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New award honors memory of research assistant

The first Steven Fadul Award recently was given to three professional research assistants at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine: Jim Dover, Andrea Lewellyn and Mary Wellish.

Fadul was a research assistant in the department of physiology for 30 years; after his death last year, the department started a fund to establish an annual award in his name.

• Mary Wellish is a member of Don Gilden's lab, where any time you have a question, scientific or not, the answer is: "Ask Mary." Wellish, said her nominator, takes "initiative in designing of experiments and interpretation of results. Your superb technical skills, generous spirit, and long experience have made you indispensible to all in the lab."
  
  
• Jim Dover's contributions go well beyond the 12 papers he has co-authored, said his nominator. "You have played a major role in training the students and postdocs ... In fact, it was rare to attend a student or postdoc research presentation or read a student thesis that did not acknowledge Jim Dover's assistance and support."
  
  
• Andrea Lewellyn has trained a generation of scientists with "your adept touch in manipulating both Xenopus oocytes and graduate students. Generous with your time, stern when you need to be, you have kept Jim's Howard Hughes lab operating in a coherent and efficient manner. And for the really heroic experiments, such as injecting 600 oocytes at a rate of 12 per minute, you pulled it off with grace and style, as you did everything else."

Hospital departments rally to support families in need

Hundreds of pounds of clothing were collected by the human resources department at UCH. Employees from the hospital, outlying clinics and business services offices at Lowry, as well as university staff, made donations, said Mary Jo Pesch, human resources training/organizational development specialist.

In organizing the drive, and collecting and packaging the items, Pesch joined six others: Joshua Anderson, Michael Booth, Joanne Dunn, Jennie Heineman, Angela Vasilatos and Pam Venegas.

Hospital employees this month also donated thousands of items to families of students at Aurora's Park Lane Elementary School as part of UCH's Adopt-a-Family program. The donated items – including clothing, games, books and toys – went to families in need whose kids attend Park Lane.

The emergency department stepped up to sponsor 13 families who had not been adopted. Bruce Evans, M.D., the department's medical director, said several hospital departments and individuals donated money to help his department reach the goal.

Mentors to nurses recognized

Four participants in the University of Colorado Hospital's (UCH) preceptor program recently were recognized for their work to help orient and mentor nurses who are newly arrived from nursing schools or other institutions. Those receiving recognition for the fourth quarter of the year are:

• Kim Kirk, R.N., medicine/geriatrics. In nominating Kirk, Clinical Nurse Educator Deborah Ford, R.N., wrote, "It is unusual for Kim not to have either a student nurse or a graduate nurse resident by her side. Feedback from orientees is that Kim is helpful and yet allows enough freedom for the orientee to develop time-management skills... (She) is a kind and exceptional nurse and she expects that of her orientees as well."
  
  
• Cheryl Spangler, R.N., cardiovascular intermediate care unit. "Cheryl has been an active and dedicated preceptor for the (unit) for the last eight years," wrote nominators Shannon Barone, R.N., and Clinical Nurse Educator Stephanie Cradick, R.N. "She has taken the lead in precepting three to five new R.N.s to the unit each year and has been an active member of the unit's preceptor council. She continues to mentor and support R.N.s well after their orientation has ended."
  
  
• Sarah Wandland, R.N., oncology and BMT unit. Wandland completed the UCH graduate nurse residency program in 2005, wrote her nominator, Clinical Nurse Specialist and Educator Barbara Wenger, R.N. "Approximately one year after her graduation, she started precepting students on the unit and later became one of the primary preceptors for new graduate R.N.s," Wenger noted. "It is evident when Sarah is precepting that she enjoys explaining not only the procedure but the concept behind it. She embodies the preceptor role with her ability to critique and give feedback along with encouragement for the next time."
  
  
• Kimberlee LaMothe, R.N., burn/trauma intensive care unit. LaMothe, a longtime preceptor at UCH, "always provides a safe and supportive learning environment for student nurses, new graduate nurses, as well as nurses new to (the hospital)," wrote nominator Camy Boyle, R.N., a clinical nurse educator for the unit. "Kimberlee consistently sets the student or new nurse up with a strong clinical foundation that is based on the best evidence."

Dropping names...

Rick VanDeWeghe, professor of English at the University of Colorado Denver, is spotlighted for his book "Engaged Learning" on the National Writing Project's website; he also is featured in an accompanying video. ... The NWP has created a series of one-minute videos in which NWP-related authors discuss their books on teaching or on writing. ... Min S. Wang, a chemistry postdoctoral research associate, received a $90,772 postdoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association. Her research grant is titled "The role of nanoscale membrane structure in CRP binding, isoform conversion, and complement activation." This grant will fund her research on C-reactive protein interactions with apoptotic cell surfaces in Assistant Professor Scott Reed's laboratory in the department of chemistry at UC Denver. ... Christopher Schooler, lecturer in landscape architecture at UC Denver, recently gave a presentation at the University of Oregon on "Learning Landscapes: Design Process Through Civic Engagement." The lecture was a direct response to University of Oregon's design studio that is researching the viability of a schoolyard renovation project in the city of Eugene. ... UC Denver Professor J.J. Cohen, M.D., Ph.D., immunology and medicine, was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by his alma mater, McGill University in Montreal. The founder of the CU Mini Med School, Cohen has helped many other universities, including McGill, start similar programs. The university praised him as "a renowned researcher and educator." ... Meredith Lopez and Marlinda Hines, UC Denver School of Education and Human Development academic advisers and graduates of the counseling master's program, earlier in the year became trainers for the Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program. The leadership training program motivates student leaders to play a central role in solving problems that historically have been considered "women's issues," such as rape, battering and sexual harassment. This new tri-institutional program for UC Denver, Community College of Denver and Metro State College was provided a federal grant through the Phoenix Center at Auraria to inform at least 750 students campus-wide about the issues of gender violence and the bystander approach to prevention for

Langhorst

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