College of Health Sciences Hoofprints Newsletter - University of ...

Hoofprints

A Monthly Newsletter fromUW’s College of Health Sciences

104th Edition

September 15, 2010A Message from Dean Steiner

Dear Friends,

I always find the start of a

new academic year a time of

renewal and chaos. Renewal in

that a whole new group of

students is starting their various

programs and current students

are returning from their summer

breaks. The city of Laramie

wakes up from its summer slumber. The restaurants are full, parking near

Dean Joseph F. "Joe" Steiner

the campus is at a premium, traffic has significantly increased (amazing

what inexperienced drivers attempt), and the cultural and athletic

opportunities are abundant. The UW campus is at its best at this time of

year. The flowers that have been carefully tended all summer are in full

bloom and are spectacular. It looks from the extended weather forecast

that a mild fall will continue. I am undeniably appreciative of this since it

may be my first Dean’s Advisory Council meeting not called on account of

snow even though the first two were scheduled in mid-September and late

April.

The chaos has also arrived and makes September an invigorating

month. Faculty and staff have returned and are working hard to assure that

the semester is off to a great start. There are many ceremonies welcoming

students into the various health care professions for most of our divisions.

There are many meetings of various constituents of the college and

university, too many to list. Athletic events, tailgates, cultural events, and

other activities add to the flavor of the month. Deadlines and commitments

are coming fast, and any procrastination from the summer is catching-up.

We also realize that the beautiful fall days are limited, and many of us are

still trying to get a few days to enjoy Wyoming’s wonderful outdoors in the

warm weather before we start to enjoy the Wyoming winter.

I always look forward to the month of September and always marvel

at how fast the time goes and October rolls around.

Regards,

JoeNews from Across the College

The annual college health fair

coordinated by pharmacy students and

conducted by students in College of

Health Sciences (CHS) programs will

be held on Saturday, November 6th

Pharmacy students have coordinated a college-wide health fair to be held Saturday, November 6th.

from 9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. in the Union Ballroom. This is a great

opportunity for faculty, students, and local residents to receive free health

services and screenings ranging from HIV and fitness stress testing to

hearing and vision screening to blood pressure and blood glucose checks.

For more information, please contact Jessica Hopper (307-766-5460).

The CHS is proud to announce the beginning of a new Ph.D.

program in biomedical sciences. The program is designed to address

important workforce demands for doctoral-level biomedical research

expertise and to position graduates for long-term competitive success in the

rapidly changing and multifaceted health-related arena of the 21st century.

Don Roth, Ph.D., Professor of Molecular Biology and Associate Director of

UW’s School of Energy, will direct the program, the first interdisciplinary

doctoral curriculum based mainly in the College of Health Sciences. Four of

this fall’s eight candidates are in the School of Pharmacy (SOP).

For over three years, interdisciplinary teams of College of Health

Sciences and UW students and faculty, local health care providers, and

Wyoming residents,

along with members of

the non-profit, non-

governmental

organization Shoulder

to Shoulder, have been

visiting Agua Salada in

the mountains of

Honduras, bringing

desperately-needed

health care to the

isolated villagers. The

visits have become so beneficial that the returning providers have been

welcomed as family. To accommodate the growth of the program, plans are

being made to build a small clinic in Honduras to house full-time

Children in Agua Salada, Honduras, welcome their returning Wyoming "family."

Honduran nurses and doctors, as well as Wyoming task force members. On

August 22nd, Fay and Roy Whitney hosted a beautiful “Dinner on the Ranch”

at their home in Wheatland to help raise funds for the project. UW and

college administrators and their spouses joined 45 people from Cheyenne,

Laramie, Wheatland, Casper, Powell, Pinedale, and Jackson to hear

compelling stories from past brigade members Robert Monger, M.D., of

UW’s Family Residency Program in Cheyenne; Ronald Iverson, M.D., of the

Wyoming Medical Center in Casper; recent nursing graduate Emily Bodner

from Wilson, Wyoming; and pre-medical student Joe Johnson from Laramie.

The excitement generated by the speakers was palpable and inspired guests

to double the fund’s donations to $40,000 and Laramie physician Jean Allais

and her family to sign on as members for the brigade’s next visit to Agua

Salada. To learn more about this worthy project, please visit

www.clinicadeaguasalada.org.

The Wyoming Geriatric Education Center (WyGEC) received

major continuation funding

from the Health Resources

Services Administration. The

new funding, expected to be

$2.1 million over the next five

years, will allow WyGEC to

continue its efforts to meet

the needs of practicing health

professionals who serve

Wyoming’s rapidly aging

population. Since its founding in

2007, the center has educated

over 1,000 health professionals through a variety of venues—college

classrooms, a 10-week telehealth series, on-site trainings, and three state-

wide conferences. With the extended funding, WyGEC will join the

Cheyenne Regional Medical Center and the Community Health Center of

WyGEC members (from left) Christine McKibbin, Evaluator and Faculty Associate; Colleen Murphy-Southwick, Deputy Director; Jenny Garcia, Librarian; John Vandel, Dean of the SOP; Deb Fleming, WyGEC Director; Maggie Farrell, Dean of UW Libraries and Faculty Associate; Kem Krueger, Associate Professor of Pharmacy and Faculty Associate

Central Wyoming in Casper to form a statewide consortium. For more

information about the center’s expanding prospects, please contact Deb

Fleming, WyGEC Director ([email protected]).

Research

The Center for Cardiovascular

Research and Alternative Medicine (C-

CRAM), based in the SOP, has welcomed two

post-doctoral fellows. Yingmei “Megan” Zhang,

M.D., Ph.D., a cardiologist-physician scientist

focusing on cardiology care in diabetes, is

investigating a number of health issues

pertinent to the center, issues such as cold

temperature exposure, sepsis, and high-fat-diet-

induced obesity. She also directs

undergraduate and graduate students and has presented her work at

national, regional, and local conferences. Machender “Reddy” Kandadi,

M.Pharm., Ph.D., whose focus has been on the treatment and prevention of

insulin resistance and the development of type-2 diabetes, is now studying

anthrax-toxin-induced cardiovascular complications and molecular

mechanisms in cardiac hypertrophy.

SOP faculty members Weeranuj Yamreudeewong, Professor Emerita

of Pharmacy Practice; Kurt Dolence, Associate Professor of Medicinal and

Organic Chemistry;- and Glaucia Teixeira, Associate Professor of

Pharmaceutics, will present results of their joint research during the 45th

American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Annual Midyear Clinical

Meeting to be held in early December in Anaheim, California.

Sreejayan “Sree” Nair, Associate Professor of Pharmacy and C-

CCRAM Director, was

invited to present “New

Generation Chromium

Complexes in Treating

Machender "Reddy" Kendadi, new C-CRAM post-doctoral fellow

Sreejayan Nair was an invited speaker during the 2010 Meeting of the Institute of Food Technologists.

Insulin Resistance-Technologists held in mid-July in Chicago. Sree will also

travel to Japan in late October to deliver an invited paper—“Novel

Chromium Complexes in the Treatment of Type-2 Diabetes”—during the 5th

International Niigata Symposium on Diet and Health. The conference will

focus on the present status of the security of the world’s food supply.

New Programs

The Universal Service Administrative Company has approved funding

for Wyoming’s Federal Communication Commission’s Rural Health Care

Pilot Program. The

project, which is

being managed by

the Center for

Rural Health

Research and

Education in cooperation with Qwest Communications and the Wyoming

Telehealth Consortium, is a huge step for Wyoming and the WyNETTE-user

community toward fulfilling their vision of improving access to health care

in the state. Forty sites in Wyoming, including hospitals, clinics, and

counseling and mental health centers, have been approved to receive high-

speed broadband connections as part of the Wyoming Network for

Telehealth (WyNETTE).

Upcoming Events

The SOP will host its annual Pharmacy Weekend September 23rd-

25th. A highlight will be the Otis L. Hoy Memorial Seminar on the 24th with

its keynote speaker Wendy Duncan, Ph.D., Dean of Pharmacy and Vice

President of Academic Affairs at St. Louis College of Pharmacy. Dr. Duncan

will discuss how to better educate student pharmacists to advance the

profession in Wyoming. For details and complete weekend events, please

visit http://www.uwyo.edu/pharmacy/showevent.asp?eventid=31564 or call

307-766-6120.

The CRHRE will manage a new state-wide telehealth program.

The college’s Fall 2010 Commencement will be held in the

Wyoming Union Ball Room. For further information, please contact Phyllis

Brecher (307-766-3010) or Nancy Holman (307-766-3495).

 Student News

The Division of Communication Disorders welcomes its largest

graduate class ever—20 campus students and eight distance students. One-

third of the campus class are UW graduates with bachelor’s degrees in

speech, language, and hearing sciences; one-third are UW graduates with

degrees in other fields; and one-third are out-of-state students learning

their way around our campus and town. In addition, in the past two years,

division undergraduate majors have increased by 50 per cent to more than

100 students. The division

and its student organization,

the National Student Speech

Language Hearing

Association, treated all new

and returning students to a

potluck at Laramie’s Alice

Hardie Stevens Center on

September 1st.

Members of the

WWAMI Medical

Education entering class of

2010 began their first day of classes on August 2nd. The E2010 class consists

of 16 students from hometowns in 12 of Wyoming’s 23 counties. The

students finished their first course, trunk anatomy, on August 23rd. They are

now engaged in six courses—biochemistry, histology, human behavior, cell

physiology, clinical methods, and medical information. The students are off

to a wonderful start, and the program looks forward to a great year. The

program also welcomes Holly Barker, its new staff assistant, with her

wealth of accounting and organizational skills.

Members of this year's graduate class of the Division of Communication Disorders

Pharmacy students Yu Ting Ti from Fremont, California, and Teddy

Jemaneh from Laramie recently completed their required primary care

rotations at Salud Family Health Centers in Longmont where they worked

with Tracy Mahvan, Associate Professor of Pharmacy, and served a wide

range of patients in Colorado. The month-long primary care rotation

provides students a taste of the experience, insight, knowledge, and

professional skills they will need to practice effectively in an ambulatory

care setting, skills such as blood pressure and lower extremity edema

evaluations and comprehensive patient workups and interviews.

Faculty News

The CHS is pleased to welcome eight new faculty members.

Wook-Jin Kim, Assistant Professor of Social Work, earned his Ph.D. at the

University of Chicago. Wook-Jin’s research interests include neighborhood

revitalization and workforce development, minority entrepreneurship, and

immigrants and refugees. He has published articles about these topics and

spoken about them during national and international conferences. Neely

Mahapatra, Assistant Professor of Social Work, earned her Ph.D. from the

University of Texas at Arlington. Her research interests—violence against

women and human trafficking issues—are reflected in her teaching

concentrations of cultural diversity and social justice and generalist social

work practice. After earning her Ph.D. in applied social psychology from

Colorado State University (CSU) in 2008, Jenifer J. Thomas has joined the

Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing (FWWSON) as an assistant professor.

Jenifer has presented abstracts during several national and international

conferences and was recognized as the Outstanding Graduate Student of

2007 by the CSU Department of Psychology. C. Susan Christman, previous

part-time lecturer, is currently an assistant lecturer in the FWWSON. Susan

earned her master’s degree in nursing from UW in 2002 and has held

several positions at the Wyoming Medical Center in Casper and in the

School of Nursing at Casper College. She has helped train staff members of

the Casper-Natrona County Public Health Department Nursing for incidents

of bioterrorism, and her master’s thesis was recognized for its merit by the

Mountain and Plains Partnership Program. After serving as Director of the

Nightingale Center for Nursing Scholarship, Anne M. Bowen is currently a

professor in the FWWSON. Anne earned her Ph.D. in clinical (child)

psychology from West Virginia University and is recognized nationally and

internationally for her expertise in HIV/AIDS prevention and reduction in at-

risk populations. Micky Routson has joined the clinical faculty of the

Division of Communication Disorders. Micky, an externship supervisor for

the division for many years who was honored by the division as its

outstanding alumna of 2009, will provide part-time clinical supervision to

speech pathology graduate students in the Speech and Hearing Clinic. R.

Tucker Readdy, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology and Health, earned his

Ph.D. in exercise and sport science from Oregon State University (OSU) in

Corvallis. He has published articles in Research Quarterly for Exercise and

Sport and Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science,

presented invited papers at national and international conferences, and

received OSU’s 2007 Herbert Frolander Outstanding Graduate Teaching

Assistant Award. Christine M. Porter, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology and

Health, actively pursues her research interests of childhood obesity

prevention, ethics-centered community health promotion, and

documentation of strategies for inclusive community organizing across race

and class divides. Christine earned her Ph.D. from Cornell University in

Ithaca, New York, and has served as manager of the London office of

Community Science and curriculum manager of the Fiji Ministry of

Education’s AIDS Education Program.

The Division of Communication Disorders recently said goodbye to

Jennifer Keeler, Clinical Supervisor. Two years ago, Jennifer spearheaded

an innovative clinical educational experience for the division’s graduate

students at Laramie’s Ivinson Memorial Hospital; now, she and her

husband, Tim, have returned to North Carolina for his medical practice. The

division will not fully lose Jennifer’s expertise, however, because this fall,

she will teach the graduate dysphagia course, a series of weekend classes.

Doug Petersen, Assistant Professor of Communication Disorders, and

master’s student Dakota Dye from Cody, Wyoming, travelled to Utah for a

day-long training in Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and

Related Disabilities (LEND), a program funded by the Maternal Child

Health Bureau of the Health Resource and Services Administration to

improve the health of infants, children, and adolescents with disabilities.

LEND prepares trainees from diverse professional disciplines to assume

leadership roles in their respective fields by ensuring high levels of

interdisciplinary clinical competence.

Friends of the College

Mary Gullikson, a UW alumna and tireless supporter of UW’s

College of Health Sciences, was chosen as this

year’s grand marshal of the Loveland Old-

fashioned Corn Roast Festival, that Colorado

community’s oldest celebration. Mary was one of

the initial proponents and champions of the Health

Sciences Center that brought all divisions of the

college with the exception of Kinesiology and

Health under one roof. The College of Health

Sciences Complex provides the setting for the

college’s dynamic interdisciplinary research and

health care education and realizes Mary’s dream of providing “an improved

learning environment for future health sciences students and faculty.” 

Mary has been called the college’s “head cheerleader,” but she also shares

her time, energy, and enthusiasm with her hometown, Loveland. 

Mary Gullikson, avid supporter of the College of Health Sciences