May 2002

Accolades

Gerald A. Dienel, Ph.D., associate professor in the Departments of Neurology and Physiology and Biophysics was invited to the Gordon Research Conference Chairs’ Orientation Meeting in Boston. Dr. Dienel organized a new Gordon conference entitled “Glial Biology: Functional Interactions Among Glia and Neurons,” which he will co-chair with Dr. G. Miller Jonakait, New Jersey Institute of Technology, in Ventura, Calif. next year. Gordon Research Conferences are a prestigious conference series with the mission to “provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of frontier research in the biological, chemical, and physical sciences, and their related technologies.” Dienel is president of the Arkansas Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience. He recently organized Brain Awareness Week Activities at the Museum of Discovery.

Betty Greenwood, a patient services coordinator on wing 2A/4A, has been named most valuable player of the month for May by the Clinical Programs Recognition Council. Greenwood has worked at UAMS for 23 years. 

Martin J.J. Ronis, Ph.D., has accepted an invitation to serve as a member of the Alcohol and Toxicology Study Section, Center for Scientific Review for the term beginning July 1, 2002, and ending June 30, 2006. Members are selected based on their demonstrated competence and achievement in their scientific discipline as evidenced by the quality of research accomplishments, publications in scientific journals, and other significant scientific activities, achievements and honors. Service on a study section also requires mature judgment and objectivity as well as the ability to work effectively in a group.

In June, the College of Medicine will bestow its “Educational Innovation Award” on A. Reed Thompson, M.D., an assistant professor in the Donald W. Reynolds Department of Geriatrics and the Department of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery, of the UAMS College of Medicine. Thompson was chosen to receive this award because of his efforts to improve end-of-life patient care by teaching specific knowledge, attitudes and skills to health-care providers. To have patient bases for teaching, he developed palliative care programs at UAMS Medical Center and the John L. McClellan Memorial Veterans Hospital and relationships with three Little Rock hospices. Thompson introduced and is the primary faculty for many UAMS educational programs in end-of-life care, including elective training for fourth-year medical students and mandatory training for third-year medical students; internal medicine residents; geriatrics and hematology/oncology fellows; nursing and emergency medical technology students; and pharmacy, psychology and social work interns.

UAMS College of Nursing students were among several Arkansas students to attend the 50th annual convention of the National Student Nurses’ Association in Philadelphia. During the convention, the Arkansas Nursing Students’ Association (ANSA) received the State of Excellence Award for the sixth time in seven years. ANSA was also awarded the Best Web Site Award for the second year in a row. The Hope campus won the Best School Legislative Project Award. ANSA also won an award for the Most Potential Members, an award which UAMS students helped to acquire, with more than 50 students in the student association.

The Donald W. Reynolds Department of Geriatrics of the UAMS College of Medicine is ranked 10th in the nation, according to a current poll completed by U.S. News & World Report. Results of the poll were announced in the magazine’s 2003 edition of “Best Graduate Schools,” a publication that also included a directory of business, education, engineering, law and medical schools throughout the nation. Three years ago, the department was ranked 15th, a ranking it shared with the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio. “In this edition, not only have we moved up in the ranking, but we also hold this position by ourselves. It is quite an honor to be placed on this listing, and we are pleased by the national recognition of our program from colleagues,” said David A. Lipschitz, M.D., Ph.D., chairman of the department.