P&S News

Faculty Awards

The P&S Distinguished Service Award for Pre-Clinical Years was presented to PARITHYCHERY R. SRINIVASAN, M.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics. EDGAR HOUSEPIAN, M.D., professor emeritus of clinical neurological surgery, special lecturer in neurological surgery, and special adviser to the dean on international affairs, received the Award for Distinguished Service in the Clinical Years.

Charles W. Bohmfalk Awards were presented to MICHAEL D. GERSHON, M.D., professor and former chairman of anatomy and cell biology, for distinguished teaching in the pre-clinical years, and to TRACY D. ARNELL, M.D., assistant professor of surgery, for distinguished teaching in the clinical years.

The Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award presented by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation was given to THOMAS P. JACOBS, M.D., professor of clinical medicine.

The Stevens Triennial Prize was presented to QAIS AL-AWQATI, M.D., CH.B., the Robert F. Loeb Professor of Medicine and professor of physiology and cellular biophysics.

The Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Research Award in pre-clinical years was given to ASA ABELIOVICH, M.D., PH.D., assistant professor of neurology and of pathology. WILLIAM T. DAUER, M.D., assistant professor of neurology and of pharmacology, received the Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Research Award in clinical years.

The Distinguished Teacher Award was given by the Class of 2005 posthumously to STEVEN Z. MILLER, M.D.

Founding Class of Garvey Academy Announced at Symposium
The first members of the Glenda Garvey Teaching Academy were announced at the Sept. 19 Thomas Q. Morris Symposium on Medical Education.

The academy is named for the late Glenda Garvey’69. Dr. Garvey taught students and residents in Medicine for 25 years before her death in 2004. The academy will be one of only a few teaching academies at academic medical centers in the United States and will be unique in including faculty from all medical center schools.

The initial class has 12 members — three faculty from each school. P&S members are Jonathan M. Barasch, associate professor of medicine and of anatomy and cell biology; Jay F. Lefkowitch, professor of clinical pathology; and Blair Ford, associate professor of clinical neurology. Members from SDOS: David A. Albert, associate professor of clinical dentistry; Vicky Evangelidis-Sakellson, associate professor of clinical dentistry; and John L. Zimmerman, associate professor of clinical dentistry and biomedical informatics. The School of Nursing is represented by Mary Woods Byrne, professor of clinical nursing; Anne Griswold Peirce, associate professor; and Jennifer Dohrn, assistant professor of clinical nursing. Members from the Mailman School of Public Health are Melissa D. Begg, professor of clinical biostatistics; Sharon Schwartz, associate professor of clinical epidemiology; and Michael S. Sparer, professor of health policy and management.

The goals of the academy are to develop new educational approaches to health-related education; introduce cross-cutting technologies to enhance learning; encourage "master teachers" to mentor junior faculty; and stimulate the creation of a new, multidisciplinary educational environment at the medical center.

Josh Bazell At Class Day 2005, Josh Bazell, who entered P&S in 2001 with most of the Class of 2005, presented the class history. His history of the class of which he is no longer a part — he took a year off to conduct research — will long be remembered by his former classmates. A condensed version of his remarks is printed here.

BY JOSH BAZELL
MEDICAL EDUCATION AT COLUMBIA IS INTENSE RIGHT FROM THE beginning. You come to Washington Heights and are immersed in a community that seems foreign and at times even hostile. Eventually you and the dental students get along just fine, but at the beginning they can seem strange.

Second year of medical school is memorable for a lecture they give on how they choose which patients get heart transplants. They put a number of cases up on a board. There's a nun, a child prodigy, an ambulance driver, and so forth. But the person who ends up winning is a British man who deposits $250,000 into a Columbia escrow account and flies over on his own jet. (I'm not making this up, by the way.) It's an amazing moment, since if you listen you can hear the number of your classmates who are planning to go into primary care plummeting.

Third year is something entirely different, though, because people who know you suddenly decide that you are a real doctor, and that they want to ask you a lot of embarrassing medical questions. And you decide that you want to hear those questions, and maybe even answer them. Usually your Hippocratic oath pulls you through, though, and you end up saying, "Look, you're the attending. Maybe you should decide what we're doing with this patient."

Fourth year of medical school is where you start to appreciate some of the things Columbia gives you that no other place does. Such as "Robbery Reports." Here's one from last summer:

THE FISCHBACH ERA AT P&S WILL BE BEST REMEMBERED FOR its creation of a visionary framework that will help students, clinicians, scientists, and alumni solidify the leadership role of the school. The vision is just one component of a comprehensive long-range strategic plan that Gerald D. Fischbach, M.D., oversaw during his nearly five years as executive vice president for Columbia University Medical Center and dean of the Faculty of Medicine.

Dr. Fischbach announced his plans in June to leave the position when a successor is named, but no later than June 2006. "I want to spend more time thinking and writing about neuroscience, and I want to devote more time to my own research," he wrote in an e-mail to medical center faculty, staff, and students.

Dr. Fischbach's legacy to the medical center and P&S will be defined by the strategic plan that was developed by hundreds of faculty, staff, and students during months of meetings, discussions, and focus group research. The plan, developed during a process launched shortly after Dr. Fischbach joined Columbia, was completed between June 2001 and November 2002. It created a framework for ensuring that the core academic medical center missions of education, research, and patient care are maintained and strengthened through planned growth. The plan also documented areas of strength on which the medical center can build.

The plan identified priorities essential to keeping P&S and other medical center schools at the forefront of their disciplines during the next generation. The priorities have become a guidebook for the $1 billion capital campaign, which will be publicly launched in 2006.

Among other initiatives that began under Dr. Fischbach are a stem cell consortium, plans for a Neuroscience Institute, and the opening of the new Irving Cancer Research Center to strengthen cancer research and treatment. All have potential to grow in significance and influence during the next decade.

Dr. Fischbach also will be credited with recruiting some of the nation's premier physician/scientists for greater emphasis on translational medicine and also for identifying new leadership for departments and centers vital to continued success of the medical center. His outspoken advocacy for stem cell research raised national awareness of the issue while also raising awareness of Columbia's prominence in neuroscience.

Dr. Fischbach identified the remaining challenges for his term as helping to achieve a needed restructuring of the P&S faculty practice organization, developing plans and funding for a new ambulatory care/education center (crucial for both the faculty practice organization and for medical education), continuing to work on financial restructuring, and undertaking a curriculum review that will enrich and enhance a P&S medical degree.

A graduate of Cornell's medical school, Dr. Fischbach has spent his career as a neuroscientist and administrator, continuing to conduct research while holding administrative positions. He started his career as a researcher at the NIH, then became a faculty member and department chair at Harvard and at Washington University in St. Louis. He returned to the NIH as director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke before being appointed to his post at Columbia in February 2001.

"I am proud of our collective accomplishments over the past four and a half years. My purpose here is not to dwell on the past, but to emphasize how much we can accomplish," Dr. Fischbach wrote in his e-mail. "This is a time to be bold rather than retiring. I know that we share the same goals. I need your help to build on our successes and to bring Columbia University Medical Center to the highest level of excellence in the land."

In a letter to alumni, he added, "With much emotion I recall presiding in 2003 over our 75th anniversary as an academic medical center. With your continued support, we will remain the epitome of the great American academic medical center."

Dr. Fischbach plans to work in some capacity with neuroscience initiatives at Columbia after he steps down as EVP and dean.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger has named a search committee to identify three potential candidates to succeed Dr. Fischbach as executive vice president and dean. The search committee includes faculty members from the four CUMC schools, faculty and administrators from Morningside, hospital representatives, and alumni. President Bollinger will chair the committee, which began meeting in late July.

Members of the search committee are David A. Brenner, M.D., chairman of medicine; Alan Brinkley, Columbia provost; Mary E. D'Alton, M.D., chairwoman of obstetrics and gynecology; Richard Daines, M.D., president and CEO, St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center; Kenneth A. Forde, M.D., the Jose M. Ferrer Professor of Clinical Surgery and P&S alumnus; Sherry A. Glied, Ph.D., chairwoman, Mailman School of Public Health's Department of Health Policy & Management; David I. Hirsh, Ph.D., Columbia executive vice president for research (and former interim dean for research at CUMC and former chairman of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at P&S).

Thomas M. Jessell, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics; Robert S. Kass, Ph.D., chairman of pharmacology; Ira B. Lamster, D.D.S., M.M.S.C., dean of the School of Dental and Oral Surgery; Andrew R. Marks, M.D., chairman of physiology and cellular biophysics; John M. Palmer, Ph.D., executive director of Harlem Hospital; Herbert Pardes, M.D., president and CEO, New York-Presbyterian Hospital (and Dr. Fischbach's predecessor in the EVP and dean post); Anne G. Peirce, Ph.D., associate professor of clinical nursing and associate dean of the School of Nursing; Adler J. Perotte, P&S student.

Carol Lisa Prives, Ph.D., the Da Costa Professor of Biology at Columbia; Allan Schwartz, M.D., head of the cardiology division in the Department of Medicine; Horst Stormer, Ph.D., professor of physics at Columbia; and P. Roy Vagelos, M.D., retired chairman and CEO of Merck & Co., chairman of the CUMC Board of Visitors, and a P&S graduate.

GERALD D. FISCHBACH, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND DEAN, named two faculty members to positions that have impact on current and future P&S students. He also named two faculty members for administrative positions that support research and clinical programs.

He appointed LISA A. MELLMAN, M.D., as Senior Associate Dean for Students, to succeed Linda Lewis,
who spent 26 years in the position. Dr. Mellman will maintain programs that support students during their time at P&S, including academic records, student support services, student health plans, the P&S Club, residency match, and the advisory deans program.

Dr. Mellman, clinical professor of psychiatry, was in the first group of Advisory Deans, five P&S faculty members who serve as primary career counselors and mentors to approximately 120 P&S students each year.

Dr. Fischbach appointed RONALD E. DRUSIN, M.D., a 1966 P&S graduate, as interim senior associate dean for education while a search is conducted. A member of the faculty since 1973, he co-directed a major P&S curriculum review and revision in the early 1990s.

Dr. Drusin, professor of clinical medicine and attending physician in the Department of Medicine's cardiology division, will be responsible for curriculum evaluation and development, education infrastructure, development of clear standards for evaluating student education, coordination and integration within CUMC and Columbia University, and department reviews.

Another P&S graduate, STEVEN SHEA, M.D., has been appointed senior associate dean for clinical affairs. Dr. Shea, a 1979 graduate of P&S, is the Hamilton Southworth Professor of Medicine. At the Mailman School of Public Health, he is professor of epidemiology (in biomedical informatics).

As senior associate dean for clinical affairs, Dr. Shea will coordinate hospital affiliations, the interface with New York-Presbyterian Hospital, faculty practice functions, managed care, clinical research, and issues pertaining to the IRB, compliance, billing, and quality and safety.

MARIAN CARLSON, Ph.D., was appointed senior associate dean for research. She is professor of genetics & development and of microbiology.

Her experience in improving the lives of the University's scientists and strengthening research departments as a member of important University committees will help her promote new collaborations and multicomponent project grants across the medical center and with the Morningside campus. She will evaluate use of research space to recommend changes and help evaluate core resources to recommend expansion or new configurations to strengthen research programs.

STANDING FROM LEFT: Saadi Ghatan, Donald Quest, Chris Mandigo, Ty Olson, Sean Lavine, Richard Anderson, William Mack, Allen Waziri, Guy McKhann, Jeffrey Bruce, J Mocco, Robert Goodman, Chris Winfree, Sander Connolly, and Robert Solomon. Front row from left: Patrick Senatus, Todd Hankinson, Rick Komotar, Michael Kaiser, Alfred Ogden, Anthony D’Ambrosio, and Michael Sisti. Going to Bat for
Brain Research

BY RICARDO RIOS
BEATING SOFTBALL TEAMS FROM SEVEN OF THE NATION'S TOP medical centers gave Columbia's Department of Neurological Surgery a great sense of pride. And the Columbia team's elation was only heightened when, in addition to beating Cornell's team 9 to 2 in the final game, Columbia raised nearly $70,000 for pediatric brain research.

It all started in the summer of 2004 when softball teams from Columbia, Mount Sinai, NYU, and Cornell joined under the hot New York sun in the spirit of friendly competition. Their simple goal was to inspire camaraderie among colleagues. The get-together offered an opportunity for attendings, residents, and interns to bond on a topic other than their love for medicine. The easy-going event was a success because the choice of softball gave them an opportunity to include men and women of all ages.

For the P&S Department of Neurological Surgery, it was a no-brainer that they would have to repeat the adrenaline-filled event in the summer of 2005. However, to increase the competition, the doctors called friends and colleagues at several hospitals in the Northeast. Their efforts succeeded in adding four more medical center teams to the tournament's roster: Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, and Albert Einstein. With eight teams signed up to play, Ricardo J. Komotar, M.D., a third-year resident in neurosurgery, and his colleagues saw great potential in the event. Earning bragging rights wasn't enough so, in true Columbia fashion, the doctors turned the originally social event into a charity function that could potentially save the lives of hundreds of children. They chose as their cause the Columbia University Pediatric Brain Tumor Research Fund, which grew out of Dr. Komotar's commitment to increasing the understanding and treatment of brain tumors in children. The fund will support a full-time postdoctoral fellow in neurosurgery who is committed to state-of-the-art investigations pertaining to the neurobiology, pathophysiology, and epidemiology of children's brain tumors.

Having a solidified cause, the next step was for Dr. Komotar to find sponsors. And, as any other true baseball fan would have done, Dr. Komotar called the New York Yankees with hopes that the team would serve as sponsors for the tournament. After having his phone call to Yankee Stadium transferred many times, Dr. Komotar reached the secretary of George Steinbrenner. After Dr. Komotar described the event, Mr. Steinbrenner's secretary replied, "Mr. Steinbrenner loves children!" And that same day, the New York Yankees became official sponsors of the J. Lawrence Pool 2005 Annual Neurosurgery Charity Softball Tournament. The tournament is named after the late Dr. Pool, a pioneer in the research and treatment of cerebral aneurysms and chairman of neurosurgery at P&S for many years.

Dr. Komotar and his colleagues envision extending their bragging rights outside of the Northeast. Next summer they hope to invite teams from medical centers around the nation in hopes of having more fun and raising more money. More information is available at www.kidsbrainresearch.org.