A Year in Review
The Albert Florens Storm Eye Institute celebrated its 25th anniversary in September ranking as one of the nation's leading eye care facilities. Vision research at MUSC ranks within the top quartile in NIH funding for medical schools in the U.S., with the entire basic research faculty at SEI funded through the National Eye Institute. The SEI also receives substantial funding from corporate and foundation enterprises. The institute was dedicated on Sept. 10, 1976. An MUSC study of how the human heart develops and how it may go wrong in babies with congenital malformation and birth defects got a major $5.9 million boost in September from the National Institute of Child Health and Development. The five-year, NIH/NICHD grant awarded to MUSC and led by principal investigator Rob Gourdie, Ph.D., of the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, continues a long-term probe into factors that lead to congenital heart defects in children. The study explores the properties of different “invasive” cell populations normally present in the embryo, each of which appear to have important roles in shaping the structure and electrical conductivity of the early heart muscle through embryonic development to the more complex heart of a newborn. In this era of biotechnology, solving the human genome, cloning and the debate concerning stem cell research may dominate national and international headlines, but the buzz around MUSC’s research corridors last summer was all about X-ray crystallography. The establishment of this technique has been a dream long since realized among a cadre of biomedical researchers, MUSC faculty and outside experts since the mid-1990s. Its presence solidifies MUSC's commitment within an arena of research institutions vying for the chance to make valuable discoveries and treatments, create new understandings and test insights that lead to a clearer understanding of biology at a molecular level. Central to this immense canvas of science and discovery is Christopher Davies, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and MUSC’s first resident crystallographer. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in May reported Charleston to be ranked in the top 100 cities in the country in the amount of NIH support for fiscal year 2000 with $45,742,911 coming to Charleston. All of these funds have been directed to MUSC. Ground-breaking ceremonies for the Children's Research Institute were held in February. The institute will focus on children's health issues. In the facility, biomedical scientists will work only a few hundred yards away from clinicians who employ their therapies. A five-year, multi-million dollar program to begin a Pediatric Heart Disease Clinical Network by the National Institutes of Health, yielded award grants of $2.5 million for six clinical centers, including MUSC. J. Philip Saul, division chief for Pediatric Cardiology and director of the Children’s Heart Program of South Carolina, learned during the summer that MUSC has been chosen from more than 30 applicants as one of the clinical centers. The program is designed to pioneer and coordinate new treatment methods and strategies for children with congenital and acquired heart disease through a national research. FACULTY
Joseph Gerald (Jerry) Reves, M.D., took over July 1 as vice president for medical affairs and dean of the College of Medicine. Reves was recommended for the position in March and approved by the MUSC Board of Trustees in April. Reves succeeded R. Layton McCurdy, M.D., who stepped down after more than 10 years of leadership of the College of Medicine. Reves came to MUSC from Duke University where he served as professor and chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology since 1991. Ron O. Nickel, Ph.D., associate professor and dean of Continuing Education for the College of Pharmacy, was awarded the Phil Naut Award at the Annual Meeting of the Pharmacy Technician Educators Council (PTEC) meeting held in Toronto in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy in July. This award is given to someone who is not an educator of technicians but who has been actively involved and supportive of PTEC and technician education. Cherry Wyant Jackson, Pharm.D., assumed the office of president of the College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists in July. She will lead the organization as president until July 2002, and as past president until July 2003. This international organization has as its goal the promotion of excellence in pharmacy practice, education, and research in order to optimize the treatment and health of individuals affected by psychiatric and neurologic disorders. Jackson is associate professor in the Department of Pharmacy Practice where she is residency coordinator for psychiatric pharmacy and a clinical pharmacist at MUSC’s Institute of Psychiatry. CLINICAL
The Pediatric Echocardiography Laboratory at MUSC was one of six pediatric laboratories in the country granted full accreditation by the Intersocietal Commission for the Accreditation of Echocardiography Laboratories. Participation in the accreditation process is voluntary, according to Girish Shirali, M.D., director of the laboratory. Accreditation status signifies that the facility has been reviewed by an independent agency which recognizes the laboratory's commitment to quality testing for the diagnosis of heart disease. Full accreditation means that the facility is accredited for transthoracic, transesophageal and fetal echocardiography. The laboratory performs 4,000 echocardiograms a year and is staffed by four registered pediatric sonographers. MUSC's Children's Hospital was ranked among the nation's 10 leading children's hospitals by a national publication. Child magazine, in its February issue, also listed The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia; Children's Hospital, Boston; Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, Seattle; The Children's Hospital, Denver; Children's Medical Center, Dallas; Children's Hospital and Health Center, San Diego; and C.S. Mott Children's Hospital of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. MUSC was ranked 17th among the nation’s 270 transplant centers for the volume of solid organ transplants performed in the year 2000. The September ranking made MUSC the busiest transplant center in all of UNOS (United Network on Organ Sharing) Region 11, which includes South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia. It isn’t writer ’s view of exploring the human body as described in his science fiction classic, Fantastic Voyage, but it certainly comes close. Using advanced state-of-the-art screening equipment, physicians and specialists began taking virtual reality tours inside their patients early this year as part of multi-center study hosted by Digestive Disease Center director Peter Cotton, M.D., FRCP. They are getting a look inside the hidden recesses of the inner ear, colon and blood vessels leading to the heart. Three MUSC physicians were the only doctors in South Carolina to receive national recognition for providing quality care to patients with diabetes. The National Diabetes Association (ADA) and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) announced in July that John A. Colwell, M.D., Kathie L. Hermayer, M.D. and Ronald K. Mayfield, M.D., all of the MUSC Diabetes Center, were cited by the Provider Recognition Program. They will hold recognition status for three years. The Provider Recognition Program was designed to improve the quality of care that patients with diabetes receive by recognizing physicians who deliver quality diabetes care, and by motivating other physicians to document and improve their delivery of diabetes care. CAMPUS
The midnight shift of July 10 began as a typical work day for Public Safety Officer Ernest Brown. But in the early morning hours, Brown and his fellow officers learned the value of professional training and patience even under the perilous line of gunfire. In August, Brown was publicly honored for his courage and gallantry by MUSC President Ray Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D., and Public Safety Chief Tom Brown in an on-campus ceremony that awarded him the Department of Public Safety and MUSC Medal of Honor. “It’s rare to bestow the Medal of Honor on an individual,” said Chief Brown. “It’s only given in a single act of gallantry where an officer places the life of another above his own, in this case it was Lt. Capps.” The MUSC Department of Public Safety received high praise from Charleston Police Chief Reuben Greenberg for the assistance it provided city police in the apprehension of suspects in a string of armed robberies in July. Asked at a Charleston Police Department news conference about the actions of the MUSC police force, Greenberg said that they handled themselves professionally as they always do, and he would expect nothing less. He said MUSC police officers have the same training as Charleston city police officers. “We work very closely with them all the time,” Greenberg said. He said that this was just one instance in hundreds during the time that he’s been in Charleston where MUSC police have assisted in the apprehension of a suspect or in the investigation of a crime. The newly launched Presidential Scholars Program, a study of broad issues of interest to health care professionals, focused on health disparities in its first year. The program brings together students from the various health disciplines on campus. By sharing this time together, they were taught more about the contributions that each discipline can make, and the value of teamwork. A new Ph.D. program in nursing at MUSC accepted its first students in the fall. The program, announced in March, offers a long-term solution to the nursing shortage. There is a severe shortage of doctoral prepared nurses nationally, and university nursing programs are having great difficulty recruiting faculty, according to Gail Stuart, Ph.D., director of the MUSC doctoral program. “Only one-half of one percent of registered nurses in South Carolina are prepared on the doctoral level,” said Stuart. PATIENTS
Groundbreaking ceremonies for the seven-story addition to the Medical University’s Hollings Cancer Center were held Thursday, Dec. 13. The new building will be immediately adjacent to the existing facility and will occupy the corner of Jonathan Lucas and Sabin streets. Passageways will connect the two buildings. The $39.9 million expansion project will be in two phases, with the first new-construction phase scheduled for completion late in 2003. This will be followed by a phase II renovation of the existing facility during an18-month period. Mount Pleasant resident Tina Roberts saved her father’s life in February by giving him half her liver, the first living donor adult liver transplant in this state. She knew the surgery was risky: donors died in three of the 300 transplants performed so far in the western hemisphere. A transplant and organ donation usually follow a death, but the 16,000 Americans on the liver waiting list far exceed the 4,500 transplants each year. So surgeons, first in Japan and now in Europe and this country, are turning to live donors. Unlike other organs, a partial liver grows back to normal size within a few weeks. The MUSC liver transplant team performed the first in the state in November 2000 when Dr. Todd Walter of Landrum gave a small part of his liver to his 4-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. A new brain cancer treatment, given for the first time in this state, directs a high dose of radiation straight to the tumor site without going through healthy brain tissue or requiring weeks of repeat radiation. In September, doctors used a new device and a new cancer-fighting compound at MUSC, one of the first 11 hospitals in the country licensed to perform the treatment. CLINICAL OUTREACH
Improving the quality of life for older South Carolinians is the aim of a project which received $1.25 million federal funding this summer. The five-year U.S. Department of Health and Human Services grant to the College of Health Professions will establish the South Carolina Geriatric Education Center. The center, under the direction of Esther M. Forti, Ph.D., R.N., a rural health specialist and assistant professor at MUSC, will develop, expand and sustain collaborative efforts across the state to provide educational and training programs in geriatrics and gerontology for faculty, students and practicing health and social services providers. Roper Hospital finalized a plan in February for operation of its Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanner that includes cooperative use with the Medical University. Until the facility opened in the spring, patients had to travel outside of the state to receive a PET scan. PET precisely detects early metabolic changes, which can significantly enhance the diagnosis and treatment of disease in the fields of oncology, cardiology and neurology. As
Americans reeled in disbelief and responded to the horror of the Sept.
11 terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania, another
group of proud Americans were already looking past the tragedy and preparing
for the roles they have trained and prepared for months, even years. A
handful of MUSC’s own proudly serve as military reservists.
|