Dr. Mehmet C. Oz is this year’s recipient of the Lois Pope LIFE International Research Award. He will make his scientific presentation today, March 18 at 4 p.m., in the seventh-floor auditorium of the Lois Pope LIFE Center. His presentation is titled "It’s all about YOU: How to Communicate Health Information." Dr. Oz performs more than 300 cardiac surgeries every year, and has authored over 400 original publications, book chapters, and medical books. He is also a New York Times bestselling author and appears regularly as a medical expert on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Dr. Oz will receive his award tonight during a special ceremony on the medical campus.

The NW 17th Avenue bridge over the Miami River is reopened to traffic, seven months after being closed for repairs. This should ease access to our campus for employees, students, patients and other visitors.

In recognition of the 2008 World Health Day and National Public Health Week, the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health is holding a day-long symposium titled "Climate Change and Your Health" on Monday, April 7, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Lois Pope LIFE Center, seventh-floor auditorium.

The deadline to complete the annual performance evaluations has been changed to April 17. Supervisors must submit completed evaluations to their departmental human resources representative no later than April 17, and all performance evaluation ratings will be submitted in DHRS by the departmental human resources representatives no later than Friday, April 18.

The new staff performance evaluation form can be found at http://www.med.miami.edu/hr/forms/PerfEval_Final.doc and the leadership performance form at http://www.med.miami.edu/hr/forms/LeadPerfEval_Final.doc. The forms are also located on the Medical Human Resources Web site at www.med.miami.edu/hr under "Forms." If you have any questions about the performance evaluation process or the evaluation forms, please contact Nicole Lergier in Human Resources at 305-243-6399.

In the next couple of days, all Miller School faculty and staff and University of Miami Hospital employees will receive a special mailing at home about an exciting new development (medical students’ packets will be distributed on campus). We do not want to give away too much information and spoil the surprise, but we would like Miller faculty, staff and students to save Tuesday, March 25, for a special event on the Schoninger Research Quadrangle and for University of Miami Hospital employees to reserve Wednesday, March 26, for a similar event in the hospital’s seminar center. Both events will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., so carve some time out of your schedule to attend. And in the meantime, keep checking your mail at home.

The second in a series of programs "2008 Stroke Update" is designed to provide a practical update that addresses acute evaluation and management in patient care and emphasizes clinical skills for nurses, advanced nurse practitioners, nursing students, and physical and respiratory therapists. Topics include brain imaging interpretation and rehabilitation strategies for the stroke patient. The seminar is scheduled for Friday, April 25 and will be held at the Michael S. Gordon Center for Research in Medical Education, Broad-Bussel Auditorium. 

The registration fee is $100, which includes all learning materials for the course and lunch. The program is approved for a maximum of 6.5 continuing education hours for nurses, physical therapists and respiratory therapists. Please register online at https://gcrme.med.miami.edu/secure/2008_stroke_update_form.html. For more information, call 305-243-6491 or e-mail gcrmence@med.miami.edu.

Advances in communications and computing technologies allow for easy information storage and transmission. But when information is sensitive, we must be careful and employ safeguards to protect it from unauthorized access, modification and disclosure. One such safeguard is encryption. Encryption is a procedure that scrambles information in a way that is decipherable only to authorized individuals or computers. Encryption should be used whenever sensitive data may be mobile, either online or on a disk; such data include e-mail, electronic file transfers, and information on laptops, USB drives and CDs.

For more information on encryption, please visit http://www.med.miami.edu/hipaa/public/x373.xml. If you have questions related to this or any other HIPAA Privacy or Security related issue, please contact the Office of HIPAA Privacy and Security at hipaaprivacy@med.miami.edu.

The scent of fresh popcorn, the roar of the crowd, the unmistakable ping of an aluminum bat can mean only one thing -- it's time for Hurricanes Baseball. Employee Day tickets to see your Hurricanes take on the Clemson Tigers on Saturday, April 5, at 7 p.m., are now on sale. UM employees receive one free ticket and can purchase up to five additional tickets for $1 per ticket.

The Calder Library needs your feedback to help evaluate its services and programs and assure that your needs are well met in the future. To help achieve this, the library has designed a customer service questionnaire, which has been e-mailed to Miller School faculty and staff. It should take less than ten minutes to complete, and all responses are confidential. However, if you would like a response, please include your e-mail address.

Bascom Palmer Eye Institute invites you to join us for the sixth annual New Horizons in Ophthalmology meeting from Saturday, March 29, through Monday, March 31, at the St. Regis Resort in Aspen, Colorado. Late afternoon sessions will feature exciting presentations from national experts on the topics of cataract, cornea and refractive surgery as well as the medical and surgical management of retinal disease and glaucoma. Mornings are free for you to enjoy Aspen with your friends and family.

The Department of Epidemiology would like all departments to know that it has rental space available in its new Outreach Assessment Center at 225 NE 34th Street, Suite 102, in Miami. The new center has space for general office requirements, such as meetings, but is ideally set up for departments looking for space to conduct human subjects research and other types of research.

The University of Miami Ethics Programs have announced the second of four annual cycles of grants for research on ethics and community. Sponsored by a generous gift from philanthropist Adrienne Arsht, the program seeks to foster research on contemporary moral issues with implications for public policy, professional practice, human rights and related topics.

Need investment and retirement assistance? TIAA-CREF will be offering individual financial consultations next week. Meet with a TIAA-CREF representative on Wednesday, March 26, or Thursday, March 27, in Park Plaza East Parking Garage, suite D. To schedule an appointment with TIAA-CREF, call Daphne Georges Kong at 866-842-3357. Also, don’t forget you can make an appointment at any time with LT Save for free investment advice. To make an appointment with LT Save, call 305-284-4556.

• University Compliance (anonymous hotline): 866-YOURCALL
• Billing (anonymous hotline): 305-243-HELP or 877-415-HELP
• Research Integrity and Compliance: 305-243-6415
• Financial Improprieties: 305-284-2605
• Privacy Office/HIPAA: 305-243-5000 or 1-866-366-HUSH
• University Ombudsperson: 305-284-4922

Any University of Miami employee reporting or deciding whether to report activity that may be in violation of a law, rule, or regulation is protected against retaliation by the Whistleblower Protection Statement. For more information, visit the Office of Compliance site.

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The Physicians for Human Rights group at the Miller School invites you to "Performing for Peace: A Darfur Awareness Event" tonight at 6:30 p.m. at Tapas & Tintos, 448 Hispaniola Way, Miami Beach. Funds raised from the event, an evening of cultural performances in support of the victims of genocide, will go to UNICEF’s emergency programs in Sudan.
 
Tickets are $5 and available at the door.

The Department of Rehabilitation Medicine will be presenting Grand Rounds tomorrow from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m., in the Lois Pope LIFE Center, seventh-floor auditorium. Ricardo Restrepo, M.D., pediatric interventional radiologist at Miami Children's Hospital, will present "Non-Traumatic Back Pain in Children: Where is the Danger?" 

Medical Issues and the Growing Child Conference XIII, session B: "Genetics and the Developing Child: What We Know, What We Are Learning and Why it Matters to You" will take place tomorrow from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Mailman Center for Child Development, eighth-floor auditorium.

Speakers will include Don Bailey, Ph.D., distinguished fellow at RTI International; Jeffrey P. Brosco, M.D., associate professor of clinical pediatrics, and pediatrics director of the UM Bioethics Program; Susan Hahn, M.S., CGC, assistant director of communications and compliance for the Miami Institute for Human Genomics; Astrid Mack, Ph.D., associate dean for minority affairs, and associate director of the Sickle Cell Clinical Center; and Klaas Jan J. Wierenga, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics. They will examine topics such as the potential benefits and major concerns about newborn screening for fragile X syndrome; how newborn screening reduces morbidity and mortality from sickle cell disease when linked to timely diagnostic testing and comprehensive care; and the future applications of human genetics to the well-being of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Six continuing education units will be offered to nurses, social workers, psychologists and speech language pathologists/audiologists who attend the conference; 5.75 continuing education credits will be offered to occupational and physical therapists.
 
There is a non-refundable $30 registration fee for professionals and parents. Registration for students is $15. To register, or for more information please visit http://peds2.med.miami.edu/mailman, or contact Wanda Denise Castro at wcastro@med.miami.edu or 305-243-4466.

Join us this Thursday from 7 to 8 a.m. in the Mailman Center for Child Development, eighth-floor auditorium for the Orthopaedic Grand Rounds lecture with Jeremy S. Frank, M.D., fourth-year resident. Dr. Frank will present an "Evaluation of a Novel Fixation Device for ACL Reconstruction: The Cayenne AperFix System."

Huijun Yuan, Ph.D., post-doctoral associate in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology at the Miller School will present "The Role of MicroRNAs in the Regulation of Gene Expression and the Correlation of let-7 with p300." The lecture will take place this Thursday at noon in the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, room 6018. 
 
For additional information, please call Nivia Machin-Gonzalez at 305-243-1078.

Nicaragua Medical Missions is a non-profit organization founded by the Christian Medical Association at the Miller School. The group consists of medical students, health care workers, missionaries and physicians who travel annually to Managua, Nicaragua to care for the medical and spiritual needs of the impoverished communities around Managua. The group is currently planning its seventh trip to Nicaragua, scheduled for March 31 through April 3.

Often people feel that their road to financial success is blocked. The Employee Assistance Program sponsors a seminar which explains how to become "fiscally fit" through the process of financial planning and cash management. The session will be held this Thursday from noon to 1 p.m. in the Dominion Parking Garage, room 155, and is conducted by a member of the Society for Financial Awareness. Creating and maintaining a financial blueprint is discussed. Cash flow traps are identified. How daily habits influence financial fitness is explored. How tax-planning puts dollars back into one's monthly cash flow is demonstrated.

Are you enrolled in the CoverageFirst 1500 plan but unsure about exactly how it works? Attend a CoverageFirst lunch-and-learn session this Thursday from noon to 1 p.m., in the Mailman Center for Child Development, eighth-floor auditorium. Learn more about how the CoverageFirst 1500 benefit allowance works with expenses such as office visits, UMatter preventive care benefits, your flexible spending account, and more. You'll also learn how to track your benefit allowance and medical expenses online at the myhumana.com Web site.

The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology will present a special seminar by the 2008 Julius Shultz Distinguished Speaker, Charles Yanofsky, Ph.D., Morris Herzstein Professor of Biology and Molecular Biology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Yanofsky will present "Reflections on My Career: Regulatory Studies on the Tryptophan Degradative Operon of E. coli" this Thursday at noon in the R. Bunn Gautier Building, room 118.

Please join us this Thursday from noon to 1 p.m. in the Batchelor Children's Research Institute, Baxter Conference Room for the next roundtable discussion about post-award issues. Maria Valero-Martinez and Sofia Aymerich will discuss how to manage an award and how to comply with the UM Office of Management and Budget and sponsoring agencies' policies.

The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology will present a second seminar by Charles Yanofsky, Ph.D., Morris Herzstein Professor of Biology and Molecular Biology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Yanofsky will present "RNA-Based Regulation of the Genes of Tryptophan Biosynthesis, in B. subtilis and Other Bacteria" this Friday at noon in the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, fourth-floor auditorium.

What health policies are in need of research and what scientific findings have recently impacted health policy decisions? Garth Graham, M.D., M.P.H., deputy assistant secretary for minority health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will present "The Role of Science in Health Policy: Urgent Minority Public Health Issues" for the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health's Grand Rounds. The lecture will take place on Monday, March 24, from noon to 1 p.m. in the Broad-Bussel Auditorium at the Gordon Center for Research in Medical Education located on the first floor of the Clinical Research Building. Refreshments will be provided beginning at 11:30 a.m. For more information, please call 305-243-8217.

Sheah Rarback, M.S., R.D., director of nutrition at the Mailman Center for Child Development, will present "How I Learned to Stop Dieting and Enjoy Food" to close National Nutrition Month on Monday, March 24, at noon in the Wellness Center, educational classroom. In addition to her role as director, Rarback also writes a food and nutrition column for The Miami Herald. Her areas of expertise include life cycle nutrition, food trends and allergies, disease management and translational research -- moving nutrition research into real life practice. All faculty and staff are invited to attend. Rarback will discuss consumer confusion in relation to nutrition, and functional foods evidence-based nutrition recommendations.

The Division of Hospital Medicine would like to announce its Grand Rounds series occurring on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month in the JMH Central Building, second-floor auditorium at noon. The lectures are accredited for continuing medical education credit and lunch is provided on a first-come, first-served basis. The next scheduled lecture will be held Tuesday, March 25, by Lou Lukas, M.D., medical director of OACIS Services for Palliative Care at Penn State University. Dr. Lukas will present "Mapping the Final Journey" which will examine palliative care and current advances including using illness trajectory to categorize plans of care and levels of treatment rather than code status to define patient desires. For more information, contact Henry Michtalik, M.D., at hmichtalik2@med.miami.edu or visit www.cme.med.miami.edu.

Please join the Miller School's Mitchell Wolfson Sr. Department of Community Service’s Hurricane Response Team as they host an art fair and sale on Wednesday, March 26, from noon to 4 p.m. at Alamo Park. Stop by and enjoy homemade arts and crafts created by medical students. Best of all, the proceeds from all purchases will be donated to emergency and disaster relief programs. 

For more information, e-mail Allison LaBoon at arlaboon@med.miami.edu.

The Department of Neurology's Center for Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders will host the inaugural Parkinson's Disease Complementary Therapies Symposium on Thursday, March 27, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at St. Catherine’s Rehabilitation Hospital, 1050 NE 10th Avenue, North Miami.
 
Designed for Parkinson's disease patients and their care partners, this symposium will have presenters and tables providing information on acupuncture, laughter therapy, tai chi, music therapy, diet and nutrition, physical therapy, massage, aquatic therapy and more.   
 
To register, please contact George Dumenigo, LCSW, at 305-245-1865. Space is limited; please register by Monday, March 24.

The Miccosukee Tribe’s fifth annual Coral Gables Wine and Food Festival, benefiting the American Lung Association of Florida-South Area and pulmonary research at The International Bronchitis Center at the Miller School, will be held on Thursday, March 27, on the 100 block of Giralda Avenue between Ponce De Leon Boulevard and Galiano Street in Coral Gables.

Join us on Thursday, March 27, from 7 to 8 a.m. in the Mailman Center for Child Development, eighth-floor auditorium for the Orthopaedic Grand Rounds lecture with Joseph R. Hsu, M.D., assistant chief of orthopaedic trauma at the U.S. Institute of Surgical Research at Brooke Army Medical Center. Dr. Hsu will present "Limb Salvage: The Controversy." 

The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences invites you to Psychiatry Grand Rounds, "Epidemics of Viruses and Social Contacts," with Miller School Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt, M.D. The lecture will take place on Friday, March 28, from noon to 1 p.m. at the Mailman Center for Child Development, eighth-floor auditorium. Educational objectives for this Grand Rounds are for participants to interpret the impact of relationships on common disorders, assess the impact of societal networks on health and extract lessons relative to the treatment of common illnesses. This lecture has been approved for one continuing medical education credit for physicians and one continuing education unit for psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, and mental health counselors. One contact hour will also be provided for licensed practical nurses, registered nurses, advanced registered nurse practitioners and licensed midwives. No registration is required. For additional information, please contact Carmen Bou-Crick at 305-355-9073, cbou@med.miami.edu, or visit the Web site at http://cme.med.miami.edu.

The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology will host Jonathan Beckwith, Ph.D., American Cancer Society Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School for the seminar "Making and Breaking Disulfide Bonds: Preconceptions, Ignorance, Serendipity and Suppressors."

The lecture will be held at noon on Friday, March 28, in the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, fourth-floor auditorium.

C. Kent Osborne, M.D., professor of medicine and director of Baylor Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine, will present the next UM/Sylvester Distinguished Lecture Series on Friday, March 28, at 1 p.m. at UM/Sylvester, conference room 1301. Dr. Osborne will present "Combined HER Targeted Therapy to Overcome Resistance to Trastuzumab."

South Florida will take a break from fighting fires to help the Diabetes Research Institute extinguish diabetes on Saturday, March 29, from 2 to 7 p.m. at the BankAtlantic Center, One Panther Parkway, Sunrise. Consisting of firefighters from several local municipalities, the self-named hockey team, East Coast Bomberos, will take on Florida’s West Coast Firefighters in an afternoon amateur hockey game. This is an event the whole family will enjoy. Panthers Ice Dancers will lead the cheering section, encouraging boys to root for the west coast team and girls for the east coast team. The game will also feature an exciting raffle boasting autographed Panther memorabilia, a pre-game Zamboni ride, a meet-and-greet with Panther players and a pre-game penalty box seat for two.

At the Florida Panthers hockey game the same night, the firefighters will be collecting donations on behalf of the Diabetes Research Institute. Between the afternoon and evening games, the firefighters will also meet with all participating children at nearby GameWorks, where each child will be entitled to 30 minutes of free play-time. GameWorks is located at 2608 Sawgrass Mills Circle, Suite 1303 in Sunrise.

Admission and parking to the firefighter's game are free. Donations will be accepted at the event, but can also be mailed ahead of time to Dade County Firefighters Charities, 11866 SW 47 Street, Cooper City, FL 33330.

In honor of Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, Laurence R. Sands, M.D., associate professor of clinical surgery and chief of the Division of Colon and Rectal Surgery, will present "Can You Prevent Colorectal Cancer?" This seminar will be held on Monday, March 31, at noon at UM/Sylvester, conference room 1301.

On Friday, April 4, the Miller School and the Florida Bioethics Network (FBN) will present the Sixteenth Annual UM Conference, "Florida Ethics: Debates, Decisions, Solution." Kenneth Goodman, Ph.D., director of the UM Bioethics Programs and the director of the Florida Bioethics Network, and Robin Fiore, Ph.D., the Adelaide R. Snyder Professor of Ethics at Florida Atlantic University, will give welcoming remarks for the day-long conference at the Miami Beach Resort and Spa.
 
The conference will feature a variety of sessions exploring ethics and bioethics in the clinical, social and legal spheres of medicine. Among the session topics: Joint Commission requirements, aging, geriatrics and long-term care, emergency preparedness, ethics committee guidelines, human trafficking and the role of the clergy. Bob Butterworth, J.D., secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families will present a session titled “Protecting the Most Vulnerable: Ethics and State Social Services."
 
The sessions, designed for physicians, lawyers, nurses, social workers, clergy, psychologists, health administrators and others with interest in health ethics. For the course, the University designates up to six AMA PRA category one credits for physicians and six continuing education credits for psychologists. Credits are also available to nurses, social workers and others who participate. UM/Jackson and VA faculty and staff are eligible for tuition remission or a courtesy tuition waiver, but must pre-register.
 
Registration begins at 7:45 a.m. the day of the event. For more information, please visit http://www.miami.edu/ethics or e-mail ethics@miami.edu.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has proven to be a master of evolution, making the leap from simians to humans, continuously evolving to evade the immune defenses of the infected human, and rapidly mutating to resist antiretroviral drugs. The evolution of HIV and the current understanding of how it evolves to survive is the theme of the Fifth Annual Miami Winter HIV Symposium. This year’s meeting is being sponsored by the Miller School’s Developmental Center for AIDS Research (D-CFAR) and is being co-directed by Savita Pahwa, M.D., director of the D-CFAR, and Gordon Dickinson, M.D., chief of infectious diseases at the Miller School and the VA Medical Center.

The symposium will begin at 1 p.m. on Friday, April 4, at the Mailman Center for Child Development, eighth-floor auditorium. Session two of the symposium will take place from 8:15 to 11:30 a.m. on Saturday. The symposium will start with an overview of the evolution of HIV by keynote speaker John Coffin, Ph.D. Dr. Coffin will be followed by a list of outstanding speakers that include Todd Allen, Ph.D., Rafael Campo, M.D., Victor DeGruttola, Ph.D., Rebeca Geffin, Ph.D., Maureen M. Goodenow, Ph.D., and Richard Myers, Ph.D.

For more information, please contact Ana Ayala or Renee Stanford at 305-243-5359 or by e-mail at aayala@med.miami.edu or RStanford@med.miami.edu.

The UM/Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center has opened online registration for the Well Being/Being Well conference. The one-day event, being held Tuesday, April 22, features renowned mind and body expert Deepak Chopra and UM President Donna E. Shalala, a nationally recognized expert on health care, as keynote speakers.

UM/Sylvester will host the ninth annual Zubrod Memorial Lecture and Cancer Research Poster Session on Thursday, May 1, in honor of its founding director, Charles Gordon Zubrod, M.D. This lecture is held in association with the annual cancer research poster competition. The goal of the event is to provide a competitive stimulus for creativity in research and an opportunity for the exchange of ideas. Faculty, fellows, residents, medical students, post-doctoral trainees and graduate students are encouraged to participate by attending the lecture, presenting a poster, or by viewing the posters of their colleagues. The event will begin with a poster viewing from 8 to 10:30 a.m., followed by an award ceremony from 11 to 11:30 a.m., then oral presentations from 11:30 a.m. to noon at Jackson Memorial Hospital's Diagnostic Treatment Center, second-floor conference center. There will also be a lecture, "Modeling Cancer in the Mouse," presented by Tyler Jacks, Ph.D, investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute and David H. Koch Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Cancer Research from noon to 1 p.m.

Sleep Maintenance Insomnia
Robert Schwartz, M.D., is recruiting subjects who are 18 years or older and have trouble sleeping through the night. Subjects must have insomnia for at least one month and have clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning. Those interested should contact Linda Cenci or Luis Roque at 305-243-1247, lcenci@med.miami.edu or lroque@med.miami.edu. 

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