Fall 2006

• The latest word in cancer care? 4-D
• IVF specialists leaders in reducing multiple gestation risk
• UI receives cardiac care, bariatric surgery distinctions
• Robotic surgery for cervical and endometrial cancers
• University of Iowa Children's Hospital NICU part of elite network
• Burn Treatment Center earns re-verification
• Unique offerings from UI Neurosciences
• One call puts you in touch
• New faculty
• Appointments/introductions
• Upcoming Continuing Medical Education activities

The latest word in cancer care? 4-D

Do you have a patient with a tumor on a part of the body that moves, such as the lung? If radiation is the prescribed treatment, health care professionals have traditionally been forced to either expand the radiation delivery margins and risk destroying the surrounding healthy tissue or reduce the delivery area and risk missing parts of the tumor. The Department of Radiation Oncology, part of Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at The University of Iowa, recently acquired the ability to perform 4-dimensional computerized tomography and respiratorygated treatment to take aim at this problem. The process begins with taking CT scans of the patient’s tumor in different phases of the respiratory cycle. Next, computers synchronize the patient’s respiratory motion with the CT images. The result is a frame-by-frame “movie” laying out the location of the tumor during every instant of the patient’s breathing cycle. During treatment, patients recline on a table wearing a belt that measures their breathing. In lightning-quick intervals, sensors tell the equipment when the tumor is in proper position for a dose.

IVF specialists leaders in reducing multiple gestation risk

UI reproductive medicine specialists are gaining recognition as national leaders in reducing the rate of multiple gestations and still achieving continued high pregnancy rates. The UI Reproductive Medicine and Infertility Program—the first in Iowa with nearly 20 years of experience—has provided more than 3,000 infertile couples with the most advanced reproductive therapies while emphasizing safe practices. Reproductive endocrine specialists now emphasize placement of as few embryos as possible. By assessing the morphology of the embryos, the best embryo(s) can be selected for transfer while others are cryopreserved for later use if needed. By reducing the rate of multiple gestations, they are also alleviating a major complication from infertility leading to premature deliveries and long-term complications for infants. The IVF program relies on close collaboration between specialists in obstetrics/gynecology, urology, and the reproductive testing and in vitro fertilization laboratory. For more information, call UI Consult, the IVF clinic at 319-356-8483, or visit www.uihealthcare.com/repromed.

UI receives cardiac care, bariatric surgery distinctions

Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Iowa has named UI Hospitals and Clinics as a Blue Distinction Center^SM for Bariatric Surgery and a Blue Distinction Center for Cardiac Care. “UI Hospitals and Clinics has a long history of excellence in bariatric surgery. In fact, [it is] the birthplace of bariatric surgery, as the first gastric bypass for severe obesity was conceived and performed here by Edward Mason, MD, in 1967,” said Isaac Samuel, MD, director of UI Obesity Surgery.

Robotic surgery for cervical and endometrial cancers

David Bender, MD, is the only gynecologic oncologist in Iowa performing hysterectomies with pelvic lymph node dissections for cervical and endometrial cancers using the da Vinci® robotic surgical system. (Visit www.uihealthcare.com/davinci for more about use of the da Vinci at UI Hospitals and Clinics.) Bender said this minimally invasive approach leads to shorter recovery times, less pain, and fewer infections.

University of Iowa Children's Hospital NICU part of elite network

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at University of Iowa Children's Hospital is one of 16 centers chosen from a large pool of applicants from across the nation to be part of the Neonatal Research Network of the NIH’s National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The network will conduct studies to investigate the safety and effectiveness of treatment strategies in caring for premature and critically ill newborn infants. “We are confident we can make significant contributions to the network’s research, which, in turn, will help to improve the care of babies throughout the U.S. and the world,” said Edward Bell, MD, professor of pediatrics and principal investigator for the award.

Burn Treatment Center earns re-verification

The Burn Treatment Center at UI Hospitals and Clinics recently earned its third re-verification from the American Burn Association and the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma. Director Barbara Latenser, MD, said the reviewers cited the center’s “superb” burn care and institutional support as important factors. The review team re-verified the center as both an adult and pediatric burn center. There are approximately 60 burn centers Burn Treatment Center earns re-verification officially verified in the U.S., and the UI Burn Treatment Center is the only one in Iowa. The Burn Treatment Center offers an emergency burn care poster free to other facilities to assess and provide preliminary treatment for patients who have sustained burns. For more details or to order a poster, contact 319-384-6103 or physician-relations@uiowa.edu.

Unique offerings from UI Neurosciences

Optic nerve tumors—The goal of the Tumors of the Optic Nerve Initiative (TONI) and the UI Optic Nerve Center is to offer unique, multidisciplinary evaluation and treatment plans for patients with optic nerve tumors. The center develops and studies new and emerging treatments and serves as a national model for innovative approaches. A comprehensive approach to these tumors enhances patient care. The Optic Nerve Center develops and maintains a tumor registry to follow patients prospectively. For more information, call UI Consult.

Otolaryngology—The Iowa Center for Auditory Regeneration is a new laboratory located at the Carver Biomedical Research Center. The aims of this center are to identify the genes responsible for hearing loss, study the mechanisms of auditory nerve degeneration to better understand the mechanisms of regeneration, and develop methods to re-grow the inner ear hair cells. For more information, call UI Consult or contact the physicians directly at 319-356-3612 or 319-356-2173.

One call puts you in touch

UI Consult is a centralized resource linking health care providers to University of Iowa Physicians and services at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Whether you are seeking a consultation, are providing a referral, need patient information, or want news about clinical trials or CME courses, a single call is all it takes to put you in touch with the right person. UI Consult is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Simply call 800-322-8442. When referring a patient, you may also fill out an online referral form at www.uihealthcare.com/consult. Information needed to refer a patient:

• Patient’s name
• Address
• Phone number
• Date of birth
• UI Hospitals and Clinics registration number (if born here or previously seen here)
• Type of insurance (i.e., HMO, workers’ compensation, medical assistance)
• Nature of the medical problem
• Services you would like us to provide

New faculty

Family Medicine

Katharine Saunders, MD (UI Family Care Center–North Liberty) - Clinical focus: Women’s health, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics

Internal Medicine (by division)

Cardiology

Ademola Abiose, MD - Clinical focus: Cardiac imaging

Isabella Grumbach, MD - Clinical focus: General cardiology

General Internal Medicine

Ann Curtis, MD - Clinical focus: Hospital medicine and palliative care

Issam Nasr, MD - Clinical focus: Hospital medicine and consultative internal medicine

Christine Schwab, MD - Clinical focus: Hospital medicine and consultative internal medicine

Tyson Hagen, MD - Clinical focus: Hospital medicine and consultative internal medicine

Helena Laroche, MD - Clinical focus: Primary care internal medicine and pediatrics

Endocrinology

Christopher Adams, MD, PhD - Clinical focus: Disorders of the thyroid and general endocrinology

Jaspreet Chahal, MD - Clinical focus: Diabetes and general endocrinology

Gastroenterology/ Hepatology

Frances Meyer, MD - Clinical focus: General gastroenterology, colon cancer screening

Hematology/Oncology

Sirisha Perumandla, MD - Clinical focus: Medical oncology and hematology

Nelson Shu-Sang Yee, MD, PhD - Clinical focus: Pancreatic cancer and gastrointestinal malignancies

Infectious Disease

Philip Polgreen, MD Clinical focus - Emerging infectious diseases, influenza, C. difficile colitis

Jason Barker, MD - Clinical focus: Inpatient infectious diseases, biodefense

Hendrik Schultz, MD - Clinical focus: Infectious diseases, travel clinic

Pulmonary

Alix Ashare, MD - Clinical focus: Critical care

Dayna Groskreutz, MD - Clinical focus: Asthma

Toru Nyunoya, MD - Clinical focus: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Greg Schmidt, MD - Clinical focus: Critical care

Julia Klesney-Tait, MD, PhD - Clinical focus: Lung transplant

Neurosurgery

Hiroyuki Oya, MD, PhD - Clinical focus: Epilepsy surgery

Obstetrics and Gynecology

Rachel Maassen, MD (Provides services also at UI Family Care Center– North Liberty) - Clinical focus: Women’s health care; laparoscopic and hysteroscopic surgery

Ophthalmology

John Fingert, MD, PhD - Clinical focus: Glaucoma/ genetics of anterior segment diseases

Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation

Ericka Lawler, MD - Clinical focus: Hand surgery

Pathology

Vishala Neppalli, MBBS - Clinical focus: Hematopathology/ surgical pathology

Pediatrics

Oscar Gomez, MD - Clinical focus: Infectious diseases

Christine Ziebold, MD - Clinical focus: Infectious diseases

A. Paige Davis, MD - Clinical focus: Critical care

Psychiatry

Stephanie Berg, MD - Clinical focus: Women’s mental health

Hans Johnson, PhD - Clinical focus: Imaging of the human brain

Marcus Pressler, MD - Clinical focus: Community outreach

Christopher Welsh, MD - Clinical focus: Community psychiatry

Radiation Oncology

Manickam Muruganandham, PhD - Clinical focus: Imaging tumor function with magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy; image-guided therapy

Surgery

Lawrence McChesney, MD, FACS - Clinical focus: Transplant surgery

Appointments/introductions

John Engelhardt, PhD, has been named head of the UI Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology in the UI Carver College of Medicine. Engelhardt, who also is the Roy J. Carver Chair in Molecular Medicine, had served as interim department head since 2004.

Janet Fairley, MD, has been named head of the UI Department of Dermatology, effective Jan. 1, 2007. Interim department head Craig Syrop, MD, will return to full-time duties in obstetrics and gynecology. Fairley is a professor of dermatology at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) in Milwaukee.

Ian Law, MD, has been appointed director of clinical cardiology for the UI Division of Pediatric Cardiology. He will be responsible for overseeing inpatient and outpatient activities, spearheading clinical initiatives, and promoting clinical faculty development.

Frances Johnson, MD, has been named director of the UI Cardiomyopathy Treatment Program, UI Heart and Vascular Center. A graduate of the University of Washington School of Medicine, Johnson’s clinical interest is the treatment of patients with advanced heart failure, including those who are either candidates for, or recipients of, a mechanical circulating device.

Upcoming Continuing Medical Education activities

For the full list of upcoming University of Iowa continuing medical education events, visit: www.medicine.uiowa.edu/cme/ or call the CME office, 319-335-8599.

December 1-2, 2006
22nd annual Hawkeye Sports Medicine Symposium
Coralville Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, Coralville, IA
Audience: Physicians, nurses, physical therapists, athletic trainers, physician assistants
Course director: John Albright, MD, orthopaedics
Contact: CME Division, 319-335-8599

January 26, 2007
Midwest Conference on Health Care in the Elderly–29th Annual Meeting
Sheraton Iowa City Hotel, Iowa City, IA
Audience: Physicians, nurses, social workers, physician assistants
Course director: Gerald Jogerst, MD, family medicine
Contact: CME Division, 319-335-8599