Greenberg delivers State of the University address
Editor's note: On Thursday, Dec. 7 MUSC President Ray Greenberg,
M.D., Ph.D., presented his State of the University speech to the MUSC Board
of Trustees and the Board of Visitors. It is presented here for the benefit
of the entire MUSC family.
On the occasion of this dinner, it has become a tradition for the president to deliver a brief State of the University address. I am pleased to carry this tradition forward by providing you with a quick sampling of the dominant themes on our campus today.
Hopefully, this overview will serve as more than a simple recitation of accomplishments. My hope is that I can capture for you a flavor of the values and aspirations that drive our daily pursuits.
Dr.
Ray Greenberg
Above all else, we exist to educate the next generation of health care providers and investigators for our state and nation. We seek out the best and brightest students from across South Carolina, but we are looking for more than intellect. We want students who we believe will demonstrate the caring and compassion that are the hallmarks of our disciplines.
That we have met with success is demonstrated by the growing recognition of our educational offerings. National rankings have confirmed a top 10 position for our nurse midwifery program and a top 20 slot for our occupational therapy program. This year, our College of Pharmacy was ranked for the first time as number 22 out of over 85 schools nationally. The graduates from our College of Dental Medicine finished fifth nationally out of over 50 dental schools on the national board examination. These honors demonstrate the sustained high caliber of our faculty and students.
That we have succeeded in selecting students with hearts as well as minds is well demonstrated by the more than 10,000 hours of volunteer service that they contribute each year. Under faculty supervision, the students also staff a free clinic at Crisis Ministries. In addition, the College of Medicine Charity Ball raised a record $25,000 this year, which was distributed to four community-based organizations. This is an amazing commitment when you realize that 90 percent of our students are on financial aid.
As we look to the future, one of the biggest challenges for our educational programs is our aging physical plant. A major step forward is the commitment to construct the James B. Edwards College of Dental Medicine. This state-of-the-art educational center will be funded by a combination of public and private funds. This past year, we raised half of the goal for private funding and received a third of the goal for public support.
In our laboratories, we are driven by a passion to advance knowledge for the improvement of health and prevention of illness. Whether the topic is understanding congestive heart failure, basic mechanisms of drug addiction, the abnormal behavior of cancer cells, imaging the brain, or the genetic basis of inherited diseases, investigators at the Medical University are leading in scientific discoveries. Our ability to expand this effort will be enhanced by the construction of our next major research facility—the Children's Research Institute. Public funding for this effort has been obtained and we have launched a campaign for private fund raising. The building is under design, with construction to begin in the near future.
As we are bursting at the seams in our current space, we continue to set records in research funding, this past year exceeding $113 million in outside support. The economic impact of our research is felt profoundly in the Lowcountry and more generally in South Carolina. It is estimated that by the year 2003, more than 5,000 jobs will be attributable to research at the Medical University. As South Carolina prepares for the technologically-oriented industry that will emerge in the 21st century, the capabilities of the state’s three research universities will be fundamental to this progress.
Together with Clemson and the University of South Carolina, we will train the workforce needed for these companies. Intellectual property developed on our campuses will be transferred for commercial application through start-up companies. At the Medical University, already eight new companies have been spawned by our research efforts. We look forward to partnering with our sister research universities to build even stronger collaborations in the future.
To many citizens of our state, however, we are best known for the specialized health care that we provide. The high reputation of our clinical services was demonstrated again by a Consumer Choice Award based upon household surveys of preferences for health care providers. The Digestive Diseases Center was selected as a leader in its field by a respected publication. The Children's Hospital also was ranked by a national publication as one of the top 10 in the country. These honors reflect the high regard with which both our patients and our professional colleagues hold our health care services.
This past year, we received statutory approval for the new hospital authority and proceeded successfully toward its implementation. We completed the first phase of the renovation of our operating rooms, and we are preparing to further upgrade our medical center facilities. The expansion of the Hollings Cancer Center, which will result in a doubling of both patient care and research space, is funded fully and presently is under design for construction.
I would like to conclude with two recent examples that symbolize for me what we are striving to achieve. The first is a research study that was just launched. It grew out of the work of an investigator in the Department of Pediatrics who observed that when treated with certain cholesterol lowering drugs called statins, laboratory animals with symptoms of multiple sclerosis showed dramatic improvement. Now whether this same benefit will occur in humans is unknown, but it is a terribly exciting prospect since there is no known effective treatment for multiple sclerosis. Our clinical investigators persuaded the manufacturer of one of these statin drugs to fund a clinical trial of this question. We are coordinating that study, which also is being conducted in two leading multiple sclerosis centers—Yale University and the University of Colorado. Each center will enroll only 10 patients initially.
Within days of announcing the trial, more than 350 prospective patients contacted us about participating here. Some volunteered to move across the country to live in Charleston for the six months that it would take to complete the study. This is an extraordinary example of a basic research finding in a laboratory being translated into potential clinical application on our campus.
Finally, let me tell you about a very special little 4-year-old girl from Landrum with liver failure. Without a liver transplant, she would surely die, but there are few donated organs, and even fewer that would be a good match. Her father stepped in by donating a lobe of his liver, thus becoming the first living donor for a liver transplant in South Carolina, and one of a small number in the country. I am happy to report that a month after surgery, both father and daughter are doing well. Through the miracle of this extraordinary surgery, a little girl has a new lease on life.
It is stories such as these that motivate and inspire us every day. We are privileged to work in a place where prayers are answered and dreams come true. The next great discovery is just around the corner and we thank you for helping us get there.
The entire Medical University family joins me in wishing you and yours
a happy and healthy holiday season.