Dr. Ralph I. Horwitz is Appointed Chair of Medicine
I am extremely pleased to announce today the appointment of Dr. Ralph I. Horwitz as the next Chair of the Department of Medicine at Stanford. He will officially join Stanford on December 1st. Dr. Horwitz is currently Dean of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine as well as Vice President for Medical Affairs and Director of the Case Research Institute. He has been at CWRU since 2003, where he is also Professor of Medicine. Prior to that Dr. Horwitz was the Harold H. Hines, Jr. Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology and Chair of the Department of Medicine at Yale University -- a position he held from 1994-2003.
Dr. Horwitz has had a long and distinguished career as a clinician-scientist and leader in academic medicine. Following his graduation from Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in 1973, he served as an intern and resident at McGill University and the Royal Victoria Hospital as well as at the Massachusetts General Hospital and at Yale, where he was in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program -- which he subsequently co-directed.
Dr. Horwitz has had a very prominent career as a clinical investigator focusing on population science and outcomes research. He is the author or co-author of over 180 peer-reviewed publications addressing a range of topics, with a particular focus on stroke and its neurological sequelae, cardiovascular medicine, cancer, and clinical trial methodology. In addition to his many publications in high impact journals, his work has been recognized by election to the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the American College of Epidemiology, the American College of Physicians, the American Board of Internal Medicine, and the Association of American Physicians (where he is on track to become President). He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Horwitz is the recipient of numerous awards and honors and has held a number of national leadership positions.
The selection of Dr. Horwitz resulted from a national search that commenced in March 2005 with a Committee co-chaired by Drs. Harvey Cohen, Arline and Pete Harman Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, and Gary Glazer, Emma Pfeiffer Merner Professor and Chair of the Department of Radiology. The Search Committee included Drs. Mark Davis, Scott Delp, Carlos Esquivel, Michael Jacobs, Larry Leung, Michael Longaker, Beverly Mitchell, Bill Mobley, Daria Mochly-Rosen, Michael Peterson, Robert Robbins, Alan Schatberg, Matt Scott, Lucy Shapiro, Irv Weissman, and medical student John DeCaro.
As part of the search process the Co-Chairs and Committee identified 125 possible candidates based on discussions with national leaders as well as extensive department and school-wide interviews. The position was broadly advertised with specific reach out to ELAM (Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine) to help identify potential women candidates. After careful consideration, 11 individuals were invited to campus for 2-day visits during which they each met with dozens of individuals. I met with each of the candidates during their visit to Stanford, as did Martha Marsh, the CEO of Stanford Hospital and Clinics. The 11 candidates who visited with us represented diverse interests and included three women and three minority candidates.
I met with the Search Committee at the end of March 2006 and received their final comments and recommendations -- including their list of four unranked finalists. I then contacted the finalists individually and personally conducted extensive reference interviews with individuals familiar with their work and contributions. Based on that I conducted selected visits to the candidates' home institutions, where I met with additional individuals. At the conclusion of that process it seemed clear to me that Dr. Horwitz possesses the experience, vision, commitment and excellence to assume this important role. Thankfully Dr. Horwitz felt similarly about Stanford, permitting us to move forward with his appointment.
I want to thank the Chairs and the Committee for their diligent work in defining a broad list of candidates and in recommending a short list of four finalists for my consideration. I also want to thank Rebecca Trumbull and Kendra Baldwin for their outstanding efforts in coordinating and facilitating the process and candidate visits. I heard from all the candidates who visited how appreciative and impressed they were by the way they had been treated during their visits to Stanford.
While I am extremely pleased about Dr. Horwitz' appointment, I want to also recognize the exceptional and diligent work that has been done by Drs. Harry Greenberg and Norm Rizk in their roles as interim co-chairs. They began their assignment in January 2005 and have provided wonderful leadership. Unlike many interim leaders, Drs. Greenberg and Rizk have been proactive in addressing the challenges and needs of the department, including the recruitment of a number of important faculty. The morale and excellence of the department improved further under their guidance and I am confident that this helped to make the position of chair attractive and exciting to our candidates. So in addition to sharing my excitement for Dr. Horwitz' recruitment, please join me in thanking Drs. Greenberg and Rizk for their leadership.
[Dr. Horwitz's Case Medicine profile: http://casemed.case.edu/administration/admin_bio.cfm?id=1 ]
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Hospital Boards Approve the Stanford Industry Policy
In the June 26, 2006 Dean's Newsletter (http://deansnewsletter.stanford.edu/archive/06_26_06.html), I provided an update on the status of our Stanford policy on interactions with industry. In that report I indicated that the School of Medicine's Executive Committee had unanimously endorsed the policy at its June 16th meeting. I am now very pleased to add that the Medical Boards and Boards of Directors of Stanford Hospital & Clinics and of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital have also approved the policy. This is outstanding news, since it permits us to have a unified Medical Center wide policy. The new policy will go into effect on October 1st. Further details about the policy itself and how it will be implemented will be forthcoming in mid-September. Many individuals have worked diligently to shepherd this policy through the necessary committees in the School and Hospitals and I am deeply appreciative to each of them. I want to acknowledge in particular Kathy Gillam, Senior Advisor to the Dean, for the essential role she has played in this process to date.
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Hospitals Collaborate with the School of Medicine to Facilitate Clinical Research
Rising hospital costs related to the generally high costs of hospital services and supplies in the Bay Area have frequently been a problem for Stanford clinical researchers. I am pleased to report that SPCTRM (Stanford/Packard Center for Translational Research in Medicine), Stanford Hospital & Clinics (SHC), and the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital (LPCH) have developed, after a process lasting almost two years, a new clinical research discount structure covering the three major categories of clinical care costs in clinical research studies. These are laboratory services, ancillary procedural services, and supplies. The new discounts are:
Laboratory: Discounted at hospital "outreach pricing"
Ancillary procedural services: Discounted at current NIH rates
Supplies: Discounted at acquisition cost plus a small administrative fee
The new laboratory and supplies discounts are already being applied to all study budgets prepared by SPCTRM/RMG (Research Management Group), with the ancillary procedural services discounts set to come on line on September 1, 2006.
The new discounts are intended to promote clinical research opportunities more effectively by making studies done at Stanford facilities more competitive financially. Moreover, the new discounts are simply the first pass at a discount structure based on a "cost neutral" principle. SHC and LPCH, demonstrating their commitment to clinical and translational research, have pledged to provide services and supplies to clinical researchers essentially at a level that is cost neutral to the hospitals. This commitment represents a substantive change and will certainly help our efforts in clinical and translational research --including our planned application for a Clinical and Translational Science (CTSA) Award to the NIH this next January.
To ensure that this principle is maintained, the discounts will be revisited and recalculated on an annual basis. This productive and collaborative effort uniting School of Medicine clinical researchers with their primary clinical facilities is emblematic of the transformation of the clinical and translational research enterprise currently underway at Stanford. Much of this activity is in preparation for the establishment in late 2007 of the Stanford Center for Clinical and Translational Education and Research (SCCTER). We anticipate that this new center will be part of the major NIH CTSA initiative to overhaul the way clinical research is supported in academic medical centers across the country.
I would like to acknowledge Martha Marsh, President and CEO of SHC, Mike Peterson, COO of SHC, Chris Dawes, President and CEO of LPCH, Sue Flanagan, COO of LPCH, and Gary May, VP of Managed Care Contracting of SHC/LPCH, for their work and continued efforts to develop a more simplified and competitive pricing structure. In addition I want to thank Nick Gaich and Dr. Steve Alexander from SPCTRM as well as Dr. Harry Greenberg for their efforts in helping to bring these important changes to fruition.
[SPCTRM: http://clinicaltrials.stanford.edu/
Stanford Hospital & Clinics: http://www.stanfordhospital.com/
Lucile Packard Children's Hospital: http://www.lpch.org/
Research Management Group: http://med.stanford.edu/rmg/
Clinical and Translational Science Award: http://www.ncrr.nih.gov/clinicaldiscipline.asp ]
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Making Connections and Forging Collaborations: Use the CAP
In recent surveys of faculty, one of the major areas of expressed concern was how to identify potential Stanford scientific collaborators for research projects. As it turns out, there is a system already in place that will enable you to do just that. Known as the Community Academic Profiles (CAP), this directory provides an easy-to-use interface through which people - both inside and outside of the Stanford community - can learn about research taking place across the School of Medicine (see http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/). Currently there are approximately 1460 profiles available in CAP, a number of which have been completed and updated to reflect faculty interests, publications, and more. If you haven't reviewed or updated your own CAP profile I would strongly encourage you to do so. There is no question that these profiles are being accessed.
According to Henry Lowe, Senior Associate Dean for Information Resources and Technology, whose team developed CAP, there are approximately 120,000 profile views per month, and many faculty have more than 200 viewings. Interestingly, while 20% of the traffic is from within Stanford, nearly 50% is from sites across the USA as well as from international sites, most notably in the UK, Spain, Italy, China, Israel, Singapore and Japan. This makes it all the more important to make sure that your faculty profile is current -- and also to recognize how much this service can help you when you are initiating new projects or seeking advice about current ones. CAP is also a great source for finding relevant journal articles by our faculty. Currently there are some 36,400 visible publications with approximately 400 new publications being imported into faculty CVs every two weeks.
I would strongly encourage you to visit CAP and to use it. Clearly our colleagues around the world are doing so!
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Spirit Award 2006 Announcement
I have received the following announcement from Cori Bossenberry, Director of Human Resources. I urge you to participate in this year's nomination process.
The School of Medicine's annual Employee of the Year, Spirit Award Program will take place over the next few months. Staff are an important part of our community and contribute greatly in support of our missions. This annual award provides an opportunity for departments to acknowledge those contributions. Dr. Pizzo will award each of the two selected staff members with a $1,000 cash prize and an "A" parking sticker or the monetary equivalent for a bicycle for the coming year at the School's Annual Staff Recognition Banquet on November 9th.
This week, departments will receive program ballots and brochures. Please distribute these to your students, staff and faculty. For convenience this year, the brochure and a ballot are also available from the new Spirit Award website: http://med.stanford.edu/SPIRIT/.
Any faculty, staff, student, fellow and post doc working at the School of Medicine may nominate any eligible staff members (bargaining unit workers are not eligible) in any department or administrative area. To be eligible, staff members must have been employed as regular employees, at 50% FTE or more, in one department/unit for the past two years.
Selection criteria: To be selected, staff must consistently demonstrate the following traits: customer service, positive attitude, initiative, dedication and motivation.
Forwarding Nominations: All ballots must be received by the Dean's Office Human Resources Group by September 21, 2006. Ballots may be sent electronically to Chris Maci at , via an electronic submission form on the Spirit Award website, or via hard copy to:
Employee of the Year,
Spirit Award Selection Committee,
c/o Human Resources Group,
Medical School Office Building,
Mail Code 5460.
All those who submit a completed nomination ballot will be entered into a drawing to receive a $25 gift certificate to the Stanford Shopping Center. Late ballots will not be accepted. Recipients will be selected and notified in mid-to late October and will be invited to attend the Dean's Recognition Program on November 9th.
We are excited to be bringing this award forward again this year and hope you will use this opportunity to nominate deserving employees. Thank you for your participation!
[Electronic submission form: http://med.stanford.edu/SPIRIT/submit.html ]
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Eliza Farmer Chakravarty, MS, MD, Assistant Professor, Immunology & Rheumatology, has been named the first Dr. Elaine Lambert Fellow in Lupus Research and Treatment in the Center for Clinical Immunology at Stanford (CCIS). The Fellowship, created by the John and Marcia Goldman Foundation, is the most recent in a series of gifts from a generous family that helped launch CCIS 11 years ago. Dr. Lambert, who was honored by the Goldmans for her exceptional work as a care giver, is a former Stanford faculty member and colleague of C. Garrison Fathman, MD, Founder and Director of CCIS. Congratulations, Dr. Chakravarty.
Profile: http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Eliza_Chakravarty/
Karl Deisseroth, M.D., Assistant Professor of Bioengineering and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, has just won the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, established in 1996. This major award represents the highest honor that any young scientists or engineer can receive in the United States. Congratulations, Dr. Deisseroth.
Profile: http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Karl_Deisseroth/
Richard Hoppe, M.D., the Henry S. Kaplan-Harry Lebeson Professor of Cancer Biology, will receive the 2006 Gold Medal from the American Society for the Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) in November. Congratulations, Dr. Hoppe.
Profile: http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Richard_Hoppe/
The Medical School's Office of Community Health has just received the third annual Partnership Award from Community Health Partnership for its commitment to improving the health and wellness of our community. "This organization is making an impact on primary health-care issues," said Lourie Campos, director of policy at CHP. "Our partnership has been one of the highlights of the year."
Community Health Partnership is a nonprofit consortium of community health clinics for undeserved populations in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. CHP and the Office of Community Health teamed up to develop coursework and to plan curriculum relating to public health issues for Stanford medical students.
"This is just about the highest honor we can receive," said Ann Banchoff, program director of the Office of Community Health. "This entity didn't exist a year ago. Being recognized shows we're being responsive to the community."
[Site: http://och.stanford.edu/ ]
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Outdoor Science Talks at the Cantor:
Human Embryonic Stem Cells: Science, Ethics, and Politics
7 pm, Thursday, August 31
Cantor Art Museum Lawn
The Stanford Office for Science Outreach, the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, and Stanford Continuing Studies join together to invite you, your friends, and family to campus this summer to experience the wonders of art and science. Come around 5:00 pm and wander through the acclaimed Cantor Museum, then buy dinner and/or drinks at the Museum's Cool Café and join us at 7:00 pm on lawn chairs outside of Cantor for a fascinating glimpse into the world of scientific research. The lectures will be delivered in lay terms that the general public can understand. Plenty of time will be made available for questions and answers following each talk. Both entrance to the Cantor Museum and the lecture series are free to the public. An organic buffet BBQ dinner will be available for purchase at the Cool Café in the Museum from 5:00 until 8:00 PM, with both meat and vegetarian options, along with wine, beer, soft drinks, desserts and coffee (cash only).
The upcoming science talk, hosted by Dean Phil Pizzo, will focus on "Human Embryonic Stem Cells: Science, Ethics, and Politics." Human embryonic stem cells are among the most promising, most complicated, and most controversial areas of contemporary biomedical research. Professor Julie Baker's lab is working to create and understand human embryonic stem cells; she will describe the scientific challenges of this work and the medical and scientific reasons these challenges are worthwhile. Professor Hank Greely serves on Stanford and California committees that are working to ensure stem cell research proceeds ethically. He will discuss the difficult issues that need to be resolved, not just about what kind of research should be done but how that research should be done-and the political complications these issues raise.
[Stanford Office for Science Outreach: http://oso.stanford.edu/
Cantor Center for Visual Arts: http://museum.stanford.edu/
Stanford Continuing Studies: http://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/
Lecture Schedule: http://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/course/EVT138.asp ]
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Bruce A. Arnow has been promoted to Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, effective 8/1/06.
Profile: http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Bruce_Arnow/
Janice Brown has been promoted to Associate Professor of Medicine (Bone Marrow Transplantation), effective 8/1/06.
Profile: http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Janice_Brown/
John Chan has been reappointed to Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, effective 7/1/06.
Profile: http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/John_Chan/
Sanjeev Dutta has been appointed to Assistant Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, effective 6/1/2006.
Dominik Fleischmann has been promoted to Associate Professor of Radiology, effective 8/1/06.
Profile: http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Dominik_Fleischmann/
Nicholas Giori has been reappointed to Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, effective 8/1/06.
Profile: http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Nicholas_Giori/
Antonio Hardan has been appointed to Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, effective 8/1/2006.
Profile: http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Antonio_Hardan/
Robert Christopher Hayward, has been promoted to Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, effective 8/1/06.
Profile: http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/R_Hayward/
Douglas Levinson has been appointed to Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, effective 8/01/06.
Profile: http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Douglas_Levinson/
Sam Most has been appointed to Associate Professor of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery, effective 8/1/2006.
Profile: http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Sam_Most/
Craig Rosen has been reappointed to Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, effective 7/1/06.
Profile: http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Craig_Rosen/
Nancy Schulman has been appointed to Assistant Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases & Geographic Medicine) at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, effective 8/1/2006.
Erich Schwartz has been appointed to Assistant Professor of Pathology, effective 8/1/2006.
Profile: http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Erich_Schwartz/
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A
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Microsoft Word version: DeanNews08-21-06.doc
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