This Week@WesternU, Sept. 18-22, 2017
Webb: Disruption, patient experience are keys to health care’s future
Future health care professionals and educators, including students and faculty at Western University of Health Sciences, should embrace disruptive innovation and rapid technological advances to improve patient experiences, revamp the health care system and, ultimately, improve health across the country and around the world.
That was the advice offered by futurist, inventor, health care entrepreneur and author Nicholas Webb during the ninth annual Philip Pumerantz Distinguished Lecture, held Thursday, September 7, 2017 in the Health Education Center at WesternU.
Speaking to an overflow crowd that filled more than 700 seats in two lecture halls, as well as another smaller classroom, Webb – director of the University’s Center for Innovation, which had its official launch the day prior – said the key to surviving and thriving amidst changes in health care is understanding its ever-shifting environment, and positioning oneself accordingly.
Click here to read the full story and to view a slideshow.
WesternU holds Sept. 11 memorial
Community leaders gathered at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California Monday, Sept. 11, 2017 to honor those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
WesternU dignitaries joined representatives from the city of Pomona, the Pomona Police Department and the Los Angeles County Fire Department at a memorial service organized by the WesternU Military Medical Student Association. The WesternU Chamber Singers performed “The Star-Spangled Banner” and U.S. Army veteran Thomas Laffey closed the ceremony by playing “Taps” on the bugle, followed by a moment of silence.
Click here to read the full story and to view a slideshow.
Hurricane Benefit Concert
Musicians in Medicine will hold a concert to raise money for hurricane relief from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 26 in front of the Health Education Center. Free food. Live music. T-shirts. Donations are encouraged and will go to “Direct Relief.”
Email mmclub@westernu.edu for more information. Click here to view a flier.
The concert will be streamed live on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbhWjlpHOQg
From the College of Pharmacy:
Kudos on accomplishments
Dr. Emmanuelle Schwartzman has been selected as a recipient of the ASHP Foundation 2017 Pharmacy Residency Excellence Preceptor Award. This award recognizes excellence as a residency preceptor, well deserved for Dr. Schwartzman who has served as a primary preceptor of her PGY1 residency for five years and in her role as Director of Residency and Fellowship Training for the past three years, as a coordinator and mentor to all our post-docs in PPAD.
The award will be officially bestowed during ASHP (American Society of Health System Pharmacists) Midyear, December 2017 in Orlando, FL.
Our visiting scholar, Dr. T. Craig Cheetham, was coauthor for a publication in Vaccine which has made the news today due to an association between the inactivated flu vaccine and spontaneous abortions in pregnant women. This article was based on his work with Kaiser Permanente.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0264410X?sdc=1
From the Graduate College of Biomedical Sciences:
Kudos on accomplishments
GCBS Professor Q. Quinn Li, PhD, with his student Juncheng Lin who worked on the project for a year here at WesternU, and collaborators, recently published a research paper in The Plant Journal (2017, 91:829–839) titled “Role of Cleavage and Polyadenylation Specificity Factor 100: Anchoring Poly(A) Sites and Terminating Transcription in Arabidopsis.” In this article, they extended the understanding of functions of the polyadenylation factor in terms of its far-reaching activity in transcription termination as well as alternative polyadenylation.
In another publication, Dr. Li and his students and associates studied the relationship between alternative splicing and alternative polyadenylation, two events that regulate gene expression during pre-mRNA processing. They demonstrated a competitive, sometime mutually exclusive, relationship for these two events, particularly for alternative poly(A) sites located in an intron. The article, “Interplay between Alternative Splicing and Alternative Polyadenylation Defines the Expression Outcome of the Plant Unique OXIDATIVE TOLERANT-6 Gene,” was published in Scientific Reports (2017, 7:2052).
Dr. Li also collaborated with bioinformatics scientists to study genome level distribution and potential functions of transposable elements in different ecotypes of the model plant Arabidopsis. The results have been published in Scientific Reports (2017, 7:2634) entitled “Genome-Wide Comparative Analysis of Miniature Inverted Repeat Transposable Element in 19 Arabidopsis thaliana Accessions.”
From University Advancement:
Alumni news
On Sept. 8, WesternU alumni attending the Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons of California (OPSC) Conference came together to enjoy great food, drink and conversation at the latest Alumni Networking Mixer at El Torito in Monterey. The mixer was well attended with 35 COMP alumni in attendance. It was a fun evening that included meeting new acquaintances and catching up with old friends.
On Sept. 8-9, Russel Heskin, Director of Alumni Relations, and Tom Fox, Director of COMP Outreach and Strategic Partnerships, were at the OPSC Annual Fall Conference in Monterey, Calif. The two staffed a table in the exhibit hall to interact and engage with the roughly 150 alumni, as well as several COMP students, in attendance.
During California Physical Therapy Association’s 2017 Annual Conference in San Diego, Calif., the Alumni Office hosted a WesternU Lunch on Saturday, Sept. 16 at the Hilton Gaslamp Hotel. Approximately 55 alumni, students, faculty, staff, and guests enjoyed a delicious buffet lunch while socializing and networking. Pictures can be viewed at https://westernu.smugmug.com/WesternU-Alumni/CPTA2017/.
