Pulse: A Message from Dean Joel A. Kaplan

Over the past few months the University of Louisville has conducted a search for a new president who could continue the momentum generated by the 1998 Challenge for Excellence and our vision of establishing UofL as a preeminent metropolitan research university.

I am happy to welcome such a leader, UofL's 17th president, James Ramsey, Ph.D.

Under Dr. Ramsey's leadership, we are moving full-speed ahead to complete the goals set by the Challenge. In many cases, we are not just maintaining momentum -- we are accelerating:

-- The James Graham Brown Cancer Center at UofL has received a planning grant from the National Cancer Institute to support our preparation to attain NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center status in the next three to five years.

-- The Center for Deterrence of Biowarfare and Bioterrorism, located in our School of Public Health/Health Information Sciences, was designated a National Specialty Center by the CDC. The designation follows the center's initial $1.5 million CDC appropriation, secured by U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell.

-- The Birth Defects Center at UofL, a partnership between the School of Dentistry and School of Medicine, was awarded the university's second COBRE grant, an $8.2 million award to support the work of five junior investigators conducting research on birth defects.

-- Our partners at the Louisville Medical Center Development Corp. and UofL's Information Technology Resource Center opened the newest addition to the Louisville biopark -- 201 E. Jefferson. The building will house the MetaCyte incubator, which is a "one-stop shop" for scientist/entrepreneurs growing businesses based upon their research.

Dr. Ramsey's experience as state budget director will serve the university well as it faces a potential state revenue shortfall while simultaneously working with state lawmakers for support of a third round of the "Bucks for Brains" program, a third health sciences research building and innovative education programs like the Proteomics Training Center, directed by Jon Klein, M.D.

All of these efforts work together to support our number one priority -- the students. Education remains the primary mission of the School of Medicine in the 21st century, as it has been for nearly 200 years. Today more than ever, students must be prepared for a life-long process of learning to keep up with rapid advances in biomedicine.

The "continuum of education" begins in the undergraduate years and continues through four years of medical school and subsequent graduate medical education. In addition, many of our physicians-in-training are obtaining complementary degrees in fields like public health, the business of medicine, medical management or health policy and law. This formal education must be followed by continued training for the rest of each physician's career.

To assist our students, we've established interdisciplinary programs with other schools and colleges at UofL. We've also made new technology available to advance the educational experience, such as human patient simulators that can demonstrate a wide range of disease states -- including those induced by bioterrorism. Another initiative puts PalmPilot PDAs in the hands of all medical students, providing rapid access to clinical information.

Finally, the dean's office has been reconfigured to fully integrate activities of the associate dean for student affairs, Toni Ganzel, M.D., with those of the associate dean for curriculum, Sidney Murphree, M.D.

Dr. Ganzel has enthusiastically taken on the leadership of our medical student programs while maintaining her active practice in pediatric otolaryngology. She is a great role model as well as a dynamic mentor and confidant to students in all four years of medical school.

Her student-centered agenda is designed to give future doctors a stronger foundation in key areas such as professionalism, ethics, communications skills and the complex economics of health care, while also working to improve the integration of basic and clinical sciences.

All of these activities are taking place as the continuum of medical education evolves from the prior structure of the rigid "Flexnerian Model," begun at the University of Louisville almost a century ago. Today, Abraham Flexner would not even recognize our school, with its integrated curriculum focused on hands-on learning in the Alumni Center for Medical Education -- made possible by the strong support of our graduates and good friends.

World-class researchers on our campus share their knowledge and skills with our students in laboratories, classrooms, clinics, hospital floors and Centers of Excellence at the medical center.

The leadership shown by Suzanne Ildstad, M.D., who along with some of our students formed the first Sickle Cell Association in Kentucky, is just one example of how the interactions between scientists and students further the overall academic experience at the life sciences-based research university we have created at the University of Louisville.

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