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Awards and Honors

S. Ward Casscells III, M.D., vice president for biotechnology, UT Health Science Center (HSC), and the John Edward Tyson Distinguished Professor in Cardiology, is on the recently created National Advisory Board for Clinical Quality. The board, made up of national leaders in the field of medicine, was created by RediClinic to further its commitment to quality health care.

Mary Pat Rapp, D.S.N., assistant professor of nursing systems, School of Nursing (SON), is the 2006 recipient of the Texas Nurses Association Leader in Clinical Practice Award. The award was presented Sept. 14 during the Sixth Annual Nursing Leadership Conference Recognition Luncheon.

Leslie Roeder, D.D.S., associate dean for academic affairs and associate professor of diagnostic sciences, Dental Branch, has been named a fellow at the Institute of the American Dental Education Association (ADEA). The ADEA is a leadership development program that guides faculty members at academic dental institutions through intensive development in aspects of their personal and professional growth.

During the IX National Congress of the Bolivian Psychiatric Association held Aug. 9-11 in Sucre, Bolivia, Pedro Ruiz, M.D., was made an honorary member of the Bolivian Psychiatric Association. Ruiz is professor and vice chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Medical School (MS).

Patricia L. Starck, D.S.N., dean and the John P. McGovern Distinguished Professor, SON, has been elected president of the Southern Regional Education Board’s Council on Collegiate Education in Nursing. She also served in that role from 2002-04.

Presentations

Robert Emery, Dr.P.H., assistant vice president for safety, health, environment and risk management, HSC, and associate professor, occupational health, School of Public Health (SPH), met in Trinidad with the Ministry of Health of Trinidad and Tobago to discuss management strategies for the safe handling of medical waste generated from the nation’s health care system. He was asked by the Ministry of Health to review the biomedical waste management program and to provide suggestions for improvement.

Miguel A. Escobar, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics and internal medicine, MS, along with staff members of the Gulf States Hemophilia and Thrombophilia Center (GSHTC) completed a second visit to El Salvador at the end of August. This project originates from the twinning program created by the World Federation of Hemophilia between the GSHTC and Hospital Nacional de Ninos Benjamin Bloom in El Salvador. The hospital sponsored a symposium for patients, parents, medical staff and teachers, attended by more than 100 in each group each day. In 2007 the Houston team will assist in holding a camp for about 25 boys with hemophilia and will present the first of three parts for the Parents Empowering Parents Program to provide education and support for parents of children with hemophilia. They will continue to teach the comprehensive model of hemophilia care to the hospital team in El Salvador.

Nikhil S. Padhye, Ph.D., assistant professor, Center for Nursing Research, SON, presented a poster session Aug. 31 at the 28th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society in New York. The paper corresponding to the poster session is published in the Proceedings as “Change in Complexity of Fetal Heart Rate Variability.” Audrius Brazdeikis, Ph.D., Texas Center for Superconductivity, University of Houston, and M. Terese Verklan, Ph.D., associate professor, Nursing Systems, SON, were also authors.

Linda Stafford, Ph.D., assistant professor of nursing for target populations, SON, chaired the Fifth Annual Regional Substance Abuse Education Conference for Nurse Educators and Clinicians: Substance Abuse and the Media, June 30 at the nursing school. Terry Rustin, M.D., associate professor of nursing for target populations, SON, spoke on “State of the Science: Smoking Cessation.”

The Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, MS, was well represented at the World Congress in Cardiology Sept. 2-6 in Barcelona. Papers presented were:

“Intense Medical Therapy but Not Mechanical Revascularization Improves Global Myocardial Perfusion as Measured by Positron Emission Tomography” by Stefano Sdringola, M.D., associate professor; Catalin Loghin, M.D., assistant professor; Fernando Boccalandro, M.D., research collaborator; Wamique Yusuf, M.D., UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center; Lance Gould, M.D., holder, the Martin Bucksbaum Distinguished University Chair in Heart Disease, and director, Weatherhead PET Center for Preventing and Reversing Atherosclerosis.
“Coordinated Aggressive Medical and Interventional Therapy for Acute Myocardial Infarction: Pre-hospital Administration of Thrombolysis with Urgent Culprit Artery Revascularization (PATCAR Pilot Trial)” by Gregory M. Giesler, M.D., fellow; Stefano Sdringola, M.D., associate professor; Mary T. Vooletich, research coordinator II; Vinay R. Julapalli, M.D., clinical fellow; H. Vernon Anderson, M.D., professor; Ali E. Denktas, M.D., assistant professor; James J. McCarthy, M.D., assistant professor of emergency medicine; David E. Persse, M.D., director, Emergency Medical Services, City of Houston; and Richard W. Smalling, M.D., Ph.D., the Jay Brent Sterling Professor in Cardiovascular Medicine.
Rosalinda Madonna, M.D., Ph.D., a visiting scientist and former postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Yong-Jian Geng, M.D., Ph.D., MS, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS) and Texas Heart Institute (THI), was cited in the science hotline report of the XV World Congress of Cardiology 2006 as being among a number of scientists with “breaking presentations based on outstanding quality.” The science hotline presents the top selection of the latebreaking abstracts submitted three months before the congress.

Madonna’s presentation, “The Murine Abdominal Adipose Stromal Cell Compartment Supports the Differentiation into Endothelial, but not into Haematopoietic Progenitor Cells,” reported on the potential and limitations of adipose tissue, which could present an easily accessible source of stem cells. Part of this study was recently published in the European Heart Journal and is a result of collaboration among physician-scientists James T. Willerson, M.D., president, HSC, and president-elect, THI; Yong- Jian Geng, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine and director of the Center for Cardiovascular Biology and Atherosclerosis Research, MS; and Raffaele de Caterina, M.D., University of Chieti, Italy.

Publications

Richard Grimes, Ph.D., associate professor, Division of Management, Policy and Community Health, SPH, co-authored a study published in the May/June 2006 issue of Nursing Research. Grimes’ study aimed to determine whether a tailored, nurse-delivered adherence intervention program – Client Adherence Profiling and Intervention Tailoring (CAP-IT) – improved adherence to HIV medications. The results of his study found no significant differences and little correlation over time among the five different medication-adherence measures.

Richard J. Kulmacz, Ph.D., professor of internal medicine, biochemistry and molecular biology at the UT Medical School, led a study published in the June 2006 edition of the FASEB Journal. The study was titled, “Divergent Cyclooxygenase Responses to Fatty Acid Structure and Peroxide Level in Fish and Mammalian Prostaglandin H Synthases.” The research was done in collaboration with Wen Liu, Ph.D., research associate, and Dazhe Cao, summer research fellow for the Department of Internal Medicine.

Professor Emeritus Kenneth K. Wu, M.D., Ph.D., IMM, MS and GSBS; and Eric Boerwinkle, Ph.D., professor and director of the Center for Human Genetics at the IMM, director of the Human Genetics Center, SPH and GSBS, and holder of the Kozmetsky Family Chair in Human Genetics, co-authored a study that was published in the July 2006 edition of Archives of Internal Medicine. The study assessed incremental coronary risk prediction using C-reactive protein and other novel risk markers. Their findings suggest that routine measurements were not warranted for risk assessment, but reinforce the utility of major, modifiable risk factor assessments to identify individuals at risk for coronary heart disease so that preventative action can be taken.