April 13, 2009THE UnivErsiTy of Mississippi MEdicAl cEnTEr

CalCulating HealthCalCulating Health

rare surgery benefits athlete p. 2 The impact of stress p. 4 cio enhances communication p. 6

ith a few keystrokes in digitalHuman, a computer program developed at the

University of Mississippi Medical center, researchers can create an overweight and diabetic virtual patient, run him up a flight of stairs, give him a heart attack, then analyze thousands of moment-by-moment metricsto better understand thehuman body.

scientists at nAsA using a version of the program are predicting health problems astronauts could encounter three years into a mission to Mars.

By Jack Mazurak

conTinUEd on pAgE 7 Ò

digitalHuman simulatorprepares for blastoff

digitalHuman simulatorprepares for blastoff

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April 13, 2009

Vice Chancellor forHealth Affairs:dan Jones, M.d.

Chief Public Affairs andCommunications Officer:Tom fortner

Editor: Bruce coleman

Staff Writers:patrice sawyer guilfoyle,Jen Hospodor, Jack Mazurak, Janis Quinn, Matt Westerfield

Lead Designer:derrick dyess

Photographer:Jay ferchaud

Support Staff:lynn griffin, peggy Wagner

centerview, published every other week, isthe internal publication of the University of Mississippi Medical center, the state’s only academic health sciences center. content features news of interest for and about Medical center faculty, staff and students. content may be reprinted with appropriate credit. ideas for stories are welcome and may be submitted by e-mail to bcoleman@pubaffairs.umsmed.edu or delivered to:

division of public Affairs The University of Mississippi Medical center2500 north state streetJackson, Ms 39216-4505(601) 984-1100

Published by the Division of Public Affairs at the University of Mississippi Medical Center

For more news and information of interest to the Medical Center family,visit Medical Center News online (http://info.umc.edu/)

aleb Watene was on his way to becoming one of the top rugby players in New Zealand. He was a “winger,” a position that requires speed and agility.

But during a game when he was 15, he had an excruciatingly painful knee injury that brought him finally to Mississippi and to the surgeon

who could repair it.

Dr. Jason Craft, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery and sports medicine specialist at UMMC, says that the same kind of injury has ended the careers of many professional athletes in the U.S. and could have ended Caleb’s athletic life had the Watenes not found him.

Caleb is now back home in New Zealand after his surgery two months ago. He’s expected to make a full recovery and to regain at least some of his athletic prowess.

Caleb not only played for one of the top rugby teams in New Zealand, he has a black belt in tae kwon do, played soccer, water polo and rollerblade hockey

and is a competitive swimmer and runner.

After the initial injury in 2007, New Zealand surgeons repaired ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) tear, a common athletic injury.

But eveN aFter MoNths oF rehaB, Caleb’s knee was no stronger.

“His knee was so unstable, even walking on flat ground could make his knee feel loose,” Craft said. Caleb was in pain and couldn’t depend on the knee to support him. His father, John, took him to one of the most noted surgeons in New Zealand who told the Watenes that no further surgery was necessary.

Caleb’s parents didn’t want to stop there. It was painful to see their athletic son relegated to spectator.

Just when they thought they had run out of options, they made a “small-world” connection. A house guest told them he knew Dr. James Hughes, the former chair

of orthopedics and now director of the adult rehab center at UMMC. John sent Hughes a video that showed Caleb’s knee and the degree of its instability.

Hughes showed the video to Craft, and on the basis of what he saw in the video, Craft determined that Caleb probably had a serious (grade three) PCL (posterior cruciate ligament) injury. The good news to the Watenes was that Craft agreed to evaluate Caleb for surgery.

WheN CraFt Was FINaLLY aBLe to eXaMINe Caleb, he found that three of the four ligaments that stabilize the knee were torn or injured. Though rare, the surgery Craft suggested was one he does five to ten times a year.

With tissue from people who donate body organs, Craft made a socket in the bone where the ligaments attach and fitted the new ligaments into the sockets. “Using the cadaver tissues meant we didn’t have to take anything from Caleb’s body to create the grafts, so his recovery was much easier,” Craft said.

Had he not had the surgery, Caleb would have had no hope of returning to any sports activity, Craft said. More important, however, was that abnormal “sliding” of the knee would have led to further cartilage damage and probably arthritis at an early age.

NoW, WIth reNeWeD hoPe for Caleb’s future, his father recalls the warm welcome he and his son received here.

“I don’t think there is any way we can ever repay the people here. From the mo-ment we arrived at the airport, all through our visits to the clinics and hospital, we never saw anything but kindness,” John said.

In America, Caleb developed a fondness for basketball and Southern food classics such as chicken pot pie and cornbread – joys he wants to share with his family when they all come to visit.

”The best thing Caleb has going for him is that he is young and highly motivated,” Craft said. “He pushed hard in therapy and was very compliant with everything we asked him to do. Recovery will be a long process, but his family is great, and he wants to stay active. I think he’ll make a great recovery.”

The Kiwi ConnectionThe Kiwi ConnectionRare PCL surgery paves rugby star’s road to recoveryRare PCL surgery paves rugby star’s road to recovery

craft

physical therapist ruth Burgess helps caleb

Watene through a ligament-strengthening

exercise while his father, John,

gives encouragement..

By Janis Quinn

or 65 of his 80 years, Dr. John Jackson has used hands and intellect to build airplanes and houses, carve birds, draw and paint.

JaCksoN FouND art, or art found him, at every turn of his life. In 1943, he began taking painting and drawing lessons from a woman his mother knew in Kosciusko. It is the pieces from this period, saved by his mother, that represent the earliest work in a 65-year retrospective of Jackson’s art and crafts that will be on exhibit at the Cedars in Jackson, 4145 Old Canton Road, from April 22-May 1. The works include oil paintings, water colors, pastel drawings and wood carvings.

Jackson retired in 1992 as professor of preventive medicine and chairman of the department at the Medical Center after 30 years on the faculty. In his professional life, he was a geneticist. In addition to overseeing his department, he also ran the cytogenetics laboratory. He was an active participant in the Human Genome Project even after his retirement and conducted research into the genetic origins of neuromuscular disorders.

he DreW aND PaINteD during his undergradu-ate years at the University of Mississippi, four years of medical school at Tulane, an internship in Philadelphia, Pa., private practice in Minter City and two years in the Army. As an intern at Philadelphia General Hospital, “I spent the busiest year of my entire life going to art class once a week.” The Wannamaker Department store

offered free lessons with the purchase of materials.

He and his wife, Mary, spent a year in Uppsala, Sweden, where he completed a fellowship in genet-ics. He painted scenes of the centuries-old city and cathedral and of Viking mounds. It was there he began woodcarving, which he took up seriously only after his retirement.

During a long battle with cancer he turned to writing instead of painting – perhaps the longest he’s ever gone without painting. He says he has enough rejection slips from that period of his life to paper a wall in his house.

Jackson likes to make what his head imagines, whether it’s detailing the feathers on a bird carved in wood or building an airplane – a backyard project that required 11 gallons of glue. He flew it frequently but eventually donated it to the Air and Space Museum in Huntsville, Ala.

the NotIoN oF the eXhIBIt came to him during a period of introspection that occurred around the tragic circumstances of his brother’s death. Looking at the work he’s done in 65 years, he realized he had the story of his life in wood and on paper and canvas. But pragmatism also figured in the decision.

“I don’t have any room left for these things, and my children, nieces and nephews can only take so much.”

Exhibit showcases department chair’s life in wood, canvasFinding Art in MedicineFinding Art in Medicine

n the summer of 2005, Darius Weems, a 15-year-old with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and a group of friends left their Athens, Ga., home and embarked on a cross-country road trip. Their journey resulted in a documentary film and a

grassroots campaign to raise awareness about the fatal disease.

Later this month, Darius’ crew will visit the University of Mississippi Medical Center for a screening of the documentary, “Darius Goes West.”

In the film, Weems and his friends traveled to California in the hope of getting his motorized wheelchair customized on the MTV show “Pimp My Ride.” Along the way, the group brought attention to the need for wheelchair accessibility

in public places.

The film, which garnered 28 awards at film festivals across the nation throughout 2007, will be shown on

Thursday, April 23, in the R153 auditorium. The event will begin with hors d’oeuvre

outside the auditorium at 5:30 p.m., followed by the screening at 6 p.m.

Crew members from the film will host a question-and-answer session

immediately after the screening.

“I think it will be a great screening and will help spread the word,” said Ashley Flynt,

a fourth-year nursing student and senior class

president who helped organize the screening. “It will be the first screening at a medical center thus far.”

Duchenne’s is a type of muscular dystrophy characterized by a progressive loss of muscle function and weakness. Targeting mostly males, the disease affects an estimated one out of 3,500 nationwide. Most people with Duchenne’s do not survive past their 30s.

Last September, Weems and the same group of friends embarked on a new journey, this time with the goal of selling one million DVDs of the film in one year. Priced at $20 each,

the initiative will donate $17 of each copy sold to Duchenne muscular dystrophy research, and $3 to producing more DVDs.Kim Parker Gannon, ASB president, said Weems’ popularity among college-age students is spreading, thanks, in part, to social-networking Web sites like Facebook.

“A lot of the students here are at the age where Duchennebecomes fatal,” Gannon said. “Since we are a hospital, we thought it’d be cool to have (the crew) come here and tour the campus and help raise awareness.”

Weems will not be on hand for the screening; he is a finalist for a Do Something Award and must be in New York to participate in interviews as part of the judging process.

Award-winning documentary crew’s visit spotlights Duchenne’s

Learn more

about Darius Weems

online at

www.dariusgoeswest.org

or join the Facebook group

Darius Goes West

Comes to

Jackson.

Darius Goes South

April 13, 2009 | cEnTErVIEW

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by Matt Westerfield

by Janis Quinn

gannon

flynt

Jackson displays his wood carving of a barred owl.

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CENTERVIEW | April 13, 2009 April 13, 2009 | CENTERVIEW

It may be time to relax.

It’s not your usual prescription from an M.D., but Dr. Gailen Marshall thinks more patients would do well to receive that script.

He said stress burns its way from the mind through the body, surfacing as skin disorders, backaches, ground teeth, allergy-like post-nasal drip and other maladies.

“It’s estimated that 75 percent of all doctor visits in the U.S. – that’s all physician visits, not just to immunologists – are stress-related,” said Marshall, professor of medicine and director of the clinical immunology and allergy division at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

Greater awareness of the validity of the mind-body connection – often known as integrative medicine – can drastically improve public health, he said.

A few decades ago, doctors dismissed the notion of prescribing meditation or deep-breathing exercises. But integrative medicine is gaining momentum in academic medicine, Marshall said. And it’s evidence-based.

He said the bigger picture of stress-related study is to change public policy. According to Marshall, medical insurance coverage often shorts psychiatric care disorders. The more people recognize the mind-body connection, the quicker it will get pulled back into the mainstream of clinical care. And that will help keep people healthier.

Medical Center experts weigh in on the impact stress can have on overall health.

Teeth-grindingFeeling stressed out is bad enough, but suffering painful muscle cramps because of clenching and grinding your teeth certainly makes matters worse.

Often the pain associated with teeth-grinding is referred to as TMJ, but that’s actually the name of the joint, explained Dr. Francis Serio, professor and chairman of the Department of Periodontics and Preventive Sciences in the School of Dentistry.

TMJ stands for Temporomandibular Joint, that part of the skull where the lower jaw hinges to the cranium at either side of the face, making it possible to open and close the mouth and chew food.

“People will grind their teeth for a number of reasons, one of which is stress itself,” Serio said. “Some people notice that they’re doing it, some don’t. They might catch them-selves and stop for a while. Then start up again. There is a psychological component.”

If teeth-grinding leads to TMJ disorder, the results are painful muscle knots at the temples or inside the cheeks. The pain can be treated by massaging the temples, applying moist heat or getting a prescription for muscle relaxants.

Keep in mind, a case of TMJ disorder doesn’t necessarily mean a person has too much stress. Teeth-grinding also can occur because of problems related to occlusion, or how the upper and lower teeth come together. These include “high spots” and tooth extractions, Serio said. In both cases, wearing a bite guard to bed can ease the strain on the muscles and stop the pain.

Nervous stomachSome call it butterflies in the tummy. Others credit the condition to a “nervous stomach.” But in times of heightened anxiety, almost everyone has experienced a funny feeling in the pit of their gut. And the more intense the situation, the more the queasiness is ratcheted up.

Although the connection between stress and the stomach has long been recog-nized by medical professionals, it hasn’t always been completely understood, according to Dr. Roland F. Garretson, associate professor of medicine. He said 40-50 years ago, ulcer disease was thought to be more prevalent in “white-

collar” high-stress jobs. Subsequently, the rate of ulcer disease in “blue collar” workers has been found to be similar.

Oncology nurse Barbara Sloan says she cries just about every week and asks herself why she’s doing what she’s doing. But she always has a ready answer: “because it was done for me.”

Her father died of cancer in 1988. “His nurses had a profound impact on me.” So at 35, she

enrolled in nursing school so she could do for others what had been done for her.

Yes, dealing with cancer patients is difficult. Not all outcomes are bad; many more patients survive cancer than ever before. But an oncology nurse, who gets to know the patient and the family over the course of long and sometimes painful treat-ment, feels the pain and loss they suffer.

“Helping and supporting the families through the crisis is sometimes the most important thing we do.”

She copes with the stresses of her job with exercise (she walks three times a week) and talking to her husband.

“He’s a great listener, and is always ready to hear about my work.” —JQ

Cathy Taylor’s secret to dealing with a stressful job? Getting it right.

Taylor is director of catering (actual title: catering and client services manager) for the Medical Center. What could be more stress-ful than getting 100 perfect plates served on time and at the right temperature? Yet Taylor

says succeeding at the challenge is what makes the job reward-ing – and overall less stressful.

“Catering is all about timing,” Taylor says. “You can’t be late – that’s the worst thing – but you can’t compromise quality.

“The stress for me is making sure I don’t disappoint people. I don’t want to let people down. But I do work with a great team that I can count on. I can’t personally be at every catering event on campus, but they see that it’s done properly.”

It’s a rare day that Taylor and her staff aren’t preparing food for back-to-back events, and on those atypical days, Taylor actually gets a little bored and, yes, stressed. — JQ

After 13 years as supervisor of the Help Desk – the Medical Center’s in-house IT trouble-shooting resource – Jera Anderson

knows something about stress.

Within the last six months alone, Anderson and his team have been challenged by an institution-wide power failure that threatened to shut down life-sustaining hospital equipment and a dastardly computer virus that corrupted the campus network and imperiled hundreds of workstations.

Constantly staying on top of emerging information technology can take its toll. Anderson said he man-ages the pressure by “keeping family first.”

But to really let off steam, Anderson straps on a guitar, picks up a harmonica or settles in behind a percussion kit as front man for the Home Remedy Band.

“Playing rock and roll and taking on another persona, I can really cut loose,” said Anderson, who has performed with the band for 16 years.

“I guess you might say I like to try to pretend I’m a rock star.”

Anderson said watching people being moved by music “recharges my emotional batteries. And there’s no greater stress reliever than playing the blues.”

But he credits a healthy dose of perspective for helping him weather the most challenging information-systems issues.

As members of the Patriot Guard Riders – a group of avid motorcyclists who attend the fu-nerals of U.S. Armed Forces soldiers – Anderson and other DIS staff help provide escorts, flag lines and physical shields for grieving families against those who might protest their loved ones’ services. In the last four years, Anderson has participated in more than 50 missions, from northern Tennessee and eastern Georgia to Texas.

“When you see the grief that these fathers, mothers, husbands and wives endure with their sacrifice, the stress we encounter here is truly nothing by com-parison,” Anderson said. “When you put yourself in their shoes, you recognize just how lucky we have it here at this university.” — BC

STRESS:STRESS:

When things go wrong at the Medical Center, Ivory Bogan’s phone rings.

As director of physical facilities and real property management, Bogan oversees 351 employees: everybody from carpenters to electricians to boiler crews. His purview cov-ers the Medical Center’s well system, buildings and contracts for the shuttle service and parking-lot attendants.

Plus, he’s got the ever-problematic parking issue.

But after 36 years at the Medical Center and the last three in the director’s chair, he’s got the job – and stress management – pretty well figured out.

“When stress builds up, I just manage it away. I cut the grass, work around the house and weed eat,” he said. “I’m not a TV person. I get bored and have to have something to do.”

Since his property in Terry adjoins that of Dr. Wallace Conerly, vice chancellor emeritus for health affairs, Bogan helps out with his neighbor’s chores, too. — JM

Joseph Verzwyvelt is making his M2 year — often called the toughest stretch of medical school — look easy.

Not that anyone would know to meet him, but the last few years threw him a lot of adversity.

Hurricane Katrina interrupted his undergrad education at Louisiana State University when the storm flooded the Biloxi condo where his mother and brother lived. From Baton Rouge, he drove to Biloxi and found much of his hometown destroyed.

“You’re practically in a war zone,” he said. “Helicoptersoverhead dropping food, people fighting over ice, paranoia that somebody’s going to steal your gas. You stop and won-der, ‘Is this America?’ I didn’t sleep for three days.”

On the storm’s third anniversary, his brother, who struggled with addiction, died. That came just as Verzwyvelt faced his first round of big exams in medical school.

Since then, he’s put all that stress through the washing machine of his personal ethos: Turn around adversity, learn from it and find a way it can make you a stronger person.

Verzwyvelt volunteers, helps classmates and works out five times a week. He’s also the academic lead in his class. Volunteering, he said, always shows him how good he has it. And going into emergency medicine could give him a chance to save the life of someone like his brother.

His wife, his home, his social network and even mowing the grass all help relieve stress.

“Being married gives me a strong foundation,” he said. “You’ve got somebody there who knows you and can tell when things are getting to you. They make you more aware of what’s going on.” — JM

“Stress plays a role, but it can be very difficult to quantify or to measure,” Garretson said. “’Nervous stomach’ typically refers to irritable bowel syndrome, and the best measure is that the muscle contractions of the intestines in patients with IBS is abnormal compared to those without IBS.”

Garretson estimates as many as 70 percent of his GI patients have conditions that are caused or aggravated by stress.

“Modern conveniences have not increased our leisure time; rather, they have compressed time,” he said. “Avoid letting the tyranny of the urgent rob you of doing what is really important.”

The Psychology of StressDr. Donald Penzien, professor of psychiatry and human behavior, said most people think of major events when they think of stress, such as loss of a loved one or a job.

Those are times when people can draw from the comfort and support of family and friends and are generally afforded accommodations by acquaintances, coworkers and employers as they strive to manage their stressors.

“But what tends to be a more common issue for people combating stress are the everyday hassles, the daily kinds of grind that chip away,” he said. “When

you’re worrying about losing your job but it hasn’t happened yet. You’re wor-rying about being able to send your child to college.

“Those are the kinds of stressors for which there often is no quick resolution that tend to pile on and often can prove difficult to cope with.” Stress can manifest psychologically with internal reactions, such as negative self talk, pessimism and mood swings, Penzien said. He recommends several coping strategies, including focusing on the positive, getting appropriate sleep, healthy eating, building a support system of family and friends, taking a respite from stressful situations and taking time for leisure activities.

Joseph Verzwyvelt

Barbara Sloan Ivory Bogan

Cathy Taylor

Jera Anderson

How we’redealing with it

By Jack Mazurak, Matt Westerfield, Bruce Coleman and Patrice Sawyer Guilfoyle

Garretson

Serio

Marshall

Penzien

Stealthy foe takes many forms, extracts high priceStealthy foe takes many forms, extracts high price

harles Enicks has spent most of his career working at aca-demic health science institutions, helping them find out how computers can facilitate medical care, assist research and educate tomorrow’s health professionals.

A campus environment seems to offer Enicks the best of both worlds. He had considered applying to medical school at one time before majoring in chemical engineering and earning a master’s in biomedical engineering. He also has more than 30 years of experience in information systems, proving his affinity for computer program planning and implementation.

WheN he BegaN LookINg for his next career opportunity af-ter serving five years as senior vice president and chief information officer at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, his attention turned again to an academic medical center. His sights set on the University of Mississippi Medical Center, and as of April 1, he leads the Division of Information Systems as chief information officer.

“When I met the leadership here, I was impressed by the vision, energy and direction they were heading. The success of the new physical plant allows us to invest in the future,” Enicks said.

Born and raised in West Virginia, Enicks received the B.S. from Vir-ginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and the M.S. from the University of Virginia. His first job was director of operations for Commonwealth Clinical Systems in Charlottesville, Va.

He has worked as regional vice president for services for McKesson in New Jersey, CIO at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta and CIO at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System. Enicks also was executive vice president of Healthlink, Inc. in Houston.

hIs Career has taught hIM the value of customer service and the importance of communicating with clientsregularly, particularly at an academic medical institution.

“It’s a complex environment with multiple significant missions,” Enicks said. “They have different needs and providing services to those constituencies poses challenges.

“Our job is to meet those needs without over promising, and to complete them when we say we will.”

Dr. Scott Stringer, associate vice chancellor for clinical affairs, said Enicks’ experience provides him with a unique perspective and skill set with which to lead the reorganization of information systems.

“hIs sPeCIFIC eXPerIeNCe in implementing large, complex software systems will be invaluable to us as we embark on several such implementations in the near future,” Stringer said.

“I’m very interested in how we can help caregivers do their jobs efficiently,” Enicks said. “There’s plenty of opportunity to improve the clinician interaction with systems.”

He plans to take the next couple of months to listen to DIS employ-ees and key customers and review current programs.

“DIS has done some very good things. Now we need to develop a comprehensive plan for how we will provide systems and services for the next several years,” Enicks said.

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charles Enicks

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uMMC sCientists’ Master Code helps predict outcomes in space

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Dr. Tom Coleman, professor emeritus of physiology and biophysics, estimates between 50-100 medical schools around the world use DigitalHuman for training.

Training is one thing. But Coleman and two colleagues, Dr. Robert Hester and Dr. Richard Summers, are throwing open the doors even wider. They plan to release DigitalHuman in open-source code next month.

Coleman, also senior biomedical systems analyst in the Department of Emergency Medicine, began building digital models of the human circulatory system in the late 1960s with the late Dr. Arthur Guyton. They used off-hours computing power rented on room-sized monstrosities belonging to a hospital billing department and an area bank.

“thINk aBout WheN I FIrst starteD. The digital computer was just being invented,” Coleman said. “The integrative model, now called DigitalHuman, was started in 1985. Before that, Dr. Guyton, myself and others were building smaller models – since the available technology at that time couldn’t solve big models.”

The 1985 model offered about 150 variable traits, including respiration rate and arterial pressure. That’s now expanded to more than 5,000 variables, including liver-glucose uptake rates and hypothalamus function.

Hester, professor of physiology and biophysics, helped guide DigitalHuman and secured research funding. That’s come from agencies including NASA, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

“Over the years, Tom’s done an amazing job developing it and Richard on testing it. We realize we’ll never be done adding to it, but we’re ready to put out an open-source version,” Hester said.

The new version will let other scientists build on the program, adding their own specialties with more variables. It all but guarantees DigitalHu-man will expand as quickly as scientific knowl-edge itself.

“It’ll still be a UMMC product, but we want to open it up to the scientific community,” said Sum-mers, professor of emergency medicine.

To handle submissions from other scientists, they plan to use a system akin to Wikipedia’s.

“as the sCIeNtIFIC CoMMuNItY BeCoMes More INvoLveD, scientists could put forward modeled relationships and submit them to a library as potential add-ons to the larger program,” Summers said. “We would, of course, verify the work before adding it. But you’d have groups of scientists submitting smaller models specific to their specialties.”

At the same time, Coleman will keep adding more depth and specificity. Users recently asked for a female model so they could figure in different hormones, menstrual cycles and other variables. Coleman has completed simulation of the menstural cycle and plans other additions.

“But just going from male to female gave us the notion of traits: age, gender, adiposity, muscularity and so on. This is getting pretty close to predicting individual-specific outcomes,” he said.

With more depth, researchers globally will get more use from the program.

At NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, scientists are expanding a version called DigitalAstronaut.

Why? Because nobody’s got much data about what happens to humans biologi-cally during long space flights. Or when we live on Mars, which has three-eighths gravity. Since it’s a bit clunky to send a research facility into space, running DigitalAstronaut simulations in Ohio makes more sense.

“We’re aDDINg DePth IN areas where more detailed simulations are needed to reflect the possible outcomes of prolonged space flight,” said Dr. DeVon Griffin, DigitalAstronaut project manager.

At the moment, he’s working on detailed modules for cardio, bone turnover and renal-stone formation.

“If you go to Mars, you’re going to spend six months in flight, a year-and-a-half on the ground and six months back. We have zero data on what happens in three-eighths G, but this program could simulate it,” said Dr. Jerry Myers, technical lead on DigitalAstronaut at Glenn.

One way the different gravity would affect humans is cell absorption rate of water, Coleman said. “And you’d need to know how much water to send on a mission.”

Summers, who coordinates with NASA, said DigitalAstronaut solved some problems that confounded the agency for 20 years. Though other scientists have developed computer-simulation programs, Griffin said none are as inte-grated and comprehensive.

“The Mississippi Code is the most advanced, the most cutting-edge,” he said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is using DigitalHuman to model chemical exposures, including carbon monoxide. Previously, the EPA tracked a virtual inhalation of toluene, an industrial chemical and solvent believed to affect the nervous system.

Scientists at Stanford University programmed DigitalHuman’s respiratory compo-nent into a device that could predict optimal settings for a ventilator at a patient’s bedside. Researchers at the University of Scranton have used it to model high-altitude exercise and found its outcomes very close to human results, Hester said.

The opportunities for future uses for DigitalHuman will expand with technol-ogy and scientific knowledge.

“A hospital in Washington, D.C., wants to use it to train clinicians on treating burn victims,” Hester said. “We’ve been contacted by a lot of companies about looking into it.”

dr. richard summers, professor of emergency medicine,

received the Best Abstract Award for his presentation,

“validation of a computational platform for the Analysis of

the physiologic Mechanisms of a Human-Experimental Model

of Hemorrhage” during the sixth annual resuscitation science

symposium of the American Heart Association in new orleans.

The award recognizes the top-scoring abstract in cardiac

resuscitation science and trauma resuscitation science.

summers

Hester

coleman

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• A story in the March 30 issue of CenterView should have said the Fred McDonnell M.D. Scholarship, designated in the name of fourth-year medical student Preston McDonnell’s father, is one of three scholarships created by James and Sally Barksdale and funded by the Barksdale Family Account.

• Dr. Charles Gaymes, professor of pediatrics, was identifiedincorrectly in a photo caption in the March 30 issue of CenterView.

Upon fUrTHEr rEviEW

chief executive honors conerly

Mississippi gov. Haley Barbour presents a Medal of service to dr. Wallace conerly, vice chancellor emeritus of health affairs, for his “significant contributions” to improving the state.

improve health: start! walking

dr. dan Jones, right, vice chancellor for health affairs, leads UMMc faculty and staff on a stroll around campus as part of the American Heart Association’s start! Walking at Work day April 8. The 2009 Metro Jackson Heart Walk is oct. 25.

American democracy could simply be explained like this: People want a voice, an outlet for opinions and some input in the process.

Through an online survey opened last week, School of Medicine administrators hope to gather just that from the school’s faculty.

What for? An opportunity to voice concerns in a confidential and anonymous forum. An opportunity to have a voice in the school’s policy-setting processes. And an opportunity to improve job satisfaction. There’s also prize money.

And as one of only 25 institutions participat-ing nationwide, it could put the Medical Center in a position to shape policies for medical schools nationwide.

The confidential job-satisfaction survey comes as part of a three-year program called Faculty Forward.

“I can’t stress enough how important this survey is. We may learn things that can be used for the betterment of all schools,” said Dr. Rob Rockhold, assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs.

Dr. LouAnn Woodward, associate dean for academic affairs and chair of the Faculty For-ward task force, said the more faculty who participate, the more thorough and effective the results can be.

The survey is being administered by the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Collaborative of Academic Careers in Higher Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Initial e-mails containing a link to the survey were sent from COACHE@gse.harvard.edu to School of Medicine faculty on April 6 and reminder e-mails will continue to be sent. The survey will take 20 to 45 minutes, but it doesn’t have to be completed in one sitting.

The survey will remain open until early June. Questions can be directed to Woodward at lawoodward@som.umsmed.edu or 4-5006, or Faculty Forward at facultyforward@aamc.org or (202) 828-4796.