From the President
Brian R. Riveland, M.D.
Happy New Year
to all. It is my honor to be your
Maricopa County Medical Society president for 2009. I wish to express my thanks and appreciation
for the leadership of Dr. Ed Donahue over this last year and look forward to
his continued input on the Board.
I grew up in Nebraska, completed residency at the University of Cincinnati
and I have been in private practice in Internal Medicine since 1987 in Glendale. I am fortunate to practice with 14 internists
and several other providers at Thunderbird Internal Medicine who I consider my
friends as well as partners and colleagues.
I have enjoyed participating in
various committees, leadership positions and physician organizations throughout
the last 21 years with a keen interest in information systems and clinical and
service quality.
At the time of this
writing the country and the world are facing unprecedented economic times. The country continues to be embroiled in
conflicts overseas, countless people are experiencing foreclosures, layoffs, and
hardships unimaginable a few short years ago. There is talk of slipping into a full blown
depression. We all are seeing patients who in addition to
their medical concerns are having now to deal with lack of income, making
choices to not take their medicines or have recommended testing. They are
simply trying to survive. I am
continually reminded that my concerns are petty and few compared with many of
those I care for.
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"With the many decisions
we face on a daily basis, one of the simplest choices I have never regretted
was to become a member of the Maricopa County Medical Society."
- Howard Tay, M.D. Member since 1996
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The Doctor Is In. Computer Care for the Caregiver
Call today
602/253-2983
or www.medabytes.com |
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Maricopa County
Medical Society
326 E. Coronado Road
Phoenix, AZ 85004
Ph: 602/251-2015
Fax: 602/256-2749
Serving medicine,
serving the community
since 1892...
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InforMed
Society is published
by the Maricopa County Medical Society. Copyright © 2009.
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reserved.
Questions or comments,
please email us at:
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Scientists Identify New Gene
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A team of scientists has discovered a new syndrome associated with severe
congenital neutropenia (SCN), a rare disorder in which children lack sufficient
infection-fighting white cells, and identified the genetic cause of the
syndrome: mutations in the gene Glucose-6-phosphatase, catalytic subunit 3
(G6PC3). The findings, which are published in the Jan. 1, 2009 issue of The
New England Journal of Medicine, were made by an international team of
scientists, composed of 14 researchers from the Medical School of Hannover in Germany and 12 from other research institutions,
including the National
Center for Biotechnology
Information at the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.
"Our discovery will help facilitate genetic diagnosis in this newly
defined group of severe congenital neutropenia patients," said Christoph
Klein, M.D., Ph.D., Hannover
Medical School,
the principal investigator of the study. "Knowledge about the underlying
genetic defect is an important first step in developing a targeted
therapy."
Read more...
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Inheritance Plays Important Role in
Breast Cancer
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New research in mice and five independent collections of human breast tumors
has enabled National Cancer Institute (NCI) scientists to confirm that genes
for factors contributing to susceptibility for breast cancer metastasis can be
inherited. The new findings support earlier results from the same laboratory
and appear in the Jan. 1, 2009, issue of Cancer Research.
The study results also show that gene activities in
tumor cells and immune cells that infiltrate, or invade, tumors can contribute
to the development of expression profiles, called gene signatures that are
predictive of cancer progression. The analysis of normal mouse tissue as well
as tumors transplanted into mice suggests that predictive, or prognostic, gene
signatures that point to a tumor's potential for spreading throughout the body
can be the result of both inherited and non-inherited factors, with inherited
factors being more consistently predictive. The research team that reported
these findings is from the Center for Cancer Research at NCI, which is part of
the National Institutes of Health.
Read more...
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32nd Annual Innovations in
Women's Health Symposium
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February 19-21, 2009
Buttes Marriott, Tempe, AZ
Co-sponsored by Phoenix Ob/Gyn Society
& ACOG AZ Section
- 15 Category I
Credits - Live Tele-Surgeries
- Relevant Topics - Audience Response
System
- Gorgeous
Location - Dynamic Presenters
- Discount for MCMS Members
Click here to view brochure and registration form.
Mark your calendar and
register today!
For more information, please call 602-864-1233, Ext. 5 |
AZ Osteopathic Board Names New
Exec Director
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The Arizona Board of
Osteopathic Examiners in Medicine and Surgery has selected Elaine LeTarte to
head the agency that licenses and regulates osteopathic physicians (DOs) in the
state. She succeeds Jack Confer who is now the Executive Director of the
Kansas Board of Healing Arts.
The role of Executive
Director is a familiar one for Ms. LeTarte. She brings more than ten
years' experience in professional licensing to the position, but this is also
the second time she has been Executive Director of the DO Board. Ms.
LeTarte views the strength of the staff and the structure of the Board as
positives that have remained unchanged. But after almost four years, she
recognizes some things are not the same. During her first tenure as
Executive Director, she worked with a Board nucleus that had been together for
ten years. Today's Board is for her, a "second generation" of
sorts. "They represent a different dynamic," she says. "That's good
because they bring new ideas and new perspectives." Their input is
important because of the increasing shift toward specialties among
osteopaths.
Ms. LeTarte sees the growing
number of licensees helping to deliver quality healthcare to a rapidly
increasing population in Arizona.
At the present time, about 1,600 of the slightly more than 2,000 licensed DOs
practice in this state. And now, there are two osteopathic medical
schools training future practitioners: Midwestern
University in Glendale and A.T. Still
University in Mesa. "The presence of two medical
schools will make people more comfortable and familiar with the osteopathic
profession," she says.
Looking to the future, Ms.
LeTarte believes the Osteopathic Board will become more involved on a national
level, particularly in areas that are crossing professions and state lines.
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Conquering Childhood Cancer
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EVENT: DONALD
K. BUFFMIRE LECTURE Conquering Childhood Cancer:
A Paradigm for Translational Research
SPEAKER: William
F. Crist, MD, VP for health affairs, U of A
DATE/TIME: Wednesday 1/14/09, 4 p.m. reception 5:30
p.m. lecture
LOCATION: The
U of A College of Medicine, Phoenix, in partnership with ASU Virginia G. Piper Auditorium 550 E. Van Buren, Phoenix
COST: Lecture
is free and open to the public.
RSVP/CONTACT: Gail Skeens, (602) 827-2039
The University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix in partnership with
Arizona State University and the Flinn Foundation will host Dr. Crist, who
will talk about his experience in a presentation titled, "Conquering Childhood
Cancer: A Paradigm for Translational Research," on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009 at 5:30
p.m., in the Virginia G. Piper Auditorium, 550 E. Van Buren. The lecture is
free and open to the public. Parking in the College of Medicine
lot, with entrance on 7th Street,
also is free.
Dr. Crist is among the scientists credited with dramatically improving our
understanding of childhood leukemias and their treatments. He spent much of his
career from the 1970s through the 1990s in the field of pediatric hematology
and oncology first at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, the University of
Tennessee College of Medicine at Memphis, and St. Jude Children's Hospital in
Memphis before becoming chairman of pediatric and adolescent medicine at Mayo
Medical Center in Rochester, Minn. Dr. Crist had been serving as dean of the
School of Medicine at the University of Missouri before being named UA VP for
health affairs last summer.
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| FDA Approval
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The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration recently approved the injectable drug Degarelix, the first new
drug in several years for prostate cancer.
Degarelix is intended to treat
patients with advanced prostate cancer. It belongs to a class of agents called
gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) receptor inhibitors. These agents slow the
growth and progression of prostate cancer by suppressing testosterone, which
plays an important role in the continued growth of prostate cancer.
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