This Week@WesternU, May 10-14, 2010

Commencement 2010

The 29th Annual Commencement Exercises for Western University of Health Sciences will be held on May 20-21, 2010 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

Regalia: Remember your cap, gown and tassel. A bag/coat check will be provided. Also, if you purchased your own hood, remember to give it to your family hooders. Remember that your family hooders need to bring their Family Hooder Passes to be admitted to the Loge Family Hooder Seating area.

Commencement Web site: The commencement Web site 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/live-start.htm. Please let those who are not attending know, so they can watch you online! Click here for more information on the live Webcast.

Guest Reminders

Doors Close Early: The front doors will close at 9:20 for AM ceremonies and 2:50 for PM ceremonies and will re-open after the processional, invocation and national anthem. It’s essential that all of your guests are 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.

Tickets Required (for CAHP/CGN and COMP ceremonies): Remember your tickets, as all attendees must have a ticket to enter the auditorium! All tickets have been distributed to graduates so we unfortunately do not have any more to give. For ticket questions, contact Cathy Davis (cdavis@westernu.edu).

College of Allied Health Professions

Thursday, May 20, 9:30 a.m.

Keynote Speaker: Joseph Dunn, Esq.

California Medical Association Chief Executive Officer

College of Pharmacy

Thursday, May 20, 3 p.m.

Keynote Speaker: Alan T. Kiyohara, PharmD, FCSHP

Kaiser Permanente Pharmacy Operations Leader for Southern California

College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific

Friday, May 21, 9:30 a.m.

Keynote Speaker: Larry A. Wickless, DO

American Osteopathic Association President

College of Veterinary Medicine

Friday, May 21, 3 p.m.

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald

Veterinarian featured on Animal Planet’s “Emergency Vets”

From the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific:

Kudos on accomplishments

Dr. Zuhra Musherraf was officially named the winner of the George W. Northup Educator of the Year Award on May 1, 2010. She will be receiving her award at a reception in San Francisco this fall at the AOA-SOMA Fall Convention. She was nominated by the Class of 2012 through a two-step process. Tamar Nazerian and Morgan Faggard authored an essay which placed Dr. Musherraf in the top four nominees. Then they worked with Garret Jefferys, Lauren Derhodge, and Bryan Tucker to submit a video that was presented at the AOA-SOMA Spring Convention in Washington, D.C. and voted as the best.

A special thank you to everyone who contributed their stories about how Dr. Musherraf has touched their lives, both for the essay and the video. Please be sure to congratulate Dr. Musherraf on this amazing award she so deserved.

Dr. Vaibhav Tiwari’s work in collaboration with Dr. Desai at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) has been accepted in a peer-reviewed, high-impact journal: Biomacromolecules. 2010 Apr 22. [Epub ahead of print]

Nonsulfated, Cinnamic Acid-Based Lignins are Potent Antagonists of HSV-1 Entry into Cells. Thakkar JN, Tiwari V, Desai UR.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20411926

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/bm100161u

COMP Student Nayiri Gharibian, OMS-II, is one of 12 recipients of the Kaiser Permanente Oliver Goldsmith Scholarship. There will be a reception hosted by Kaiser on May 20 which she and her family will be attending. Nayiri is also the recipient of the Paul Ambrose Scholarship. She will be traveling to Washington, D.C. at the end of June to accept the award.

On Saturday, May 1, Andrew Nelson, OMS-III, was elected as the first student from COMP to sit as the student trustee on the American Osteopathic Association’s Board of Trustees. He was elected to this position from his current student board position on the Student Osteopathic Medical Association (SOMA) Board of Trustees.

From the College of Allied Health Professions:

Kudos on accomplishments

The College of Allied Health Professions is pleased to announce that Professor Georgeanne Vlad will be assuming a college-level position as Enrollment and Alumni Relations Coordinator. Professor Vlad has been employed at WesternU for 19 years, serving as the Director of Clinical Education in the Department of Physical Therapy Education since the initiation of the program in 1992. During this time she has been active in both recruitment efforts and alumni activities. In her new role she will focus on these two areas: recruitment and alumni relations at the college level for both the Department of Physical Therapy Education and the Department of Health Sciences Education. Please join us in congratulating and wishing Professor Vlad much success in her new role effective July 1, 2010.

Associate Professor Georgeanne Vlad was a speaker at the Fourth Annual Health Professions Conference sponsored last week by the Caduceus Club at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut. About 750 people attended the all-day event organized by the school’s pre-health professions club so that students can be introduced to a variety of health care professions in order to better plan their educational pursuits. Professor Vlad spoke on “Becoming a Physical Therapist” as part of several workshops in addition to representing the DPT program during the Health Education Fair.

Department of Health Sciences News

May 17–21, 2010 is Bike to Work Week, sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists. Bike to Work Day is Friday, May 21, 2010. The league offers suggestions for organizations who wish to have successful National Bike Month events at http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bikemonth/.

From the College of Pharmacy:

Congratulations to Harold Ting, MSPS candidate, on his runner-up award for his poster/abstract titled: “Drug Rediscovery: Glybenclamide Exhibits Thromboxane Receptor Dependent Antithrombotic Activity,” which he presented during the 2010 Experimental Biology meeting on April 26 in Anaheim. It ranked fifth among 33 abstracts submitted by graduate students from universities nationwide, and therefore he won a runner-up award for the Graduate Student Best Abstract Award, The Division of Cardiovascular Pharmacology, The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

Professor Roger S. Klotz, R.Ph., BCNSP, FASCP, FACA, FCPhA, was invited by the Jordanian Royal Medical Services to speak at their 5th International Conference, which was interprofessional in nature and at which the King of Jordan also made an appearance.

Professor Klotz presented: a three-hour workshop on “Pharmacist Medication Therapy Management (MTM) Services Experience in the USA, a podium presentation on “Pharmacist and Physician Collaborative Practice Programs in Managing Their Patient’s Medication Therapy, and a podium presentation on “Pharmacist Provided Direct Patient Care Services.”

Professor Klotz also presented at the Evidence Based Medicine in the Elderly conference on “Medication Therapy Management: Faculty Implementation.”

Dr. David Min and his team presented three abstracts at the American Transplant Congress, San Diego, May 1-5:

Tellez-Corales E, Yang J, Cho Y, Qazi Y, Shah T, Hutchinson IV, Min DI. “Genetic polymorphisms and the severity of G.I. side effects in kidney transplant patients taking mycophenolic acid therapy.” Dr. Tellez-Corrales is a current WesternU Transplant fellow working with Dr. Min and Dr. Yang is a previous fellow. This abstract was selected as a Recognition with Distinction (in the top 10 percent out of 1855 abstracts)

Min DI, Tellez-Corales E, Yang J, Cho Y, Qazi Y, Shah T, Hutchinson IV. “Comparison of the severity of gastrointestinal side effects in kidney transplant patients treated with either enteric coated mycophenolic acid or mycophenolic mofetil.”

Reignier TM, Yang JW, Yap M, Min DI, Hutchinson IV. “Polymorphisms in HHEX and GJB7 are associated with posttransplant diabetes mellitus in kidney transplant recipients.”

From the College of Graduate Nursing:

National Nurses Week

Each year the week of May 6-12 is celebrated as National Nurses Week to recognize nurses for their dedication and work efforts and to help educate the public about nurses. Three student organizations on campus, SGA, NSNA, and RNc, are celebrating National Nurses Week with three different events:

Monday, May 10 and Wednesday, May 12 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. show your WesternU ID at Hardy Café, 205 East 2nd Street, Pomona, and receive 15 percent off your meal.

Then help celebrate Florence Nightingale’s 190th birthday on Friday, May 14 from 6 p.m. to midnight at Angelo’s, 135 East 2nd St, Pomona, with karaoke, dancing, food, cake, and drinks! Food will be 10 percent off for the evening. Come out and show your support for nurses!

From the College of Veterinary Medicine:

Kudos on accomplishments

Veterinary Assistant Professor Dr. Pedro Diniz has collaborated to publish a study of tick-borne diseases of the dog. This 10-page manuscript describes either simultaneous or sequential experimental infections with E. canis and A. platys on hematological and serological parameters, duration of infection, and efficacy of doxycycline therapy in dogs infected with one or both organisms.

The complete citation is: Experimental infection and co-infection of dogs with Anaplasma platys and Ehrlichia canis: hematologic, serologic and molecular findings

SD Gaunt1, MJ Beall2*, BA Stillman2, L Lorentzen2, PPVP Diniz3, R Chandrashekar2, EB Breitschwerdt4. Parasites & Vectors 2010, 3:33

Click here to view the study.

Veterinary Professor and Equine Internist Dr. Joe Bertone received notice that two of his papers have been accepted by the American Association of Equine Practitioners, for presentation at the 56th Annual Convention, Baltimore, Maryland, Dec. 4-8, 2010:

“Fatalities and adverse reactions following administration of alpha-2 adrenergic agonist reversal agents in the Horse.” David B. Scofield, DVM; Dana L. Alexander; Robert P. Franklin, DVM, Dipolmate ACVIM; and Joseph J. Bertone, DVM, MS, Diplomate ACVIM. This study of anesthetic reversal agents included CVM Student Doctor Dana Alexander, DVM ’11, and a collaborative partnership with other veterinarians.

“Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacodynamics and Safety of N butylscopolammonium Bromide Administered Intramuscularly versus Intravenously.” Joseph J Bertone, Holly M. Greene, Margaret Sislak, Heidi Agnic, Melodee Heidmiller, Scott Stanley, Steven J Wickler. This study involved two alumni of Western University of Health Sciences (Heidi Agnic, DVM ’07, and Meg Sislak, DVM ’08) and current veterinary student Melodee Heidmiller, DVM ’12, along with collaborators from Cal Poly Pomona.

Veterinary Student Eric Fish has been notified by the Morris Animal Foundation that he has been awarded $2,000 for his proposed summer research study “Prevalence and Viral Load of Replicating Feline Coronavirus in Blood of Healthy Shelter Cats.” Eric will work with his mentor Dr. Pedro Diniz, whose WesternU laboratory has ongoing studies in this and other infectious disease research.

From the College of Dental Medicine:

Kudos on accomplishments

Congratulations to College of Dental Medicine faculty member Tobias Boehm on the following publication: Tobias K. Boehm, H. Sojar, E. DeNardin. “Concentration-dependent effect of fibrinogen on IgG-specific antigen binding and phagocytosis.” Cellular Immunology 263 (2010) 41–48. Drs. Sojar and DeNardin are associated with the State University of New York at Buffalo.

From the College of Podiatric Medicine:

Candidate Status

The College of Podiatric Medicine has taken an important step toward full accreditation. The Council on Podiatric Medical Education (CPME), the professional accreditation body for Podiatric Medicine, has granted CPM candidate status, which is the second of three steps in CPME’s accreditation process. Click here to read the full story.

Outtakes

Special – extended hours of operation for exam week

Open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. May 10-13

Have you tried our Sunrise Special?

Just $2.50 will get you an egg and cheese muffin and a tall brewed Starbucks coffee everyday of the week!

Five for $5 menu for the week of May 10 (each comes with 16 oz iced tea or 16 oz bottled water)

Monday: Half sandwich with turkey, ham, basil mayo, lettuce and tomato with sun chips, cookie

Tuesday: Pesto pasta, garlic bread, small green salad

Wednesday: Chicken salad, crackers, pecan bar, miss vickies chips

Thursday: Half roast beef sandwich with cheddar cheese, roasted onions, lettuce and tomato on seven grain bread with salad of the day, cookie

Friday: Vegetarian burger, fries, cookie

Look no further than Outtakes for a great meal at a great price – every day!

Located on the ground floor of the new Health Education Building. To learn more and see our daily specials, please visit us at www.cafebonappetit.com/westernu.