This Week@WesternU, April 7-11, 2014

Inspirational speakers tapped for WesternU’s Trends in Autism Conference

When Jeremy Sicile-Kira was diagnosed with autism more than 20 years ago, his mother, Chantal, was told to find a good institution for him. Instead, she helped steer him toward the self-determined life he wants to have as a productive young man.

“Autism is an important aspect of my place in the world. There are many hardships to having autism, including difficulties with communicating verbally,” Jeremy Sicile-Kira says on his website, www.jeremysvision.com. “Yet, a good thing about my autism is my capacity to see beautiful colors even in dust. My ability to paint the colors I see in my dreams is the greatest gift I have.”

Jeremy and Chantal Sicile-Kira will serve as the keynote speakers at the 13th Annual Trends in Autism Conference April 12, 2014 at Western University of Health Sciences, 309 E. Second St., Pomona, Calif. Click here to read the full story.

Click here for more information and to register.

WesternU’s East West Dinner raises money for student scholarships

Academic excellence, community service and commitment to philanthropy will take center stage at Western University of Health Sciences’ 8th Annual East West Scholarship Dinner. The event, to be held April 12, 2014 in San Gabriel, Calif., will honor Jonathan Y.H. Wu, MD, PhD, President and Chairman of AHMC Healthcare Inc., operator of a Southern California network of hospitals that employs more than 2,500 physicians and treats more than 200,000 patients annually.

Click here to read the full story.

Click here to visit the East West Scholarship Dinner website.

From the Patient Care Center:

Western University of Health Sciences is providing free oral cancer screenings on April 18 to promote Oral Cancer Awareness Month in April. Screenings are available from 1 to 4 p.m. April 18, 2014 at the WesternU Dental Center in the Patient Care Center, 795 E. Second St., Pomona, Calif. 91766. Call 909-706-3910 for more information. Click here to read the full story.

Eye Care Center is authorized dispenser of Google Glass

The Eye Care Center at Western University of Health Sciences is now a Google Glass dispenser. Google Glass is a wearable computer attached to specially designed glasses. Glass is only available to Glass Explorers, who pay $1,500 to be in the program, but there are plans for a broader consumer release in late 2014, according to Google Glass’ FAQ website. Please click here to learn more about the Glass Explorer program.

Google Explorers should call (909) 706-3953 to schedule an appointment at the Eye Care Center, which is in the Patient Care Center, 795 E. Second St., Pomona, Calif. 91766. Click here to read the full story.

From the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific:

The College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific-Northwest and its students recently gained eligibility for the Primary Health Care Loan Forgiveness Program through the Oregon Office of Rural Health. The program requires students to participate in a special Rural Health Track, which teaches them about the unique aspects of rural health care.

Starting in their first year of medical school, students may apply for an Oregon state specific loan forgiveness program, which may provide as much as $35,000 per school year. In return, recipients promise to practice in a rural Oregon community for each year they receive the loan. Ten percent of their clinical rotations must be in rural regions. Students may apply who intend to go into primary care residencies, including family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics and general surgery. Click here to view the full story.

From the College of Allied Health Professions:

Steven Snyder, PT, DPT, CSCS, faculty member in the Department of Physical Therapy Education, consulted on the set of ESPN’s “Sports Science” for a segment featuring top football recruits for the 2014 draft. “Sports Science” highlights the science and engineering underlying elite athletic performance and can be seen at a variety of times daily on ESPN during programs such as SportsCenter. While on set for filming, Dr. Snyder was responsible for designing and delivering dynamic warm-ups and stretches for injury prevention and to prepare the athletes for peak performance of athletic drills related to jumping, throwing, running and agility.

From the College of Pharmacy:

Please join us for the 8th annual Ray Symposium at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, April 17, 2014. This year, our speaker is Eileen Crimmins, PhD, the AARP Chair in Gerontology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology and director of the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health. A recent Institute of Medicine report compares American’s health to other high-income countries. The report finds that Americans have a significant health disadvantage resulting from a combination of factors including individual behaviors, environment, social and economic disparities, and public health policies. Dr. Crimmins will be addressing these and other findings in her presentation, “Shorter Lives, Poorer Health.” Click here for more information.

Kudos on accomplishments

Dr. Lingyun Liu, who is the Cardiology fellow working with Dr. Cynthia Jackevicius, presented a poster at the recently held American College of Cardiology meeting that won the “ACC Best Cardiovascular Team Poster.” Lingyun Lu, Cynthia A. Jackevicius, Noelle K. De Leon, Donald S. Chang, Alberta L. Warner, Freny Vaghaiwalla Mody. Impact of a Multi-Disciplinary Heart Failure Post-Discharge Management Clinic on Evidence-based Medication Adherence.

Dr. Noelle DeLeon is Dr. Jackevicius’ previous resident, and the other authors are cardiologists who specialize in heart failure at the VA, which is Dr. Jackevicius practice site.

Dr. Jackevicius also presented another poster at the ACC: Meytal Avgil Tsadok, Cynthia A. Jackevicius, Elham Rahme, Karin H. Humphries, and Louise Pilote. Sex Differences In Dabigatran Utilization, Safety And Effectiveness In a Population Based Cohort Of Patients With Atrial Fibrillation.

Dr. Quang Le published a paper in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry: Le QA, Doctor JN, Zoellner LA, Feeny NC. Cost-Effectiveness of Prolonged Exposure Therapy Versus Pharmacotherapy and Treatment Choice in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (the Optimizing PTSD Treatment Trial): A Doubly Randomized Preference Trial. J Clin Psychiatry 2014;75(3):222–230. http://www.psychiatrist.com/privatepdf/2014/v75n03/v75n0307.pdf

At the recently held American Pharmacists Association (APhA) Annual Meeting held in Orlando, Fla., WesternU made a strong presence with Dean Daniel Robinson, PharmD, and Dr. Jim Scott in attendance and the following activities and awards:

Dr. Eric Gupta served on the APhA Policy Reference Committee at the meeting and also addressed the Kappa Psi Reception with a State of the Fraternity Address as Grand Regent (National President).

Third-year student JR Flores was recognized for his service on the APhA-ASP Awards Standing Committee

The WesternU APhA-ASP chapter (advised by Dr. Gupta and Dr. Hess) won 2nd Runner-Up for Operation Diabetes which means we were 3rd in the nation for our diabetes outreach program.

The Chapter also won the Most Innovative Chapter Programming Award for the Steps for a Healthy Heart campaign where we had students and faculty pledge to walk 10,000 steps a day and track their progress with a pedometer app.

Dr. Emmanuelle Schwartman was re-elected for Rho Chi Region 8 counselor.

The Rho Chi Chapter (advised by Dr. Schwartzman) won the chapter project proposal award for their submission on Academic Bootcamp.

Dr. Karl Hess served on the House of Delegates as a delegate for California. He also ran immunization SIG business meeting with the SIG coordinator.

Three posters were presented:

Bik-Wai Tai, Charles La Rue and Anandi V. Law. Effect of Focused Education on Functional Health Literacy and Prescription Label Comprehension: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Richard Dang, Jeff Goad, Stephanie Luo, Karl Hess, Caroline Zeind, Mathew Machado and Anandi V. Law. Survey to Determine Travel Medicine and Immunization Content in Pharmacy School Curricula. This was a multi-school project (USC, WesternU and MCP).

Keri Hurley, Thang Nguyen, Alex Wang and Karl Hess. Correlation of diabetes self-efficacy, hemoglobin A1c, and patient demographics in a primary care safety net clinic.

Drs Tai is the Outcomes Research Fellow working with Dr. Law and Dr. Keri Hurley and Dr. Stephanie Luo are Dr. Hess’ current and previous PGY1 residents, respectively. Dr. Dang is community resident at USC with Dr. Goad. Drs. Nguyen and Wang are providers at the Pomona FQHC where Dr. Hess provides clinical pharmacy services.

College of Pharmacy faculty Jeffrey Wang, PhD, Fadi Khasawneh, PhD, Gollapudi S. Shankar, PharmD, MSPS Alumnus Justin Moussata, and Research Assistant Professor Zhijun Wang, PhD, recently published:

Moussata J, Wang Z, Wang J. Development and validation of an HPLC method for the simultaneous quantification of indole-3-carbinol acetate, indole-3-carbinol, and 3,3′-diindolylmethane in mouse plasma, liver, and kidney tissues. J Chromatogr B Analyt Technol Biomed Life Sci. 2014;958C:1-9. Epub 2014/04/02. doi: 10.1016/j.jchromb.2014.02.026. PubMed PMID: 24686233. PubMed Link

Khasawneh FT, Shankar GS. Minimizing Cardiovascular Adverse Effects of Atypical Antipsychotic Drugs in Patients with Schizophrenia. Cardiol Res Pract. 2014;2014:273060. Epub 2014/03/22. doi: 10.1155/2014/273060. PubMed PMID: 24649390; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3932258.
PubMed Link

From the College of Graduate Nursing:

Kudos on accomplishments

An article by Dr. Rod Hicks was published in the Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners: Hicks, R. W. (2014). I write, therefore I cite: Why and how tools can help the author. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 26, 177-178. Click here to read the article.

From the College of Veterinary Medicine:

China Veterinary Training Workshop

Assistant Professor David Kersey, PhD, and Professor John Tegzes, MA, VMD, Dipl. ABVT, participated in a planning meeting, “China Veterinary Training Workshop,” at the San Diego Zoo April 2-4. This is an initiative requested by the Chinese to elevate veterinary care at giant panda holding facilities in China and improve disease monitoring for wildlife species in giant panda habitat. To achieve this goal, three series of training courses will take place in China over the next year and a half. Drs. Tegzes and Kersey were tasked to develop a unifying active learning strategy to enhance veterinary skills and knowledge that could be applied to all training courses. Experts from The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Hong Kong Ocean Park Zoo, University of Minnesota, and San Diego Zoo were also in attendance. The meeting resulted in a solid strategy on the organization, expectations, goals and expected outcomes from each of the three training courses, as well as follow-up training.

Lucky Dog TV show comes to Banfield Pet Hospital at WesternU

A “Lucky Dog” TV show production crew, along with its host, Brandon McMillan, visited the Western University of Health Sciences campus in Pomona, Calif. on Friday, April 4, 2014. The crew brought Jasmine, a dog they recently rescued from a Los Angeles-based animal shelter, to Banfield Pet Hospital at WesternU to repair a torn ACL. Click here to read the full story and to view a slideshow.

From the College of Dental Medicine:

Kudos on accomplishments

Sean Rowan, Director of Student Affairs for the College of Dental Medicine, was recently appointed to the American Dental Association Council on Dental Education and Licensure’s (CDEL) Dental Admission Test (DAT) Committee. The DAT Committee oversees the administration of the national examination required for entry to U.S. dental schools.

From University Advancement:

The WesternU Alumni Association Scholarship is awarded annually to two humanistic, caring, and dependable Western University of Health Sciences students who excel academically and exemplify the qualities of an engaged alumnus/a through their extracurricular involvement. Recipients must be enrolled full-time in a degree/certificate program at WesternU, be in good academic and professional standing with their program, and have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0. This year’s recipients are Ryan Nguyen, DO ’16, and Jenny Tran, OD ’16. Jenny will be recognized during the College of Optometry’s Honors Day ceremony on April 11 and Ryan will be honored during COMP’s Awards and Recognition Ceremony on April 15. Each will receive $1,000 and a plaque.

From the Pumerantz Library

Harry Potter Family Fun Day

The Library’s Harry Potter Family fun day was held March 29. We would like to thank all of our “professors” who helped bring the world of Harry Potter a little closer to WesternU. We had a fabulous turn out, even with an earthquake interruption, with more than 100 attendees. Click here to view photos.

Micromedex App

Last week an email was sent out regarding changes made to the Micromedex app for Apple products. Please read the blog article to get instructions on how to get the code needed to activate the new Apple app. Also Windows users now have access to the Drug Information app.

New Ebook

The library has recently added a new ebook that offers guidance on how to clearly write an article. A must read for anyone considering publication.

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

909-623-6116