FOR ALUMNI, FRIENDS, FACULTY AND STUDENTS … to the school’s former associate dean for students,...

New PediatricMEDiC ClinicENSURING CARE FOR AN UNDERSERVED POPULATION

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Quarterly

MEDICAL SCHOOL GRADUATION p. 8

GENETIC COUNSELOR TRAINING PROGRAM p. 10

ALUMNI WEEKEND p. 14

F O R A L U M N I , F R I E N D S , FAC U LT Y A N D S T U D E N T S O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F W I S C O N S I N S C H O O L O F M E D I C I N E A N D P U B L I C H E A LT H

There’s More Online! Visit med.wisc.edu/quarterly

to be

QUARTERLY • VOLUME 17 • NUMBER 3

CONTENTS

14 Alumni Notebook

22 Alumni Profile

26 Awards

28 Spotlight

30 Faculty Profile

32 Milestones

34 Healer’s Journey

36 Connections

37 Student Life

38 Research Advances

40 Perspectives

Pediatric MEDiC ClinicNew offering at the Center for Families provides free health care for uninsured and underinsured infants and children.

Celebrate!Graduates who earned medical degrees and their loved ones have many reasons to celebrate the students’ success and outlook for the future.

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OCTOBER 2015OCTOBER 16-17 • HOMECOMING WEEKENDFriday, October 16 Reunions for Classes of 1970, ’80, ’85, ’90, ’95, 2000, ’05 and ’10

Saturday, October 17 UW vs. Purdue Football Game

NOVEMBER 2015Thursday, November 19 Green Bay Statewide Outreach Event

JANUARY 2016Wednesday, January 13 Operation Education Health Sciences Learning Center

FEBRUARY 2016Exact date and details Winter Event to be announced

APRIL 2016Friday, April 22 Scholarship Reception and WMAA Awards Banquet (details to be announced)

JUNE 2016Thursday, June 2, Medical Alumni Weekend through (details to be announced) Saturday, June 4

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Campus Scene (above)Richly colored flowers greet students as they head back to University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Genetic Counselor Training ProgramSpecially trained counselors play an important role for families.

QUARTERLY is published four times a year by the Wisconsin Medical Alumni Association (WMAA) and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH)

For editorial information, call (608) 263-4613

For address corrections and to reach the WMAA, call (608) 263-4915

E-mail us at [email protected]

Visit us on the web at med.wisc.edu/quarterly

On the CoverLeft to right: Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MSLIS, MD, and M2 Preshita Date share a book with Mychael-Oliver King, as M2 Dani Westenberg assists at the new volunteer-run MEDiC Center for Families Pediatric Clinic.

QUARTERLYThe Magazine for Alumni, Friends,

Faculty and Students of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

EDITORKris Whitman

ART DIRECTORChristine Klann

PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHERJohn Maniaci

PRODUCTIONMichael Lemberger

WISCONSIN MEDICAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION (WMAA)

EXECUTIVE DIRECTORKaren S. Peterson

EDITORIAL BOARDChristopher L. Larson, MD ’75, chair

Kathryn S. Budzak, MD ’69Patrick McBride, MD ’80, MPH

Sandra L. Osborn, MD ’70 Patrick Remington, MD ’81, MPH

Wade Woelfle, MD ’95

EX OFFICIO MEMBERSRobert N. Golden, MD, Andrea Larson,

Karen S. Peterson, Jill Watson, Kris Whitman

BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2014–2015

OFFICERSSteve Merkow, MD ’80, president

Susan Isensee, MD ’83, president-elect Ann Ruscher, MD ’91, treasurer

Donn Fuhrmann, MD ’76, past presidentJohn Kryger, MD ’92, past president

Patrick McBride, MD ’80, MPH, past president

BOARD MEMBERSKaren Adler-Fischer, MD ’80

Mathew Aschbrenner, MD ’06Mark Fenlon, MD ’84, MBA

Dirk Fisher, MD ’79Kent Haselow, MD ’92

Daniel Jackson, MD ’03Christopher L. Larson, MD ’75

Kyla Lee, MD ’98Meghan Lubner, MD ’03Gwen McIntosh, MD ’96

Kathryn E. Nixdorf, MD ’06 (national)Leon E. Rosenberg, MD ’57 (national)

John Siebert, MD ’81Alex Tucker, MD ’75

Steven Wiesner, MD ’85 (national)Michael Witcik, MD ’07

BOARD ADVISORY COUNCILKathryn S. Budzak, MD ’69

Philip Farrell, MD, PhDKay Gruling, MD ’88

Charles V. Ihle, MD ’65Thomas Jackson, MD ’67

Robert Jaeger, MD ’71Ann Liebeskind, MD ’98

Sandra L. Osborn, MD ’70Anne Schierl, MD ’57

M E S S AG E S

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RO B E RT N. G O L D E N, M D

Greetings medical alumni and friends! Over the summer, the Wisconsin Medical Alumni Association (WMAA)

staff and I miss the medical students and look forward to their mid-August return. To welcome new students, the WMAA board of directors and staff participated in their white coat fitting and presented each with a stethoscope funded by an alumnus. (Watch the next issue of Quarterly for details.) It’s rewarding and inspiring to meet so many young, vibrant students!

I extend a big thank you to those of you who funded stethoscopes for students, who greatly appreciated the gift. We look forward to connecting you with our new students at one of the many upcoming events, such as Homecoming Weekend in October, Operation Education in January and the WMAA Winter Event in February.

As you will read, we ended the 2014-15 academic year with several exciting events surrounding graduation—when we proudly welcomed the Class of 2015 into our alumni “family.” I am certain this class will stay connected to our school and the WMAA. As a tribute to the school’s former associate dean for students, Dr. Patrick McBride (Class of 1980), the graduating class established a scholarship fund in his name. It’s a wonderful way to honor him and support the generations that follow. I thank Dr. McBride for his outstanding leadership and for paving the way for the WMAA to build even closer relationships with our students—and he will continue to do so as our school’s director of alumni relations.

School spirit continued during Alumni Weekend, when the five classes reignited friendships at reunions (see page 14). All participants enjoyed a Badger Trolley tour of campus and a walking tour of Bardeen Laboratories, Service Memorial Institute

and the Medical Sciences Center. We also welcomed the Class of 1965 into our “Half-Century Society” by presenting each member with a 50-year medallion.

We are planning many fall events for alumni, donors and our medical students, including:

• Homecoming Weekend. Get out your Badger wear on October 16-17 to join us for another exciting weekend, including reunions for the Classes of 1970, ’80, ’85, ’90, ’95, 2000, ’05 and ’10. The WMAA will host a Friday night gathering at the new DeJope residence hall and a Saturday tailgate party at Union South before the Badger football game. Football tickets are available to all SMPH alumni.

• Green Bay Statewide Outreach Event. We look forward to hosting this gathering on November 19 at Lambeau Field for all of our Green Bay and Fox Valley-area alumni, donors and friends. It will highlight the SMPH’s Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine (WARM), which has clinical training sites in that area. WARM students will discuss their goals and passion for practicing in rural communities.

We also recently hosted our annual “evening of gratitude” to honor members of the SMPH’s Middleton Society, who are the school’s largest donors and closest friends. Welcome to the society’s new members! Watch for details about this event in the next Quarterly.

In closing, I want to focus on one of my favorite WMAA goals: “to ensure that every medical student will make a meaningful alumni connection.”

There are many ways in which you can help us achieve this important goal. For instance, you can serve as a resource for

students by joining our Student/Alumni Partnership Program, host a social event for students in your community, or sponsor a stethoscope for one or more of next year’s incoming students. All of these programs are featured on the WMAA web site: med.wisc.edu/alumni.

As always, please feel free to contact me with your ideas, questions and concerns. You can reach me at [email protected] or (608) 263-4913, or write to me at the Wisconsin Medical Alumni Association, 750 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI 53705. I look forward to hearing from you!

Karen S. PetersonExecutive Director, Wisconsin Medical Alumni Association

Early fall is a special time of year for us at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

(SMPH). Although our school is in full gear throughout the year, during this season, we witness the passing of several proverbial batons. As we bask in the glow of our spring graduates’ success, we welcome and orient new students and celebrate the transition of existing trainees into the next stages of their education.

Although some Quarterly readers may focus on news about our MD students and alumni, the SMPH is a very large family composed of several outstanding health sciences programs. This issue highlights the school’s Genetic Counselor Training Program, the only such program in Wisconsin, which provides a steady stream of professionals for this increasingly important health care role.

In these pages, we also feature the creation of the new student-run MEDiC Center for Families Pediatric Clinic aimed at providing free health care for uninsured and underinsured infants and children in Madison. The MEDiC system of clinics was created with support from our dear, recently departed faculty colleague Dr. Dick Anderson and his Class of 1947, as well as the SMPH and the Wisconsin Medical Alumni

Association. MEDiC brings together volunteer health professionals from several relevant disciplines, including those beyond the SMPH’s educational portfolio.

You will read about another sterling faculty member and alumnus on page 30. After 11 years of truly distinguished service as our associate dean for students, Dr. Pat McBride is “graduating” to the role of director of alumni relations for our school. In this way, he will continue to serve as a mentor, friend and connection point with the SMPH for generations of medical students who are now part of our alumni family. In addition, Dr. McBride (SMPH Class of 1980) will refocus on some of his earlier roots in academic medicine by expanding his clinical and research activities.

We share a profile of two additional outstanding alumni, Drs. Carol and Barry Rumack, who have had distinguished careers in academic medicine and celebrated more than 50 years of marriage.

We celebrated another wonderful annual rite this past spring: the presentation of the Dean’s Teaching Awards—the only peer-selected awards at our school—and the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Medical Student Research Mentorship. I presented Teaching Awards to Drs. Tabassum A.

Kennedy, Mary S. Landry, Elaine M. Pelley and James H. Stein, and the research mentorship award to Dr. Paul M. Sondel, at our Medical Education Day event.

Additionally, we share an update from an alumnus of our Internal Medicine Residency Program, Dr. Jeffrey Grossman, on the recent evolution of UW Medical Foundation and UW Hospitals and Clinics Authority—our academic group practice and primary academic teaching facility, respectively—into a fully integrated academic health system.

Speaking of transitions, loyal readers will remember the article in the last Quarterly announcing the appointment of Dr. Howard Bailey as the new director of our UW Carbone Cancer Center (UWCCC). Under his leadership, the UWCCC membership continues to accelerate the center’s growth in national recognition and state service. In this issue, you will find several updates about this “jewel in the crown” of the SMPH. For instance, our UWCCC was selected to play a major role in a special national precision medicine effort; received an American Cancer Society grant of more than $2 million to study blood, breast and colon cancers; received U.S. Department of Defense grants totalling more than $3.5 million to support prostate cancer research and clinical trials; and drew national attention when two faculty members received a highly selective honor from the National Cancer Institute’s inaugural Outstanding Investigator Award.

It is the time of year for other transitions, as well. Soon the leaves will become a beautiful tapestry of color. And as the UW-Madison community welcomes our new Badger football coach, Paul Chryst, we hope that our university’s athletic teams will enjoy another outstanding year—as they try to keep pace with the incredible growth, national recognition and honors of their UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

Robert N. Golden, MDDean, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs, UW-Madison

K A R E N S . P E T E R S O N

Third-year medical student and MEDiC volunteer Rezvaneh Ghasemzadeh prepares to examine a young patient at the new MEDiC Center for Families Pediatric Clinic.

F E AT U R E S TO RY


BY SUSAN LAMPERT SMITH

New PediatricMEDiC Clinic

P ROV I D I NG FA M I LY- C E N T E R E D C A R E FO R T H O S E I N N E E D

When curly haired Mychael-Oliver King arrived at the newest MEDiC clinic on a summer evening, his

mother was worried about the preschooler’s fever and cough. She also thought his hand might be broken.

They left the MEDiC Center for Families Pediatric Clinic with some medications to ease his fever, a referral to a primary care medical home and the reassurance that he was just double-jointed (see King’s photo on cover).

“It was a really nice experience,’’ says King’s mother, Lirio Fitz, after visiting the center, which also includes a preschool and lots of fun toys. “He likes to come here anyway because he likes the cow (statue).”

The parent educator from the Center for Families (CFF)—a nonprofit organization that provides a comprehensive array of social and support services to underserved families on Madison’s north side—visits Fitz and King at home, and she noticed that King wasn’t feeling well. She suggested a visit to the MEDiC Center for Families Pediatric Clinic, which is staffed by volunteers who provide free health care services for uninsured and underinsured patients in Madison. The

parent educator accompanied Fitz and King to their visit.

Fitz says she may have needed to take her son to the emergency department if it had not been for the clinic, which began operating in summer 2015 as the seventh official student-run MEDiC clinic and the first that focuses exclusively on pediatrics.

The clinic’s volunteer medical director, Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MSLIS, MD, assistant professor in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health’s (SMPH) Department of Pediatrics, says this positive first step is exactly what MEDiC strives to provide for patients.

“MEDiC has always been very, very clear that we’re not here for long-term care,’’ he explains. “We’re a stepping stone to the broader health care system, and we want patients to have a positive experience with someone who will listen to them and help them with a roadmap to establish a long-term medical home.”

But for all that King and his mother, as well as other patients, get from the students who run the clinic, Navsaria says the volunteer students are the ultimate beneficiaries. In addition to refining their

history-taking, physical exam and diagnostic skills, they learn to ask a series of questions that get below the surface of concerns that bring kids into the clinic. These questions may involve issues of food and housing insecurity and exposure to violence and substance abuse. The idea is to get to the estimated 40 percent of health and well-being that is determined by psychosocial factors, as modeled by the UW Population Health Institute.

For example, a child who has allergies and asthma may be living in a home with moldy carpeting that the landlord won’t replace. Navsaria hopes the interview questions will lead to that child’s family being linked with a tenants’ rights expert or a social worker who can help improve their living situation.

“Our students learn that they should be looking deeper. Really, every clinic in town should be asking these types of questions,’’ he says. “The fact is, there are lots of folks out there doing great work to help people, and this helps build bridges between non-profit services and health care professionals.”

Some newer aspects of this seventh MEDiC clinic help ensure this will happen.

—continued on next page

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Today, the seven MEDiC clinics—which are fully staffed by volunteers—receive some financial support from the UW School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) administration, but the majority of the clinics’ funding comes from private gifts.

The SMPH and the Wisconsin Medical Alumni Association provided early funding to help establish the MEDiC clinics. In 2005, the

late Richard B. Anderson, MD ’47—a professor emeritus of psychology and pediatrics at the SMPH—encouraged his classmates to direct their class fund to create a permanent endowment to support the MEDiC clinics. The Anderson-Roberts/Class of ’47 Fund now provides a portion of the annual operational expenses for the seven volunteer student-run MEDiC clinics that provide free health care

for uninsured and underinsured patients in Madison. This fund helps pay for medications, equipment, office supplies, meeting expenses and volunteer physician recognition.

If you would like to support MEDiC and its volunteer-run clinics, please visit www.supportuw.org/giveto/medic. For more information, contact Jill Watson at (608) 206-6092 or [email protected].

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enough slots for all the health professions students who want to participate. In addition to medical students, MEDiC clinics serve as training grounds for students from the SMPH’s Physical Therapy and Physician Assistant Programs and those from UW-Madison’s Schools of Nursing and Pharmacy.

Navsaria says the bountiful enthusiasm of students for MEDiC speaks well of their commitment to their profession.

“Remember that these students are taking on MEDiC work on top of their class load when they are preclinical students,” he says. “And their main complaint is that they can’t get enough shifts.”

The first MEDiC clinic opened in 1991. The MEDiC Center for Families Pediatric Clinic joined existing clinics that include:

• Grace Clinic at the Porchlight Men’s Shelter at Grace Episcopal Church on the Capitol Square;

• Salvation Army Clinic at the Salvation Army Family and Women’s Shelter on East Washington Avenue;

• South Side Clinic at the Access Community Health Center Erdman Clinic on South Park Street;

• Safe Haven Mental Health Clinic at Porchlight’s facility on Nakoosa Trail;

• Michele Tracy Preventative Health Clinic at Porchlight’s North Brooks Street facility; and

• Madison Dental Initiative Clinic located in the Salvation Army on East Washington Avenue.

Navsaria says support from the SMPH administration and alumni is gratifying, noting that he helped establish a free student-run clinic when he was attending medical school in Illinois, but because it was not supported, students had to operate independently, working with volunteer physicians and community partners.

“Then I came here and found that the SMPH already had six clinics up and running, and the school is proud of them and advertises them,’’ he says. “This kind of commitment is part of what led the SMPH to earn the Spencer Foreman Community Service Award in 2013.”

Navsaria concludes, “This is the Wisconsin Idea. This is what the University of Wisconsin should be doing!”

First, before a child’s physical exam, students go through a psychosocial survey with his or her parents, asking about broad issues that could be affecting health. After the students and a clinician adviser examine the child, they meet with a CFF social worker to share what they’ve learned and to explore what other assistance the family may need.

Finally, students record the encounter in MEDiC’s electronic record, called the Patient Encounter Document. The document allows the record to be stored electronically so the patient’s history is available if subsequent visits occur. Moreover, it allows MEDiC volunteers and CFF staff to best identify, coordinate and track social service and health care referrals for the patient.

The MEDiC Center for Families Pediatric Clinic had its beginnings when Navsaria was working with CFF staff on other medical education efforts, and CFF staff mentioned that many families they serve are disconnected from medical care. The

CFF serves about 4,000 people per year, including 800 children in its respite care program. About 85 percent of the families live at or below the federal poverty level.

Navsaria worked with Madeline Duffy, MPH ’12—the now-former director of SMPH Community Service Programs, which oversees MEDiC—to write a grant proposal to start the clinic. In May 2015, they won a three-year, $38,427 Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment Grant to support MEDiC and the Center for Families Pediatric Clinic. The funding, which started in July 2015, helped pay the costs to launch an electronic referral system to complement the Patient Encounter Document and to incorporate social work into the MEDiC Center for Families Pediatric Clinic.

“Integrating social work into MEDiC’s care model is an invaluable opportunity to better serve our patients and further teach students the power of interprofessional teamwork to address the multitude of other nonclinical

factors directly affecting our patient’s health,’’ says Duffy, who is now working on a doctoral degree in public health at the City University of New York’s School of Public Health.

Sharing that philosophy, second-year SMPH medical student and clinic coordinator Dani Westenberg says she likes the fact that CFF staff—who know the families well—accompany them to clinic visits.

“These staff members are instrumental in the communications between the students and the families because they already have a relationship with them,’’ she says. “They know about each family’s home life, who is raising the children, what adults are present in the home, and all those factors that contribute to the health and development of children.”

Some of those factors might also play a role in why the children, most of whom are covered by the state’s medical assistance program or other insurance, have not had a regular source of medical care.

“Our goal is to prevent people from feeling that their only way to access health care is to visit the emergency room,’’ Westenberg explains.

CFF social worker Fay McClurg, MSSW ’82, LISW, says that CFF families praise the students and the care they give.

“For some families, this is the first time they feel they’ve been heard when they are seeking care for their children,’’ she says. “They are used to having their input discounted, but the students make them feel empowered and engaged in their children’s health care.”

In fact, the only complaint about the newest MEDiC clinic is that there aren’t

An innovative program that “prescribes” book-sharing in families with young children is being expanded to all UW Health pediatric and family medicine clinics. As of summer 2015, the Reach Out and Read Program is running in 19 clinics and will eventually reach 28 locations. Besides supporting Reach Out and Read in its clinics, UW Health is a major sponsor of Reach Out and Read Wisconsin, the program’s statewide presence, comprising

154 participating clinics, up from about 50 clinics when it was founded nearly five years ago.

“I like to say, ‘Books build better brains,’” says Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MSLIS, MD, a UW Health pediatrician and the medical director of Reach Out and Read Wisconsin. “UW Health recognizes that the cognitive health of children is critical for their lifelong health and an important part of how we provide care.”

The program trains and supports clinicians who provide books to children ages 6 months through 5 years during well-child visits. Fifteen independent, peer-reviewed, published studies show that children who participate in Reach Out and Read have language scores three to six months ahead of peers who are not exposed to the program.

The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a 2014 policy statement recommending that health care providers encourage families to share books with children beginning at birth.

Navsaria explains that handing a book to a child can be a better tool than

a laundry list of questions for parents during well-child visits.

“I learn a lot about young children in just a few moments by handing them a developmentally, culturally and language-appropriate book,” shares Navsaria. “Depending on how they react to and handle the book, I’ve learned several things about that child’s development and whether he or she is exposed to reading.”

More than a book giveaway, the program leverages the trusted relationship between parents and their children’s health care providers to support and encourage activities that spur good brain development.

“Encouraging children to read is just as important as vision checks and immunizations,” exclaims Navsaria. “If I had to pick, I’d rather walk into a clinic visit without a stethoscope than without a book. It’s not just a book. It’s a medical tool, an intervention and a source of delight, all in one.”

SMPH Leadership and Alumni Support MEDiC Clinics

Reach Out and Read Program Expands

MEDiC volunteers (left to right) M3 Rezvaneh Ghasemzadeh, M3 Andrea Suarez Rodriguez and M2 Preshita Date work at the MEDiC Center for Families Pediatric Clinic.

Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MSLIS, MD (left), listens while Annie Chiles reads to her son Theo Chiles Mlatawou.

There’s More Online!Visit med.wisc.edu/46611

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Large photo (left to right): Maggie Moses and Hannah Miller enjoy the sunshine on graduation day; small photos, clockwise from top left: Cynthia Haq, MD, and Greg Thompson, MD, look on as David Walsh receives an honorary plaque for his devotion to the SMPH; Marvin Dingle is the class speaker; Nicholas Cozzi, PhD, assists Shola Vaughn with her hood; students receive gifts from the WMAA; Claire Flanagan will always remember Bucky Badger; Ann Tran, Dingle and Jamie Goehner flash the “W” sign; Joshua Fast, Pat McBride, MD ’80, MPH, and Lacey Fast pose for a photo; Faraz Ghoddusi and his daughter Mona celebrate Ghoddusi’s graduation.


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PHOTOS BY TODD BROWN

Celebrate!F U T U R E P H YS I C I A N S R E V E L I N T H E I R ACH I E V E M E N T S

As the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) Class of 2015 graduated from medical school,

Dean Robert Golden, MD, lauded its members’ success and future plans—including a range of residencies in line with the school’s mission of fostering comprehensive health care for all.

“The class performed exceptionally well, demonstrating excellence in academics, research and service,” he noted, adding that some engaged in research at leading centers throughout the world and most participated in service-learning experiences.

“These physicians are prepared to provide outstanding leadership and community service across the broad spectrum of medicine and population health,” shared Golden during the May 15, 2015, ceremony at Union South.

Graduates also heard from guest speaker Sam Lubner, MD ’03, assistant professor in the SMPH Department of Medicine, and class speaker Marvin Dingle, who graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. Known for his empathy, sense of humor and selflessness, he will resume military service in orthopedics.

School leaders also honored two individuals who have made a big difference for the SMPH: David Walsh and Pat McBride, MD ’80, MPH.

Golden named Walsh an “honorary professor of medicine and public health” for his tireless, unselfish work on behalf of the school through his leadership roles in the Shapiro Foundation, UW Hospitals and Clinics Authority Board and UW System Board of Regents.

McBride ended his 11-year run as the SMPH associate dean for students and became the director of alumni relations (see page 30).

An outdoor reception, co-sponsored by the school and the Wisconsin Medical Alumni Association, completed the celebration.


Sonja Henry, MS ’02, a genetic counselor, works with a family so they can better understand their baby’s inherited condition.



BY IAN CLARK

Genetic Counselor Training Program

ST U D E N T S L E A R N H OW TO S E RV E PAT I E N T S W H I L E

NAV I G AT I NG A N E V E R- CH A NG I NG F I E L D

Many expected the Human Genome Project to cause a revolution far beyond the field of genetics—into

economics and culture—and thought the 13-year, $3 billion international research endeavor would allow us to understand and control viruses, identify the root causes of cancers, advance forensics, create better crops and update anthropology tools to get a better view of our evolutionary path.

However, in 2003, after the human genome map was deemed complete, we learned that our genes aren’t merely a blueprint for the body’s control system. In fact, genetics researchers still are working to unravel their function. What do these segments of nucleotides do, and how do they do it?

These questions perplex scientists and demonstrate the vast amount of information geneticists must learn. Other more personal questions stymie parents whose babies are born with gene-related conditions, many of which cause physical and developmental differences that may significantly impact function. They simply want to know what is happening to their children.

With a passion in this area—years earlier than the Human Genome Project—Joan Burns, MS ’57, MSSW ’73, felt strongly that families deserved to know why some infants are born with gene-related conditions and wanted to make sure families had the support and resources necessary to deal with the emotional and financial impact of these conditions. Calling upon her science and social work background and leadership skills, she founded and became the first director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Genetic Counselor Training Program, now housed in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH).

In 1976, the first trainees entered the program, which combines advanced education in human, molecular and medical genetics with skills and experience in counseling. It teaches students how to become translators of complex medical information for parents of children who

have genetic conditions such as cystic fibrosis or Down syndrome, and for adults whose background includes risk factors for hereditary conditions.

The Genetic Counselor Training Program was the first such program in the Midwest and about the seventh in the United States.

“Having a child with a significant disability undoubtedly fueled Burns’ passion,” explains Casey Reiser, MS ’80, who earned her bachelor’s degree in genetics at UW-Madison and her master’s degree from the program she has directed since Burns retired in 2000.

Genetic counselors call upon both art and science to fulfill a compassionate role for families and must embrace working in an ever-changing field. Students enter the program after they earn degrees in programs such as biology, genetics, nursing, psychology, public health or social work.

For instance, after she earned a bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor

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Prospective students often ask Reiser whether the program is more science-based or psychosocially oriented. The two attributes—educating while counseling—go hand-in-hand, like a duet of listening and teaching.

“Whether you’re a teacher talking to high school students or a counselor talking to a family about the BRCA gene, it’s all in the spirit of education,” explains Reiser. “That’s a huge part of the training. We look at adult education models, health literacy and numeracy, and other facets of communicating technical information so patients and families can understand the information and make decisions based on their unique circumstances.”

Candidates accepted into the Genetic Counselor Training Program must have participated in activities related to counseling or advocacy that demonstrate their interpersonal skills and ability to build strong one-to-one relationships. This type of background helps prospective students fully understand what it means to participate in a professional “helping” relationship, Reiser notes.

Adamsheck gained this type of experience during college by working in adult foster care homes for individuals with mental illness and as a women’s advocate in a domestic violence shelter.

“‘Soft skills’ are just as important as ‘hard skills,’” explains Reiser, adding that the best way for students to understand what patients and families really need is by working with individuals who have a genetic condition, chronic illness or intellectual challenge.

To underscore this, the SMPH Genetic Counselor Training Program is the only such program in the United States to require all students to participate in the national-level Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) Program; one such program is available at the UW-Madison Waisman Center. Developed to support long-term, interdisciplinary training, this program aims to improve the health of infants, children and adolescents with disabilities by preparing trainees to assume leadership roles in their field, ensuring high levels of clinical competence.

Collectively, the nation’s 43 LENDs share information and resources to maximize their impact. Together, they address national issues of importance to children with special health care needs and their families.

At the Waisman Center, a particularly meaningful LEND activity matches students with the family of a child with developmental disabilities for a semester to participate in routine family activities like going to the grocery store. Students learn firsthand about the challenges of taking a child with significant physical or behavioral problems to a store, such as how they get to and through the building. It becomes clear that a “quick trip to the store” is not possible for everyone.

Students see how other people act around the family and child, how parents may have to handle the child’s outburst in a public place, and the unique circumstances related to outings to school events, explains Reiser, adding that students gain a lot when they are able to visit a family at home, where they learn things one cannot get from a book. Perhaps most importantly, notes Reiser, they learn that their mentor families are similar to other families in most ways, despite their challenges.

Because this profession changes so rapidly, the training program is preparing professionals for an always-evolving workplace. Its students gain ample exposure to highly developed medical specialties such as cardiology, oncology, ophthalmology and prenatal care, in addition to working directly with clinical geneticists.

“We stress education skills, interprofessional and interpersonal skills, and critical-thinking skills that students need to complement the content they learn,” says Reiser. “Our students become lifelong learners.”

And as genetics has come to the fore in health care, counselors have more direct encounters with health care delivery systems, such as working with and influencing insurance companies that genetic and genomic testing is important and valuable.

Calling upon his 25-years of experience in this field, David Wargowski, MD ’85, says, “Genetic counselors have been on the vanguard of working with insurance

companies and providing the rationale for convincing them to authorize and cover the cost of genetic testing. It’s a huge challenge right now because we’re poking into new areas, and we must explain how an innovative test that costs several thousand dollars is going to help improve medical care for the individual.”

It certainly helps that sequencing a genome today costs about $2,000 rather than the higher price tags seen in the past. But as tests become more common, insurance representatives still need to know they’re saving money and improving care with a test rather than crossing their fingers.

“One of our roles is to generate enough data to demonstrate that these tests are valuable and that they actually do what we presume they will do. This allows us to streamline preventive care and save money through various means, ideally by improving the quality of care over time,” explains Wargowski, who is a professor in the SMPH Department of Pediatrics and a pediatric geneticist at American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison.

The SMPH Genetic Counselor Training Program has one of the best reputations in the nation in terms of graduates’ success. All members of the program’s Class of 2014 landed jobs in the field within one month of graduation, and the Class of 2015 has entered an equally good job market.

Adamsheck, who will graduate in spring 2016, reflects, “As we continue to learn more about the impact of genetics on our health, this field has become integral to all aspects of health care. We now have access to a wealth of genetic information that can help us stay healthy. It is important for patients to actively investigate their health, and it’s vital that someone is there to help them navigate the process.”

And while scientists continue researching this complex system of genetic blueprints, regulators and co-regulators that are impacted by exercise, diet, the environment and hereditary factors, it takes uniquely trained counselors to help explain it—especially because the genetic map impacts both current and future generations.

in Spanish, Hallee Adamsheck entered the SMPH Genetic Counselor Training Program. The Minnetonka, Minnesota, native had learned about genetic counseling through experiences with hereditary cancer in her family, shadowed genetic counselors and participated in a bioinformatics research project using next-generation gene-sequencing technology.

“I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to continue my education in this program and appreciate its interdisciplinary focus and emphasis on both the scientific context of disease and emotional needs of patients and families,” says Adamsheck.

Noting that she was honored to receive the Joan Burns Scholarship, Adamsheck says, “I share Ms. Burns’ belief that genetic counseling is integral to each family’s experience processing the complex information that accompanies a genetic diagnosis. Like her, my experiences have driven my passion toward helping families navigate through these experiences. I am thrilled to make my dream of becoming a genetic counselor a reality.”

Calling upon the information provided through the Human Genome Project, genetic counselors distill test results, histories and exams into something meaningful for each family, and that has only gotten more complex, says Reiser. A genetics test can’t be interpreted by reading a piece of paper; it must be done in the context of a patient’s clinical history, physical examination and other laboratory tests. Clinical decision making—particularly the gut-wrenching decisions some parents must make—is extremely difficult.

Similarly, technology has made clinical training much harder, Reiser notes. Unlike the wheel, the automobile and the computer chip, the Human Genome Project offered no immediate advantage. Instead, it resulted in more ambiguity and many more questions.

Adamsheck adds, “Genetics is unique in that the information a patient learns generally impacts his or her entire family. Sharing this information and dealing with its implications can be a difficult process, and genetic counselors are trained to help patients face those challenges. Genetic counselors also

are key players in interdisciplinary health care teams, because we are able to use our expertise in genetic concepts to help other health care professionals understand things like the implications of a family history, the appropriate genetic test to order or the significance of a test result.”

Reiser says she learned about molecular genetics as a practicing counselor because it was new at the time and was not part of her undergraduate or graduate training.

“Today’s students get that as part of their training,” she says, adding that molecular genetics courses are recommended for undergraduate students who are considering this field. “And while there are many ways to learn this type of thing, the hardest part is converting that content into practice. It requires discussion, personal reflection and integration.”

As of 2015, six students are accepted into the competitive 21-month program each year, up from five per year in the past. While trainees certainly must master genetics, they also need to learn how to be an educator and a counselor.

David Wargowski, MD ’85, a professor in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health’s Department of Pediatrics and a pediatric geneticist at American Family Children’s Hospital in Madison, takes the phrase “outlying communities” to a new level. His dedication to serving patients and their families outside the Madison area recently earned him formal recognition from UW Health and a hospital quite a distance up U.S. Interstate 41.

In summer 2015, Wargowski earned a Physician Excellence Award from UW Health and a “Living Our Mission

Award” from St. Vincent Hospital in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The quarterly Living Our Mission Award honors a colleague, leader, physician or volunteer who exemplifies the hospital’s values of respect, care, competence and joy in providing service to its patients, visitors and staff. According to St. Vincent Hospital’s administrators, the award recognizes someone who routinely goes above and beyond expectations for service to his or her teammates and the hospital’s customers.

“We consider it a blessing that Dr. Wargowski is willing to travel to Green Bay to see families who might otherwise not have access to genetics

services,” says Theresa Shuck, MS, a genetic counselor at St. Vincent.

Since 1990, Wargowski has traveled about eight to 12 times per year to Green Bay to work with a busy team of genetic counselors. He makes diagnoses and medical recommendations to help patients and their physicians manage their conditions. While some of this can be done from a distance, many patients need direct physical examinations to ensure that Wargowski can provide the best services, he explains.

In addition to Green Bay, Wargowski and fellow geneticists have developed outreach clinics in Ashland, Rhinelander, Racine, Neenah and Appleton, Wisconsin.

Awards Honor Wargowski’s Dedication


A L U M N I N OT E B O O K

Alumni Weekend EVOKES UNFORGETTABLE MEMORIES AND FRIENDSHIPS

With summer in full bloom, the grand University of Wisconsin-Madison campus provided a

picturesque backdrop for the June 2015 Medical Alumni Weekend for graduates of the UW School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH).

The festivities began with a Thursday evening Dean’s Reception at the Fluno Center. Alumni and students socialized before members of the Classes of 1950 and ’60 and their guests gathered for reunion dinners. With the recent inception of the Wisconsin Medical Alumni Association (WMAA) Half-Century

Society, all alumni who graduated 50 years ago or more were welcome to join in the celebration.

WMAA President Steven Merkow, MD ’80, greeted alumni, student ambassadors and WMAA President-Elect Susan Isensee, MD ’83, as well as several WMAA past presidents. Dean Robert Golden, MD, welcomed alumni “back home” and updated them on school and university news.

Golden also presented the annual Brown Derby Awards, noting their significance as a tribute to the iconic Dean William S. Middleton, MD. At the

beginning of each semester, Middleton purchased a felt brown derby and kept it close at hand during lectures. If a student responded inadequately to a question, Middleton would throw the derby across the room with the directive that the student wear it until the next ill-prepared student merited the honor. At the final teaching session of the year, he presented the derby to a student in recognition of superior performance.

This symbol has since become the SMPH and WMAA’s way to recognize alumni classes that have outstanding performance records in the Annual Giving

Campaign. This year, Golden presented awards to the Class of ’75 for the largest amount contributed, the Class of ’57 for the largest percent of participation and the Class of ’14 for the largest number of donors.

The next morning, Alumni Weekend participants took a UW-Madison tour aboard the Badger Trolley. While enjoying Madison’s beautiful weather, alumni viewed the ever-changing campus as third-year medical student Jon Scholl narrated the trip. Popular stops included the Medical Sciences Center, where alumni visited the Anatomy Lab, and Bardeen

Laboratories, along with guide Ed Bersu, PhD, emeritus professor of neuroscience.

A special “mini medical school” session for alumni featured “Reversing Heart Disease—New Guidelines, New Treatments” by Pat McBride, MD ’80, MPH, associate director of Preventive Cardiology at UW Health and a professor in the SMPH Department of Medicine and Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. He also is the school’s new director of alumni relations (see page 30).

With McBride’s blessing, participants enjoyed ice cream from UW-Madison’s Babcock Dairy at a reception.

On Saturday evening, the Class of 1965 enjoyed their celebration and reunion dinner at the new Edgewater, which offers sweeping views of Lake Mendota. Class members shared memories of medical school and updates about their lives since then, and Merkow presented classmates with their 50-year medallions.

Following dinner, the Class of ’65 joined with the Class of ’75 for a dance and social time at the Edgewater, as they enjoyed the sunset over Madison’s largest lake.

Capping off the weekend, many alumni took in the sights around Lake Mendota during a Betty Lou boat tour on Sunday.

Opposite page, clockwise from top (left to right): Lake Mendota from the Edgewater; Henry Schwartz, MD ’65, and Donald Muth, MD ’65, catch up; Anne Schierl, MD ’57, Dean Robert Golden, MD, and Steve Merkow, MD ’80, celebrate the Brown Derby Awards; alumni visit a classroom. Above, clockwise from top left: Susan Behrens, MD ’75 (center), talks with physical therapy students; alumni check out their old stomping grounds; the Badger Trolley; Harvey Wichman, MD ’65 (with 50-year medallion) poses with Merkow.


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ReunionsA L U M N I N OT E B O O K

C L A S S O F

1 9 5 0Left to right: Robert Starr, Ilse Judas, Erwin Huston.

C L A S S O F

1 9 6 0Front row (left to right): Bill Yount, Frank Murray, Carol Young, Mary Herman Rubinstein, Paul Gohdes, Paul McLeod. Back row: Allan Kind, Leonard Stein, Dennis Fancsali, Stanley Miezio, Marvin Birnbaum.

C L A S S O F

1 9 6 5Front row (left to right): John Chandler, Joel Teplinsky, Donald Muth, Jim Esswein, Neal Melby. Back row: Charles Ihle, Allen Plotkin, Norman Jensen, Harvey Wichman, John Drye, Janet Hoveland.

C L A S S O F

1 9 7 5Front row (left to right): Christopher Larson, Ed Cody, Nancy Herrell, Susan Behrens, Richard Foltz, Alex Tucker, Don Hassemer, Mike Meythaler. Back row: Bruce Hanson, Keith Ness, Warren Gall, Daniel Herrell, David Klehm, Murray Katcher, Richard Wagner, Marc Rasansky, Cary Sternick, Errol Segall, Paul Harkins, Warren Bilkey.

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“On Call”Three neurological

surgeons tell Quarterly

what they’ve been up to

I am an assistant professor in neurosurgery and otolaryngology at Mayo Clinic

in Rochester, Minnesota.In my cranial surgery

practice, my primary focus is open and endoscopic skull base, and I do some deep-brain stimulation (DBS), all as part of a multidisciplinary team. I have an active epilepsy practice which crosses over with DBS, and we have a trial of anterior nuclear stimulation combined with hippocampal recording.

As a medical student, I recall a 4-year-old patient presenting with bilateral sixth nerve palsies. The physicians—

Drs. Bermans Iskandar (pediatric neurosurgery) and Behnam Badie (adult neuro-oncology)—expertly evaluated the patient and delivered an excellent but complex multidisciplinary treatment plan for a difficult clival chordoma. The patient did very well. Prior to this, I had been interested in a different field of medicine, but watching this case evolve—with the beautiful anatomy and challenging treatment—got me hooked into neurosurgery. I took a break and did a Howard Hughes fellowship with Dr. Herbert Chen in the Division of General Surgery. Ultimately,

I committed to neurosurgery during my fourth year of medical school.

I did my residency at Mayo Clinic in Rochester and completed a fellowship in complex cranial and skull base surgery at the University of South Florida in Tampa Bay.

I believe I have the best job in the world. Although the hours are long and the work challenging, it is worth it. Neurosurgeons get to save lives regularly. The rewards are many, including the beautiful anatomy in skull base and seeing patients’ quality of life improve substantially with

DBS. However, as one of my mentors, Dr. John Atkinson, explains, “In neurosurgery, the highs are so very high, and the lows can be so very low.” Those who choose this field need to be prepared for that contrast; it is not for the faint of heart.

I am a fifth-year neurosurgery resident at University of Wisconsin Hospital and

Clinics, where I am doing a one-year neuroendovascular fellowship enfolded into my residency. I care for adults and children who have surgical problems of the brain, spine and peripheral nerves. Recently, I have been focusing on surgery through the blood vessels to treat strokes, aneurysms and vascular malformations.

While nearly every case seems memorable, the surgeries that stand out the most show me anatomy I never thought I would see.

For instance, when working endoscopically through the nose, we drilled laterally to the pterygopalatine fossa, which is difficult to reach. In that moment, I entirely understood the anatomy of that little bony space. It felt like a real accomplishment.

This field unites two almost opposing forces: the astonishingly beautiful anatomy of the nervous system and the intense human suffering that comes when the system malfunctions. My job, both in its good and its bad, amplifies my life; I wouldn’t trade this for anything.

I am a resident member of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, and also a research fellow for the National Institutes of Health StrokeNet.

In medical school, I did not know what I wanted to do, but I realized what I wanted to learn. Neuroanatomy never felt like a chore; it was more of an adventure. The microcosm of neurosurgery has become the central focus in my life. The field comes with good and bad, joy and pain, and all the rest that you can imagine. However, I can’t imagine my

life without it. I more or less wandered into neurosurgery on a whim, and I have received more from the field than I could have ever asked for. My advice for anyone interested in this specialty? Don’t be intimidated.

Since completing my residency in the Department of

Neurological Surgery at UW Hospital and Clinics, I have practiced at Cleveland Clinic. For the first two years, I did fellowships in cerebrovascular and endovascular neurosurgery, and I was invited to join the faculty. This is a wonderful place to practice, and we care for patients from all over the world who have a wide range of conditions.

My practice is exclusively cerebrovascular. Most of my patients have cerebral aneurysms and arteriovenous malformations, and a smaller percentage have cavernous

malformations and spinal vascular lesions. Some are best approached with microsurgery, and others with endovascular techniques.

My most memorable patient was a 7-year-old girl who presented with lethargy caused by multiple cranial neuropathies, including a giant cavernous malformation of her pons. Her parents were devastated watching her slowly fade away. We resected the lesion, and in eight weeks she was back competing in ballet. That kind of success makes a career worthwhile.

I became interested in this field after rotating on the neurosurgery service with

Dr. Greg Trost when I was a third-year medical student and he was the junior resident. I immediately found it very satisfying to treat major, life-threatening diseases.

Early in my career, I served as a member at large and vice chair of the Joint Section of Cerebrovascular Surgery. For the past five years, I have participated in the Society of Neurointerventional Surgery, and I am now its president. It has been an honor and privilege to help develop the specialty for the benefit of patients.

I believe there is no higher satisfaction than being trusted by a patient to operate on his

or her brain. I cherish that privilege, and patients’ trust continually drives me toward excellence in delivering the best possible experience and outcome that I can for them.

JAMIE J. VAN GOMPEL, MD ’05

CHRISTOPHER BAGGOTT, MD ’10

PETER RASMUSSEN, MD ’91UW Health neurosurgeons participate in a delicate procedure.

20 VO L U M E 1 7 • N U M B E R 3 21QUA RT E R LY

We want to hear from you!med.wisc.edu/shareyournews

C L A S S O F

2 0 0 5Brett Rusch joined White River Junction

(Vermont) Veterans Affairs Medical Center as the chief of the mental health and behavioral science service, as well as an assistant professor of psychiatry at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine in New Hampshire. For the past six years, he directed inpatient and intensive outpatient mental health services at the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital in Madison. He was an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH), where he received the Department of Psychiatry’s Excellence in Resident Education Award for three consecutive years.

C L A S S O F

1 9 8 4Steven O’Marro was recently named

a “Medical Innovator” by the Sangamon County Medical Society in Springfield, Illinois, for his work implementing new treatments for hepatitis C and clostridium difficile. He practices infection disease and foreign travel medicine at Springfield Clinic.

C L A S S O F

1 9 7 7Michael Nesemann has served in

the U.S. Foreign Service for 26 years, 20 of which were overseas. He is one of five regional medical managers. Posted in Frankfurt, Germany, he is responsible for medical oversight of all the U. S. Embassy Health Units in Europe and North Africa. The photo at right shows Nesemann and his wife, Susan Nesemann (BSN ’78, NP ’83), near one of the thousands of bunkers that dot the landscape in Albania.

C L A S S O F

1 9 7 3Ludwig Alexander Lettau has been

in infectious disease private practice for 30 years. He and his wife, Lisa Lettau, live in Summerville, South Carolina, and have four children: Laura, age 35; Thomas, 28; Alexandra, 8; and Delaney, 6. Under the pen name Alex Lettau, he published an infectious disease thriller novel, “Yellow Death,” available from Amazon.com. It is based in part on his experiences as a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist in viral hepatitis and a medical missionary. Plot: DEA conspirators mix lethal Venezuelan hepatitis virus into heroin as a new abuse deterrent. An accidentally infected investigator has five days to uncover the plot and save herself.

C L A S S O F

1 9 7 1Robert Folsom retired from his internal

medicine practice at Marco NCH Healthcare Center in Marco Island, Florida. More than 150 of his grateful patients and many NCH dignitaries gathered to bid him farewell at a celebration at the health care center. Folsom and his wife, Nancy Folsom, arrived on Marco Island 38 years ago, after he served for three years in the U.S. Army in San Antonio, Texas.

C L A S S O F

1 9 6 7Tom Jackson received the Wisconsin

Medical Society’s Presidential Citation Award to recognize his work with the Bread of Healing Clinic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and its team-focused approach to patient care. The clinic provides free medical services, dental care and pharmaceuticals to people without health insurance. It has grown significantly in 15 years, from seeing 150 patients in its first year to about 3,600 annually. Hundreds of volunteers comprise the patient care team. Jackson not only volunteers as a clinician, but also has served in various roles on the clinic’s board of directors; today, he is the chair of the clinic’s board of development committee.

C L A S S O F

1 9 6 3Conrad Andringa retired on July 1,

2015, after almost 50 years of practice at Dean Clinic in Madison. The longest-serving physician in Dean Clinic’s history, Andringa was the 22nd provider to formally join the original Dean Clinic physician group.


C L A S S NOT E S compiled by Andrea Larson

G O O D BY E D E A R F R I E N D : WA LT E R H . B U RG D O R F, M D ’ 6 9

Walter H. Burgdorf, MD ’69—an active, beloved alumnus of the University of Wisconsin School

of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) and world expert on dermatological conditions and skin cancer—died on May 28, 2015, in his hometown of Tutzing, Germany.

His career included clinical practice; pathological services; academic leadership; and prodigious medical writing, editing and translating.

Despite the distance, Burgdorf maintained a strong connection with the SMPH. As a class representative, he helped plan many reunions and attended all of his class reunions. He counted numerous SMPH faculty members and classmates as friends.

As explained in a fall 2012 Quarterly article about Burgdorf, World War II caused a profound uprooting in his early life.

“I was born in Chemnitz, an industrial town in Germany, in 1943,” he said at that

time. “My mother, an American citizen, and I left Germany on the first boat carrying civilians from Europe back to the U.S. My father, a German chemical company executive, followed a few years later. We wound up living in Shorewood, Wisconsin, where I went to high school.”

In 1970, the year after he earned his medical degree from the SMPH, he was sent to Germany while serving as a general medical officer with the U.S. Army. He met his wife, Dorothee, there; they eventually moved to the U.S. and back to Germany.

After completing a dermatology residency in Minnesota and a dermatopathology fellowship, he worked with Juan Rosai, MD, a world-renowned surgical pathologist, to pioneer a unique tumor detection process.

He served on the faculties of the University of Oklahoma, University of New Mexico and Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. He also established a private

dermatopathology practice there. Over time, he stopped practicing medicine to concentrate on medical writing, editing and translating.

“We will sincerely miss Dr. Burgdorf. He stayed very connected to our school and to his great Class of 1969. We will always remember his deep compassion for others and his warm sense of humor,” says Karen Peterson, executive director, Wisconsin Medical Alumni Association.

Phillip Rand, MD ’44San Diego, CaliforniaMay 16, 2015

James F. McIntosh, MD ’47Madison, WisconsinMay 27, 2015

Charles J. Ryan, MD ’49Naples, FloridaJuly 3, 2015

Carol E. Craig, MD ’52South Hadley, MassachusettsApril 19, 2015

Thomas R. Leicht, MD ’58Tulsa, OklahomaApril 20, 2015

Walter H. Burgdorf, MD ’69Tutzing, GermanyMay 28, 2015 (see below)

Eric Brekke, MD ’87La Crosse, WisconsinJune 30, 2015

Faculty MemberCameron Zahed, MD (PG ’08)Madison, WisconsinAugust 1, 2015

IN MEMORIAMSeeking Nominations for WMAA Awards

The Wisconsin Medical Alumni Association (WMAA) invites you to nominate your alumni colleagues and classmates for the 2016 WMAA awards and 2017 WMAA citation award. For criteria and information about the 2015 recipients, see med.wisc.edu/96.

Please submit nominations to the WMAA office (use the address on the back cover of Quarterly) by November 13, 2015. Submissions must include a cover letter that contains a brief statement of the nominee’s accomplishments and a copy of his or her curriculum vitae.

The WMAA awards committee and board of directors review nominees, and winners receive the awards at the association’s awards banquet in April. Please note that citation award recipients are selected a year in advance, so that winner will be honored at the 2017 banquet.

Please contact Karen Peterson at [email protected] or (608) 263-4913 with any questions.

THOM

AS R

IESE


she was going to be a doctor, and she had her sights set on attending the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH).

Because she wanted him to join her in Madison, she hatched a plan. One day, after Barry Rumack had spent 16 hours in labs, she brought him a fully completed SMPH application with the fee attached.

“She was pretty persistent that we both go to medical school in Madison,” recalls Barry Rumack. “In a moment of weakness, I signed the forms, and a few months later, I was accepted.”

The couple wed and moved to Wisconsin in time for Barry Rumack to start medical school. The next year—1965—Carol Rumack finished her bachelor’s degree at UW-Madison and joined her husband at the SMPH.

“She may have been a year behind me, but she was light years ahead,” he quips.

One of the most important things Barry Rumack recalls about his education is the SMPH’s approach to teaching “humanism,” which is now a part of “professionalism.”

“The faculty—including Drs. Marc Hansen, Bob Schilling, Charles Lobeck, Helen Dickey, William Lewis and Ted Goodfriend—were shedding light on this part of medicine way before other medical schools started doing so,” he says. “At that time, medical education was primarily focused on the technical side. Today, medical schools everywhere are doing what the SMPH did decades ago.”

For example, he describes how—as a medical student—he visited migrant workers near Madison.

“The kindness of UW physicians like Dr. Marc Hansen stuck with me. He and others shared their interest in the workers’ health from a broad perspective,” says Barry Rumack. “They asked the workers about their living conditions, nutrition and how they were going to take care of their families. It made a big impression on me.”

In 1973, he spent a one-year fellowship at the Regional Poisoning Treatment Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Soon after this, Barry Rumack began working at the Rocky Mountain Poison Center

in Denver, where he remains the director emeritus. The center relied on U.S. Food and Drug Administration-issued cards that listed ingredients in many products and treatment recommendations for accidental poisoning. He found the scope of information lacking, so he established the Poisindex Company—the predecessor to Micromedex, Inc., which he also founded—to expand crucial information about poisoning for clinicians and physicians. A computer program he designed, with input from health care colleagues around the world, included lists of ingredients and poisoning treatments derived from about 400,000 products. Although he is no longer involved in the company, the information is actively being produced.

Barry Rumack changed gears in 2014, when he became the director of the Office of Professionalism at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The office is a resource that provides interventions, when necessary, to help resolve conflicts and improve communications—such as when a student experiences education “by fear and intimidation.”

He points out that nationally about 40 percent of the graduating medical students who respond to an Association of American Medical Colleges survey say they were humiliated or mistreated during medical school.

“The bottom line is that the culture associated with medical education is evolving, but it takes a long time to change,” says Barry Rumack. “In Madison, the medical school’s core values never resorted to bullying. In fact, the opposite was true. There was a great deal of respect for people no matter what stage they were in their education. Those values should be emulated in all medical schools.”

Carol Rumack—who built her productive career simultaneously with her husband’s—agrees with his assessment.

The young girl who knew early that she was going to be a doctor is today a professor of radiology and pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver. She has a clinical practice at the University of Colorado Hospital and a primary research

focus on neonatal brain sonography of high-risk infants.

She has authored and edited several textbooks and is best known for her role as the lead editor of Diagnostic Ultrasound, now in its 4th edition, which is used nationally and internationally.

Carol Rumack and her three siblings grew up on a farm near Pittsburgh. Their parents bought a home on five country acres so they could relax away from city life and grow vegetables. Both of her parents were family doctors, but she imprinted on her mom.

“I followed her on rounds and got to see what a doctor’s life was like. One day, when I was about 10, we were sitting in the doctors’ lounge when she asked if I’d like to be a hospital volunteer someday. I vehemently said, ‘no,’ and that I was going to be a doctor,” she exclaims.

With that determination, Carol Rumack moved toward her goal and never looked back, despite that fact that women were a minority in medical schools at that time. Upon entering the SMPH, she was one of five women in the class of 100.

Over the years, she has stayed in touch with several SMPH classmates, including Kathryn S. (Kathe) Budzak, MD ’69, who is a member of the Wisconsin Medical Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Carol Rumack recalls when she and her husband moved to Eagle Heights in her second year of medical school.

“Eagle Heights was UW-Madison’s housing for married students, and we loved it there,” she says. “We grew vegetables and kept beans and other veggies in a freezer locker at a local grocery store.”

In summer 1968, when Carol Rumack was a fourth-year medical student, the day after she completed an obstetrics and gynecology rotation, she gave birth to Becky, who is now an attorney and executive with a health care software company. Two years later, the family welcomed a son, who they named Marc in honor of Marc Hansen, MD. Marc Rumack now pilots American Airlines 767s internationally.

During their years at the SMPH, both Rumacks initially thought they would become

A L U M N I P RO F I L E

A Partnership for Life:C A RO L M . RU M ACK , M D ’ 6 9 , A N D BA R RY H . RU M ACK , M D ’ 6 8

As pioneers in their fields, they’ve also mastered a 50-year marriageby Sharyn Alden

As Henry David Thoreau said, “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” That

famous quote aptly describes the life and careers that Carol Rumack, MD ’69, and Barry Rumack, MD ’68, have built together. Their successful, long-lasting journey began when they were students.

Always one to look for opportunities to make a difference, Barry Rumack has helped advance medicine in numerous ways throughout his career. Many consider his major contribution the Rumack-Matthew

Nomogram tool used around the world to determine acetaminophen toxicity risk.

Barry Rumack, director of the Office of Professionalism and a professor emeritus of pediatrics and emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, explains, “It started out as just a simple visual way to communicate pharmacokinetic information so clinicians could make judgements about treatment, but it has worked well for nearly 40 years. I am probably better known for this than many other things that were much harder for me to develop.”

Born in Wisconsin, he grew up in Whitefish Bay near Milwaukee. Until he was about 5 years old, Barry Rumack lived “above my grandmother’s grocery store at 16th and Cherry, which is now under Interstate 43,” he says.

During high school, his path into medicine took a circuitous route via the University of Chicago, where he was invited to visit the campus and view its science department. Acceptance to the university soon followed. He planned to focus on research and get a doctorate degree, but a special university co-ed had other ideas. When he began dating Carol Rumack, she told Barry that

—continued on page 25



Each University of Wisconsin School

of Medicine and Public Health

(SMPH) graduating class has one

or more class representatives who

play an integral role in working

with the Wisconsin Medical Alumni

Association (WMAA) to plan class

reunions. Those featured here hope

their classmates will join them at

their reunions in fall 2015.

BRIAN ARNDT, MD ’05What type of practice are you in now, and where?I am an associate professor in the SMPH’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health Residency Program. I provide full-spectrum family medicine, including outpatient care at the UW Health Verona Clinic (where I am the medical director), obstetrics at Meriter and St. Mary’s Hospitals, and inpatient care at UW Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital.

What’s your fondest memory of medical school?My favorite memory is when the SMPH beat the Law School in a competitive football game during the Dean’s Cup.

What are your hobbies/interests?I enjoy spending time with my wife, Kim Arndt, MD ’05, daughter Ellery, and twin daughters, Alexa and Adler, at our log house on our 200-acre farm in Richland Center. We have enjoyed restoring the log house and gardening together as a family. I enjoy hunting, fishing, conservation work and partnering with local resources in community health-related activities.

What SMPH faculty do you remember the most, and why?Dr. Ed Bersu helped foster many enjoyable memories with a fun group of my classmates around the anatomy tank.

What are your plans for this fall’s reunion?I am looking forward to connecting with classmates at the WMAA tailgate party and Badger football game.

TOM WEIGEL, MD ’95What type of practice are you in now, and where?As the associate medical director at the Klarman Eating Disorders Center at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, I treat young women in a 20-bed residential unit and manage administrative responsibilities. I have an interest in medical informatics pertaining to quality, productivity and process

improvement. As the assistant director of clinical measurement at McLean Hospital, I led the design and implementation of the Clinical Measurement Initiative. Using this initiative, patients complete computerized self-assessments to inform individual patient care and assist clinical teams with outcomes assessment, process improvement and research for their patient populations. I also developed the foundation for an electronic medical records system.

Additionally, as an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, I train peers and students in the clinical evaluation and treatment of eating disorders, ADHD, depression and anxiety.

What’s your fondest memory of medical school?I really enjoyed hanging out and studying with my medical school roommates and friends. Events that stand out include “Cheesegate,” checking my student mailbox weekly during my second year, spending evenings at the Union Terrace and golfing.

What SMPH faculty do you remember the most, and why?I learned so much from our class mentor, Dr. Len Stein, Dr. James Pettersen in anatomy and Dr. Jack Westman in psychiatry.

What are your hobbies/interests?I enjoy skiing, golfing, biking and running.

Family update?My wife and I have a 7-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. They have made me a better child psychiatrist and person.

What are your plans for this fall’s reunion?My family and I will stay with relatives, hang out with friends and go to the Homecoming Game. We’ll also take in some other favorite Madison activities—eating at Michael’s Frozen Custard and Mickey’s Dairy Bar.

If the commute permits, I hope to enjoy large quantities of Kopps custard and Balistreri’s pizza in Wauwatosa.

Message to your classmates?It’s important for each of you to call or e-mail your medical school friends, tell them you are

going to the reunion and encourage them to attend! A successful reunion happens on a personal level. Make those phone calls, send those e-mails and make your travel plans!

Class Representatives who are Planning Reunions

Know Your Class Representatives

pediatricians, but their individual interests in different specialties soon emerged.

Following Barry Rumack’s SMPH graduation, he spent one year in a pediatric residency at the University of Colorado and two years in a research position at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Carol Rumack completed her fourth year of medical school at the University of Colorado Medical School and used those credits to graduate from the SMPH. She then pursued a pediatrics internship at the University of Maryland and spent the next year in pediatric radiology at Johns Hopkins. There, she had the fortunate vantage point of observing the intellectual challenges and patient benefits of pediatric radiology, which became her calling.

In the early ’70s, pediatric radiology was in its infancy. When she entered a radiology residency at the University of Colorado, Carol Rumack was used to seeing ultrasound performed as a research tool primarily to study patients with possible polycystic kidney disease, because it could diagnose the disease by identifying the many large cysts. Patients were brought to the department like they were for computerized tomography. Fortunately, ultrasound became available for patient care during those years.

“Because my pediatrics training had been strong at Wisconsin, I was fortunate to begin working in Denver, which had an excellent faculty in pediatric medicine and was one of the first places in the United States to use ultrasound,” she recalls, adding that her interest in pediatric diagnostics of the brain can be traced to when she and her colleagues were studying the brains of babies in utero.

“To follow their brain injury after birth, we began using computerized tomography and noted that hemorrhage in the brain was

very common and very serious. However, these unstable premature babies needed to be transported to the radiology department for computerized tomography. It was very fortunate that ultrasound was just beginning to be portable,” Carol Rumack explains.

“What we saw, using ultrasound, was brain hemorrhaging in about 50 percent of premature babies. We recognized that a huge amount of work was needed in this field, and I wanted to be involved,” she shares.

“It was fascinating. You could use the fontanelle of the baby’s head as an acoustic window,” says Carol Rumack, who is now the associate dean of graduate medical education at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

In addition to her current position, from 2002 to 2012, she directed the Women in Medicine and Science office at the medical school, where she developed the Leadership Training for Junior Women Faculty Program.

“We determined that female faculty at the assistant professor level most needed this training,” she says. “It’s important for women physicians to develop leadership skills because this helps them to succeed in their academic careers. Otherwise, they may leave, and that’s a loss for academic programs.”

Thinking back to the couple’s time at the SMPH, Barry Rumack says, “Medical students in Madison should feel very fortunate because that school is a grounded, very special place. We received a broad sense of what medicine means and what patient care really is, and we treasure the education we received there.”

As time allows, given their busy schedules, the Rumacks enjoy hiking and biking in the mountains, primarily in Colorado’s Summit County. They also hunt mushrooms, which they preserve and

prepare in various ways throughout the year. Before eating a mushroom, they make sure it is fully identified with both Latin names.

“We find Leccinum fibrillosum along a trail on Ute Peak, one of our favorite mushroom-hunting areas,” explains Barry Rumack. “They are good eating—we sauté them in butter, olive oil and garlic to serve with steaks when we cook with our family.”

For 35 years, Barry Rumack taught a mushroom toxicology course for emergency physicians and poison center personnel, and he has written two books on the subject.

“When Carol and I teach the class, we divide attendees into small groups and take them into the field to collect mushrooms in different ecosystems. We go back to our cabin and identify each mushroom so they will be able to describe the mushroom to us—and send us a photo, if possible—if they see a patient with a possible mushroom-related toxic event, so we can recommend the appropriate treatment,” says Barry Rumack, adding that they collect about 150 species so trainees get a good understanding of the different types.

The Rumacks also enjoy snowshoeing with their children and grandchildren. Even their snowshoes have a Wisconsin connection.

“Our favorite snowshoes are wooden shoes with buckskin bindings,” explains Barry Rumack. “They don’t sink into the snow like newer versions.”

That Wisconsin connection? “We bought them in Madison nearly 50 years ago,” he says. “And they have held up great.”

The same can be said about their long-time journey together, including their medical education, mentors and colleagues they continue to treasure from their days at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

CAROL AND BARRY RUMACK continued from page 23

These classes will hold reunions on Friday and Saturday, October 16 and 17, 2015, during Homecoming Weekend.

1970: Sandra Osborn1980: Patrick McBride1985: Representative needed 1990: John Hokanson and Joshua Safer

1995: Thomas Weigel2000: Gary Brunette2005: Brian Arndt and Scott Anderson2010: Lisa Shen and Sarah Tevis

26 VO L U M E 1 7 • N U M B E R 3 27QUA RT E R LY

Dean’s Teaching Award CeremonyKicks off Medical Education Day

The Dean’s Teaching Awards honor outstanding contributions by faculty members in University of Wisconsin

School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) education programs.

“Our SMPH teachers, like the children of Lake Wobegon, are all above average, so it’s really a challenge to identify and honor the best of the best–but that’s what we have done each year since 1992,” shared SMPH Dean Robert Golden, MD, in kicking off the awards ceremony at the school’s 2015 Medical Education Day.

He added, “These awards are the only peer-reviewed awards at our school— meaning that earlier award winners serve as the selection committee. Who better to judge the most deserving entries into this very prestigious society than current members?”

Golden presented the awards to:

• Tabassum A. Kennedy, MD, assistant professor (CHS), Department of Radiology

• Mary S. Landry, MD ’92 (PG ’96), clinical associate professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology

• Elaine M. Pelley, MD, clinical associate professor, Department of Medicine

• James H. Stein, MD, Robert Turell Professor of Cardiovascular Research, Department of Medicine

Additionally, he presented a Dean’s Award for Excellence in Medical Student Research Mentorship to:

• Paul M. Sondel, MD, PhD ’75 (PG ’80), Reed and Carolee Walker Professor in Pediatric Oncology and head of the Division of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplantation, Department of Pediatrics

Kennedy directs the Department of Radiology’s Neuroradiology Fellowship and leads the neuroradiology section of the required third-year Neuroscience Clerkship. She teaches in many capacities, including the Integrated Medical Anatomy Course,

and is a mentor for the Radiology Interest Group for medical students. She co-founded the Radiology Medical Student Education Committee and chairs the Neuroradiology Fellowship Clinical Competency Committee.

Landry left private practice to direct the University Health Services’ Women’s Health Clinic. She is devoted to medical student education as a mentor to fourth-year students, clinical clerkship teacher in OB/GYN and faculty advisor to the Obstetrics and Gynecology Interest Group for medical students. Landry teaches and supervises medical and master of public health students at Share the Health, a free gynecology clinic that she co-founded for uninsured women in the Madison area.

Pelley is the director of the second-year Integrated Endocrinology and Reproductive Health Course and will lead phase 1 of the school’s new curriculum, which will begin in August 2016. She has served on the SMPH’s Educational Policy Council, through which she headed a key subcommittee on USMLE Step 1 Performance and Policies in 2012-13. She also is a member of the Department

of Medicine’s Education Committee and the Endocrine Society’s Clinical Endocrine Education Committee.

Stein is a clinical teacher and mentor for the second-year Integrated Cardiovascular Medicine Course and Patient, Doctor and Society Course. He is a research mentor for medical students in the Shapiro Summer Scholars Program and numerous medicine residents and cardiology fellows. An associate director of the Cardiovasular Research Center National Institutes of Health training grant, he has been nationally recognized for his educational work with medical students, trainees and physicians at the SMPH and throughout Wisconsin.

Sondel directs a laboratory devoted to translational and clinical cancer immunotherapy research. He is an engaging research mentor, educator and active clinician role model for medical students in the Shapiro Summer Research Program, Medical Scientist Training Program and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellowship, and for undergraduate, doctoral and postdoctoral trainees.

AWA R D S

At the UW School of Medicine and Public Health’s (SMPH) 23nd Annual Medical Education Day, statewide faculty and staff educators learned the latest news about the school’s plans to transform its medical school curriculum.

The May 2015 event in Madison, which was combined with the annual Clerkship Educational Retreat, offered networking opportunities for colleagues who teach at the SMPH in Madison and across Wisconsin, and provided an opportunity for clerkship curricular development and

strategic planning. Presenters focused on myriad aspects of how and why curriculum changes will occur, as well as when the various phases are expected to begin.

The revised curriculum will address revolutionary changes in health care and public health—including complex health systems and community-based care—which demand different skills for physicians. The new model features longitudinal integration of the basic and clinical sciences to improve learning, and it

will help fourth-year students be ready for earlier residency application deadlines.

During the 2015-16 academic year, some phase 3 changes are being piloted, including the creation of special internship preparation experiences. The major phase 1 changes will begin in the 2016-17 academic year, and major phase 2 changes will begin in January 2018.

Details are on the SMPH web site (med.wisc.edu/41927). Watch future issues of Quarterly for more information.

Medical Education Day Features Curriculum Transformation

Clockwise from left: Nick Marinelli, MD ’09, demonstrates an exam; Jason Stephenson, MD (center), moderates a session; Christine Seibert, MD, associate dean for medical student education and services, shares an update about the curriculum; participants view displays; Don Schalch, MD (right), discusses M4 Elise Larson’s study.

Left to right: James H. Stein, MD; Paul M. Sondel, MD, PhD ’75 (PG ’80); Tabassum A. Kennedy, MD; Elaine M. Pelley, MD; Dean Robert N. Golden, MD; Mary S. Landry, MD ’92 (PG ’96).

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S P OT L I G H T

Shobhina G. Chheda, MD, MPH (left photo), was named the assistant

dean for medical education at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) in July 2015. An associate professor in the school’s Department of Medicine, she also practices general internal medicine at UW Health, which she joined in 2002.

Known as an exceptional leader and educator who played a key faculty role in the integration of public health into the SMPH curriculum, Chheda has received multiple teaching and education awards and held educational leadership positions in national professional organizations. She is a passionate clinical teacher of

medical students and residents and mentor for junior faculty clinician-educators.

Chheda earned her medical degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo and her master of public health degree from St. Louis University School of Public Health. She completed an internal medicine/pediatrics residency at Cornell University Medical College/North Shore Hospital in Manhasset, New York.

Also on July 1, Christine Seibert, MD (right photo), became the associate dean for medical student education and services. She now has responsibility and oversight of four key academic affairs units led by Chheda; Kurt Hansen, MD ’92, assistant dean for medical student admissions;

Tracy Downs, MD, assistant dean for multicultural affairs; and Gwen McIntosh, MD ’96, MPH, assistant dean for medical students.

A professor in the Department of Medicine, Seibert earned her medical degree from Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago and completed an internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She

has received numerous teaching awards, including the prestigious UW Chancellor’s Hilldale Award for Excellence in Teaching. She led the expansive curriculum transformation to integrate public health into the MD curriculum and is leading further ambitious curriculum transformation efforts. She practices general internal medicine at UW Health.

Robert Lemanske, Jr., MD ’75 (PG ’78 and ’80) (photo at right), was

named the deputy executive director of the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) and associate dean for clinical and translational research at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH). He will work closely with Marc Drezner, MD, who has served as ICTR’s executive director since its inception in 2007. As Lemanske gradually assumes the executive director role, Drezner will continue to serve as senior associate dean for clinical and translational research.

Lemanske has a long, distinguished history at UW-Madison. After completing his undergraduate degree at the university and earning his medical degree at the SMPH, he completed a residency in the school’s Department of Pediatrics and an allergy and immunology fellowship in its Department of Medicine. Following a research fellowship at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, he joined the UW-Madison faculty and rapidly developed a national reputation as a highly productive, innovative physician-researcher. His primary interests are the origins, triggers and treatment of asthma in infants and children.

SMPH Dean Robert Golden, MD, praised Lemanske’s many honors, noting that they reflect his outstanding accomplishments as a clinician, scientist and teacher. Golden also thanked Drezner for his numerous years of noteworthy service.

“Dr. Drezner has provided remarkable leadership in creating one of the nation’s best Clinical and Translational Science Award programs funded by the National Institutes of Health. I deeply appreciate the dedication he has devoted to this ‘jewel in the crown’ for UW-Madison.”

Lemanske recently began other leadership roles, as well.

In May 2015, he started a four-year term on the Wisconsin Partnership Program’s Oversight and Advisory Committee, which establishes community-academic partnership grants aimed at the state’s critical health issues. He also is serving as the 2015-16 president of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

C H H E DA NA M E D A S S I S TA N T D E A N ; S E I B E RT ’ S RO L E E X PA N D S

L E M A N S K E NA M E D TO I C T R L E A D E R S H I PC A N C E R C E N T E R E A R N S H I G H LY C O M P E T I T I V E R E S E A R C H F U N D I N G

NEW GRANT PROGRAM

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) selected Michael Fiore, MD, MPH, and Paul Sondel, MD, PhD ’75 (PG ’80)—long-time University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) faculty members and members of the UW Carbone Cancer Center (UWCCC)—as inaugural recipients of an Outstanding Investigator Award (OIA). The grants provide seven years of research funding, totalling $12.8 million.

Fiore is a professor in the SMPH Department of Medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention (UW-CTRI), and Sondel is the Reed and Carolee Walker Professor in the SMPH Department of Pediatrics and head of the Division of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplantation.

The OIA allows investigators flexibility to embark on long-term, transformative projects of unusual potential in cancer research; the opportunity to be more adventurous in their inquiries; and sufficient time to develop new approaches to cancer research problems.

“Immunotherapy could become an ideal cancer therapy. Our teams will identify and refine immunotherapies to develop better treatment,” notes Sondel.

Fiore’s work confronts grave statistics related to smoking. He will lead a partnership between UW-CTRI, Epic Systems and Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin to use health systems innovations to help patients quit smoking.

“We are very proud of these outstanding academicians,” shares SMPH Dean Robert Golden, MD. “It is remarkable that in the NCI program’s first round, two UW faculty members received awards.”

PRECISION MEDICINE

Kari Wisinski, MD, a UWCCC breast cancer oncologist, is leading one arm of the National Cancer Institute’s NCI-MATCH (Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice) trial, a national effort to match cancers to drugs based on genes rather than the initial location in the body. It is part of the

precision-medicine initiative announced by President Obama.

Co-developed by the NCI and the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group, the trial began enrolling patients in August 2015. It will test adults with a wide variety of cancers that have stopped responding to treatment.

“It’s exciting to be at the forefront of the country’s largest precision-medicine effort,” says Howard Bailey, MD (PG ’90), UWCCC director. “It shows how our understanding of cancer has shifted. Cancers that seem different may respond to the same treatment if they’re driven by the same mutation.”

An associate professor of medicine, Wisinski is co-chairing a treatment arm for people with different cancers with specific mutations in HER2, which are hard to study because they are present in less than 5 percent of cancers, she explains, adding that grouping people whose cancers show the same mutation will help determine if a drug targeting HER2 is effective.

BLOOD, BREAST AND COLON CANCERS

UWCCC scientists studying multiple myeloma and a type of breast cancer received prestigious Research Scholar Awards from the American Cancer Society (ACS).

Fotis Asimakopoulos, MD, PhD, received a four-year, $792,000 grant to study the role of macrophages in helping multiple myeloma cells escape chemotherapy. A common treatment uses a large dose of chemotherapy followed by a transplant of the patient’s stem cells to regrow healthy blood. The transplants typically work for a time, but the myeloma returns.

Asimakopoulos, an assistant professor in the SMPH Department of Medicine, speculates that macrophages in the bone marrow help a few cancer cells escape chemotherapy. His research aims to retrain these blood cells.

Beth Weaver, PhD, associate professor, SMPH Department of Cell and Regenerative Biology, also received a four-year, $792,000 grant to study the Mad1 gene’s role in breast

tumor growth and whether it could help predict which treatment will be effective. Her team found that individual tumor cells express higher amounts of Mad1 protein compared to normal cells in about 60 percent of breast cancers, and that women with this gene have lower survival.

Additionally, Naghma Khan, PhD, a research scientist in the SMPH Department of Dermatology, received a four-year, $792,000 grant to study the management of colorectal cancers with PIK3CA mutations.

An ACS official noted that UW-Madison was the only Midwest research institution to receive one of the prestigious awards, much less three.

PROSTATE CANCER

Six UWCCC prostate cancer researchers—David Jarrard, MD, professor of urology; Joshua Lang, MD, assistant professor of medicine; Douglas McNeel, MD, PhD, professor of medicine; Hasan Mukhtar, PhD, professor of dermatology; Vijayasaradhi Setaluri, PhD, professor of dermatology; and George Wilding, MD, professor of medicine—received $3.5 million in new U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) grants.

Many UWCCC members have ongoing DoD grants, and the center was renewed as a site for the DoD’s Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium.

“This latest round of awards reaffirms what an outstanding prostate cancer team we have here,” says Bailey.


“When You Say Dean McBride, You’ve Said it All”M C B R I D E C A P S 11 Y E A R S A S A S S O C I AT E D E A N FO R ST U D E N T S , E A R N S ST U D E N T S E RV I C E S AWA R D

At a May 2015 recognition celebration hosted by the Wisconsin Medical Alumni Association, SMPH Dean Robert Golden, MD, described how much McBride enjoys his job, adding, “He loves our students so much that he figured out the one way to continue to be the dean of students for all students—he chose to graduate from this current role to being the director of our school’s Alumni Relations Program. So, just as he has guided many of you through the mysteries and challenges of being students, he will now guide all past students through the mysteries and challenges of being alumni.”

A professor in the SMPH Department of Medicine and Department of Family

Medicine and Community Health, McBride also is continuing his research and clinical responsibilities. He co-directs a comprehensive Preventive Cardiology Program, which he helped evolve in the ’80s from cardiac rehabilitation to preventive cardiology. His research has helped establish state and national cholesterol and other guidelines, as well as statewide teaching programs on cholesterol screening and management, which changed how physicians use cholesterol as an indicator of health.

“I’ve been blessed to be a part of the SMPH faculty for 31 years, and I decided that for the last third of my career, I wanted to give back to students because of the

support I received when I attended medical school here,” reflects McBride. “It’s an incredible honor to follow the journey of our medical students. They’re extraordinary people who work very hard.”

Photos, opposite page (left to right): At the recognition event, Pat McBride, MD ’80, MPH, received a plaque from Dean Robert Golden, MD; participants joined Bucky Badger in a rendition of “Varsity.” This page (clockwise from top): M4 Mario Ademaj presents McBride with a shirt signed by the Class of 2016; representatives from each current class of medical students—M3 Jon Scholl, M2 Laura Lins, Ademaj, and M4 Michael Kessler—posed with Bucky and McBride; with his daughter, Gabrielle Wilhelm, and wife, Kim McBride, Pat McBride displays his plaque.

Patrick McBride, MD ’80, MPH, shared more than a decade as the associate dean for students at the University

of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH). In summer 2015, as he completed his time in that role and renewed his emphasis on other SMPH endeavors, he was reminded—in a big way—of the impact he’s made.

McBride received the Norman Bassett Award for Outstanding Achievement in Higher Education Administration for his valued work as “Dean McBride.” The award is made possible by the Norman Bassett Foundation, named after the

owner and first president of library supply company Demco, Inc.

“Dr. McBride has provided sage advice and career counseling to thousands of students,” wrote Elizabeth Petty, MD ’86, SMPH senior associate dean for academic affairs, in her nomination letter. “He has an exemplary track record in the office over the past decade and has built effective and efficient programs that have led to outstanding outcomes for our students and our institution, and is very deserving of this prestigious award.”

“He is beloved by many years of medical students for good reason,” wrote Gwen McIntosh, MD ’96, assistant dean for students at the school. “They clearly see and experience his passion for supporting and nurturing students through the rigors of medical education. His long

career in student services certainly merits special recognition.”

The award is available for UW-Madison-affiliated nominees who show a record of excellence in student services over a long period and/or distinguished achievement in developing new, creative and effective programs for meeting student needs.

Yet, McBride explains that his open-door policy, development of programs to support medical students and long hours are only a portion of what is provided by the dedicated Student Services team.

“Medical school is stressful, so it’s great to hear that I’ve made an impact, but many people in Student Services have made an impact, and sometimes I got credit for their work,” he shares. “Our whole group deserves recognition.”

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“When you say Dean McBride, you’ve said it all! Couldn’t have asked for a more passionate, supportive and engaged dean of students. Proud to be an SMPH alum and to have worked with Dr. McBride. Amazing man...will be missed immensely!” —Andy Miller, MD ’14

“Dr. McBride truly embodies the heart and soul of the School of Medicine and Public Health. He is an incredible mentor to all medical students. He shared both our triumphs and our most challenging times. He also made my Wisconsin experience unique. Where else can students share Tuesday morning sunrise bike rides with the medical school dean of students?”—Mark Kraemer, M4

“Dean McBride is not only one of the greatest deans to have served at our institution, but one of the greatest human beings! Always full of great ideas, always there for my classmates and me, and a true inspiration to so many people. Having gotten to know him these past few years through the Medical Student Association, I know that he is the kind of individual and professional I aspire to become. The class of 2016 loves you, Dean McBride. You will always be an honorary member of our class!” —Mario Ademaj, M4

“Dr. McBride was first and foremost a friend of the class during my time at the SMPH. He is so human. He played with us, worked with us, and in spite of his many accolades and credentials, remained persistently approachable and humble.” —Claire Herrick, MD ’07

“When I met him, Dean McBride’s mustache commanded respect. By the time I graduated, I had respect for Dr. McBride as a physician, educator and all-around great guy—with a great ’stache.” —Tom Jeanne, MD ’12

This page, clockwise from top: A panoramic view of UW Health at The American Center, which opened August 17, 2015; visitors at a community open house on August 2; ribbon pulling at the dedication on July 31. Opposite page, clockwise from top left, ending in center: Welcoming lobby with artwork by Wisconsin artists; front entrance and valet drop-off; one of 14 state-of-the-art operating rooms; the learning kitchen; emergency entrance; basketball court, turf field and sprint track; lap pool with reaction-time starting blocks.


Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health’s Department of Surgery.

Close Encounters of the Digital KindNew technologies certainly will play a role

in patient experiences of the future. At The American Center, they increase access to UW Health specialists and make care more efficient. A consulting physician at any UW Health location can interact with American Center patients and their health care team using secure video. Special cameras and instruments make it possible to do a full physical exam for most conditions. Even bedside rounds can happen via telemedicine.

The American Center puts technology in the hands of patients and families, too. Overnight patients receive tablets equipped with an electronic health record application to provide access to key information and facilitate communication with the care team.

Beyond Illness to WellnessJust as forward-looking is The American

Center’s emphasis on health and wellness. Building on UW Health’s strengths in orthopedic surgery, sports medicine and sports rehabilitation, new programs help healthy, active participants reach their peak performance level and prevent injuries. Supported by sports nutrition, sports

psychology and orthotics, the program offers a complete game plan for athletes.

Call it what you will—a patient-centered surgical destination for orthopedics and bariatrics; an outpatient specialty care center; or a wellness campus emphasizing nutrition, fitness and sports performance—UW Health at The American Center embodies the future of health care.

“We’ve had a unique opportunity to start from scratch and design a brand new kind of health care,” says Sheehan, “We’re off to a great start, and our philosophy is to never stop learning and improving.”

M I L E S TO N E S

T H E F U T U R E O F H E A LT H C A R E J U ST A R R I V E D

UW Health at The American Center

by Beth Fultz

As health care facilities go, UW Health at The American Center is so outside the traditional mold it’s hard to know

what to call it. Yes, it’s a hospital with 56 overnight-stay beds and a 24/7 Emergency Department. But as a whole, the term ‘hospital’ doesn’t begin to do it justice. Fully two thirds of the 503,000-square-foot building are devoted to outpatient care and to sports performance and wellness programs designed to keep people out of the hospital and living healthy, active lives in the community. Designed for the future of health care, one end of the building boasts

14 state-of-the-art operating rooms and the other end, a basketball court, learning kitchen and movement studio.

While the facility, which opened in August 2015, is impressive, its vision to do health care differently is equally so.

“We needed to be willing to change everything in order to be more patient focused,” says John C. Sheehan, FACHE, president of The American Center.

Rather than adapting existing processes and workflows to the facility, work teams led by health system engineers stepped back and asked, “What would the ideal process look like?” Patients and families were part

of those teams, giving voice to a perspective that’s too often been muted in health care.

“We’re asked for our opinions,” says patient and family advisor Katie Trachte. “And if we sit quietly, a doctor or administrator will say, ‘What do you think about that concept?’ We really feel our voices are heard.”

The focus on patients and families has helped break down traditional silos among leaders, physicians and associates.

“It’s fascinating how a commitment to be patient-centered helps make great teamwork happen,” says Michael Garren, MD, ’89 (PG ’94), clinical director at the center and a clinical professor in the University of

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Catharsis: An Exploration of Art, Disease and Healing

QUA RT E R LYVO L U M E 1 7 • N U M B E R 2 353434 VO L U M E 1 7 • N U M B E R 3 QUA RT E R LY 35

H E A L E R ’ S J O U R N E Y

by Erin Aubrey

Growing up on Grandview Street in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, I had the privilege of living among a tight-knit community of neighbors. While, for me, this neighborhood holds innumerable fond memories, it also bears the mark of nearly intolerable loss. Throughout my lifetime, my community lost four remarkable members to cancer. This collection, titled “Catharsis: An Exploration of Art, Disease and Healing,” honors the grace and strength these people embodied in their unrelenting fight against cancer.

Creating these pieces gave me a creative outlet to explore my own personal pain and struggle for understanding, as well as to incorporate the grief of their families and our community. Cancer brought undeniable suffering to Grandview Street, but through that suffering came undeniable support, inspiration and motivation to better ourselves to become more like those we lost.

To communicate these ideas, I designed five gowns—one for each person we lost and a final dress for the incredible people who supported their loved ones through the unrelenting trial of disease.

Each gown is inspired by cellular structures of the cancers my neighbors fought. Looking at pictures of these cells created eerily similar emotions to those I felt when

reflecting on the loss of my neighbors. It was terrifying. It was disturbing. It was devastating. It was beautiful. The images made me think that, in some ways, there was beauty inherent in the disease instead of in spite of the disease. There was beauty in the community that came together to rally and support. There was beauty in the strength that emerged from excruciating struggle. There was beauty in the selflessness of those who drove to appointments, made meals and said prayers. There was beauty in the extraordinary bravery, grace and dedication of those who fought until the very end.

By incorporating cancerous cellular imagery into the design of the gowns’ intricate textures in order to create strong, graceful and beautiful dresses, “Catharsis” contemplates the complex tension between the destruction of disease and the unexpected beauty that accompanies it.

Erin Aubrey is a textile and apparel design student in the University of Wisconsin School of Human Ecology. She wanted to display her gowns and story in a health care setting to facilitate discussion on the intersections between disease, healing and art. In spring 2015, Ebling Library’s curator, Micaela Sullivan-Fowler, brought the display to the Health Sciences Learning Center, where health sciences students, faculty and staff viewed it, talked about it and shared thoughtful comments in a guest book that accompanied the exhibit.

“Something so wonderful about the love and care in these pieces—most surprising is that they give voice to the organic beauty of something so ill-fitted and scary as cancer. I’ve always found cell growth disturbing, and your work captures the natural engagement that this form of life demands. Not an easy thing to do, to place suffering, beauty, order and organic menace in tension. Thank you.”

—Guest book entry

“You, my sweet lady, are an inspiration. This work, your statement, your spirit and talent. Ugh. You just have it all! I’m so moved by this work, and the beauty and grace with which you have shared it with us. Bravo!” —Guest book entry

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There’s More Online!Visit med.wisc.edu/catharsis


Take Your Mentee To School DayMedical Students Host Local Middle School Students

While some May Day traditions entail dancing, singing and cake, for students from Madison’s

Black Hawk and O’Keeffe Middle Schools, May 1, 2015, offered the chance to explore organ systems, learn physical exam skills and tour the Med Flight helicopter.

During the annual “Take Your Mentee to School Day”—hosted by students from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health’s Mentorship Achievement Program (MAP)—the Health Sciences Learning Center brimmed with excitement.

In partnership with Black Hawk and O’Keeffe, MAP matches middle school students who could benefit from a mentor with volunteer first- and second-year health sciences students, who serve as role models to provide support, encouragement and structure. Each participating health sciences student must make a one-year commitment to contact the younger student weekly and meet with him or her monthly through an individual or group activity. Some pairs choose to remain in contact until the mentee finishes high school.

Take Your Mentee to School Day is a popular year-end celebration for MAP. Mentees learn firsthand about the fields of medicine and pharmacy. For instance, mentors demonstrated physical exam skills, and mentees took turns using medical tools to listen to heartbeats and peer into each other’s eyes and ears.

Another valuable manifestation of the Wisconsin Idea at work, this also is one of the many ways the Wisconsin Medical Alumni Association contributes toward enhancing students’ educational experiences.

Mini Med SchoolPartnering with Patients in Health Care

by Rebecca Wasieleski

A growing movement in health care research utilizes patient interaction to advance value and

quality of care. “Patients are the greatest untapped

resource for health care improvement. No one has a greater interest in the outcomes of care than patients,” says Meg Gaines, JD, LLM, director of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Patient Partnerships (CPP) and a long-time cancer survivor who has personal experience in health care advocacy and reform.

Gaines spoke at the June 2015 Mini Med School, “Partnering with Patients in Health Care,” about the CPP’s work to encourage effective partnerships among patients seeking health care, providers of health care, and those who make policies that guide the system. Five researchers presented their work in this field.

Sarah Davis, MPA, JD, clinical associate professor of law and CPP associate director, discussed patient engagement in UW Health’s 2010 redesign of primary care. Experiences and insight from patient partners helped guide the transition.

Gretchen Schwarze, MD, MPP, medical ethicist and associate professor in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health’s (SMPH) Department of Surgery, authored a presentation about the intersection of health care and quality of life. Her tool for improving surgeons’ discussions with patients uses stories and a graphic aid to help patients understand uncertainty and make decisions that are right for them.

Elizabeth Cox, MD, PhD ’06 (PG ’94), associate professor in the SMPH Department of Pediatrics, works to improve pediatric care through patient and family input. She shared her experience implementing the Family-Centered Rounds Program, which transformed rounds from technical conversations among health

professionals into bedside conversations involving doctors, nurses and parents.

Rachel Grob, MA, PhD, senior scientist, SMPH Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, and director of national initiatives at the CPP, and Nancy Pandhi, MD ’06, MPH, PhD ’12, assistant professor, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, introduced DIPEx (Database of Individual Patient Experience), a collection of patient stories that help health professionals better understand how health issues feel to patients. As the U.S. hub for this international initiative, UW-Madison will conduct the first U.S. study of depression in young adults.

Mini Med School is a free, community-based program of the SMPH. Program founders Richard Page, MD, George R. and Elaine Love Professor and chair, Department of Medicine, and K. Craig Kent, MD, chair, Department of Surgery, preside as “mini deans” at three events each year.

S T U D E N T L I F EC O N N E C T I O N S

Left photo: Illustration from invitation. Top row (left to right): Nancy Pandhi, MD ’06, MPH, PhD ’12, discusses her topic with Richard Page, MD; Meg Gaines, JD, LLM, presents her talk; Sarah Davis, MPA, JD, reacts to a question. Bottom row: event participants listen to and discuss the Mini Med School subject matter.

Photos, clockwise from upper left (left to right): a middle school student tries on a Med Flight helmet; students listen while Med Flight nurse Kimberly Maerz, RN, BSN, explains helicopter procedures; another participant learns about brain structure from M2 Alan Wang; and a visit to the Med Flight helipad atop UW Hospital and Clinics offers a chance to explore the aircraft and take in a great view of Madison.

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R E S E A R C H A DVA N C E S


One in Seven Hispanic/Latino Adults Has Hearing Loss

Higher Education May Protect Against Alzheimer’s

Priming Triple-Negative Breast Cancer for Therapy

Study Shows How Children Inherit Anxiety

In rhesus monkeys—as in humans—anxious parents are more likely to have

anxious offspring. A study in an extended family of monkeys provides insights into how the risk of anxiety and depression passes through generations.

The study by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health’s Department of Psychiatry and UW-Madison HealthEmotions Research Institute shows how an inherited over-active brain circuit sets the stage for these traits. Funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of

Sciences, the study shows that elevated activity in the brain stem, amygdala and prefrontal cortex is likely involved in mediating inherited risk for extreme anxiety that can be observed in early childhood.

“Over-activity of these regions increase anxiety in early childhood and are directly linked to the later development of clinically significant anxiety and depression,” says senior author Ned Kalin, MD, the Hedberg Professor and Chair, Department of Psychiatry. “This sets the stage for early detection of the underlying risk and gives us ideas about selective targets for treating

anxiety and depression, as well as early-life interventions that could be preventative.“

Previous research by Kalin’s group showed that anxious temperament is inherited and explained the brain circuits involved. His work in children with anxiety disorders demonstrates similar brain alterations in young monkeys with high anxiety. About half of children who show extreme anxiety early in life later develop stress-related psychiatric disorders. The current study showed that family history explains about 35 percent of anxiety-like

tendencies and identified the responsible brain alterations.

These studies found that brain function, not structure, was responsible for the genetic transfer of an anxious temperament. Although the genetic underpinnings of anxiety have been elusive, this helps explain how genes might affect brain function leading to extreme childhood anxiety and the later development of anxiety and/or depression.

“Now that we know where to look, further research could lead to new treatment approaches,” Kalin says.

A diet that starves triple-negative breast cancer cells of an essential

nutrient primes the cells to be more easily killed by a targeted antibody treatment, University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center (UWCCC) scientists reported recently in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

The study’s senior author and principal investigator,

Vincent Cryns, MD (photo at left), a professor in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health’s Department of Medicine, says this work lays the foundation for a clinical trial to see whether a low-methionine diet will improve outcomes in women with triple-negative breast cancer. This condition has limited treatment options because the tumor cells lack three receptors—estrogen, progesterone and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2—commonly targeted in hormone therapy or chemotherapy.

While scientists have long known that methionine deficiency can block the growth

of many types of cancer, they did not understand the underlying mechanisms.

“We’ve shown that removing methionine affects a molecular pathway that regulates cell death and increases cancer cells’ vulnerability to treatments that target this pathway,” Cryns says. “Our findings suggest that a dietary intervention can increase the effectiveness of a targeted cancer therapy and open up new treatment options.”

The research team fed mice with triple-negative breast tumors a diet lacking methionine—an essential nutrient abundant in meat,

fish, some legumes and nuts, but low in fruits and vegetables—and treated them with an antibody that binds to a receptor called TRAIL-R2. Mice, like humans, can tolerate a methionine-free diet for a short time. The breast cancer cells starved of methionine increased TRAIL-R2 expression and became very sensitive to the antibody, which triggered the cells to die. The combination of diet and antibody was more effective at shrinking the tumors and preventing metastasis to the lungs than either treatment alone.

University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH)

researcher Karen Cruickshanks, PhD (photo at right), is the lead author of a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded study showing that nearly one in seven Hispanic/Latino adults in the United States has hearing loss. This is the largest study of hearing loss among Hispanic/Latino adults in the United States.

Published in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, the study followed 16,145 Hispanic/Latino individuals, aged 18 to 74, in four cities—the Bronx borough

of New York City, Chicago, Miami and San Diego—from 2008 to 2011. Hearing loss was common in this population, as it is in the non-Hispanic white population, but differed by background. Hispanics of Puerto Rican descent had the highest rate, while Mexican-Americans had the lowest.

“As people age, they begin to notice problems hearing consonant sounds, particularly when there is background noise. Because Hispanics/Latinos historically have had poorer access to health care, it was important to learn how frequently they have hearing problems,” says Cruickshanks,

a professor in the SMPH Departments of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and Population Health Sciences.

She adds that people who notice hearing problems should consult their doctors as some forms of hearing loss are treatable.

Overall, 15.1 percent of Hispanic individuals had hearing loss in at least one ear. Among those 45 years and older, 37 percent of men and 24 percent of women had some measurable hearing loss. The study also found that older people; men; and people who have diabetes, more noise exposure, and less

education or income were more likely to have hearing impairments. Cruickshanks notes that the next step will be long-term studies to determine whether modifiable factors predict the development of hearing impairment.

Higher education was associated with lower age-related increases of

abnormal levels of tau protein in the cerebrospinal fluid of older adults, according to a recent University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) study. In the brains of those with Alzheimer’s, tau—a biomarker of neurodegeneration caused by the disease—creates abnormal tangles in the neurons. While tau levels increased with age in all participants, those with 16 years of education (being used as a proxy for cognitive reserve) showed smaller

increases than those with less education.

“Although it has been widely known that persons with higher education are generally less likely to develop Alzheimer’s and other dementias, we didn’t know if cognitive reserve only masked symptoms for longer or whether it was protective against the disease,” explains Ozioma Okonkwo, PhD (photo at right), an assistant professor in the SMPH Department of Medicine and the paper’s senior author. “This work demonstrates for the first time that higher educational attainment provides resilience against the

deleterious effect of aging on cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease.”

The study, published in JAMA Neurology, included 268 people who had enrolled in the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention study or the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center; each of these has a different principal investigator. Many of the participants have parents affected by Alzheimer’s disease; others are members of a control group with no family history.

Participants with higher educational attainment had lower increases in tau levels.

Participants with 12 or fewer years of schooling did not show this protective effect. Okonkwo cautioned that a college degree is associated with other factors that affect brain health. Still, the study hints at lifestyle choices that may help protect against Alzheimer’s disease, such as experiences that engage the brain.

InboxSUBJECT: ALUMNI MEMORIESWant to relive the fun of past Wisconsin Medical Alumni Association (WMAA) and University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) events? Check out the online WMAA photo gallery, which has pictures from events like Homecoming, Match Day, graduation and more. See med.wisc.edu/87.

SUBJECT: GONE VIRAL, IN A GOOD WAYBest. Finish. Ever. That’s all we can say about this video, in which Ann Trachtenberg, a patient at the UW Carbone Cancer Center, received the surprise of a lifetime—she was greeted by the UW Marching Band upon leaving her appointment for her final chemotherapy treatment. The video has gone viral, with more than a million views, and has been featured in the national media. Watch it at med.wisc.edu/cancervideo.

SUBJECT: GLOBAL HEALTH ETHIC ECHOES THE NEED TO CARE FOR PEOPLE AND THE PLANETGlobal health has little chance of success without an underlying ethic that recognizes “the health of each of us is linked to the health of all the rest.” Written by Tony Goldberg, PhD, DVM, and Jonathan Patz, MD, MPH, and published recently in The Lancet, these words describe the article’s theme: a marriage of science and philosophy that could galvanize world health efforts. Goldberg is a professor of epidemiology at the UW School of Veterinary Medicine and associate director for research at the UW-Madison Global Health Institute (GHI), and Patz is the GHI director and a professor in the SMPH Department of Population Health Sciences. See med.wisc.edu/46121.

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O N E U W H E A LT H

Early in July 2015, I was asked to assume the position of interim CEO for the newly integrated UW Health

while a national search is launched for a new physician CEO. I was honored and pleased to accept this assignment, created as a result of the historic combination of University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics Authority (UWHCA) and UW Medical Foundation (UWMF) on July 1, 2015. Helping to achieve this integration has been the capstone experience of my 40 years at UW-Madison, polished by stewardship of the transition. My ambition now is intensely focused on continuing UW Health’s evolution to a great health system that will attract the most talented academic physician executives in the country to fill the CEO role.

“The plight of academic health centers in the United States is the plight of the health of our citizens,” wrote Dr. Catherine DeAngelis, then editor of JAMA, in a May 2000 piece in that journal.

This statement has been one of my mantras for years. Academic health centers (AHCs) should support the “public good,” the well-being of all of our citizens no matter what their societal circumstance. AHCs are also, of course, the principal source of health

care professional education and training, as well as generators of new knowledge to improve health. We embrace these missions, but, in doing so, we accept the financial burden of their support. This support must come largely from the clinical enterprise, but—at current levels of funding—education, training and research programs simply cannot pay for themselves.

The extra financial responsibility borne by AHCs is ironic given their deserved reputation as existing at the inefficient end of the health care spectrum. Yet, there is no dispensation for AHC inefficiency, so we must, on our own, create as much efficiency as we can in the delivery of health care services. We must be academic and marketplace leaders!

And so we come to the integration of UW Hospitals and Clinics Authority and UW Medical Foundation. The merger of the hospital and physician components of what we have for years called “UW Health” was very much predicated on creating a more efficient infrastructure that would allow us to support the work of the AHC of the future. In creating the merger, we are also honoring the “UW Health” brand, which for years has represented a “virtually” integrated organization.

UWHCA and UWMF have been highly successful in their own right and have established great collaboration that has evolved since the inception of each organization about two decades ago. Ultimately, however, we have been separate organizations, with different leadership, organizational structures, financial responsibilities and cultures. We came to realize that “fine tuning” of our organizational “alignment” was insufficient for long-term success as we negotiate the demanding and rapidly changing health care landscape, so work began on becoming a single organization. We think our new streamlined structure will allow us to adapt rapidly, act strategically, respond to value and population

health imperatives, and help squeeze waste from our care delivery system.

As UWMF and UWHCA have come together (under the statutory construct of a state-created “public authority”) to form a new clinical enterprise, the UW School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) remains an inextricable part of UW-Madison. Our faculty physicians remain dual employees of UW-Madison and UW Health. A crucial goal of our merger was to maintain the proper balance between our academic and clinical missions. We have memorialized UW Health’s ongoing support of the SMPH through long-term financial agreements, as well as a governance structure that will have the SMPH dean rotate between being the chair and vice-chair of the UW Health Board.

Dr. Jim Yong Kim, when he was president of Dartmouth University, said, “In my view, the rocket science in health and health care is how we deliver it.” In creating a new UW Health, we have a chance to define our future as a health care delivery system that goes beyond the traditional trappings of medicine, to creating new ways of thinking about caring for each other. We launch this new endeavor with excitement, enthusiasm and optimism about our ability to serve the state of Wisconsin and beyond.

Jeffrey Grossman, MD (PG ’82)Chief Executive Officer, UW Health

P E R S P E C T I V E S

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Hear From YouPlease send us information about your honors, appointments, career advancements, publications, volunteer work and other activities of interest. We’ll include your news in the Alumni Notebook section of the Quarterly as space allows. Please include names, dates and locations. Photographs are encouraged.

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CONTACT INFORMATION:Wisconsin Medical Alumni AssociationHealth Sciences Learning Center750 Highland Ave.Madison, WI 53705

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HOMECOMING

WISCONSIN MEDICAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATIONReunions for Classes ’70, ’80, ’85, ’90, ’95, ’00, ’05 and ’10

OCTOBER 16-17, 2015OCTOBER 16-17, 2015

FOR ALUMNI, FRIENDS, FACULTY AND STUDENTS … to the school’s former associate dean for students,...

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