The internal launch of the University of Miami Health System -- UHealth -- officially gets underway today on the Miller School campus and tomorrow at University of Miami Hospital.

UM/Sylvester is pleased to announce the support of two, one-year awards for career development projects in viral oncology in the amount of $31,250 each. This program has been developed to train junior investigators to perform clinical or basic translational multidisciplinary viral oncology-related research and support senior investigators interested in changing their career focus to lymphoma/viral oncology research. The program also seeks to attract new investigators from a variety of backgrounds. Applications in clinical oncology research, basic molecular mechanistic approaches and biologic approaches to cancer therapy research are encouraged. All UM junior or senior faculty and fellows with an M.D., Ph.D. or equivalent are eligible. Graduate students are not eligible. The application deadline is Friday, April 11.

UM/Sylvester and the Papanicolaou Corps for Cancer Research are pleased to announce this year's Developmental Cancer Research Grant awardees. Congratulations to Kerry Burnstein, Ph.D., from the Department of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, working on "Epigenetic Modifications Associated with Vitamin D Supplementation in the Elderly;" Roland Jurecic, Ph.D., from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, working on "The Role of the New Receptors Degradation Pathway in Leukemogenesis;" and Yanbin Zhang, Ph.D., from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, working on "Probing Human DNA Interstrand Cross-Link Repair in a Replication Scenario."

Ticket distribution starts tomorrow for UM Family Night with the Marlins. In appreciation of the University’s faculty and staff, the president and provost will be hosting the Third Annual University of Miami Family Night with the Marlins on Saturday, May 3, at Dolphin Stadium. Ticket distribution for the event starts tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the Schoninger Research Quadrangle.

This year’s family night, which will feature the Marlins taking on the San Diego Padres, will also include lots of great pre- and post-game festivities, including a concert by El Gran Combo, the internationally renowned salsa band from Puerto Rico, and a fireworks display. The game will start at 7:10 p.m. and the pre-game activities will begin at 4:10 p.m.

Each regular employee can receive one complimentary ticket and purchase up to three additional tickets for $1 each. If you wish to obtain more than three guest tickets, additional tickets are $7 each. Children two years old and younger do not require tickets. Each employee and their first three guests will also receive a complimentary meal voucher for a hot dog, chips and soda.

Additional ticket distribution is slated for Friday, April 11, and Friday, April 18. Additional information will be announced in future issues of e-Update. In the meantime, make sure you save May 3 on your calendar for another great, fun-filled evening.

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 "Global 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.

Just another reminder that the deadline to complete 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.

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's Broad-Bussel Auditorium located on the first floor of the Clinical Research Building. 

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.

Need investment and retirement assistance? TIAA-CREF will be offering individual financial consultations next week. Meet with a TIAA-CREF representative tomorrow, March 26, or this 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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Attend a seminar on "Challenges with IRB Submission Types: An Overview of the Key Issues Surrounding New Submissions, Adverse Events Reporting and Final Reports" today from noon to 1 p.m. at the Mailman Center for Child Development, room 3023. 

To register, visit http://Ulearn.miami.edu. For more information, e-mail Sofia Aymerich at saymerich@med.miami.edu.

Please join us today at noon in the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, fourth-floor auditorium for a seminar by Carrie W. Rinker-Schaeffer, Ph.D., associate professor of surgery and director of urological research at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. Dr. Rinker-Schaeffer will present a lecture titled "Defining Mechanisms that Regulate Metastatic Colonization: The Devil is in the Details."

For further information, please contact Nilcer Aviles at 305-243-6691 or naviles@med.miami.edu.

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 today 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.

Learn how to use the InfoEd Proposal Development System to prepare and submit your proposal electronically to the NIH by attending one or more of the special presentations and workshops listed below.

The Families First Network, generously funded by The Children’s Trust, will be providing a free parenting workshop for parents and caregivers of children up to 5 years old tomorrow from noon to 1 p.m. at the Mailman Center for Child Development, eighth-floor auditorium. The workshop addresses ways to encourage positive behavior, manage temper tantrums and understand how to use positive discipline strategies effectively. 

Lunch will be served and participants will receive a free gift. For more information or to register, call 305-243-8425 or e-mail FamiliesFirst@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 tomorrow 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.

There will be a Faculty Senate meeting tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. at the BankUnited Center, Hurricane 100 Room. All faculty members are welcome to attend. For more information, please visit the Faculty Senate Web site at http://www.miami.edu/FacultySenate.

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 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 Victor Center for Jewish Genetic Diseases at the Miller School will be hosting an educational research fair to increase your awareness of Jewish genetic diseases. The event will take place this Thursday at noon in the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, fifth-floor auditorium.

The Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute will present a seminar  this Thursday from 4 to 5 p.m. at the Medical Training and Simulation Laboratory, auditorium. Amit N. Patel, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of surgery and director of the Center for Cardiac Cell Therapy at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, will present "Surgical Based Cardiac Cell Therapy." 

Stem cell transplantation has shown promising results for cardiovascular disease. Stem cells have been used in a variety of cardiac disorders such as acute coronary syndromes, chronic angina and heart failure. A summary of the recent clinical trials, the future of integrated regenerative medicine, cell types and applications will be discussed.

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 this Thursday on the 100 block of Giralda Avenue between Ponce De Leon Boulevard and Galiano Street in Coral Gables.

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 this Friday 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 this Friday 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 this Friday at 1 p.m. at UM/Sylvester, conference room 1301. Dr. Osborne will present "Combined HER Targeted Therapy to Overcome Resistance to Trastuzumab."

Approximately 3,000 walkers (Pap Corps members, friends, and supporters from Jupiter to Miami), are expected to take part in the Eighth Annual Walkathon and Health Fair this Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at UM/Sylvester at Deerfield Beach. A brisk walk through Newport Center will kick off the event followed by a a free health fair that includes a multitude of screenings such as blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, oxygen saturation, and prostate and skin cancer. There will also be booths providing information on cancer prevention and related topics, and the diagnostic imaging services that are now available at UM/Sylvester at Deerfield Beach.

South Florida firefighters will take a break from fighting fires to help the Diabetes Research Institute extinguish diabetes this 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 firefighters' 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.

Mark H. Tuszynski, M.D., Ph.D., professor of neurosciences and director of the Center for Neural Repair at the University of California, San Diego, will present "Combinatorial Therapies for Spinal Cord Injury" for the next installment in the Gail F. Beach Memorial Visiting Lectureship series. The lecture will take place on Wednesday, April 2, from noon to 1 p.m. at the Lois Pope LIFE Center, seventh-floor auditorium. For more information, call 305-243-7108 or visit http://www.themiamiproject.org/x381.xml.

The Department of Orthopaedics will host Craig Spurdle, M.D., fifth-year resident, presenting Grand Rounds on Thursday, April 3, from 7 to 8 a.m. in the Mailman Center for Child Development, eighth-floor auditorium. Dr. Spurdle will present "Management of Pediatric Type-1 Open Fractures."

For more information, contact Ledi Figueroa at lfigueroa@med.miami.edu or 305-243-6725.

Judith Eisen, Ph.D., professor of biology at the University of Oregon Institute of Neuroscience, will present "Early Neural Development in Zebrafish" on Friday, April 4, at 1 p.m. in the Lois Pope LIFE Center, seventh-floor auditorium. For more information, call 305-243-7108 or visit http://www.miamiproject.med.miami.edu/x381.xml.

The Jay Weiss Center for Social Medicine and Health Equity Grand Rounds will feature Judge Steve Leifman, J.D., special advisor on criminal justice and mental health for the Supreme Court of Florida. Judge Leifman will present "Transforming Florida’s Mental Health System" on Tuesday, April 8, at noon in the Rosenstiel Medical Science Building, third-floor auditorium.

Lunch will be provided. For more information, e-mail Katie Houghton at Khoughton@med.miami.edu or visit www.jayweisscenter.org.

Maria Valero-Martinez will demonstrate how to use the SpinPlus System to locate funding opportunities on Wednesday, April 9, from noon to 1 p.m. in the Fred C. and Helen Donn Flipse Building, room 502 on the Coral Gables campus.

SpinPlus is a web-based system composed of three modules: Spin, a funding opportunities database; Genius, a database of scientific and scholarly expertise; and Smarts, a funding alert system. Please register at http://Ulearn.miami.edu. For more information, please contact Sofia Aymerich at saymerich@med.miami.edu.

The Department of Orthopaedics will host Veronica Diaz, M.D., fourth-year resident, for another Grand Rounds lecture on Thursday, April 10, from 7 to 8 a.m. in the Mailman Center for Child Development, eighth-floor auditorium. Dr. Diaz will present "Anatomic Resurfacing for Vascular Necrosis of the Humeral Head."

For more information on this lecture, contact Ledi Figueroa at lfigueroa@med.miami.edu or 305-243-6725.

Lace up your sneakers and get ready for the Transplant Foundation's Miracle Walk, a 5K family walk-a-thon event being held on Sunday, April 13, at Quiet Waters Park in Deerfield Beach.  Registration is at 8 a.m. and the walk begins at 9. Preregistration is $25 and includes breakfast, lunch by DiSalvo's, free giveaways and entrance to the health fair. To register online, please visit www.miraclewalk.kintera.org. For more details, call the Transplant Foundation office at 305-817-5645 or visit www.transplantfoundation.org.

Join us for a Grants.gov hands-on workshop on Monday, April 14, from 9 a.m. to noon in the Louis Calder Memorial Library computer lab.

Lynn E. Smith and Johanna Stamates will present the next Sponsored Programs Roundtable Series, "The Compliance Audit Process: What to Expect," on Thursday, April 17, at noon at the Batchelor Children's Research Institute. The seminar will provide a description of the types of audits conducted, the audit process and how to prepare for an audit. Participants will also learn about the most common findings, what information is reviewed and how the auditor assigns significance to the findings.

Please register online at http://Ulearn.miami.edu. For more information, please contact Sofia Aymerich at saymerich@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.

There are more than 22 million family caregivers in this country, and two-thirds of family caregivers work full or part-time. The challenges of combining work and caregiving can be stressful and difficult for caregivers and employers. UM's Center on Aging and the Employee Assistance Program invite you to a special program on caregiving. Designed for all UM faculty and staff who are caring for elderly or ill family members, the program will discuss important issues such as balancing personal care with care for others and managing feelings of guilt. The program will also highlight some available resources at UM and in the community.

The event will take place on Wednesday, April 23, from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the BankUnited Center, Hurricane 100 Room.

Lunch will be provided, and reservations are required. To RSVP, send an e-mail to spurcell@med.miami.edu or call 305-355-9081.

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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