• Congratulations to Neurology for earning a 5 year cycle of accreditation from the ACGME for their core program and their Clinical Neurophysiology fellowship programs. Their next site visits are scheduled for 2011.

• Applications are now being accepted for the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Program for Women. Please contact Charlene Gaston at 293-6628, if you are interested in applying or visit the website to review requirements. Deadline for submissions to the Dean’s office is January 1, 2007.

• Accelerated Design Sessions for EPIC (a.k.a Merlin) will be held on December 5, 6, and 7th at Lakeview Resort. This is a major milestone for the Epic implementation and the purpose of this Accelerated Design session is to:

1. Review future state workflows currently being developed by our Epic implementation design teams. 2. Obtain input from key stakeholders and decision makers related to these future state workflows, i.e. Supervisors, Managers, Directors, Department Administrators, Clinic Managers, Clinic Coordinators, Vice Presidents, Physicians, etc. 3. Obtain final approval of future state workflows from key stakeholders and decision makers.

• Deadline for the submission of applications to the Dean’s Office for the Salary Enhancement Plan was November 15th.

• Dr. Richard Vaughan will serve as interim chair within the Department of Surgery.

• Dr. Steve Wetmore will lead the search efforts for the Chair of the Department of Surgery.

• Health Sciences Center will be producing a video that will highlight our research initiatives. Filming will take place on Dec 4, 5, 11, and 12.

• The Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Pharmacology will be renamed the Department of Biochemistry. The Department of Physiology & Pharmacology will retain its current name and will assume responsibility for the coordination of professional student teaching efforts in pharmacology.

• Preparation of the WVU LCME Medical Education Database is proceeding on schedule.  Sections 1-4 have been completed and reviewed. They are available on the website,along with the Task Force reports for each individual section of the database. 

The Independent Student Analysis has also been completed and posted to the website.  All faculty, staff, and administrators should read this independent student report.  It was very well done. 

The Institutional Self-Study Task Force is in the process of revising a first draft of the self-study document, and will meet again tomorrow (Friday, Dec. 1) to complete the review. 

Members of the Institutional Self-Study Task Force are: 

• Barbara Ducatman • Norman Ferrari • Jim Griffith (Charleston) • Clark Hansbarger (Charleston) • Mitch Jacques (Eastern) • Barry Linger (Eastern) • Chris Martin • Leslie Miele • Lisa Salati • Jamie Shumway (Chair) • Deborah Larimer (Coordinator)

An independent review will be conducted on all the materials to be submitted to the LCME review team within the next few days by external professional reviewers, who will provide feedback to the Dean on Dec. 6.  The expected submission date for all of the required LCME materials (Medical Education Database, Institutional Self-Study, and Independent Student Self-Study) is around Dec. 11, 2006.

• November 1 - Talia Sotomayor, M.D. joined the WVU Department of Pediatrics. Dr. Sotomayor recently completed her Pediatric Pulmonary fellowship at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, DC.

• Dr. Robert Goodman and Ms. Susan Arnold have worked diligently over the past year evaluating the accessibility of e-journals within the School of Medicine. During the evaluation process, both basic science and clinical faculty were surveyed in order to gain insight to what journals should be made available on-line.

Over the next few months, Ms. Arnold will work to cancel various paper copies of journals that are currently available in an electronic format. She will also be working on adding the additional journals that have been identified during the evaluation process. As journals are added, updates will be provided in the newsletter.

• The coal miner (pdf)
Gutmann Neurology. 2006; 67: 1720-1721

• WVU’s International Health Program at the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center celebrated Global Health Day on Monday, Nov. 27. The keynote speaker was Jeffrey P. Wilkinson, M.D., who presented "Obstetric Fistula in the Developing World.”

Dr. Wilkinson is an assistant clinical professor of Urogynecology, Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Duke University Medical Center. From 2001-2003, Wilkinson served as assistant professor of urogynecology at WVU, where he founded Circa Terra, an organization that collects medical supplies for hospitals and clinics abroad. He also serves as a consultant for teaching emergency obstetrics in the Middle East as part of USAID and Ford Foundation sponsored projects.

• Dr. Robert Stitzel, Associate Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, was honored as one of the Most Loyal Mountaineers Saturday (Nov. 11) at Milan Puskar Stadium.

• WVU Resident wins Trilogical Society Research Award
Kevin S. Oxley, M.D., PharmD, a resident within the WVU Department of Otolaryngology, received second place for his research work entitled "Effect of Ototopical Medications on Tympanostomy Tube Biofilms" - co-authored by Hassan H. Ramadan, MD MSc* & John G. Thomas, PhD. This award was given by the Trilogical Society 2007 Combined Sections Meeting in Florida.

• Kimberly Horn, Ed.D., has been named associate director of population health research at the Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center. John E. Prescott, M.D. dean of the West Virginia University School of Medicine and interim director of the MBRCC announced the appointment.

Population research investigates how cancer affects the general population, identifies its causes, and establishes effective prevention and treatment programs to benefit the population. In leading the new division, Dr. Horn will focus on tobacco research and its role in lung and other cancers.

“We are very excited to have Dr. Horn join the Cancer Center,” said Dan Flynn, Ph.D., deputy director. “She brings great expertise to population based research and has been highly successful in developing trials and community-based programs to help people quit smoking.”

A nationally known expert in her field, Horn’s research has impacted practice and policy at the state, national and international levels. One of the programs she developed, Not-On-Tobacco (N-O-T), was recently adopted by the American Lung Association, and is used throughout the U.S and Europe to help teens stop smoking. The program has reached nearly 150,000 teens, with one in five quitting smoking.

Below is a list of guiding principles for the design and implementation of Merlin.

• Service, Quality, and Patient Safety First • Maximal use of the Model System - the model system provided by Epic comes pre-loaded with content and work-flows that are used by 80% of the Epic customers. We will use this as a starting place and customize only when the model system doesn’t meet our needs or after we have used the system a while to see what we really want it to do and how to do it in Merlin. • Best Evidence/Practice - the Merlin build will be based on evidence based clinical content and best practice financial/operation processes • Maximal Standardization - order sets, visits types, documentation templates, registration, scheduling etc will be standardized as much as possible to allow implementation of best practice and data collection of standardized data sets. Standardization facilitates research, QA and practice management. • Ensure a State of the Art Future System - Make decisions now about how to maintain current content/processes in Merlin as he matures • Adherence to Project Scope - we have a project plan that specifies what actions will happen and by when. Any request to add onto that project plan will undergo an analysis of how the addition would affect the go-live date. The plane MUST take off by late winter 2008. • Maximal Integration- across modules, across UHA and WVUH, across the builders and the users of the system • Address the needs of learners.-We are a teaching facility. Reference the evidence behind the standards. Point the learner to the evidence • Keep it Simple

Dr. David Wilks, Vice Chair for the Department of Anesthesiology and Assistant Dean for Technology in Medical Education, will be leading the effort to develop a strategic plan for the use of medical simulation at the Health Sciences Center. Over the next few months, Dr. Wilks will be establishing a steering committee and will begin formulating future plans.

Take an on-line tour of the Eastern Division
By clicking the following link, you can take an on-line nine minute tour of the Eastern Division. This is a information packed presentation that is worth the watch.

Dr. James Stevenson and The Health Research Center at the WVU School of Medicine are conducting a research study involving an investigational drug for the treatment of Major Depressive Disorder or Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Participants receive at no charge: study-related medical exams, psychiatric evaluations and laboratory assessments, supply of study medication (study drug or sugar pill) and reimbursement for time and travel. If you are interested in this study and are 18 years of age or older, call 304-293-3596 for more information.

Christine Kincaid, MD & The Health Research Center at WVU are conducting a research study to evaluate the ability of an investigational drug compared to a sugar pill to delay type 2 diabetes in adults who are at risk for diabetes. Participants will receive at no charge, study-related medical evaluations, physical exams, diet and exercise guidance, and a supply of the investigational drug or sugar pill. You may qualify to participate in this study if you are: between the ages of 35 & 75; not currently diagnosed with diabetes; 20 pounds of more overweight. For more information regarding this study, call 304-293-3596.