Registration Opens for LSL 2024; Climate Change May Have Greater Health Impact on Women; Northwell Leaders Defend Value of DEI Efforts in National Op-ed; and Other Items of Interest
Registration is now open for Learn Serve Lead 2024: The AAMC Annual Meeting, taking place in Atlanta Nov. 8-12. This annual event draws thousands of attendees from across the academic medicine community to connect with thought leaders and spark conversation on critical issues impacting medical education and patient care. The meeting additionally includes programming just for CFAS reps, including committee meetings, the CFAS Business Meeting, a reception, knowledge sharing, a networking breakfast for CFAS reps, and other sessions. Register before Aug. 7 to receive a discount on access to all programming, including plenary sessions, the Voices of Medicine and Society lecture series, and more than 100 breakout sessions.
Read More
AAMCNews explained how climate change is having more of an impact on women, noting that extreme weather is linked to pregnancy complications, increased violence, and inescapable exposure to pollution and heat.
Read More
Oregon is providing air conditioners, air purifiers, and power banks to some Medicaid recipients to help them cope with some of the dangers of climate change, including rising heat and smoky skies, reported KFF Health News.
Read More
In related news, higher utilization of telehealth, particularly for cancer care, could significantly reduce health care’s climate impact, reported NPR in coverage of a study published in JAMA Oncology. “By moving online all oncology visits that need not be done in person and by allowing patients to have blood drawn and other tests and procedures performed at clinics closer to their homes, researchers estimated they could reduce nationwide carbon-dioxide emissions generated as a result of cancer care by 33%,” reported NPR.
Read More
Read More
Laboratories in academic medical centers and universities have large carbon footprints, consuming 5-10 times more energy than typical office spaces, in addition to large amounts of water, chemicals, and materials. How can lab owners and managers, sustainability directors, designers and engineers, principal investigators and researchers, and graduate students and postdocs help make science more sustainable? The Climate Action and Sustainability in Academic Medicine virtual community will host a collaborative discussion on this issue on June 25 at 3 p.m. ET.
Read More
David Battinelli, MD, executive vice president and physician-in-chief at Northwell Health and dean of the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, and Jennifer Mieres, MD, a professor of cardiology and chief diversity and health equity officer at Northwell Health, wrote an opinion piece in U.S. News and World Report defending DEI efforts in medicine as essential for saving lives (and money) in a health system that is riddled with inequities. “DEI doesn’t mean medical schools, hospitals and clinics are playing politics,” the authors wrote. “It means acknowledging that we will save lives if we take race, gender, culture and sexual orientation into consideration when treating patients.”
Read More
The University of Kentucky will dissolve its University Senate, which had power over curricular elements, including the ability to approve or reject new academic programs and courses. The governance body will be replaced a new faculty senate, which would no longer have that authority and be solely advisory in nature, reported Inside Higher Ed.
Read More
STAT reported on the top questions that infectious disease experts and scientists want answered about the ongoing presence of H5N1 bird flu largely affecting cattle and dairy farm settings. The piece noted that there is a “paucity of data coming out of the U.S.” about the situation, which has drawn parallels to the earliest days of COVID-19 among some scientists.
Read More
A 59-year-old man in Mexico who died from bird flu became the first known person to have contracted the H5N2 bird flu variant, reported the Washington Post. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the man had severe underlying health conditions prior to testing positive for the virus, but no known exposure to poultry or other animals before his diagnosis. WHO officials noted there was no evidence that the illness has spread among people.
Read More
Scientific American published an essay, “H5N1 Bird Flu Isn’t a Human Pandemic—Yet. American Contrariness Could Turn It into One,” exploring how the U.S. public’s historic suspicion of the government and public health efforts have put the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in a sticky situation about aggressively investigating the virus, despite some studies and investigations suggesting it merits more attention.
Read More
The Hill covered a new report from the Commonwealth Fund showing that among wealthy nations, the United States has the highest rates of infant mortality. The new report notes that mortality rates are highest in the Black community and the vast majority of infant mortality cases are preventable.
Read More
Read More
Women with sickle cell disease felt pressured into sterilizations as recently as 2017 and 2022, according to an investigation by STAT. “For far too long, racial inequities and underrepresentation in our health system have contributed to adverse health outcomes for Black women in the United States. Before making major life decisions, every woman deserves to be fully informed about her reproductive health options — anything less is unacceptable,” said U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Health Braintrust. AAMC Chief Academic Officer Alison Whelan, MD, is also quoted in the piece.
Read More
Authors of a landmark 2006 paper on Alzheimer’s disease will retract the study in response to allegations that images were manipulated, reported Science. At nearly 2,500 citations, the study would be the most cited paper ever to be retracted. Retraction Watch also published a list of the top 10 most highly cited papers that have been retracted.
Read More
Read More
Nature ran a perspective piece with a roster of authors principally from institutions of higher learning on misperceptions regarding the harms of online misinformation. “We recommend holding platforms accountable for facilitating exposure to false and extreme content in the tails of the distribution, where consumption is highest and the risk of real-world harm is greatest,” the authors wrote. “We also call for increased platform transparency, including collaborations with outside researchers, to better evaluate the effects of online misinformation and the most effective responses to it.”
Read More
More than 3,000 doctors have joined unions so far this year due to concerns over burnout, administrative burden, and poor patient care, reported Modern Healthcare in an article that explained why labor organizing is a growing phenomenon in the upper ranks of medicine.
Read More
Private equity firms are sharply reducing their acquisitions of smaller medical organizations, which antitrust regulators say often hurts competition and negatively impacts patients, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Read More
Another piece in the WSJ reported that hospital consolidation is causing health care costs to rise.
Read More
Dozens of doctors and nurse practitioners at the District of Columbia’s Unity Health Care have quit due to widespread staff shortages and safety concerns at clinics across the city, reported the Washington Post. Unity Health Care is the district’s largest community health center.
Read More
The National Institutes of Health launched its Cloud Lab, which provides free, customized, and scientifically relevant training for researchers to learn about the cloud.
Read More
More than 1 in 3 medical students and residents say they’ve experienced faculty mistreatment, from public humiliation to sexist remarks. AAMCNews explored how medical schools are working to end the mistreatment.
Read More
In its Mental Health Awareness month blog post, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy highlighted the AAMC 2023 Mental and Behavioral Health Training Awards Program and its winners as one of several key initiatives from government agencies, the private sector, nonprofit organizations, and academia to expand and improve mental health research in the United States.
Read More
Read More
The Aligned Institutional Mission (AIM) Program, led by AAHCI, focuses on aligning the education, research, and patient care missions at academic health centers. It is tailored to meet the individual needs of each institution based on several core components, including mission alignment, and offers in-person consulting and personalized feedback from current and former leaders of academic health centers. As part of the AIM Program, AAHCI members work with consultants to create an action plan for enhanced mission alignment, including organizational structure and leadership authority, informed and socially responsive governance, and defined strategic plans.
Read More
On July 1 and July 29, the AAMC Center for Health Justice will host two sessions as part of an interactive learning series to highlight approaches to building stronger collaboration between community organizations and academic medicine institutions to improve population health, especially in underserved communities.
Read More
John Reilly Jr., MD, will step down as dean of the University of Colorado School of Medicine on July 1. Dr. Reilly has led the CU school since 2015.
Read More
Marla Keller, MD, has been appointed executive dean at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Keller is currently the director of the NIH-funded Harold and Muriel Block Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at Einstein and Montefiore and the interim senior associate dean for clinical and translational research.
Read More
Sarah Sofka, MD, has been appointed assistant vice president of faculty and student academic initiatives at West Virginia University School of Medicine, effective July 1. Dr. Sofka previously served as director of faculty affairs and academic initiatives for WVU Health Sciences.
Read More
Ann Rutter, MD, has been named senior associate dean of academic administration at the Albany Med Health System, effective July 1. Dr. Rutter has served as academic vice chair for the Department of Family and Community Medicine since 2019 and as the family medicine clerkship director since 2012.
Read More
Ali Gharavi, MD, has been appointed chair of the Department of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and physician-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Dr. Gharavi is the Jay Meltzer, MD, Professor of Nephrology and Hypertension in the Department of Medicine and has served as interim chair of the department since April 2023.
Read More
Arabinda Choudhary, MD, MBA, has been named chair of the Department of Radiology at State University of New York Upstate Medical University. Dr. Choudhary previously served as chair of the Department of Radiology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine.
Read More
Lisa Schocket, MD, has been named chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at University of Maryland School of Medicine. Dr. Schocket has been serving as interim chair since July 2022.
Read More
Humayun Islam, MD, PhD, has been appointed chair of the newly combined departments of pathology, microbiology, and immunology at New York Medical College. Dr. Islam serves as vice director of pathology, chief of anatomic pathology, director of hematopathology and director of the pathology residency program at Westchester Medical Center.
Read More
Bharat Mittal, MD, will step down as chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine after more than 30 years of service. Dr. Mittal is the inaugural chair of the department.
Read More
They were a geologist, a chemist, an aerospace scientist, a quantum chemist, and an industrial engineer — and each went on to become a notable head of state. Herbert Hoover, Margaret Thatcher, and Angela Merkel, among others, set aside their careers in science to become national leaders. Why? And how did it affect their leadership? Nature explored how their decision to move from a STEMM field into something wholly different impacted their careers in politics and as national leaders. Spoiler alert from the Nature piece: “Scientists who have succeeded in leading their countries tend to think first and foremost like politicians.” Surprise, surprise.
Read More
To an extent, humor is the best medicine, especially for those delivering medicine. A paper published in the journal BMC Primary Care looked at the comic styles among medical assistants to understand the impact on their own well-being as caregivers. The German study broke humor into eight distinct categories, forming a spectrum of sorts from positive to negative humor traits: “benevolent humor, fun, wit, nonsense, irony, satire, sarcasm, and cynicism,” and noted that lighter styles of humor (on the “benevolent humor” side of the spectrum) had a positive impact on health of the clinician, while darker humor, well, not so much. Sorry, my dark humor brethren.
Read More
And finally, we’ve seen it a thousand times — the famous “March of Progress” illustration that depicts a purported evolutionary development from primate to cave dweller to let’s say practicing physician or scientist. It turns out, it’s a wildly inaccurate graphic despite its virtually universal recognizability. IFL Science reviewed a new book about the history of the image and its Victorian origins, illuminating its curiously enduring trait of being reviled by the scientific community, yet widely circulated in culture — apparently not uncommon. One of the original creators of the image, it turns out, didn’t believe in evolution and created the image in part as an effort to undermine its growing acceptance, leaving us with an unshakeable example of scientific misinformation pervasive in public appeal. Add it to the pile.
Read More
Visit the CFAS Resources page for an archive of the previous edition of CFAS News as well as our People of Academic Medicine page, which features a running list of academic promotions, appointments, and departures.
Your comments and news tips are always welcome. Please email them to Eric Weissman at eweissman@aamc.org.
Eric Weissman
Senior Director, Faculty and Academic Society Engagement
AAMC
eweissman@aamc.org
www.aamc.org/cfas