News and Notes
New Wishard CEO Brings Wealth of Experience
to Job
A clinician for more than two decades, Lisa E. Harris, MD, has
served her patients well and compassionately. That experience certainly
will help her in her new role as chief executive officer and medical
director of Wishard Health Services.
Dr. Harris assumed the top role of one of the nation’s largest
public hospitals in late December, following her appointment by
the trustees of the Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County
and IUSM Dean D. Craig Brater, MD. The Milwaukee-born doctor was
chief of medicine at Wishard and executive vice president and chief
medical officer for IU Medical Group-Primary Care at the time of
her appointment. She succeeds Robert B. Jones, MD, PhD, who was
appointed executive associate dean for strategic planning, analysis
and operations at the School.
“Dr. Harris brings a tremendous wealth of experience as a
clinician and manager,” Dr. Brater says. “Her breadth
of experience, coupled with having practiced medicine at Wishard
her entire medical career, means she is uniquely equipped to lead
Wishard during this most important time.”
At the end of 2003, Wishard administrators faced a projected $40
million deficit. Cost-cutting measures have been implemented and
additional funding is being sought to cure the facility’s
ailing fiscal situation. But the 1983 IUSM graduate is up to the
challenge.
“I am eager to assume this role and I’m optimistic,”
says Dr. Harris, who also was named IUSM associate dean of Wishard
Affairs. “While I will be working closely with Wishard’s
board of trustees and administrative leadership to stabilize our
financial future, I embrace the opportunity to work with the physicians
and staff to improve the care we provide to the Indianapolis community,
particularly the medically vulnerable.”
Dr. Harris completed an internship, residency and fellowship in
internal medicine at IUSM, as well as a fellowship in nephrology.
She is credited for advancing programs for preventive and therapeutic
care and has led research focusing on patients’ reports and
evaluations to improve delivery of care.
Matthew Gutwein, president and CEO of the HHC of Marion County,
described Dr. Harris as visionary and the right person to lead Wishard.
“Lisa loves Wishard, our patients and our mission, and we
are fortunate to have her at the helm,” Gutwein says.
Grants Expand IU-MOI aids Research
The success of a two-year program to treat HIV/AIDS in adults and
children in Kenya has attracted a one-year, $1.6 million grant from
the U.S. Agency for International Development and A $15 million
award from the cdc.
The program, Academic Model for the Prevention and Treatment for
HIV/AIDS (AMPATH), was created by the Indiana University School
of Medicine, the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, and the Moi
University Faculty of Health Sciences in Kenya.
The new grant will allow IU and Moi physicians to increase the
number of HIV-infected people they treat in Kenya from 2,000 to
30,000, and to establish HIV treatment and prevention programs in
six rural communities over the next five years.
AMPATH is a model program that attracted the U.S. agency funding
after successfully enrolling and treating more than 1,500 patients
using modern HIV/AIDS therapy. It also instituted a successful mother-to-child-transmission
prevention program in which more than ninety traditional birth attendants
have been trained to care for HIV-infected women using preventive
interventions. The program has educated community support groups
about HIV, the importance of prevention and the need for testing.
Faculty and students also have established a practical, low-cost,
high-production ten-acre farm in Kenya to provide high quality macro-nutrition
to HIV-infected families.
AMPATH is opening a new facility in May 2004 in urban Kenya for
teaching, research and patient care. A second new building will
be opened in the rural community of Mosoriot for treatment, counseling,
teaching and research. These and other treatment facilities will
feature an electronic medical record system to help physicians track
patients and provide better care.
In addition to the increase in patients treated and the four new
rural programs, the grant will allow AMPATH to:
- replicate the farm model in two rural sites;
- develop an enterprise program that will assure sustainable economic
security for affected Kenyan families;
- make the AMPATH electronic medical record system capable of
replication in and outside Kenya to support patient care and the
uniform reporting of results, teaching and research;
- fund the additional laboratory services needed to serve a wide
region of western Kenya.
The grant also will support a full range of educational programs
for medical students, post-graduate physicians and providers of
HIV care in Kenya to assure continuation of quality care.
“We could not have made it to this point without the years
of support of many private donors in Indiana,” says Robert
Einterz, MD, scientific director of the AMPATH program and IUSM
assistant dean for international affairs. “The tireless efforts
of IU faculty physicians like John Sidle, Bill Tierney and Joe Mamlin
have inspired us to keep at this over the past fourteen years.”
Dr. Mamlin retired from the IUSM faculty in 2002 and now works
with his Kenyan colleagues on the program. He works with Haroun
N.K. Mengech, PB, ChB, director of the Moi Teaching and Referral
Hospital; B.O. Khwa-Otsyula, MB, ChB, dean of Moi University Faculty
of Health Sciences; and co-director of the program.
See Dean Brater’s message
for a more recent award announcement.
Vaccine Program Helps Kenya Kids
Half of the children born in sub-Saharan Africa each year do not
receive vaccinations to protect them from common debilitating or
deadly diseases. An ambitious venture between IUSM, Moi University
Faculty of Health Sciences and Merck & Co. aims to boost the
number of children vaccinated.
The Merck Vaccine Network-Africa has granted $200,000 to the School
to create a training program in Eldoret, Kenya, which will develop
a sustainable workforce of medical professionals skilled in vaccine
management, storage and delivery. About ten percent of Kenya’s
children die before reaching the age of five, reports the World
Health Organization. Many succumb to diseases preventable through
vaccinations.
“Working within the framework established at Moi and the
strong relationships we have forged with our colleagues and others
in Kenya, we expect to provide the necessary training to make this
program succeed,” says Edward Liechty, MD, professor of pediatrics
and principal investigator for the Merck grant. Fabian Esamai, MD,
professor of pediatrics, is principal investigator at Moi, and will
work with Dr. Liechty to implement the program.
“By training immunization managers through the MVN-A initiative,
we hope to enhance our ability to vaccinate and increase coverage
against the eight diseases covered by the extended program on immunizations
in my country,” adds Dr. Esamai. The diseases are tuberculosis,
diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, poliomyelitis, measles, hepatitis
B and haemophilus influenza type B, which can lead to numerous infections
in children.
Roger Roeske, PhD
His Persistence Results in IU First
HE had no idea he would father a drug for prostate cancer when
he began his research on contraception thirty years ago. In doing
so, he will go down in IU history as the first faculty member to
discover the makings of a drug that made it to market.
Dr. Roeske was in his mid-forties when he began his research. Today,
at seventy-six, he continues to teach at IUSM and research compounds
for age-related disorders such as Alzheimer disease. His research
is credited with leading to the development of abarelix –
the generic name for Plenaxis™ – an antagonist that
blocks the body’s ability to produce testosterone, which enables
most prostate cancers to grow. As a result fewer cancer cells are
formed, minimizing the disease’s progression and making therapeutic
agents more effective.
“Like so many things, this project started in a different
direction,” says the professor of biochemistry and biology.
“By shifting the focus of my project, the early research was
purposeful and provided the momentum for developing a much-needed
product.”
Plenaxis was approved for use by the FDA late last year.
Merrill D. Benson, MD
… And So Does His
This IU Physician is the first recipient of the Pasteur-Weizmann-Servier
International Prize in Biomedical Research in Paris for his pioneering
work on the role amyloid proteins play in the development of a variety
of disorders.
Dr. Benson, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and
of medical and molecular genetics and of medicine, recently was
cited for his research on the accumulation of protein fibers in
tissues that can disrupt normal organ function. Amyloidosis refers
to the disease that causes the deposits and, depending on the type
of the amyloid, can lead to heart, kidney and liver failure, as
well as other disorders. Dr. Benson is acclaimed for his discovery
of protein mutations which lead to Alzheimer and other central nervous
system diseases.
The prestigious award, which includes a significant cash prize,
is to be presented every three years to a prominent researcher,
scientist or physician who has gained international recognition
for a biomedical discovery that has resulted in a therapy.
The Pasteur Institute in France is named for Louis Pasteur, the
discoverer of the vaccination for rabies. The Weizmann Institute
of Science is a leading research and academic organization in Israel.
France’s Servier Institute promotes all forms of research
and science advancing medicine.
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