This Week@WesternU April 29

Commencement 2013

The 32nd Annual Commencement Exercises for Western University of Health Sciences will be held May 15-17, 2013 at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, 300 E. Green St., Pasadena, Calif. Here are some important reminders to graduates regarding commencement. Please forward to friends and family as appropriate.

Graduate Reminders

Commencement website: The commencement website at http://www.westernu.edu/commencement/ has all kinds of useful information, including parking maps, directions, and instructions. Please pull all necessary information from the site before heading to the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

Live webcast: We are pleased to announce that the commencement ceremonies will be webcast live at http://www.westernu.edu/commencement/cs_webcast.php. Please let those who are not attending know, so they can watch you online.

Guest Reminders

Doors Close Early: The front doors will close at 9:20 a.m. for morning ceremonies and 2:50 p.m. for afternoon ceremonies, and will re-open after the processional, invocation and national anthem. It’s essential that all of your guests be seated in the auditorium prior to the doors closing. If your friends/relatives tend to be late … you might tell them it starts 30 minutes earlier.

General Admission Tickets: Tickets are required for all ceremonies except College of Pharmacy and College of Veterinary Medicine.

Inaugural Ceremony for:

College of Podiatric Medicine

Wednesday, May 15, 9:30 a.m.

Keynote Speaker: Edward James Olmos

Actor, producer and humanitarian

College of Pharmacy

Wednesday, May 15, 3 p.m.

Keynote Speaker: Jenelle L. Sobotka, PharmD, FAPhA

Professor, Endowed Chair of Pharmacy Practice, Ohio Northern University Raabe College of Pharmacy

College of Allied Health Professions

Thursday, May 16, 9:30 a.m.

Keynote Speaker: Jason Hwang, MD, MBA

Physician and author

College of Veterinary Medicine

Thursday, May 16, 3 p.m.

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald

Veterinarian, actor and comedian

College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific

Friday, May 17, 9:30 a.m.

Keynote Speaker: Jason Hwang, MD, MBA

Physician and author

From the College of Podiatric Medicine:

Kudos and accomplishments

Dr. Jonathan Labovitz, CPM Department Chair and Medical Director, has been named a Visiting Scholar at the Fielding School of Public Health in Health Policy and Management. His advisor, Dr. Gerald Kominski, is Director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and a professor of Health Policy and Management.

The Visiting Scholar program is operated through UCLA’s Graduate Division. Those senior scholars who are accepted hold doctoral degrees and serve as senior researchers, collaborating on research projects and publications with faculty members, as well as pursuing independent research. Visiting Scholars are given the opportunity to sit in on courses and interact with faculty to further develop skills in health services, policy, management and research. Dr. Labovitz’s position will run through September 2013.

College of Allied Health Professions:

Community Day news

The Department of Health Sciences sponsored the inaugural Community Day at Barfield Elementary School, in the Pomona Unified School District, on Saturday, April 20, 2013. In addition to faculty and students of the Department of Health Sciences, the departments of physician assistant studies and physical therapy were there lending their support and expertise. The Colleges of Optometry, Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific, and Podiatric Medicine were also represented. Attendees were instructed on safe cheerleading practice, bicycle safety, healthy diets, dealing with asthma, general safety within the community.

Thank you to everyone who made this event a success. A special thank you to council member Debra Martin, District 6, for her participation during Community Day.

Department of Physical Therapy Education

Success was achieved for the profession of physical therapy in California when SB 381, a bill that would have prohibited physical therapists from performing joint manipulation, was defeated last week in the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee with only one yes vote and six no votes. Thanks to all the support received in Sacramento from patients, therapists, and students who contacted legislators to express their views.

From the College of Pharmacy

Scholarship Golf Classic

The College of Pharmacy will hold its inaugural Scholarship Golf Classic on May 23 at Morongo Golf Club at Tukwet Canyon. Registration begins at 9 a.m., and time of play will be 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Shotgun-play format will include contests for low score, longest drive, closest to the pin, and hole-in-one. Click here to read the full story.

Kudos and Accomplishments

Dr. Quang Le and his collaborators recently published an article in Health and Quality of Life Outcomes. The article looks at different methods to assess change in patient quality of life that is meaningful to clinicians and researchers. The concept of minimal clinically important difference (MCID) is being studied for all health conditions, but is especially important in conditions where assessment is slightly more subjective, i.e., based more on patient-reported measures or where lab-based clinical markers are lacking (such as pain, disability, and mental health disorders). Click here to view the abstract online. Click here to view the entire PDF article.

Dr. Anne Kugler recently published the following article: Rivkin A, Yin H, Borno L, Fabbio K, Kugler A, Maltz FN, Marzella N, Mehta M, Najib J. “Revising senior pharmacy grand rounds to incorporate longitudinal board review to prepare students for licensing examination,” in Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning. 2013 May;5:236-240. This is a paper on the scholarship of teaching, testing a revised form of grand rounds focused on helping prepare students for the boards. Students had favorable views on this approach, but their comprehensive exam scores were lower than expected.

Click here to read the entire PDF article.

From the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific:

COMP Faculty Candidate Seminar Series

COMP will hold a faculty candidate research seminar from 2 to 3 p.m. Tuesday, April 30 in Classroom A, HEC. The seminar will be streamed to Lecture Hall 2, COMP-Northwest. Thomas C. Squier, PhD, Laboratory Fellow, Cell Biology & Biochemistry Group, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Richland, Wash., will present “Environmental Stressors, Oxidative Damage, and Mechanisms for Restoration of Protein Function.” The COMP Candidate Seminar Series is open to everyone on campus.

Kudos and accomplishments

Dr. Gail Singer-Chang spoke to American Medical Student Association (AMSA) students at Cal State Fullerton on April 12, 2013. Singer-Chang was an invited lecturer on “An Autism Primer for Undergraduate Health Professions Students.” The audience consisted of undergraduate students planning careers in medicine and dentistry.

From the College of Optometry:

The WesternU Lions Club recently sponsored a California Lions Friends in Sight vision screening and eyeglasses distribution at Marshall Middle School in Pomona. Click here to read the full story in the Daily Bulletin.

Volunteer effort

Five students and two faculty members recently volunteered their services providing vision care to hundreds of people who lack the ability to afford health care during RAM CA (Remote Area Medicine – California) at the Riverside/Indio Fairgrounds. The group was representing the College and the Inland Empire Optometric Society. Services were provided from approximately 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day and included eye health examinations, glaucoma screenings, vision examinations, prescriptions, or glasses made on the spot.

From the Pumerantz Library:

The perspectives of surgeons, physicians, and nurses are richly documented in the history of Civil War medicine, which highlights the heroism and brutality of battlefield operations and the challenges of caring for the wounded during wartime. Yet the experiences of injured soldiers during the conflict and in the years afterward are less well known. “Life and Limb: The Toll of the American Civil War” focuses on disabled veterans and their role as symbols of the fractured nation.

The Harriet K. & Philip Pumerantz Library will host the “Life and Limb: The Toll of the American Civil War” traveling exhibition, created by the National Library of Medicine, from April 15 to May 18, 2013. We would like to extend a special thank you to John Hiroto for loaning us his items from his collection. We are also extremely grateful to Bert J. (Hans) Davidson, MD, PhD, executive director of the Southern California Medical Museum, for loaning his collection of medical instruments and tools from the Civil War era.

The National Library of Medicine traveling portion of the exhibit will be packed up and sent to the next location on May 18, 2013. The remainder of the exhibit will continue to be on display until July 31, 2013.

Guest Lecturer

From noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, May 8, 2013, in Lecture Hall West in the Health Sciences Center, Bert J. (Hans) Davidson, MD, PhD, executive director of the Southern California Medical Museum, will speak on “Civil War Medicine, on the Crossroad of Healing.” Feel free to bring your lunch.

From University Advancement:

Towne and Gown Golf Classic

The Towne & Gown Golf Classic is back and will be held on Monday, June 10, 2013 at Red Hill Country Club in Rancho Cucamonga. Be on the lookout for your registration info. To register, please visit www.westernu.edu/golf, or email Austin Braunwalder or call him at (909) 469-8495.

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Western University of Health Sciences, 309 E. Second St., Pomona, Calif. 91766

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