News and Highlights
June 2009
Lectures, Presentations, and Events
Lawrence P. Casalino, MD, PhD, MPH, Chief of the Division of Outcomes and Effectiveness Research, gave a plenary lecture called “Accountable Care Organizations: An Incentive for Innovation?” at the 15th Annual HMO Research Network Conference at Geisinger Health System in Danville, PA, April 28, 2009.
Dr. Casalino presented “Costs to Physician Practices of Interacting with Health Plans” at the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in Washington, DC, May 21, 2009. (See the Publications section for more on Dr. Casalino’s study that formed the basis of his talk.) The meeting was the first of three in a workshop series titled “The Healthcare Imperative: Lowering Costs and Improving Outcomes.”
Dr. Madelon Finkel, Professor of Clinical Public Health and Director of the Office of Global Health Education, presided over the annual International Fellows reception on May 19, 2009. This event was held to welcome back the students in the Class of 2009 who took an international elective this past year as well as to thank the donors and patrons of the Global Health Program. Almost 40 percent of the graduating class spent time abroad this past year traveling to places such as Nepal, Ghana, Chile, Ecuador, Australia, Europe, and Botswana. Almost 20 percent spent time in Tanzania doing a clinical rotation at the Weill Bugando Medical College or the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College.
Dr. Finkel provided an overview of the significant growth in the global health program at the medical college and talked about the establishments of global partnerships for collaborative research. Dean Antonio Gotto, Jr. welcomed the donors and patrons and thanked them for their continued support of the medical college's global health program. Dr. Oliver Fein, Professor of Clinical Medicine and Clinical Public Health and Associate Dean of Affiliations, gave the concluding remarks. Over 100 people attended the event, which was held in the Griffis Faculty Club.
Drs. Finkel and Fein attended the 18th annual Global Health Education Consortium (GHEC) meetings in Seattle, WA. Dr. Finkel hosted a session titled Doing Research Overseas: Challenges and Opportunities, and Dr. Fein hosted a session titled Education as Preventive Healthcare. GHEC is a consortium of medical colleges and universities whose focus in on global health education. Weill Cornell is one of the founding members of the consortium.
Yuhua Bao, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Division of Health Policy, presented her study, "Geographical Distribution of Surgical Capabilities and Disparities in the Use of High-Volume Providers: The case of coronary artery bypass graft," to a research interest group in health disparities at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on Feb 11, 2009.
Business & Medicine Symposium
Weill Cornell Medical College and Cornell University's Johnson School presented the first annual business and medicine intercampus symposium on April 30 to explore how business and medicine can collaborate to solve today's health care challenges. The conference was held in Weill Cornell's Uris Auditorium and was simulcast live to the Johnson School in Ithaca. The first panel, moderated by Dr. Marcus Reidenberg, Chief of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Professor of Pharmacology, Medicine, and Public Health, addressed why the market for drug development has failed to help neglected diseases in the developing world. The second panel, moderated by Dr. Lawrence Casalino, Chief of the Division of Outcomes and Effectiveness Research in the Department of Public Health, discussed how changing reimbursement practices will affect what it means to be a doctor. Dr. Madelon Finkel, Professor of Clinical Public Health and Director of the Office of Global Health Education, helped to organize the event. The Cornell Business & Medicine Symposium, part of the "Sick in America" series, was jointly organized and developed by members of the Healthcare & Biotech Club of the Johnson School of Management and the Business in Medicine Society of Weill Cornell. "Sick in America 2009," hosted by Cornell University and created by 12 undergraduate groups representing more than 600 undergraduates, is a new series presenting expert discussion on health care in the United States.
Inmaculada de Melo-Martín, PhD, MS, Associate Professor of Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics, presented a talk called “On Threatening Human Dignity by Creating New Types of Beings” at the 2009 American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Meeting in Vancouver, BC, April 8-12, 2009. She also was invited to give a lecture titled “Social Values and Scientific Evidence” at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA, March 27-28, 2009, for the Philosophy, Life Sciences, and Society Conference.
Linda Gerber, PhD, MA, Professor of Public Health and Epidemiology in Medicine, gave an oral presentation at the 34th Annual Meeting of the Human Biology Association in Chicago, Illinois, April 1-2, 2009, titled “It's not how you sleep, but how you think you sleep.” The talk reported on a study comparing the relationships of self-reported sleep quality, sleepiness and polysomnographic (PSG) derived measures to health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Dr. Gerber and her co-authors found that people’s perception of their sleep quality, not their PSG-measured sleep quality, is most strongly associated with HRQoL.
Gilbert J. Botvin, PhD, Chief of the Division of Prevention & Health Behavior and Professor of Psychology in Public Health and Psychology in Psychiatry, attended a conference on pediatric obesity held at Cornell University in Ithaca. The workshop was organized by John Cawley, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management at the Cornell University College of Human Ecology; Mary J. Ward, PhD, Associate Research Professor of Psychology in Pediatrics and Psychiatry at Weill Cornell; and Caren Heller, MD, MBA, Assistant Professor of Public Health and Medicine at Weill Cornell; as an effort to promote intercampus collaborations. There were a number of panel presentations and 40 professionals in attendance.
J. Emilio Carrillo, MD, MPH, Vice President of Community Health Development at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital and Associate Professor of Clinical Public Health and Clinical Medicine, co-chaired a Committee of the National Quality Forum (NFQ) that produced recommendations for reducing disparities in healthcare and making care patient-centered and culturally appropriate. The guidelines were endorsed by the NFQ. It is expected that the JCAHO and other regulators will subscribe to the standards.
Mary Simmerling, PhD, Assistant Dean of Research Integrity and Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Division of Medical Ethics, was a panelist at a seminar on organ trafficking held March 25, 2009, at the Harvard Kennedy School. The event was sponsored by the School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and was co-sponsored by the Division of Global Health and Human Rights at Massachusetts General Hospital. The event was part of a series sponsored by a program at the Carr Center called the Initiative to Stop Human Trafficking.
Dr. Simmerling presented a paper on financial conflicts of interest in medical research at the International Symposium on Atherosclerosis in Boston on June 14, 2009. She also is participating in a stakeholders meeting to explore human subjects protections in Collaborative Community Engagement Research (CCER) at the University of Chicago June 24-25, 2009.
Joseph J. Fins, MD, FACP, Professor of Medicine, Public Health, and Medicine in Psychiatry and Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics, was a panelist at a Weill Cornell Medical College alumni program held this past April in Washington, DC. The panel conversation was called “Meeting of the Minds: Shaping Policy in Changing Times.” It was chaired by Cornell University President David J. Skorton, MD.
Bruce R. Schackman, PhD, Chief of the Division of Health Policy and Associate Professor of Public Health, presented several recent lectures. He gave a talk on "Cost-Effectiveness of Rapid Testing to Prevent Perinatal Syphilis Transmission in Haiti" at two locations in Salvador, Brazil: at the Núcleo de Ensaios Clínicos da Bahia (NECBA), Federal University of Bahia on April 1, 2009; and at Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz on April 2, 2009. He spoke about "Economics of HIV, a Tale of 2 Studies: The HIV Research Network and The Cost Effectiveness of Preventing HIV Complications (CEPAC) Model" with Kelly A. Gebo, MD (Johns Hopkins), at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene on May 29, 2009.
