CHICAGO, June 18, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Malini Daniel, a medical student at the Stanford School of Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif., today became a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association (AMA), the nation's largest physician organization. Ms. Daniel was installed as a trustee at the AMA's Annual Meeting in Chicago.

"I am very honored to represent future physicians in this position on the AMA Board of Trustees," said Ms. Daniel. "As a medical student, I'm excited to share my experiences in the rapidly changing field of medicine and I look forward to working with the board to help shape the future of health care."

Ms. Daniel will complete her medical degree with a concentration in health services research and policy in 2013. She was elected by her fellow medical students to serve a one-year term on the AMA Board of Trustees.

Ms. Daniel is dedicated to supporting global health initiatives. She has done extensive policy work and research for various programs including the World Health Organization, Joint United Nations Program for HIV/AIDS and the National AIDS Control Organization for the government of India.

Malini Daniel graduated with honors in 2006 from Harvard University with a Bachelors of Arts degree in biology and international policy, later receiving a Masters of Science degree in global health science from Oxford University. She currently resides in Palo Alto.

Media Contact: Liz Magsig AMA Media Relations Office: (202) 789-7419 Newsroom: (312) 239-4991 elizabeth.magsig@ama-assn.org

About the American Medical Association (AMA) The American Medical Association helps doctors help patients by uniting physicians nationwide to work on the most important professional, public health and health policy issues. The nation's largest physician organization plays a leading role in shaping the future of medicine. For more information on the AMA, please visit http://www.ama-assn.org.

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Medical Student Malini Daniel Elected to AMA Board of Trustees

It's not altogether surprising that Priyanka Arunkumar is pondering a future in medicine. After her graduation from Saratoga High School, Priyanka may well follow in the footsteps of her brother, Amit (class of 2007), and attend UC-Berkeley and then medical school at UCSF.

But Priyanka's career trajectory has possibly been set less by sibling admiration than her own experiences: In the past couple of years, she's spent a lot of time around doctors.

On a trip to Hawaii during the holidays in her junior year, Priyanka decided to take a surfing lesson. At one point another surfer aimed his board in her direction, cutting her off. She leapt from her own board, and with arms and legs flailing, Priyanka landed knee-first ... on the only piece of coral anywhere in the area.

In the first few minutes after making contact with the submerged flora, Priyanka was unaware of any major discomfort. "I thought I had a little cut, and that something was stuck on my leg," she recalls. "I looked down and realized that the coral had ripped out a big piece of flesh above my knee; I could see down to the bone."

The injured teen began screaming for Amit, who was surfing nearby. "He said, 'Priyanka, stop complaining,' " she says, now able to laugh about the incident. "Then he saw the blood and realized a piece of my leg was missing and that we needed to get to a doctor immediately."

The siblings flagged down a ride to a hospital, which luckily was

"After that, another nurse said I was ruining the carpet with my blood, and told me to sit in the hallway. That's where a doctor happened to find me. He said he would move his schedule back so he could take care of me right away."

Priyanka's gaping wound was cleaned out and stitched up. X-rays showed that bits of coral were still embedded in her leg; it would take 12 days or so for full healing. Two days later the site became infected, requiring additional invasive treatment. By the time the varsity tennis team member returned to school, she did so in the wheelchair that would be her source of transportation for nearly four months. Physical therapy followed to strengthen her injured right leg and help her relearn to walk.

Upon her return to school, Priyanka says she found a very sympathetic student body. "Everyone was pretty shocked to see me in the chair. I think the entire campus knew who I was at that point. They were all pretty nice about it, and helped push me when I needed help. Someone nicknamed me 'Shark Bait' because the scar on my leg looks like a shark bite."

Despite her medical mishap, Priyanka managed to complete her junior year with high marks. Her senior year began relatively uneventfully: While enjoying her role as a producer/editor on the Falcons' multimedia staff, Priyanka successfully juggled a full load of AP classes. The idea of ever missing a day of school was inconceivable.

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Medical exams more challenging than finals exams for graduate

The Cleveland Clinic's plans to join forces with Ohio University's Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine is good news for both institutions, and should be a worthwhile step toward increasing the number of primary care physicians in Northeast Ohio.

The philosophical underpinnings of osteopathy -- treating the whole body rather than focusing on specific symptoms of illnesses -- lend themselves particularly well to practice in such primary care categories as family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics.

And the need for primary care doctors is expected to become acute within a decade. Some trackers of medical trends say the nation eventually will have 45,000 fewer primary care doctors than it needs.

Plain Dealer editorials express the view of The Plain Dealer's editorial board -- the publisher, editor and editorial-writing staff. As is traditional, editorials are unsigned and intended to be seen as the voice of the newspaper.

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The medical school extension campus that OU and the Clinic are establishing at Southpointe Hospital in Warrensville Heights is expected to enroll its first 32-student class in 2015.

Maybe that sounds like a drop in a bucket and still 45,000 jobs shy of what the country will need, but the hope is that the experience and connections that the students develop in this region during medical school will make them more likely to stay and help keep Northeast Ohio from becoming one of those dreaded "underserved areas."

Benefits will accrue much sooner to city and state coffers, to the tune of more than $700,000 a year in additional tax revenues. Mayor Brad Sellers is understandably enthusiastic.

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Medical school extension will help building up primary care in Greater Cleveland: editorial

Add yet another factor to the emotional politics behind the drive to strip Rutgers University of control over its Camden campus, politics described by one state senator as "the beginning of a new civil war": The personal. The rejection that the powerful Norcross family of South Jersey felt at the refusal of the universitys president to take over the new Cooper Medical School in Camden.

"Rutgers could have had the medical school some years ago," said State Sen. Donald Norcross (D-Camden), the prime sponsor of the bill that aims to "reorganize" higher education in the state but also results in the first real threat to the autonomy and structural integrity of Rutgers University in its 56-year history as it is called under the law, "The State University of New Jersey."

"For whatever reason, they decided not to," said Norcross, whose brother George is political boss of South Jersey.

Through the efforts of Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and the demands of Gov. Chris Christie, the bill is racing through the Legislature without so much as a pause to think of its price tag. The other day, the five senators on the Senate Higher Education committee voted for the bill, although the three Democrats and two Republicans admitted like Donald Norcross did they had no clue how much money it would cost. Critics have put the price at a quarter-billion dollars, maybe more.

Donald Norcross blamed the Rutgers "bureaucracy" for rejecting Cooper Medical School, but that bureaucracy is headed at least until the end of the month by outgoing president Richard McCormick.

McCormick, despite the reluctance of his governing boards and the opposition of faculty and many students, has pushed hard for the part of the bill that permits the universitys takeover of the Central Jersey operations of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) even at the price of losing the Camden campus. Rutgers briefly had a medical school until 1971 when the state took it over as part of UMDNJ; regaining it would be McCormicks legacy.

The bill, as written by Sweeney, adds another sweetener the Rutgers takeover of UMDNJs Newark assets, giving Rutgers two medical school campuses. That part of the bill led to the comment about "civil war" when state Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex) implored the committee to hold the bill.

But the unanswered question hanging over the legislative hearings and the entire proposal is this: If it is good state policy for New Jerseys state university to take over medical education in Newark and Piscataway, why not in Camden?

Donald Norcross, in an interview after he testified before the Senate Higher Education Committee, answered: "Why would we want to empower Rutgers to take over an asset of Rowan University?"

Rowan University, a former state teachers college whose biggest major is still teacher education, had agreed to take in the medical school after McCormick declined. "Rowan has done a good job," Norcross said.

Originally posted here:

Braun: Rutgers-Camden medical school situation is personal, as well as political

By MARY SHEDDEN | The Tampa Tribune Published: June 18, 2012 Updated: June 18, 2012 - 7:00 AM

A University of South Florida medical school program highlighting leadership, empathy and business wherewithal will nearly triple its number of students this fall.

In August, 48 first-year Morsani College of Medicine students will join the 18 original participants in SELECT. The program targets students with strong self-awareness and self-management skills, as well as those showing an enhanced empathy toward patients and community.

A warning for new students: The five extra hours a week of discussions and self-reflection about communication, healthcare systems and management are intense, said first-year SELECT veteran Chris Pothering.

But these opportunities to meet with healthcare executives and other leaders make the commitment worth it, he said.

"It's almost like you forget you're in medical school when you sit down and have these interactions with people who are professionals in communication or in leadership," said Pothering, 28.

SELECT, or Scholarly Excellence, Leadership Experiences and Collaborative Training, has been brewing within the college for years. Positive feedback from the inaugural group of students and faculty mentors led to its sudden growth, said Alicia Monroe, the college's vice dean for educational affairs.

Eventually, the college will admit 56 SELECT students a year, in addition to a core medical class of 120 students. It highlights the importance in training new doctors to care for patients beyond the physical symptoms, Monroe said.

"We always have to be mindful of tasks, but also how it affects others," she said.

SELECT students often don't fall within the traditional medical admissions profile. Some of the students have other professional experience. Others have spent time in the military.

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Medical students examine business side

Submitting a successful medical school application isn't easy, but it can often be just as difficult to decide where to apply and where to attend once one has been accepted. Much of what is presented during medical school visits or interviews is, understandably, geared toward student recruitment, so many applicants often wonder what it's really like to attend a certain medical school.

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Medical School Profile: USC Keck School of Medicine

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Students get taste of careers in medical field

Not long after Michigan State University started a medical school in 1964, officials realized that they needed more hospitals or clinics where students could get hands-on experience.

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Michigan models satellite medical college network

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Medical school is workload enough for most students. But not for Enea Gjoka, who will start his second year of med school at Wayne State University this summer.Gjoka, 22, is also something of a...

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WSU med student creates app company - in spare time

Not long after Michigan State University started a medical school in 1964, officials realized they needed more hospitals or clinics where students could get hands-on experience.

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Medical College of Wisconsin looks to Michigan as an example

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) Rutgers University may take over much of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey as part of a reconfiguration of higher-education in New Jersey.

Experts say that would probably help with the goal of making it into one of the nation's top public universities, but there is more to be done.

They say the school also needs to prioritize which departments will be targeted to try to attract top faculty. And, it needs to cut bureaucracy for students and do a better job of promoting itself.

The university is working on those areas.

For instance, it's using money from a capital campaign to endow chairs in some key departments.

The shifts for the university come just as a new president is to be sworn in.

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Medical school not only way Rutgers could improve

James Madison University hosted a three day medical school for local high school students interested in the field. The event was called the "Careers in Health and Medicine Program."

It gave the students a sample of what health professionals do. Many speakers from the health care industry spoke and the high school students took advantage of opportunities for hands on experience. They learned how to dress wounds and take blood pressure readings.

Organizer, Erika Kancler described how the program's first year went.

So far, so good, said Kancler. We've had some technical difficulties. I'm learning how to use the simulated patient myself but I think it's going very well. So far, the response has been extremely favorable.

Those in charge of the program hoped that the three day event would help the students realize what job opportunities are available to them.

Copyright 2012 WHSV / Gray Television Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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JMU Hosts Medical School Program for High School Students

Public release date: 15-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Matt DePoint mdepoint@umn.edu 612-625-4110 University of Minnesota Academic Health Center

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (06/15/2012) University of Minnesota Medical School researchers have collaborated with the School of Public Health and discovered an enzyme that, when found at high levels and alongside low levels of HDL (good cholesterol), can dramatically reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The enzyme glutathione peroxidase, or GPx3 is a natural antioxidant that helps protect organisms from oxidant injury and helps the body naturally repair itself. Researchers have found that patients with high levels of good cholesterol, the GPx3 enzyme does not make a significant difference. However, those patients with low levels of good cholesterol, the GPx3 enzyme could potentially be a big benefit. The enzyme's link to cardiovascular disease may also help determine cardiovascular risk in patients with low levels of good cholesterol and low levels of the protective GPx3.

The new research, published today by PLoS One, supports the view that natural antioxidants may offer the human body profound benefits.

"In our study, we found that people with high levels of the GPx3 enzyme and low levels of good cholesterol were six times less likely to develop cardiovascular disease than people with low levels of both," said lead author Jordan L. Holtzman, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and medicine within the University of Minnesota Medical School. "This GPx3 enzyme gives us a good reason to believe that natural antioxidants like GPx3 are good for heart health."

The combination of low HDL and low GPx3 affects an estimated 50 million people one in four adults in the U.S. This condition can lead to fatal heart attacks and strokes. Researchers continue to look for new ways to better predict who is at risk for these diseases and how patients can limit the impact of the disease once it's diagnosed.

"It's important to point out that people should not rush out to their doctors and demand testing for the GPx3 enzyme," said Holtzman. "But in time, we hope that measuring this enzyme will be a common blood test when determining whether a patient is at risk for cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and strokes."

To arrive at his results, Holtzman and his colleagues studied the three major risk factors for cardiovascular disease: hypertension, smoking and high cholesterol. Data suggests that those with low levels of HDL and GPx3 were six times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease, including heart attack or stroke, than those with low levels of HDL and high levels of GPx3.

The study examined 130 stored samples from the Minnesota Heart Survey from participants who died of cardiovascular disease after 5-12 years of follow-up care. The ages of patients studied ranged from 26-85 years old. Their data was compared to 240 control samples.

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U of M researchers find natural antioxidant can protect against cardiovascular disease

By SANGEETA SHASTRY The Kansas City Star

By SANGEETA SHASTRY The Kansas City Star

Updated: 2012-06-15T04:00:17Z

The University of Kansas is seeking $30 million in state funds to help pay for a new medical education building on its Kansas City medical school campus.

To reach Sangeeta Shastry, call 816-234-4690 or email sshastry@kcstar.com.

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KU looking for $30 million from state toward $75 med school building

The dream of IIT Kharagpur to start a medical college is set to become reality, with the institute receiving a central grant of Rs 230 crore for a 400-bedded super-speciality hospital.

The hospital, which will be part of Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy Institute of Medical Science and Research, is likely to be functional in two years. Institute sources said the number of beds would later be increased to 750.

Once the hospital starts functioning, the institute will offer MBBS, MD, MS and DM courses, all approved by the Medical Council of India. Officials said the teaching module at the medical college, which will have a tie-up with the University of California, San Diego, and Johns Hopkins University, will comprise elements of modelling, simulation and virtual reality to produce tech-savvy doctors.

The IIT, set to be the first among the 15 such ace engineering institutions in the country to start a medical college, now provides indoor and outdoor medical facilities for common ailments at BC Roy Technology Hospital, located at the heart of the campus.

Critical patients are referred to Kharagpur Sub-divisional Hospital or South-Eastern Railway General Hospital, around 2km from the campus.

The IIT now runs School of Medical Science and Technology that provides a platform for interdisciplinary teaching and research in medical science and technology. The school offers a three-year masters programme in medical science and technology for doctors, again a first of its kind in the country.

IIT officials said Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy Institute of Medical Science and Research, the foundation stone for which was laid in 2007 by then President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, would bring the diverse disciplines of engineering and medicine together and focus on biomedical, clinical and translational research. Drug design and delivery will be another thrust area.

In the first phase, the institute, which will focus more on postgraduate than undergraduate study, will have a bio-innovation centre, which will be a hub of research in biomedical engineering and remote healthcare delivery, and a healthcare outreach unit.

The unit will extend healthcare to remote, under-served areas through remote diagnostic, telepathology, teleradiology and other diagnostic tools compatible with the cellular network. A series of small healthcare kiosks manned by paramedics will be linked to the outreach unit, said an official.

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Medical college at ace tech school

The Commonwealth Medical College moved a step closer to full accreditation on Thursday when it announced the national medical school accrediting body has lifted the college's probationary status and granted it provisional accreditation.

The advance comes a year after the Liaison Committee for Medical Education placed the school on probation largely because of concerns about its financial stability.

With the new status - a rung higher than the school's preliminary accreditation before the probation period - the accrediting body also determined that the college has the resources to expand its class size from 65 to 100 medical degree students beginning in 2013.

"This is an external statement by an accrediting body that this school is solid," Lois Margaret Nora, M.D., the college's interim president and dean, said. "For anyone who has any questions about permanence, this is just a major statement."

The LCME's deliberations are private, Dr. Nora said, but the committee performed a comprehensive review of databases, student surveys and the college's self-study and spent three days on site evaluating the school.

The committee has asked for a status report in February 2013 on two areas that require continued monitoring: the college's permanent leadership and its long-term financial stability. But Dr. Nora noted that it did not ask for follow-up reports on the strength of the teaching and student programs at the core of the school's mission.

"This is a very solid school from the perspective of its core business: growing physicians and other health professionals," she said.

Dr. Nora, who will be replaced by Robert Wright, M.D. as interim president and dean when she leaves the college at the end of June, said the school has largely addressed the leadership question by permanently filling several key chairman and dean positions that were previously vacant or temporary.

The college has identified "excellent" candidates in its national search for a permanent CEO and dean and will hold a second round of interviews before the end of the month, Dr. Wright said.

A new dean is expected to be named in late summer or fall.

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Commonwealth Medical college taken off probation

Dr. John C. LaRosa, who led the medical school and hospital for 13 years, announced his immediate departure in an e-mail to the staff.

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SUNY Downstate Medical Center's President Suddenly Quits

Harvard Medical School professor Norman L. Letvin 71, who was renowned as one of the scientific communitys leaders in the quest to develop an AIDS vaccine, was remembered after his death last month for not only his groundbreaking research but also his welcoming demeanor, musical gifts, and devotion to family.

Letvin, a pioneer in the use of non-human primates in AIDS vaccine research, died of pancreatic cancer on May 28 at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He was 62.

After graduating summa cum laude from Harvard, Letvin earned his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1975. Whilecompleting post-graduate training at the University of Pennsylvania, Letvin married Marion Stein 71, a fellow doctor. The two returned to Boston, where Letvin completed his senior residency at Massachusetts General Hospital.

In the early 1980s, Letvin discovered simian immunodeficiency virus, a virus similar to HIV that causes an AIDS-like illness in monkeys. That momentous finding led to a workable way for scientists to test HIV vaccines.

From 1994 until his death, he served as chief of the Division of Viral Pathogenesis at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He also edited the AIDS section of Science for 13 years.

Those who knew Letvin remembered his stunning intuition as a scientist.

I think he just had a natural talent for asking the right questions in science, his wife Marion said. He knew how to set up experiments in a way that whatever the results were, the data would be useful.

Though his laboratory at Beth Israel Deaconess was at the forefront of vital AIDS research, Letvin did not foster a tense working environment, colleagues recalled.

His door was always open. He made everyone feel that he was extremely approachable, said Wendy W. Yeh, a Medical School professor who worked in Letvins lab.

Link:

Groundbreaking AIDS Researcher Dies at 62

Dr. John C. LaRosa, who led the medical school and hospital for 13 years, announced his immediate departure in an e-mail to the staff.

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City Room: SUNY Downstate Medical Center's President, John LaRosa, Suddenly Quits

WORCESTER, MA--(Marketwire -06/13/12)- The University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) and UMass Memorial Medical Center have enrolled their first participant in a clinical study designed to evaluate a new tissue expansion method for breast reconstruction after a mastectomy. The randomized, controlled clinical study is designed to directly compare the outcomes of the traditional saline tissue expansion method to an investigational, remote-controlled, needle-free, tissue expansion system known as The AeroForm Patient Controlled Tissue Expander System.

Tissue expansion is a process required to stretch the skin and tissue at the site of a mastectomy so that a standard saline or silicone breast implant can be placed.

"Traditionally, women undergoing breast reconstruction have had to endure a long process of inconvenient and often painful inflations using conventional saline expanders to create a pocket for a standard implant following a mastectomy," said John Castle, MD, clinical assistant professor of surgery at UMMS and plastic surgery director at the UMass Memorial Comprehensive Breast Center. "This investigational system eliminates the need for saline injections by allowing the patient to trigger the release of small amounts of compressed carbon-dioxide through the valve of a tiny chamber located inside the expander. The patient uses the remote control to gradually inflate the investigational expander in small, pre-set amounts on a daily basis at home, eliminating the need for weekly doctor visits."

Participants in this clinical trial will undergo outpatient surgery to have the investigational tissue expansion device implanted. They will then use a wireless dose controller to trigger the release of small, regulated amounts of carbon-dioxide to fill the tissue expander, according to a protocol directed by their surgeon. Once the tissue is adequately expanded, participants will return to UMass Memorial Medical Center to have the implant surgically inserted. During earlier feasibility trials, the average expansion time associated with the remote-controlled tissue expander was 15 days, a fraction of the time required using traditional expanders which can take months to achieve full expansion.

Patients in the study will be randomly selected to receive the investigational expander or a traditional saline expander. The patients who receive the investigational expander will use a wireless remote control to trigger the release of small, regulated amounts of carbon-dioxide to fill the tissue expander, according to a protocol directed by Dr. Castle. Once the tissue is adequately expanded, the patient will return to have the expander removed and a standard implant placed.

The current standard of care in tissue expansion involves implanting a saline expander under the skin and pectoral muscle following a mastectomy procedure. The patient returns to her doctor weekly for bolus saline injections, which many patients say is the most painful, difficult part of the reconstruction process. The traditional saline process can take as long as five to six months.

UMass Memorial Medical Center and other hospitals across the U.S. are participating in the study. Enrollment will continue until a total of 92 AeroForm expanders and 46 saline expanders have been implanted in patients. AeroForm will be evaluated based on its ability to successfully and safely expand the tissue to the point that the expander can be replaced with a standard breast implant. Secondary measurements will include the average number of days needed to achieve the desired expansion, total reconstruction time, pain and patient satisfaction.

The AeroForm Patient Controlled Tissue Expander was designed and manufactured by AirXpanders, a medical device company in Palo Alto, CA. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted AirXpanders an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) to conduct the study and it has been approved for enrollment by the U Mass Memorial Medical Center Review Board.

For more information on the study, please visit clinicaltrials.gov. (NCT01425268) If you or someone you know is interested in joining the study, please call 508-334-7692.

About the University of Massachusetts Medical SchoolThe University of Massachusetts Medical School, one of the fastest growing academic health centers in the country, has built a reputation as a world-class research institution, consistently producing noteworthy advances in clinical and basic research. The Medical School attracts more than $270 million in research funding annually, 80 percent of which comes from federal funding sources. The mission of the Medical School is to advance the health and well-being of the people of the commonwealth and the world through pioneering education, research, public service and health care delivery with its clinical partner, UMass Memorial Health Care. For more information, visit http://www.umassmed.edu.

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UMass Medical School Enrolling Patients in Study of Tissue Expansion for Breast Reconstruction