People

Anschutz researcher co-recipient of $2.4 million grant

Restrepo

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently awarded nearly $2.4 million to University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus researcher Diego Restrepo, and Elba Serrano of New Mexico State University Las Cruces, to help them prepare minority students and those with disabilities for careers in neuroscience.

"We are partnering with two undergraduate programs, one at New Mexico State University, and the other at the UC Denver downtown campus," said Restrepo, professor of cell and developmental biology and co-director of the School of Medicine's Center for NeuroScience. "This grant is very important because the number of disabled and minority Ph.D. students is small in general and those in neuroscience even smaller."

Restrepo and Serrano will share the $2.39 million grant along with Sondra Bland at the UC Denver downtown campus. The money will support undergraduates from both universities, home to a widely diverse student body. Along with serving as a student "pipeline" to the Center for NeuroScience, UC Denver will provide seminars, mentoring, enhanced curricula and hands-on research experience.

The NIH issued grants totaling $10.3 million over the next five years for five programs targeting minorities studying neuroscience. The funding is part of NIH's Blueprint for Enhancing Neuroscience Diversity Through Undergraduate Research Education Experiences. It connects research universities to institutions with neuroscience students from traditionally underrepresented groups.

"By forming strong collaborations between institutions, these programs will maximize the impact of limited resources while fostering participation and diversity in neuroscience research," said neurobiologist Alberto Rivera-Rentas, Ph.D., who oversees training programs at NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences. "We expect that these partnerships will serve as models for future NIH initiatives designed to increase diversity in the biomedical workforce."

According to Restrepo, the Anschutz Medical Campus has one of the best-funded neuroscience programs in the Rocky Mountain West with $27 million so far in NIH research grants. But he stressed the need for more diversity.

In 2005, African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans accounted for 31 percent of the population between the ages of 18 and 24. But a survey of neuroscience departments that year showed that these groups made up just 12 percent of pre-doctoral students, 8 percent of post-doctoral students and 4 percent of neuroscience faculty.

Krugman appointed to national commission

Krugman

Richard Krugman, M.D., vice chancellor for health affairs at the University of Colorado Denver and dean of the CU School of Medicine, joins a group of 15 other professionals in health care to be appointed to the new National Health Care Workforce Commission.

Gene L. Dodaro, acting comptroller general of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, announced the appointments last week.

"(The) appointees bring impressive expertise and professional credentials to their role of advising policymakers on ways to improve the health care work force which is so essential to ensuring the health and safety of the American people," Dodaro said.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act created the commission to serve as a national resource for Congress, the president, and states and localities; to communicate and coordinate with federal departments; to develop and commission evaluations of education and training activities; to identify barriers to improved coordination at the federal, state and local levels and recommend ways to address them; and to encourage innovations that address population needs, changing technology and other environmental factors.

Krugman was the first director of the Colorado Area Health Education Center program and played a key role in starting rural health education and physician assistant training programs in Colorado. He is a professor of pediatrics and chairs the Special Interest Group on Health Care Education and the Oral Health Initiative at the Institute of Medicine. He formerly chaired the Council of Deans of the Association of American Medical Colleges and the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect. He received an A.B. degree from Princeton University and an M.D. from New York University.

Professor to receive honor from National Cancer Institute

Horwitz

Kate Horwitz, Ph.D., of the department of medicine, division of endocrinology, metabolism and diabetes at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, will receive the 10th Rosalind E. Franklin Award for women in science from the National Cancer Institute.

The prize honors the commitment of women in cancer research and is given in tribute to Dr. Franklin, who played a critical role in the discovery of the DNA double helix. Horwitz is a Distinguished Professor whose work focuses on women's ovarian hormones and their role in breast cancer.

Nurses honored for 'extraordinary care'

DAISY Award winner Clare Cull (second from right) with (from left) Neuro ICU manager Kathi Waite, Chief Nursing Officer Carolyn Sanders and President and President and CEO Bruce Schroffel.

Two nurses – one inpatient, the other outpatient – recently received the University of Colorado Hospital's DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses.

The DAISY (Diseases Attacking the Immune System) Foundation, based in Glen Ellen, Calif., established the award in 2000 to honor extraordinary care extended by a provider to a patient or family.

Clare Cull, R.N., a clinical nurse in the Neuro Intensive Care Unit, received the award for the compassionate care she provided a critically ill patient and his family. In nominating Cull for the award, her nurse manager, Kathi Waite, R.N., M.S., C.C.R.N., related comments she received from another nurse about the kindness and sympathy Cull extended to the patient's family as he lay "at death's door."

On Mother's Day, Cull again helped to console the patient's mother, helping her through the day and a difficult emotional time. Cull's actions "evidence her extraordinary caring and compassion for this family and all others she comes into contact with," Waite wrote in her nomination. "She truly exemplifies that for which UCH and the DAISY Award stand."

Nancy Gavi, R.N., a clinical nurse who has worked in the Internal Medicine Clinic in the Anschutz Outpatient Pavilion for 13 years, received her DAISY for the assistance she provided a patient suffering from severe schizophrenia.

After she learned that the constant aches and pains the patient complained of were likely the result of having no bed to sleep in, Gavi offered him a bed her family wasn't using. She got sheets for the bed and, with the help of her husband, carried it up two flights of stairs, then set it up. The good deed would have gone unnoticed but for the fact Steve Ross, M.D., who practices at the clinic, saw a phone note from the patient thanking Gavi.

In nominating Gavi for the award, Ross and Internal Medicine Practice Manager Robin Pettigrew wrote, "Needless to say, the patient was exceedingly grateful, and now seems to be able to manage his pain with just Ibuprofen. ... All in all, this would have been an outstanding good deed for any patient, but it is especially amazing for a difficult patient."

Chief Nursing Officer and Vice President of Patient Services Carolyn Sanders, R.N., Ph.D., was on hand at both ceremonies to present the awards to Cull and Gavi. Each received a certificate and a small, hand-carved statue made by the Shona tribe in Zimbabwe and purchased by the DAISY Foundation.

Dropping names ...

Glicken

Coolidge

Anita Glicken, MSW, associate dean for physician assistant studies at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, has been asked to serve on the executive committee of the National Interprofessional Initiative on Oral Health. The rest of the group consists of a dentist, family medicine doctor and funders. Their charge is to set funding priorities for the group which represents a partnership with philanthropy and health education. ... Fred Coolidge, professor of psychology at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, was featured in the WNYC nationally syndicated radio program "Radio Lab," where he explained his theory of hypnic jerks, the scientific term given to the sudden jerk that often accompany the beginning of the human sleep cycle.

Want to suggest a colleague — or yourself — for People? Please e-mail information to Jay.Dedrick@cu.edu