Eighty-nine graduates, members of the MU School of Medicine Class of 2009, officially became physicians during a commencement ceremony on May 16 at Jesse Auditorium. Sir John Oldham, a leading international expert in the field of quality improvement, gave the commencement address.

Nearly 50 percent of the medical school graduating class chose to remain in Missouri to complete residency training. The number of graduating students staying at MU for their residencies has also increased over previous years – with 39 percent of 2009 graduates remaining at MU for residency.

“We’re extremely proud of the competent, patient-centered doctors that our students have become over the past four years,” said Linda Headrick, MD, senior associate dean for education and faculty development. “Their hard work and perseverance has paid off, and now we’re fortunate many of them have chosen to stay in Missouri and in MU residency programs.”

Oldham is a primary care physician who was knighted in 2003 for his service to the National Health System, the four publically funded health care systems in Great Britain. In 1997, the U.S. Institute for Healthcare Improvement invited Oldham to take part in a national project that used the breakthrough collaborative method – which unites teams from hospitals or clinics to seek improvement in a focused topic area. Oldham brought the collaborative method back to Great Britain, where he began forming collaborative teams with primary care providers.

In 2000, Oldham became the head of the National Primary Care Development Team, which manages the Primary Care Collaborative. The collaborative is now the largest improvement program in the world. It delivers impressive results, such as a 72 percent improvement in patients’ access to general practitioners, a substantial reduction in mortality for patients with coronary heart disease and improvement in other long-term illnesses.

At other ceremonies, 21 students received doctoral or master’s degrees from the departments of biochemistry, health management and informatics, molecular microbiology and immunology, medical pharmacology and physiology, and nutrition and exercise physiology.

MedZou community health clinic, a student-coordinated effort to provide health care access to the more than 20,000 uninsured individuals in Boone County, was honored and recognized as the University of Missouri’s best new organization during the Chancellor’s Excellence Awards Ceremony on April 18 at Memorial Union.

“MedZou stood out among the others for the quality and breadth of its activities,” said Nick Evans, coordinator for student organizations in the Department of Student Life, which hosts the awards. “These people are potentially saving lives.”

Students began planning to secure community support and funding in fall 2007, and the clinic began accepting patients on Oct. 16, 2008. Since its opening, the clinic has provided free care, prescriptions and lab tests for more than 100 uninsured patients through referrals from the Family Health Center, Columbia’s federally qualified health center.

Chris Gu, a first-year medical student and a MedZou clinic coordinator, said the award is shared with the spectrum of students, health professionals and faculty, all of whom have dedicated time and effort to contribute to its success.

“This year’s nominees included many outstanding organizations, and for MedZou to win the award is a tremendous honor and an accomplishment,” Gu said. “It was great to see everyone’s hard work and dedication get recognized by the leadership of MU, and we hope to continue and improve upon what we have all helped to create.”

To be considered for a Chancellor’s Excellence Award, student groups active on campus must achieve the following: work toward the purpose of the group; plan and present appropriate programs, services or games; demonstrate fiscal responsibility; have a positive attitude; represent the University well at all times; find creative ways to share organization information across campus; provide a strong sense of community for members; and maintain good standing with the University and the Organization Resource Group.

Click here to learn more about MedZou.

The University of Missouri is taking steps to significantly improve its education program for resident physicians. These steps will immediately resolve issues identified by the Accreditation Council for Graduation Medical Education (ACGME).

The ACGME recently placed the institutional administrative component of MU’s resident education program on probation. The ACGME action is not associated with accreditation of individual residency and fellowship programs in MU medical departments and divisions, and it is not associated with the education of medical students. Furthermore, every component of MU’s education program for residents remains fully accredited.

Concerns cited by the ACGME involve the proper referencing of policy language in manuals, resident representation at meetings on campus, processes for reviewing and disseminating internal reports, and the level of resources and oversight associated with institutional administration of the residents’ daily work. Several of the issues have already been addressed, and others are being corrected as quickly as possible.

MU takes the ACGME’s concerns very seriously. Since the ACGME visited and reviewed MU in February 2008, MU has made or is making the following improvements:

• A new University of Missouri Health System was created in part to improve oversight and operation of the medical school, hospitals and clinics, and clinical departments involved in resident education. A new health system vice chancellor and medical school dean were appointed.
• The medical school dean and the CEO of MU hospitals and clinics have assumed personal oversight of the institutional resident education program office.
• Additional graduate medical education resources will allow physicians to be more involved with the administrative component of resident education.
• Additional graduate medical education resources will allow non-physician staff members to better support the administrative component of resident education.
• Non-physician staff members will be responsible for tasks that do not hold appropriate educational value for residents.

As a result of these steps and others, MU expects to receive favorable accreditation status as soon as the ACGME is available to visit and review improvements. The process could be completed in less than a year.

Click here to read a newspaper article about MU’s residency program improvements.

Brown is Regional Vice Chair for AAMC

Rachel Brown, MD, MU School of Medicine associate dean for student programs, was recently named vice chair for the central region’s Group on Student Affairs (GSA), a professional advisory group within the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

Brown

Brown’s vice chair position marks the beginning of a four-year term of service to the regional group, which will also include a year serving as the group’s chair in 2011.

The GSA serves to advance medical education and, specifically, to represent the interests of medical schools and medical students in the areas of admissions, student affairs, financial aid, minority affairs and student records.

The four GSA regional groups provide a means for medical school representatives to communicate and interact with the AAMC as a whole. As a member of the central leadership group, Brown will help analyze projects, develop programs and gather data about emerging trends to help the association anticipate and respond to changes as they affect medical education, medical schools and medical students.

The Association of American Medical Colleges is a not-for-profit association representing all 130 accredited U.S. and 17 accredited Canadian medical schools; nearly 400 major teaching hospitals and health systems, including 68 Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers; and nearly 90 academic and scientific societies. Through these institutions and organizations, the AAMC represents 125,000 faculty members, 75,000 medical students, and 106,000 resident physicians.

Pasupathy Melds Medical Informatics, Engineering

Pasupathy

A University of Missouri School of Medicine researcher has been recognized for his work in engineering. Kalyan Pasupathy, PhD, was nominated by the Institute of Industrial Engineers for the New Faces of Engineering award. The honor is given only to professionals age 30 or younger.

Pasupathy, assistant professor of health management and informatics at MU, conducts interdisciplinary research in health care systems engineering to improve quality and reduce medication errors and cost.

“I was very delighted to be recognized by my own profession,” Pasupathy said. “It also is humbling. When I interact with my students and see them everyday, it reminds me of why I do this and motivates me to offer even more to the profession.”

Listed as the profession’s “brightest young stars,” this year’s class of winners included 14 honorees. The winners are chosen by the National Engineers Week Foundation for their work on pressing issues of a global scale, including energy resources, global climate change, infrastructure renewal, disease prevention and national security.

Della Rocca Awarded Prestigious Fellowship

Della Rocca

Every other year, the American Orthopaedic Association (AOA) chooses a handful of young doctors to award with its prestigious North American Traveling Fellowship. Gregory Della Rocca, MD, PhD, assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery and co-director of orthopaedic trauma services in the University of Missouri School of Medicine, is one of just five recipients from the United States and Canada this year. Della Rocca earned his Bachelor of Science degree in biological sciences from Cornell in 1992.

“This was an extremely competitive year with many qualified applicants,” said Jeffrey Wang, MD, chair of the AOA North American Traveling Fellowship program. The leadership development program will send Della Rocca across the Midwest and into Canada to visit 10 to 15 different sites during a five-week period. He will present his research and learn from others.

“I hope to explore other models of orthopaedic trauma surgical practice, and to interact with others to see how they optimize their practice and gain insight into their research programs,” Della Rocca said.

Della Rocca will share his research during the traveling fellowship. He plans to speak on the topics of domestic violence, treatment of compound fractures, heel bone fractures, complex ankle fractures, use of ultrasound for fracture healing, and contemporary medical legal issues in orthopaedic trauma.

The fellowship promotes significant clinical and scientific exchange. It was established in 1969 and is an intense introduction to the diverse ways that leaders address challenges facing orthopaedics today. The AOA, founded in 1887, is the oldest and most distinguished orthopaedic association in the world. Membership is granted to those who have made a significant contribution to education, research and the practice of orthopaedic surgery.

“I am stunned to be awarded with this fellowship and very humbled,” Della Rocca said. “I’m honored to be able to represent my practice, my department and the University of Missouri.”

Kattesh Katti, PhD, holds a jar of gold nanoparticles suspended in liquid.

Katti named Curators' Professor

Kattesh Katti, PhD, a professor of radiology at the MU School of Medicine, was recently named a Curators’ Professor by the University of Missouri Board of Curators. The position recognizes Katti’s exemplary service, research and contributions to the university.

Katti also is a professor of physics and a senior research scientist at the University of Missouri Research Reactor Center. He will receive a $5,000 annual stipend as long as he holds the Curators’ Professor position.

Katti leads an interdisciplinary program in radiopharmaceutical sciences and nanomedicine. At MU, his collaborative efforts with reactor staff have resulted in the successful production of gold nanoparticles that could someday be used in cancer therapies. Katti has published more than 160 articles in peer-reviewed journals and is a principal inventor on more than 45 patents in the chemical, biological, optical and nanotechnological aspects of cancer diagnosis, therapeutic agents and sensors.

Katti has received numerous awards for his contributions to nanomedicine, green nanotechnology and molecular imaging, including: the Outstanding Missourian Award, presented by Missouri legislators; the Outstanding St. Louis Scientist Fellows Award, presented by the Academy of Sciences in St. Louis; and the Gauss Professorship Award from the Academy of Sciences, Gottingen, Germany.

In 2006, Katti received a prostate cancer research grant that distinguished MU as one of only 12 universities to participate in the National Cancer Institute’s national nanotechnology platform partnership.