I am pleased to announce that the 2009 Department of Internal Medicine Distinguished Achievement Award will go to Dr. Gerald F. DiBona. Mark your calendars – the award will be presented at the beginning of Grand Rounds on November 5. Jerry will be our grand rounds speaker that day and will talk about his most recent work under the title, "Translational Medicine: The Antihypertensive Effect of Renal Denervation."
Jerry joins a long list of truly distinguished recipients – former faculty, trainees, and friends who have contributed in profound ways to the meaning and direction of academic medicine. Many, such as Dick Wenzel, David Skorton, Bob Clark, and, of course, Frank Abboud, are still on the front line of research and education. Some were among the founders of the modern department of internal medicine – Bill Bean, Jim Clifton, Jack Eckstein and Paul Seebohm. All have been leaders and champions of science and medicine not just at Iowa but across the nation and world wide. Read about past recipients here.
It is humbling to think about how many great leaders, teachers and researchers have connections to Iowa and, on a much more personal level, to this department and to our work here today. The award selection committee never hesitated – Jerry was the one. And they were right. Jerry fits into this group extremely well and not just because he owns a tux and occasionally goes to dinner parties in the same neighborhood where the Nobel awards are handed out.
I am already looking forward to November 5.
F. Jeffrey Field, M.D.
Interim Chair and Professor
EPIC EPIC EPIC
EPIC is here. It can’t be avoided. This is a must do. Can’t hide. We’ve been to the lectures and introductory sessions. Now the much ballyhooed six-hour training sessions have started, beginning with a session last week for departmental executive officers (bring coffee!).
This transition will happen, it will happen in May, and we will all look back in a year or so and hardly remember the challenges. A year from now new faculty won’t even know about the change from IPR to EPIC, and if those of us here for the transition are honest, we will likely express gratitude for all the new tools that EPIC offers.
This is just another phase in the evolution of a basic tool. Not a simple one, though. It will take practice and focus and time before we can say we’ve mastered it.
For those of you who have completed the six-hour training, we encourage you to set some time aside each day to practice your new skills in EPIC Support. If your only training so far is the two-hour orientation session, log in and take a look around – get to know the various screen displays; become more adept with the navigation options. The Department EPIC resource page is http://www.int-med.uiowa.edu/EPIC - stop by.
Over the next several months, we will post EPIC Tips on the department EPIC page and distribute others by email. As you know, or will soon discover, there are always several ways to accomplish any given task in EPIC – if you use Microsoft Word much, you’ll understand what we are saying.
Practice makes perfect. Practice, practice, practice. You’ll get to Carnegie Hall. We promise.
F. Jeffrey Field, M.D.
Interim Chair and Professor
Rebecca Hegeman, M.D.
Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Clinical Programs
