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ACDP Meets Association of
Chairs of Departments of Physiology Meets in |
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The Association of Chairs of
Departments of Physiology (ACDP) held their annual fall retreat at the St.
Kitts Marriott Resort December 4-7, 2003. Approximately 70 Chairs were in
attendance. The opening session of the meeting on Friday, December 5 began
with an introduction of new Chairs. The meeting was highlighted by a
program that included presentations by David Korn, Assistant Vice
President for Research at the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC).
Korn provided a comprehensive overview of research funding in medical
schools. This included an assessment of the current situation and the
likelihood of major changes in the sources of research revenue in the
subsequent two years. While Korn touched upon some of the legislative
issues concerning NIH funding, this was dealt with in more detail by
Francis Patrick White, the Director of Legislative Relations for FASEB.
These two presentations dovetailed extremely well and led to a picture of
NIH funding that will most likely be below the FASEB recommended levels.
An estimate of the number of new grants funded in FY05 was 9,588, down
from FY04 of 10,509. The afternoon session was devoted to a workshop on the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR). This was the first time an effort such as this was attempted at the ACDP meeting. ACDP was awarded a $5,000 grant from the AAMC and the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) to conduct this workshop. The workshop was organized by Michael D. Mann, Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at The University of Nebraska Medical Center. Three mini-lectures were followed by breakout sessions. The lectures and breakout sessions were conducted by Mann, Francis Macrina of Virginia Commonwealth University and Michael Kalichmann of the University of California, San Diego. Topics covered included, “Promoting RCR,” “Why Teach RCR?”, and “Creative Pedagogy: Different Methods of Presenting Materials.” The breakout sessions included discussions of authorship, handling allegations of misconduct, and data acquisition. Post-workshop evaluations indicated that this was a worthwhile and informative exercise. Day two of the retreat opened with a discussion of experiences associated with the merging of physiology departments at Wright State University School of Medicine and at the North Eastern Ohio University College of Medicine. Peter K. Lauf and Michael B. Maron described conditions at their institutions that led to the consolidation and merger of their departments with others in their respective institutions. While this is not happening on a large scale, it remains an area of concern to Chairpersons and to APS. Two scientific talks were delivered by new Chairs and members of ACDP. William M. Chilian of Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans spoke on “Adaptations of the Coronary Circulation to Myocardial Ischemia” and Gary C. Sieck of the Mayo Clinic Medical School spoke on “Exploring the Basis of Muscle Weakness.” Both talks described state of the art physiology. For the first time, ACDP initiated a liaison with a local medical school. The Windsor University School of Medicine is a young institution located on the island of St. Kitts. The administration of Windsor University initially offered the suggestion of having the retreat in St. Kitts. The Dean of Windsor University, Brijinder Gupta, addressed the attendees at a lunch on Friday, December 5. He described the origin of the medical school, the curriculum and the student demographics. In association with the Vice President Of Continuing Medical Education, Surendra Parmar, several Chairs provided talks for the Inaugural Research Day of Windsor University on Thursday, December 4. This symposium allowed several Chairs to meet with the administration and students at Windsor University. The business portion of the retreat was divided into two sessions on Friday and Saturday. Important aspects of the business meeting included an update on the APS by Martin Frank, ratification of the Professional Skills Document assembled by ACDP and the APS Education Committee, and election of new officers of ACDP. The President-Elect is Richard N. Bergman of the University of Southern California School of Medicine. Because of a combined meeting with basic science chairs at the AAMC sponsored meeting in 2005, Bergman’s term will start following the 2005 meeting. New councilors elected are Joseph C. Dunbar of Wayne State University and William G. Spielman of Michigan State University. Finally, Peter Cala provided an update on the plans for the 2004 retreat which will take place in Maui, HI. The meeting concluded with a banquet on Saturday evening, December 6, hosted by Windsor University School of Medicine. Present at the banquet was the Deputy Prime Minister of St. Kitts-Nevis, the Honorable Sam Condor who addressed the group. A highlight of the banquet was the presentation of the ACDP’s Distinguished Service Award to L. Gabriel Navar, Chairman of the Department of Physiology at Tulane University School of Medicine. Navar, a past president of APS has contributed enormously to ACDP, APS and the discipline of physiology over his illustrious career. Aubrey Taylor, Professor emeritus and past Chair at The University of South Alabama School of Medicine presented the award to Navar. |
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