This Week@WesternU, Jan. 30-Feb. 3, 2017
From the College of Allied Health Professions:
Physician Assistant Day hits the mark
Earlier this month, nearly 100 health pathway students attended the Inland Health Professions Coalition’s (IHPC) first PA Day in partnership with Western University of Health Sciences. The event was held at Montclair High School for Chaffey district students. The day opened with a general session where guest speaker Roy Guizado, MS, PA-C, reviewed the academic pathway for a PA degree and talked about the role a PA plays in the medical setting. Immediately following, the students were broken into groups and rotated through four workshops facilitated by WesternU PA students. The interactive sessions gave the high school students a chance to “wear” the role of a PA by taking blood pressure and pulse, and performing physical exams on the two $10,000 simulators the PA Department uses for PA students. The other two sessions focused on patient interaction/communication skills and office equipment and supplies. To close out the day, PA Guizado presented two case study scenarios in which the high school students had to draw on the information from their sessions to determine diagnosis and results. IHPC felt deeply grateful to WesternU for providing the keynote speaker, all of the medical equipment, manikins, and the 26 PA graduate students who facilitated the sessions.
Kudos on accomplishments
College of Allied Health Professions Associate Dean for Research Donna Redman-Bentley, PT, PhD, was named an Elite Reviewer for 2016 for the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Elite status designation reflects the number, timeliness and quality of the recipient’s reviews for the archives in 2016 as judged by the editors. About 2 percent (52 out of 2,845 reviewers who submitted 1,845 reviews in 2016) were judged to be deserving of this recognition.
From the College of Podiatric Medicine:
Dean’s Distinguished Lecture
The second annual College of Podiatric Medicine Lawrence B. Harkless Dean’s Distinguished Lecture will be held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, March 30, 2017 in WesternU’s Health Education Center, Lecture Hall I. The Ohio State University President Michael V. Drake, MD, will give the keynote presentation, “Higher Education, Healthcare and The Future of America.” Click here to view a flier.
From the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific:
Kudos on accomplishments
Department of Basic Medical Sciences faculty members Dr. Covasa, Dr. Peterfy, Dr. Szurmant and Dr. Zhong published the following:
Jianfei Wang, Xu Dong, Li Cao, Yangyang Sun, Yu Qiu, Yi Zhang, Ruoqiong Cao, Mihai Covasa and Li Zhong. Association between telomere length and diabetes mellitus: A meta-analysis. Int. Med. Res. 0(0) 1-18, 2016.
Labadzhyan, A.; Cui, J.; Peterfy, M.; Guo, X.; Chen, Y.I.; Hsueh, W.A.; Rotter, J.I.; Goodarzi, M.O. (2016) Insulin Clearance is Associated with Hepatic Lipase Activity and Lipid and Adiposity Traits in Mexican Americans. PLOS One, 11: e0166263.
Uguzzoni, G.; Lovis, S.J.; Oteri, F.; Schug, A.; Szurmant, H.; Weigt, M. (2017) Large-scale identification of coevolution signals across homo-oligomeric protein interfaces by direct coupling analysis. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., In press.
Dr. Peterfy and Dr. Venketaraman received the following grant awards:
Miklos Peterfy, NIH/NHLBI, Molecular Mechanisms of Lipase Maturation and Secretion. $269,464.
Vishwanath Venketaraman, Your Energy Systems, $50,000.
From the College of Pharmacy:
Kudos on accomplishments
Arezoo Campbell, PhD, along with her collaborator Stephen C. Bondy, co-edited a book titled “Inflammation, Aging, and Oxidative Stress.” Former postdoctoral fellow Parrisa Solaimani, PhD, and Dr. Campbell co-authored a chapter in the book titled, “Oxidative and Inflammatory Pathways in Age-Related Chronic Disease Processes” (Pages 95-106). Information for the book as follows:
Bondy SC. Campbell A, editors. Inflammation, aging, and oxidative stress. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing; c2016. 405 p. (Springer series on Oxidative stress in applied basic research and clinical practice).
From the Graduate College of Biomedical Sciences:
Kudos on accomplishments
Click here to read about the latest publications from GCBS Associate Professor Fanglong Dong, PhD.
From University Advancement:
Kudos on accomplishments
WesternU Executive Director of Public Affairs and Marketing Jeff Keating was recently installed as a member of BizFed’s Health Care policy committee. BizFed, the Los Angeles County Business Federation, celebrated its ninth anniversary with the installation of officers for 2017. Founded in 2008, BizFed is a massive, diverse grassroots alliance of more than 160 top business organizations representing 325,000 businesses with 3 million employees across the region. BizFed’s volunteer officers provide the active leadership necessary to promote the economic vitality of Southern California.
Sudden Snack
On the afternoon of Wednesday, Jan. 25, the Alumni Office hosted another of its Sudden Snack events on the Esplanade near Ethan Allen Park, distributing roughly 600 freshly baked cookies to current students. Now in its fifth year, Sudden Snack is held a few times each year to increase awareness of the Alumni Association among current students, as well as to acknowledge the students’ hard work. The events are typically timed to coincide with the end of the first-year students’ IPE small group meetings, one of the few times that such a large group of students seem to all be on the same schedule. On-campus students received an email from the Alumni Office just about an hour before the event begins (hence the event’s name), inviting them to come out to enjoy a little treat.
WesternU Job Board
The Office of Alumni Relations manages an online, self-service job board (http://webpost.westernu.edu) to help alumni (and soon-to-be alumni) connect with employers who understand and value their knowledge, skill and humanistic training. The site was launched in July 2013, and just this month it surpassed two milestones: the 5,000th job listing posted and the 3,000th user registered (including more than 2,000 employers and nearly 800 job seekers). Currently, the site boasts nearly 400 open positions, with employers especially seeking PAs, NPs and ODs.
From the Pumerantz Library
Book talk
The Pumerantz Library will host a book talk by Allen Callaci. His book, “Heart Like a Starfish,” is about his journey through emergency heart transplantation surgery and beyond. He will be on campus Monday, Feb. 6, 2017 in Compatriots Hall from noon to 1 p.m. After the talk, the author will be available to sell and sign copies of his book. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, where the procedure was performed. Light refreshments will be served. Pomona campus faculty, staff and students can reserve a seat here. COMP-Northwest faculty, staff and students can view the live stream in Lecture Hall 2. Email reference@westernu.edu or call 909-469-5323 and ask for Reference for more information.
