Orientation

We welcomed new students August 18th with a rousing orientation, organized by Assistant Dean Felicia Mebane, and her team. I spoke briefly, welcoming new students to the School of Public Health, noting that they have chosen a wonderful field and encouraging them to make the most of their time here. I also said, and it’s worth repeating, that one of the cornerstones of the School is diversity, and we will not tolerate intolerance.

Lauren Thie and Amanda Greenberg, Co-presidents, Student Government, wrote a song for the occasions to the tune of “YMCA.” They had everyone out of their seats singing and following the movements Lauren and Amanda taught us (even me!). I love the energy, commitment and optimism that bubbled over in the room. Students, I hope you will remain as excited and engaged as you were at orientation.

Oberlander’s article in NEJM

I was very pleased to read the latest issue of New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and see that Associate Professor Jon Oberlander was featured in one article and authored another. If you want to read a very coherent analysis of the difference between Obama’s and McCain’s health care approaches, Jon’s done a really nice job of showing what each candidate proposes and how their positions differ.

Dirty water

The same NEJM issue included an article titled Talking Dirty - The Politics of Clean Water and Sanitation by Michele Barry, MD and James M. Hughes, MD.

It’s striking for NEJM to make the environment/health connection. The article provides a compelling statement about the disproportionate attention and resources given to lack of access to clean water and sanitation. According to Bartram and colleagues (Lancet, 2005), lack of access to clean water and sanitation affects one third of the world’s population.

“Political support is urgently needed at all levels for the development and implementation of evidence-based  recommendations to improve access to safe water, for the enhanced surveillance of water-related diseases, for the financial support of relevant epidemiologic and laboratory research, and for the development of accessible educational materials. Clearly, we need to start talking dirty water.”

Even in schools of public health, I wonder if we have the right alignment between our country and the world’s problems and what people – our students and faculty study. If any other problem affected one third of the world’s population, wouldn’t we focus a lot more attention on it?

Passing

In the August 18th issue of Science, Francis Collins wrote a commentary about the impact of Victor A. McKusick, MD who died in July 2008.  McKusick, who’s been called the father of medical genetics, is known for many accomplishments. Among these, he started a very successful short course in medical genetics, held teach summer at Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. I was very fortunate to have been able to take the course in 1997.

Thanks students!

Thanks to our students Rushina Cholera, Josh Davis, Chris Deery, Liz Futrell, Jeff Nguyen and Amber Turnbull.  They very good-naturedly came to my office at 4:30pm last Friday so we could take pictures. For me, getting pictures taken is worse than going to the dentist, because the pain lingers (OK, I am exaggerating a little). Anyway, thanks to the students, the photographer got some photos, and I had a chance to interact with some of our students. And that’s one of the really fun parts of this job!

We also took pictures on one of the cycles at the Wellness Center at Meadowmont. Thanks to Paula Roupas and Mike O’Hara for letting us use the cycle room. No matter how many hours I work, I nearly always make it to a 5:45 a.m. or 6 a.m. spinning class!

This coming weekend is the first football game of the season. We play McNeese University. No upsets permitted.

Have a great week. Happy Monday.

Glad students are back

Sunday was truly crazy in Chapel Hill, with students and families flooding Franklin Street. The excitement is palpable. Where’d the summer go? I am always invigorated when students start arriving in town and am really glad that students are back in our School. I look forward to interacting with a lot of you over the year. Feel free to email me any time or to give me feedback via this blog. I try really hard to answer every message, but every now and then, one slips through the cracks. If you don’t hear back from me in a couple of days, please follow up.

Diversity

Assistant Dean for Students, Felicia Mebane, and her staff held a day-long diversity session as part of orientation Saturday. It was great to meet some of the students who attended and to hear the perspectives of students and the campus diversity leaders who attended and spoke. Jessie Satia, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition and Special Assistant to the Dean for Diversity, participated, along with a number of other faculty and staff from our School and the University. Terry Phoenix, director of the LGBTQ Center (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer), said to me afterwards that it says a lot about the School that we hold this session. We will talk a lot more about diversity as the year goes on. We cannot solve the world’s big public health challenges without a diverse workforce and sensitivity to diversity is critical to sustaining that workforce.

Reading

Thanks to Peggy Bentley for lending me the book, High Noon—20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them,

by J. F. Rischard (Basic Books, 2002). It’s a fascinating book. What’s really striking about the global problems mentioned is how many of them have health relevance: urbanization, food, energy, infectious diseases, fisheries depletion, biodiversity issues, maritime pollution, water scarcity, migration, aging populations and poverty all have health connections. The author made the point that solving problems will “take partnerships among government, business and civil society to solve intractable problems” (p.50). In public health, we have the chance to solve some of the greatest threats to survival in the 21st century. We must get better at forming creative partnerships that will permit us to develop scalable solutions to big public health problems.

Mouse report

Apparently, a lot of you have followed our mouse story with some interest. We caught several more mice which were subsequently deported outside the School (alive and well-fed). We all have become more educated about the urban mouse than we’d have liked. Hopefully, this installment is over or nearly over.

Michael Phelps is amazing!!!

To be honest, I get excited about the Olympics some years and not others. I loved seeing Carl Lewis run when the Olympics were in Atlanta. This year, they just haven’t overwhelmed me except for swimming, especially the potential for Dara Torres and the amazing Michael Phelps. What an amazing feat he has accomplished.

Welcome back

Welcome and welcome back new and returning students, along with our wonderful staff and faculty. You all make the School the great place it is today. Have a great year. See you soon. Happy Monday, Barbara

(Sunday)

It’s a mouse! (mice)

First, a disclaimer. I believe in the value of mice for pre-human experiments. That being said, I don’t want mice anywhere near my office – and that’s where they are.

The Dean’s Office is on the ground floor of Rosenau, and there’s been a lot of construction and disruption of habitats (including those of faculty, staff and students) over the past few years. Earlier in the spring, we found a couple mice in our office, caught them, cleaned up and thought it was over. The other day, Mae thought she heard that special rustling sound. Later that day, I opened my closet door, and there was a mouse looking straight at me. Ok, “that’s it,” I said, “we’re getting serious!” Later in the day, one un-baited humane mouse trap was delivered.

Somehow, the idea that a mouse would willingly sidle into a metal crate seemed absurd. So, my husband and I returned with peanut butter to bait the trap and plastic bags and cleaning supplies (mice aren’t very neat). A couple hours later, we left. Saturday night, we returned. Two mice were in the crate. And for anyone who’s ready to write a mean dean story – let me disclose that we freed the mice outside. However, I was determined to rid my office of anything that could provide the slightest interest. Another couple hours were spent re-baiting traps (now two), and throwing away anything even remotely implicated. Among other things, mice seem to like shredding paper.

I started going through a box of CD’s just in case mice like Bruce Springsteen. And guess what popped out? Another mouse, this one much quicker than we are and now loose in my office. In case anyone wonders why I’m working (Sunday) at home, you know! I’ve returned tonight to see where things stand.

Students returning! It’s wonderful. They’re wonderful.

Felicia Mebane, PhD, MSPH, Assistant Dean for Students, and her team have been hard at work getting ready for fall term. Welcome back students! The Executive DrPH students were here this weekend, and we’re glad to have them. The atrium just isn’t the same without students. Welcome back students. I look forward to interacting with you.

SPH video

Last week, Ramona DuBose, Director of Communications, and David Hardy and colleagues from TakeOne! Productions, were hard at work on a School of Public Health video to tell the story about the exciting work going on here. They interviewed many students, staff and faculty. I’m looking forward to the product. I’m so enthusiastic about our amazing faculty, staff and students and the outstanding work they do. We have needed a better vehicle to tell our story.

A thought for the day in closing

It’s the summer Olympics, and a lot of great athletes are giving their all to win medals.

There are a lot of wonderful athletes here too. Read about students training for the NYC marathon and the cause they’re supporting.

Marian Wright Edelman said, “you’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to do the best you can every day.” Words to live by.

It’s been a crazy week. Fortunately, there’s been a slight break in the weather, and it’s pretty bearable. Congratulations to everyone who participated in the triathlon at Meadowmont.

Happy Monday, Barbara

Actually, it’s Tuesday morning. Yesterday, I told Mae Beale, who among other activities, posts my blog, that I needed a break and there wouldn’t be a blog this week. I don’t ever want to feel the blog is a duty so when I feel there’s nothing special to write I won’t. I felt that way yesterday. Then, we had our monthly researchers lunch with the dean, and I was totally reinvigorated.

The best part of being dean is interacting with our students, staff, faculty and donors. As a researcher, I love hearing what our faculty are studying. I usually come away impressed, sometimes surprised, but always grateful.

Yesterday, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, Harsha Thirumurthy, PhD told us about his research to examine the impact of AIDS treatment on economic well-being in Kenya. By partnering with an AIDS treatment provider with an electronic medical record, he was able to track CD4 counts in relation to employment status. As counts improved, there was a rapid increase in employment as people went back to the fields to work. This was a very cool demonstration of the interconnection between health and economic well-being. Harsha was off to the AIDS conference in Mexico to present his findings.

Associate Professor, Department of Maternal and Child Health, Carolyn Halpern, PhD talked about her use of a terrific longitudinal study of adolescents, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), to examine adolescent sexual practices. They found that 90% of the sample had had sex before marriage. I hope the next administration pays attention to these data in crafting its policies. It’s time we realize that we’d better start preparing teens to protect themselves.

Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Kari North, PhD and her colleagues are beginning to uncover exciting leads into genetic factors that may increase propensity for obesity. Since 2/3 of us now are overweight or obese, uncovering genetic markers that could help identify people who’d benefit from special attention in preventing weight gain or facilitating weight loss could be important. We’re going to have to think about how to redesign our lives to get more exercise. We’ve done so much to engineer exercise out of our lives, and now we need to re-engineer our communities, work spaces and schedules. If people in the School of Public Health have any suggestions about how to help our School become more exercise-friendly please let me know. I hope one day we can find a donor to outfit a state-of-the-art exercise room.

Finally, but not least, Professor Haibo Zhou, PhD, Department of Biostatistics, gave an overview of his biostatistical research. I really liked his focus on developing statistical methodology in the context of solving real world problems, often clinical. Much of Haibou’s focus is on environmental health concerns, and he collaborates with people in the School of Medicine, National Institute of Environmental Health Services and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Another fascinating day in the SPH, with dedicated faculty who really want to make a difference. For me, it was a happy Monday.

Wishing you a good week. Stay cool! Barbara.