from BUSM. Hayes also served as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy during World War II. CONN NAMED MEDICAL DIRECTOR Alasdair K. Conn, M.D., a recently appointed OF NEW ENGLAND LIFE FLIGHT associate professor of surgery at BUSM and trauma surgeon at University Hospital and Boston City Hospital, has been named medical and executive director of New England Life Flight, a new Boston-area emergency helicopter service. NELF is a joint project of University Hospital, Boston City Hospital, the Longwood Area Trauma Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and the Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Center of New England Medical Center. New England Life Flight will be a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week service staffed by highly trained pilots, paramedics and critical-care nurses under Conn's direction. Prior to becoming medical director of NELF in January, Conn served as medical director of field operations of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medicine, considered to be a model trauma and emergency program for the country. The jet-boosted helicopter will carry monitoring and other advanced life-support equipment, and will be used primarily to respond to the scenes of accidents inaccessible to ground ambulances because of traffic, bad weather or terrain. When not involved in emergency service, NELF will carry out inter-hospital transfer of patients in need of specialty care. HOME MEDICAL SERVICE Over the next three years, the Home RECEIVES GRANT RENEWAL Medical Service of University Hospital, a required rotation for BUSM students, will use a $500,000 renewal grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop and implement a new data-based system to coordinate care for homebound elderly patients. Under the recent grant renewal, information obtained from standard medical histories and physical examinations, functional assessments and the patient's demography will be included in a comprehensive data base that can be used to determine the best overall treatment plan for a patient. The project is co-directed by R. Knight Steel, M.D., a BUSM professor of medicine and director of HMS; Anna Bissonnette, R.N., M.S., assistant director of HMS; and Alan Rosenfeld, Ph.D., director of regional services at UH. Home Medical shares responsibility for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation project with the Visiting Nurse Association of Boston, the Laboure Visiting Nurse Service, the Southwest Boston Senior Services, Central Boston Elder Services, Resthaven Nursing Home, Jewish Memorial Hospital and Senior Home Care Services. -more- -3- GERIATRIC EVALUATION UNIT The Geriatric Evaluation Unit (GEU) of Boston RECEIVES $75,000 VA AWARD Veterans Administration Medical Center recently received an award for $75,000 a year, renewable indefinitely, from the VA's central office in Washington, D.C. The VA geriatric program began in 1983 and is an important part of BUSM and of BVAMC's neurology department, which is headed by Robert Feldman, M.D., also a professor and chairman of the Department of Neurology at BUSM. The program provides focused geriatric and gerontological training for physicians, nurses, social workers, therapists and psychologists. According to Janice E. Knoefel, M.D., GEU director and a BUSM instructor in neurology, the 1985 award will be used to increase the unit's professional staff, allowing it to serve more veterans needing comprehensive geriatric assessment and treatment. The GEU uses an interdisciplinary team approach to treat veterans over age 60 who have problems related to dementia, Parkinson's disease, walking, fainting, incontinence, poor nutrition, multiple drug usage, arthritis, osteoporosis or psychological conditions affecting their ability to live independently. Problems are identified through a comprehensive patient assessment by each team member. The resulting treatment, rehabilitation planning and resource mobilization helps patients function at a highly independent level, reduces hospitalizations and decreases the need for nursing home care. BCH CENTER TO START SEXUAL- The Massachusetts Department of Social ABUSE TREATMENT PROGRAM Services recently awarded a contract for approximately $130,000 to the Family Development Center of Boston City Hospital to create a program for the diagnosis, evaluation and long-term treatment of families in which there has been sexual abuse of children. The program will be directed by Robert Reece, M.D., director of the Family Development Center and an associate professor of pediatrics and socio-medical sciences and community medicine at BUSM. "All cases will be referred to us by the DSS after they have been deemed in need of treatment for the problem," Reece said. The Family Development Center will evaluate each case for the extent and type of maltreatment and for design of therapeutic programs, including long-term counseling. In addition to Reece, the program staff includes Laurence Miller, M.D., an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry and chief of psychiatry at BCH. The staff also will include a psychiatric nurse coordinator, a full-time psychiatric nurse or medical social worker, and a social worker. The program will be housed initially at the Pediatric Walk-in Clinic on Children's 2 and 3 at BCH. SANDSON TO SPEAK AT Dean Sandson will moderate a seminar on MEDICAL ETHICS SEMINAR "Judaism and Contemporary Medicine: Confrontation or Accommodation?" at Temple Emeth in Chestnut Hill on March 24. Other speakers include Mitchell T. Rabkin, M.D., president of Beth Israel Hospital, and Rabbi David Feldman, Ph.D., chairman of the Committee on Medical Ethics of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies. The seminar follows a short service at 8:30 a.m. and breakfast at 9:15 a.m. -more- -4- RYAN ADDRESSES BYPASS SURGERY Boston University Today recently reported AND TRANSPLANT ISSUES Thomas Ryan, M.D., a BUSM professor of medicine and president of the American Heart Association, as saying that more doctors today are choosing to treat patients with medications and new procedures, such as balloon angioplasty, rather than with coronary bypass surgery. Ryan attributed the change in part to the fact that a bypass is a "palliative rather than a curative procedure" and said that grafted veins may develop their own blockage problems. While the number of bypass procedures being done continues to increase_^ with about 170,000 operations done in 1982, Ryan said, "there may be a plateauing of bypass surgery" since the rate of the increase has declined. The percentage of increase from the previous year was 20 percent and 16 percent in 1980 and 1981 respectively, and only 7 percent in 1982. In addition, the Boston Globe reported Ryan to be among heart specialists discussing issues related to "Baby Fae" at an annual AHA seminar. According to the Globe, Ryan and Aldo R. Castaneda, M.D, of Children's Hospital in Boston, are opposed to another animal-to-human heart transplant until there is evidence that the recipient of the next transplant will live longer than Baby Fae.