Latest News Archive - October 2005

College of Medicine Cardiovascular Research Institute Hosts Scientific Retreat

TEMPLE, Texas (October 25, 2005) – The Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine's Cardiovascular Research Institute (CVRI) is hosting the First Annual Scientific Retreat October 27-28 at the College of Medicine Education Building at Scott & White in Temple. More than 110 faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and research staff are registered for the event.

The purpose of the event is to foster scientific exchange and collaboration between CVRI investigators consisting of 63 faculty members representing the A&M College of Medicine, Texas A&M University Colleges of Veterinary Medicine, Engineering and Agriculture, as well as the Texas A&M Health Science Center Institute of Biosciences and Technology. Many of the oral and poster presentations will be given by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows conducting research under supervision of CVRI scientists.

Keynote speakers will be Gary K. Owens, Ph.D., professor in the Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics department at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and Robert J. Schwartz, Ph.D., a cting director of the Institute of Biosciences and Technology and director of the Center for Molecular Development and Diseases.

Continuing Medical Education credit is available for participating physicians, and awards will be given for the top three trainee presentations. There will also be an evening social for retreat participants Thursday, October 27.

The CVRI seeks to integrate research, training and clinical practice focusing on the heart and blood vessels. The Institute represents a cooperative venture between the A&M College of Medicine, Scott & White Clinic and the Olin E. Teague VA Medical Center, with participating sites in College Station and Temple. CVRI scientists have made significant discoveries in the areas of blood vessel and heart function, angiogenesis, exercise biology, heart failure, atherosclerosis, ischemic heart disease, hypertension and diabetes. For more information about the CVRI, visit: http://cvri.tamu.edu/ .

Texas A&M System Experts Host Avian Influenza Media Teleconference

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (October 19, 2005) -- Texas A&M University System experts, including the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine's own Dr. John Quarles, hosted a two-hour Avian Influenza Media Teleconference, Monday, October 17. Each expert gave an overview on avian influenza, as well as a short presentation about the disease, how it could affect human health and the state's poultry industry, and review current research. They also answered media questions.

Experts on the panel were:

• Dr. John El-Attrache, assistant professor, College of Veterinary Medicine. His expertise is in avian viral diseases and vector-based vaccines.
• Dr. Blanca Lupiani, assistant professor in the department of veterinary pathobiology. Lupiani specializes in avian viral diseases and was available for interviews in Spanish.
• Dr. John Carey, associate head of the department of poultry science and Texas Cooperative Extension specialist.
• Dr. Markus Peterson, wildlife researcher, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. His expertise is wildlife disease, game birds, quail and turkey.
• Dr. John Quarles, professor and interim department head of medical microbiology and immunology in the College of Medicine. He has done extensive research on influenza.
• Dr. Tom Lester, head of diagnostic microbiology & virologist for the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratories (TVDML)

Agricultural Communications at Texas A&M and the National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense sponsored the event.

Information related to the briefing, including an audio file, is available on the Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Center website at: http://fazd.tamu.edu/diseaseinfo/avianinfluenza/ .

College of Medicine Hosts Faculty Research Colloquium

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (October 19, 2005) – Sponsored by the Faculty Advisory Committee, the College of Medicine at The Texas A&M Health Science Center is hosting the first Faculty Research Colloquium Monday, November 21 at 5 p.m. The event will be held in Lecture Hall 1 at the Reynolds Medical Building on the College Station campus, and will be simulcast to the college’s Temple campus at Scott & White in the Mayborn Auditorium.

The Faculty Research Colloquiums will be held quarterly, alternating between the College Station and Temple campuses. The inaugural colloquium features two College of Medicine faculty researchers, Dr. David McMurray and Dr. Farida Sohrabji, as speakers. Dr. McMurray will present “Studies of an ancient disease by an ancient scientist: Pulmonary TB in the guinea pig” and Dr. Sohrabji will present “Studies of the aging female by a rapidly aging female scientist: Menopause and the brain”.

A reception including light snacks and adult beverages will follow the colloquium. For more information, contact Monica Krenz at mlkrenz@medicine.tamhsc.edu or 979-862-3891.

To view the program flyer, click here.

Hurricane Rita Brings A&M College of Medicine Students Unexpected Hands-On Training

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (October 6, 2005) – Medical students at The Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine had planned to spend the weekend of September 24 cramming for gross anatomy and basic block tests that had been scheduled for the following Monday. Mother Nature had other ideas, however, as category 5 Hurricane Rita bore down on the Texas and Louisiana coasts.

With visions of the recent devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, residents from Houston and Galveston went scrambling to evacuate the region, bringing approximately 10,000 evacuees to the Bryan-College Station area. Many were seeking shelter from the storm, but there were also hundreds of sick and elderly people that had been evacuated from hospitals, clinics and nursing homes.

Hurricane Rita was looming on the horizon, and administrators at the A&M College of Medicine made plans to close the college that Friday, the 23 rd . However, it quickly became apparent that there was a shortage in the local medical workforce available to serve in the evacuee shelters, and the medical students would be invaluable as volunteers. As a result, college leadership made the decision to cancel classes at noon on Thursday, providing an opportunity for students to attend orientation sessions and begin volunteering as soon as possible.

"I jumped at the chance to volunteer because I knew how desperately the help was needed," first-year student Grace Brown said. "I wanted both to comfort and tend to the special needs patients and aid the volunteers who were already spread so thin. I've always valued opportunities to reach out to the distressed and the needy, but I feel an even stronger conviction now as a medical student to make myself available as a source of aid and as a leader whenever the need arises."

Approximately 90 students volunteered over the weekend at shelters across the city, contributing more than 700 collective hours to the relief effort. They performed a wide array of tasks, ranging from changing diapers of nursing home patients and distributing medication to physically carrying evacuees and sitting with the dying. Many spoke of wanting to do more and being frustrated by their relatively limited medical skills as students, but that the experience made them even more driven to become the best doctors they can be.

"This was a wonderful volunteer experience that proved truly rewarding and it reaffirmed my commitment to become a doctor," second-year medical student Anastacio Saenz said. "It allowed me to put to use many of the skills that we have learned in class including pertinent history-taking and effective communication with patients. It also gave me the opportunity to learn disaster relief first hand. The lessons I learned in that one night of volunteering far surpassed anything I could have gained from a book or a mock emergency situation."

No one could have anticipated the impact that the students' time spent with the evacuees would have on them not only as future physicians, but as people. Their experiences allowed them not only to help those in need, but also provided an invaluable opportunity to receive hands-on training in a real-life disaster relief setting.

In addition to the work of the students, many faculty members volunteered as well, including physicians from the local Scott & White Clinic. Teams of faculty from the Veteran's Affairs facility in Temple traveled to College Station to help with the physician shortage. The college's dean, Christopher C. Colenda, M.D., M.P.H., also spent countless hours in the shelters, organizing relief efforts and providing care for evacuees.

"I am extremely proud of our students and faculty for the work they did at the shelters during Hurricane Rita," Dr. Colenda said. "This experience made a tremendous impact on the evacuees, brought great relief to the local medical workforce and served as a life-changing lesson we never could duplicate in the classroom. Our students' collective effort reflects the kind of selfless, talented physicians they are quickly becoming."

For more about the students' volunteer experiences, visit the Hurricane Rita Student Diaries on the College of Medicine's website.

Founded in 1977, the College of Medicine at The Texas A&M Health Science Center is committed to educating, training and equipping physicians who are compassionate about their patients and dedicated to the communities in which they serve. Located on the Texas A&M University campus and at Scott & White Hospital in Temple, the college utilizes approximately 700 basic scientists and clinicians to instruct students during the course of their medical education. The College of Medicine's primary clinical affiliate, Scott & White, is ranked as one of the top 15 teaching hospitals in the nation.

Tulane Medical Student Becomes "Aggie Doc in Training" for a Month

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (October 4, 2005) – When asked where he's from, Niels Olson simply replies, "All over the place". He attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland and was stationed in San Diego with the Navy for several years before settling in New Orleans with his wife and children. Olson started medical school at Tulane University School of Medicine August 9, just 20 days before Hurricane Katrina would devastate the Central Gulf Coast. Luckily for Olson and his family, his parents had moved into their new home in College Station just three days before they evacuated New Orleans on Saturday, August 27.

As the storm approached, Olson and his wife Brooke had two choices when deciding where to evacuate their family: her aunt and uncle in Tennessee or his parents in Texas. As fate would have it, evacuees could only go south from their section of the city. That sent them packing for College Station, where there just happened to be a medical school in the form of The Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine.

"I had a big test coming up that next Monday (August 29), so I decided to go study over at the Medical Sciences Library on campus," Olson remembers. "Then on Monday, the levees broke and I thought, ‘There goes my school.' Bad news does not age well, so I started talking to Casey Huckaby in the Student Affairs office to start coming up with a plan."

Olson spent the week studying in the library until administrators at the college were able to get him set up for classes. His first day as an "Aggie medical student" also happened to fall on the first day of the head and neck block of gross anatomy. Olson fell in with A&M's first-year class, also taking biochemistry and Becoming a Clinician courses.

In all, Olson spent a month at the College of Medicine while Tulane officials planned their next move. After deciding to resume classes in late September on the Baylor College of Medicine campus in Houston, Tulane students and leaders experienced another setback with the arrival of Hurricane Rita. Eventually, Tulane students were able to have orientation Saturday, October 1 and started classes yesterday.

Olson looks forward to returning to his studies with his Tulane classmates, but is grateful for the help he received at the A&M College of Medicine.

"They just asked me what I needed and helped me work out a plan," Olson says. "Everyone was unbelievably supportive and helpful. Other people in the community have also been great, as they helped my wife get a job and my daughter into school. Everybody really thought outside the box in helping us get our feet back on the ground. After being here a month, I think I know more A&M students than Tulane students."

Olson's home in Jefferson parish was relatively untouched by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita with the exception of minor wind damage, but he doesn't plan to move his family back until the school opens back up in New Orleans.

"Right now my mom is taking care of my kids, my wife has a job and I'm living with two other students in Houston while I take classes, so we're set," Olson says. "There couldn't have been a better place to evacuate than College Station, because the people at the College of Medicine really made everything possible. Dr. (Christopher) Colenda and Dr. (Gary) McCord really did so much, and I owe them gargantuan thanks."

To keep track of Olson, visit his blog, "The Haversian Canal", at: http://nielsolson.us/Haversian/, where he is hosting Grand Rounds Tuesday, October 4.

Humanities Faculty Featured in AMWA Journal

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (October 4, 2005) – Barbara Gastel, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor in the Humanities in Medicine Department at The Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, was featured in the most recent issue of the American Medical Writers Association Journal . (To view the complete article, click here.) In addition to her appointment at the College of Medicine, Dr. Gastel is also currently an associate professor of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences and Biotechnology at Texas A&M University. 

Dr. Gastel has a B.A. degree from Yale and M.D. and M.P.H. degrees from Johns Hopkins. After medical school, she did an American Association for the Advancement of Science mass media fellowship at Newsweek . She then worked in communication and administration at the National Institutes of Health. She also has taught science writing at MIT, and technical communication at Beijing Medical University (now Peking University Health Science Center), and she has been assistant dean for teaching at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.

Dr. Gastel is the author of three books: Presenting Science to the Public (Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1983), Teaching Science: A Guide for College and Professional School Instructors (Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1991), and Health Writer's Handbook (2 nd edition, Blackwell Publishing, 2005). In addition, she has written many articles and chapters on writing, teaching and medical topics. Current projects include coauthoring the next edition of Robert Day's How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper .

Since 1996, Dr. Gastel has directed the U.S. aspect of a program, funded by the China Medical Board of New York, to teach biomedical writing and editing in Asia. The program is designed to facilitate publication of Asian research in English-language international journals. It includes online lessons in scientific writing and editing and internships at U.S. and Canadian editorial offices.

Dr. Gastel is editor of Science Editor , the periodical of the Council of Science Editors. She also is active in the American Medical Writers Association. She has received distinguished service awards from these two organizations, and she is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

College of Medicine Dean Endows Christopher C. Colenda, Jr. Memorial Scholarship

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (October 3, 2005) – Christopher C. Colenda, M.D., M.P.H, dean of the College of Medicine at The Texas A&M Health Science Center, has made a $26,000 pledge to endow the Christopher C. Colenda, Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund, in honor of his late father. The endowed gift marks the first of its kind given by a current dean of the college.

The Christopher C. Colenda, Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund was initially established by faculty and staff at the College of Medicine.

“Leadership gifts like Dr. Colenda's demonstrate an internal investment into our institution,” said Tom Pool, Director of Institutional Advancement at the A&M College of Medicine. “We are grateful for his generosity.”

Christopher C. Colenda, Jr. passed away April 18, 2005 at the age of 89 in Williamsburg, Va. He was a WWII veteran and served as a captain in the U.S. Army. Mr. Colenda received the Bronze Star and retired from the U.S. Army Reserve in 1953. He was also a member of the Shriners, 32nd Degree Masons and the Williamsburg Presbyterian Church where he served as an elder. Mr. Colenda retired after 41 years as Assistant Executive Vice President with Best Foods, a division of CPC International. For many years during his retirement, his favorite job was that of starter at the Golden Horseshoe Golf Club of Colonial Williamsburg.

Mr. Colenda is survived by his wife of 62 years, Janet, an early pioneer of commercial aviation. She was a member of the second class of airline “stewardists” for Pennsylvania Central Airlines, which eventually became part of United Airlines.

Dr. Colenda's endowment pledge will be credited to a scholarship campaign currently in the planning stages by the Office of Institutional Advancement.