San Antonio (Jan. 15, 2004) – Bankole A. Johnson, M.D., Ph.D., a pioneering alcohol and drug addiction researcher at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, has been appointed to serve on the National Advisory Council of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“I am hopeful that this honor will enable me to serve in shaping research objectives at the national level for NIDA,” said Dr. Johnson, the William and Marguerite S. Wurzbach Distinguished Professor at the Health Science Center. He is a professor in the departments of psychiatry and pharmacology, deputy chair for research in the psychiatry department, chief of the division of alcohol and drug addiction, and director of the Health Science Center’s South Texas Addiction Research and Technology (START) Center.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson invited and approved the appointment of Dr. Johnson.
Dr. Johnson and his research team made headlines in May 2003 with the finding that topiramate, an anti-seizure drug, proved to be effective at promoting abstinence in alcohol-dependent individuals during a three-month clinical trial. His group also excited the research community in August 2000 with word that ondansetron, an anti-nausea drug used in chemotherapy patients, was highly effective in treating alcoholics with neurochemical abnormalities.
San Antonio (Jan. 14, 2004) – Wesley Richardson, a graduate nursing student at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, worked with Methodist Healthcare System staff to develop and implement a program that will test the clinical alarm systems on which hospitalized patients rely.
The program, to be implemented this month throughout the Methodist system, is a clinical alarm system testing program that assesses risk and tests the efficacy of the Methodist clinical alarm systems. Clinical alarms are any alarms that serve to protect the patient, alert the staff to a problem or signal that the patient is in need. Some examples of clinical alarms include intravenous pumps (IV pumps), ventilators and patient monitors in the intensive care unit, and patient-activated alarms such as the nurse-call systems used to call for a nurse. A clinical alarm system includes the equipment, the staff, the environment and any other variables that may affect that particular unit, such as remote alarms that can only be heard at the nurses’ station.
Richardson, working with a team from Methodist, developed a testing process to assess the interaction between the individual clinical alarm, the staff response and the environment as it affects the effectiveness of the clinical alarm. The main goal was to develop a program that would raise staff awareness, promote patient safety and ultimately protect the patient from harm.
Richardson participated in this development team as part of his practicum in the course “Nursing 5561, Advanced Nursing Practicum in Policy and Management,” taught by Mickey Parsons, Ph.D., associate professor in the department of acute nursing care, School of Nursing.
“Wesley’s preceptors have all considered him to be one of the best graduate students they have ever worked with, and his project is outstanding. It is an example of why the master’s degree in nursing administration is so important – applying quantitative and qualitative data in problem-solving critical patient care problems,” Dr. Parsons said.
(Left to right) Herbert Pearce, Dental School donor from New Haven, Conn.; Stephanie Jackson, D.D.S., president-elect of the Dental School Alumni Association; Martha Wood, Ph.D., Pearce’s wife and former interim dean of the Dental School; and George Knight, current Alumni Association president, celebrate the new Martha Wood/Dental School Alumni Association Student Scholarship Endowment.
San Antonio (Jan. 14, 2004) – A new $100,000 scholarship endowment will support outstanding students in the Dental School at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. The fund is named the Martha Wood/Dental School Alumni Association Student Scholarship Endowment.
The donors are Martha W. Wood, Ph.D., a former Health Science Center administrator who served as interim dean of the Dental School from 1981 to 1983; her husband, Herbert H. Pearce, who owns a real estate company in New Haven, Conn.; and the Dental School Alumni Association. The fund is to be used at the discretion of the Dental School to support financially needy and academically gifted dental students.
“Education is the future of our country,” Pearce said. “We are glad to find students who are worthy of supporting in this way.”
The Connecticut couple donated two-thirds of the endowment and the Dental School Alumni Association donated $33,333. Alumni Association President George T. Knight, D.D.S., associate professor of general dentistry at the Health Science Center, said the provision of scholarships to attract the best students is a great way to ensure the continuing quality of the Dental School, which was ranked tops in the last ranking of U.S. dental schools conducted by U.S. News & World Report. The Dental School continues to win top awards for research.
“It is so important to bring the best and brightest students into our Dental School and to recognize financial assistance is part of the equation,” said Kenneth L. Kalkwarf, D.D.S., dean of the Dental School. “Herbert, Martha and the Alumni Association have done just that.”
“I am so pleased the Alumni Association wanted to participate,” Dr. Wood said.
Pearce also donated $100,000 to the Dental School in 1999 to begin the Martha Wood Scholarship Fund. Dr. Wood, now a national consultant, was the longtime executive assistant to Health Science Center Presidents Frank Harrison, M.D., Ph.D., and John P. Howe, III, M.D., before retiring in 1997. While back in San Antonio, she and her husband had the chance to meet dental students selected to benefit from the award given in her name.
The Dental School Alumni Association seeks to match private donations for two additional $100,000 scholarship programs. For more information, call A. Ray Dent, director of development for the Dental School, at (210) 567-6423.
From 1987 to 2002, Health Science Center students won an impressive 89 student research awards from the American Association for Dental Research. The annual competition is open to students from the 56 U.S. dental schools. The University of Michigan placed second with 56 awards, followed by the University of Iowa with 34 and Harvard with 27. The Dental School also fared well in other national and international research competitions.
The Dental School is one of the few nationwide to be designated both a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center and a Hispanic Center of Excellence. The WHO Collaborating Center translates oral health sciences into clinical and public health practice. The Hispanic Center of Excellence seeks to enhance academic performance, recruit and retain minority faculty, facilitate faculty and student research, expand information resources and curriculum, and provide community-based clinical training opportunities to dental students.
San Antonio (Jan. 14, 2004) – Anne Leonard, R.N., M.P.H., research nurse in the division of neurology at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and at the Audie L. Murphy Division of the South Texas Veterans Health Care System, has been named to the Statewide Stroke Task Force for the American Heart Association (AHA) and American Stroke Association of Texas.
This task force is responsible for developing and implementing a comprehensive plan to promote awareness regarding the signs and symptoms of stroke. The task force is composed of physicians, health care advocates and volunteers from around the state. Since stroke is the No. 3 killer in the United States, the task force is focused on implementing training and emergency protocols that will strengthen the care that stroke patients receive. Leonard is also a member of the AHA’s Stroke Council Leadership Committee, one of the AHA’s nine national councils.
Leonard has worked in stroke research with David Sherman, M.D., professor and chief of neurology at the Health Science Center and staff neurologist at Audie Murphy, and Robert Hart, M.D., professor of neurology at the Health Science Center and staff neurologist at Audie Murphy, for 16 years.
San Antonio (Jan. 14, 2004) – The St. Luke’s Lutheran Health Ministries Foundation has donated $15,000 to the School of Nursing at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio to help endow a new academic professorship aimed at addressing the critical nursing faculty shortage.
Balous Miller, president of the St. Luke’s Lutheran Health Ministries Foundation; the Rev. Steve Rohde, chair of the St. Luke’s grants committee; and the Honorable Barbara Hanson Nellermoe, member of the grants committee, presented a check to Francisco G. Cigarroa, M.D., president of the Health Science Center, and Colleen S. Keller, Ph.D., professor and chair of the department of family nursing care in the School of Nursing. Nellermoe is judge for the 45th District Court in Bexar County.
Also participating were San Antonio philanthropists Ronald and Karen Herrmann, founders of the professorship and major donors to the School of Nursing.
“This gift goes a long way to enabling our School of Nursing to be the very best nursing school in the United States,” Dr. Cigarroa said. “The St. Luke’s gift will make it possible for the School of Nursing to recruit and keep a senior-level faculty member whose work will push the field forward.”
The School of Nursing has awarded more than 7,000 degrees and offers courses at the baccalaureate, graduate and doctoral levels. The school is taking steps to address the shortage of registered nurses in South Texas by training nurse educators and managers. Specialized majors include geriatric nurse practitioner, family nurse practitioner and pediatric nurse practitioner. Distance learning programs are enabling residents of Del Rio, Uvalde and other cities to obtain School of Nursing degrees.
San Antonio (Jan. 14, 2004) – Charles R. Thomas, M.D., associate professor and vice chairman of radiation oncology at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, has been appointed to the select, 13-member Patterns-of-Care Gastrointestinal (GI) Committee of the American College of Radiology.
This National Cancer Institute-funded project is focused on improving the care of cancer patients who receive radiation therapy throughout the United States. This study focuses on cancers, such as breast, lung, GI, genitourinary and gynecological, with other focuses on communication, statistical design and analysis, electronic data systems and a data management working group.
Dr. Thomas was a co-author on a major paper titled “National Practice for Patients Receiving Radiation Therapy for Carcinoma of the Rectum: Comparative Analysis of the 1992-1994 Patterns of Care Study,” presented at the recent GI oral session at the 45th Annual American Society of Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology Meeting in Salt Lake City. The department of radiation oncology’s Web site iswww.uthscsa.edu/radiationoncology/.
