Pulse: A Message from Dean Joel A. Kaplan

I would like to welcome you to the first issue of University of Louisville Medicine, which is intended to keep all of our friends and alumni informed of the tremendous changes and opportunities at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences Center.

For this relatively new dean, the first two years have gone by very rapidly as my wife, Norma, and I have met wonderful new colleagues and enjoyed the lifestyle and social activities of the university and the city.

It has been a special privilege to work with UofL President John W. Shumaker to fulfill The Challenge for Excellence and to have the School of Medicine lead the way as the University of Louisville becomes a nationally recognized metropolitan research university.

The beginning of the new century is a time of great change in medical education and science, highlighted by the recent mapping of the human genome.

Medical students and physicians of the future will need to have extensive knowledge about genetics, gene therapy, proteomics and medical informatics so they can apply these sciences in their patients' best interests. In the pages of this and future issues of University of Louisville Medicine, some of our leading clinicians, educators and investigators working in these and other areas will be highlighted.

The School of Medicine is being challenged not only by what we teach, but also how we teach it. Medical educators are again re-evaluating our teaching models, as has been done over the centuries from the time of Socrates' Academy through the Flexner Report in 1910 to today's techniques of problem-based learning.

New teaching models being introduced include computerized human patient simulators and standardized patient examinations. These techniques will be used in our new Alumni Center for Medical Education, which is being developed in the Instructional Building at the Health Sciences Center.

The greatest changes at the School of Medicine have been in the growth of our new research program, highlighted by the opening of the Donald E. Baxter Biomedical Research Building in October 1999. This extraordinary facility is said to have the finest research laboratories in the country and has been very instrumental in helping us recruit world class researchers.

We have chosen to focus our research efforts in the areas of cardiovascular disease, oncology, genetics and molecular medicine, neurosciences with emphasis on spinal cord injury and repair, transplantation and related immunology, congenital and early childhood growth abnormalities, and public health.

These fields are being investigated at the basic science, translational and clinical levels with an emphasis on early clinical application and the evaluation of patient outcomes.

Interdisciplinary centers, such as the Institute of Cellular Therapeutics and the Institute of Public Health Research, have been developed, and the James Graham Brown Cancer Center has been reinvigorated by its new director, Dr. Donald Miller, who will lead it to a National Cancer Institute designation in the future.

These interdisciplinary programs increase collaboration of faculty from different departments in the School of Medicine, schools at the Health Sciences Center, and units at the Health Sciences Center and Belknap Campus. The latter is best demonstrated by new programs that partner the Institute of Bioengineering with the Speed Scientific School; and the Institute of Bioethics, Health Policy and Law with the Brandeis School of Law.

In addition, faculty in each of these research areas are involved in teaching our students, supporting our patients and the community, and enhancing our reputation as a leading academic health center.

Every physician is challenged daily by working in our increasingly complex health care environment. Managed care, HMOs and government programs have certainly not solved problems such as escalating health care costs and care for the indigent population.

Academic health centers continue to serve as part of the safety net to provide care for all patients. However, new models of care are needed, and these changes must be led by physicians rather than government or industry.

In this regard, we are expanding education of students in the business of medicine, and showing them new practice models such as University Physicians Group, a multispecialty group practice, and the UofL Healthcare system.

We hope some of the bright students taking our new five-year combined M.D./M.B.A. program will help solve the health care delivery and finance problems when they go into practice.

I hope you enjoy this and future issues of University of Louisville Medicine. Please keep us in your thoughts and consider us a source of support as you advance your career in this great profession.

I appreciate your continued support for the School of Medicine.

Joel A. Kaplan, M.D.
Executive Vice President for Health Affairs
and Dean, School of Medicine