In less than one week, the entire University of Miami and Jackson Memorial medical campus will be smoke free.

To kick off the final push toward the March 1 initiative, the Smoke Free Committee is hosting a groundbreaking event at Alamo Park this Thursday at noon. That's when the first of dozens of permanent "Smoke Free Campus" signs will be installed at the park. The remainder of the signs will be erected around campus over the next few days. The event, led by Richard Thurer, M.D., professor of surgery and faculty ombudsperson at the Miller School, Arthur Fournier, M.D., professor of family medicine and community health, associate dean for community health and UM AHEC program director, and Ted Vana, D.O., M.B.A., medical director of Occupational Health Services at Jackson, will also include information about smoking cessation programs available to everyone.

To understand the impact of the new smoke free policy, all faculty and staff at the University of Miami medical campus are encouraged to fill out a brief online questionnaire, which will be used for research. Please take a few minutes to participate in this public health study conducted by Noella Dietz, Ph.D. The questionnaire can be accessed at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SmokingBanSurvey.

Andrea Ivory, a Miami breast cancer survivor whose advocacy to make mammography accessible to uninsured South Florida women brought her national acclaim, spoke at the Miller School's Black History Month Lecture Series last week. The series was sponsored by the National Student Medical Association, which also honored Ivory with an award of excellence. Through her volunteer group, The Florida Breast Health Initiative, Ivory visited thousands of homes to spread her gospel of early detection and helped more than 500 women obtain mammograms. Selected from 9,000 world nominees as one of CNN's ten heroes in 2009, she was featured on the cable network and feted in Hollywood, California.

The first episode of UHealth's Breakthrough Medicine television series will be aired in Orlando on WFTV, Channel 9 on Thursday, March 4, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, March 7, at 10 a.m. Titled "Mending Broken Hearts: Percutaneous Aortic Valve Replacement," the show follows a Palm Beach County resident as he undergoes a clinical trial procedure at University of Miami Hospital to replace his damaged aortic valve without open heart surgery. The procedure is now available to qualified patients.

Effective March 1, the Park Plaza West Document Center will relocate to the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, room 2094-A. You may contact the document center at 305-243-6298 or CopyCenter.RMSB@umail.miami.edu with any questions or information on pickup and delivery services.