The Health Sciences and Human Services Library will start summer hours on Tuesday, May 31.
Monday to Thursday* : 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Friday*: 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday: CLOSED
*To access the HS/HSL from 6 to 8 a.m., please enter the library through the SMC Campus Center. You must have your UMB or UMMC ID to enter the building.
Check out our full hours and exceptions to regular hours.
UMB President Jay A. Perman, MD, usually works from a nomination form when he gives out Employee of the Month awards. But no notes were needed for the May 19 ceremony in the Saratoga Building, where Malinda Hughes, academic program manager in the Office of Academic Affairs (OAA), was honored.
“I don’t need a write-up for you,” said a smiling Perman. He did, however, wish he had a bigger award for Hughes, who proved indispensable during the 2 1/2-year Middle States reaccreditation process.
“As I say Employee of the Month, it seems not completely sufficient for you,” he said to Hughes. “Maybe Employee of the Decade. The way you do things, which is always just to a T, what you did with Middle States, and over the couple of years preparing for it, is astounding.”
In addition to her regular duties, which include managing the interaction between OAA and UMB’s schools in matters of faculty appointments, promotion, tenure, and leave, Hughes stepped up during Middle States, coordinating logistics for events ranging from retreats and town halls to the site team visit.
When the nine-member Middle States evaluation team came to Baltimore for four days on April 3, Hughes planned out every detail, from hotel accommodations to the team’s many meetings with UMB leaders, faculty, students, and staff across campus.
“I know from leading these kind of event visits, it makes all the difference how well things are organized and how the visiting team is treated,” Perman said. “In many ways, you won this for us. The least we can do is honor you with this award and the $250 that comes with it.”
In fact, Middle States evaluation team chair Denise V. Rodgers, MD, FAAFP, vice chancellor for interprofessional programs at Rutgers University Biomedical and Health Sciences, singled out Hughes for special praise when delivering a glowing preliminary report to UMB on April 6.
“We need to add a special and heartfelt thanks to Mrs. Malinda Hughes,” said Rodgers, “who coordinated our visit and attended to all of our needs while we were here in Baltimore. Malinda, please be recognized.”
The applause from that day continued at the Employee of the Month celebration, where chief accountability officer and Middle States co-chair Roger J. Ward, EdD, JD, MPA, added to Perman’s praise. “Malinda has been simply outstanding from the first time she came to Academic Affairs,” Ward said. “She is so capable and competent and I knew she could take the Middle States challenge from beginning to end. Thank you for the good work, especially around Middle States, but all of the good work you do that people aren’t aware of.”
Chimed in chief academic and research officer Bruce Jarrell, MD, FACS, “Malinda has this great training as a nurse, and it comes out in all of her activities. She is meticulous and at the same time always sees the important strategic question. She is a pleasure having on the team.”
Hughes, who began working at UMB in 2011, quickly pointed out she was a small part of a much greater team, with hundreds of people helping UMB to hit dozens of Middle States milestones.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” Hughes said at the ceremony. “The first person I have to thank is Roger Ward. Two and a half years ago, he sat me down and we were talking about my career goals and I said I think I want to work on Middle States and he let me run with it.
“I just want to let you know, Dr. Perman, that everyone that I contacted immediately responded with ‘happy to help. Is there anything else you need?’ So I may have coordinated the visit, but it was an army behind me that helped us.”
by Sarah Reback and Chris Zang
The Gudelsky entrance at Lombard and Greene is closed until further notice because of emergency repairs needed on the outside of the building.
Staff who normally use that entrance will have to use the Shock Trauma entrance or the main hospital entrance. Patients and visitors will be directed to the main entrance on Greene Street. Please help us prioritize the safety and convenience of patients and visitors by helping them navigate to their destination.
Here are some reminders and safety tips to keep in mind during this period.
While scaffolding is being installed over the next seven to 10 days, the sidewalks along Lombard and Greene approaching the entrances may be closed for certain periods, until safety tunnels are installed. Please use the sidewalks on the other side of the street. For your own safety, do not walk in the streets.
Repairs are needed to correct some recently discovered deterioration in the facing stone on the front of the building. The work may take several months, but it is needed for the safety of our staff, our patients and visitors, and the general public.
We apologize for any inconvenience that the repairs may cause. If you have questions, please check with your manager or email leadership@umm.edu.
The HS/HSL will be offering free workshops throughout the summer.
Evidence proves nurses design and lead initiatives that improve health outcomes. Maryland needs nurses who lead changes that improve health outcomes for its citizens.
The Nurse Leadership Institute (NLI) offers Maryland nurses a fantastic program in leadership skill development.
Check out the Commencement 2016 coverage!
Baltimore locals Michelle Bond and Joan Kanner have opened a pop-up shop at Lexington Market called Bottoms Up Bagels.
Check out the jersey-style pork roll, cheese and egg bagel sandwich, or bagels and lox. Their bagels are homemade.
Bottoms Up Bagels will be at Lexington Market until Saturday.
Join the UMBrella Group for our second Lunch & Learn!
This session focuses on negotiation. Attendees will learn about:
Attendees also will participate in a “Lean-In” circle focused on negotiation skills.
During a symposium highlighting research on endogenous pain modulation systems at this year’s American Pain Society meeting, Luana Colloca, MD, PhD, of the University of Maryland School of Nursing, presented research work conducted in her laboratory, investigating the psychoneurobiology of expectancy-induced analgesia.
Colloca’s group studies placebo analgesia – not, as it is relates to clinical trials, although her work has implications in that field – but rather, as a model to explore endogenous pain modulatory systems. She and her colleagues aim to optimize a multidisciplinary and integrative approach to pain management.
Come celebrate the end of the school year with Bubble Ball Soccer presented by Scientists for Non-Academic Careers (SNAC) and Project Jump Start!
Anyone can play and the event is free for students. Please bring donations of toiletries or new/gently used clothing for Project Jump Start.
Sign up will start at 2:45 p.m. on May 25 in the URecFit basketball courts. We look forward to seeing you there!
Sponsored by USGA and GSA
The Center for Innovative Biomedical Resources (CIBR) announced that a total of eight cores are now available online through iLabs, including:
• Center for Translation Research in Imaging
• Confocal Microscopy Core
• Electron Microscopy Core
• Flow Cytometry Core
• Genomics Research Core (formerly Biopolymer)
• NMR Core
• Pathology Biorepository Shared Services Core
• Translational Core Laboratory Shared Services Core
An additional 3–5 cores will be added to iLabs by the end of calendar year 2016.
“This is a critical management tool for accelerating the pace and scope of our clinical and basic science research,” said School of Medicine Dean E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA. “Given what CIBR has accomplished thus far, it will be critical for our investigators to utilize the iLabs portal to access the core research labs so that we can continue to make further advances in our ACCEL-Med Initiative (Accelerating Innovation and Discovery in Medicine).”
Since 2013, the University of Maryland Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (M-CERSI) has hosted its “America’s Got Regulatory Science Talent” competition to help promote interest in the ever-expanding field of regulatory science. Students from all academic programs at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) are invited to participate.
This year, our team – Maximizing Patient Reported Outcomes and Vigilance Efforts (M-PROVE) – became the first group of student pharmacists to take home first place in the competition. As part of our prize for winning the competition, I and my fellow third-year student pharmacist teammates Peter Nguyen, Justin Penzenstadler, David Tran, and Yoon Duk Hong were invited to visit the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on May 6 to deliver our presentation addressing the challenges that currently face adverse effects reporting and shining a light on one potential innovation that could be implemented to improve the process. We were joined by second place team Max Elixirs, and the winning team from the University of Rochester.
To compete in the “America’s Got Regulatory Science” competition, student teams must develop an innovative solution to a regulatory science challenge identified within one of the eight scientific priority areas in the FDA’s Strategic Plan for Advancing Regulatory Science. This year’s panel of judges evaluated each of the presentations for the quality, novelty, potential significance, and feasibility of the students’ proposed solutions.
Our team’s project, “Maximizing Patient Reported Outcomes and Vigilance Efforts,” proposed utilizing the modern patient to increase participation and signal detection in pharmacovigilance. Our idea focused on using Google to link patients to MedWatch. We know that many patients perform a Google search when experiencing adverse reactions or side effects from medications, so we recommended capitalizing on those Google searches by having the FDA partner with Google to include a side bar feature on the landing page of patients’ Google results to capture the information typically required for MedWatch. The patients would then be able to easily submit the necessary information to MedWatch.
Having the opportunity to present our idea to the FDA was definitely a rush of different emotions. Many experts were present in the audience, and we felt nervous at first because we didn’t know what questions might be asked of us. We knew that our idea was innovative, but we also knew that some people might think our proposal to create a partnership between the FDA and Google was farfetched. However, feedback from different individuals at the FDA really helped us believe in our idea. The experience also encouraged us to continue to think “outside-the-box.” Creative and, sometimes, ambitious ideas are needed to tackle issues in health care.
Although it was a gray, rainy day outside, having the chance to spend time networking and talking about innovative ideas definitely made our experience at the FDA enjoyable and memorable. In the end, we learned that there are still several issues related to our idea that need to be resolved, but this experience showed us that anything is possible with the right approach. Apart from receiving the opportunity to present our idea, we also had an opportunity to network with a lot of experts at the FDA, including deputy directors and project managers from different divisions in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER).
By Jillian Aquino, Third-Year Student Pharmacist
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Inside SOP, the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy’s blog. It is reprinted here with permission.
The flower images in this exhibit were created by nine artists from UMB’s School of Social Work to celebrate the beauty of life.
According to Julie Gilliam, senior instructional technology specialist at the School of Social Work, “There is a misperception that social workers do not embrace technology. This is simply untrue, social workers adopt technology when it is accessible, efficient, empowering, and portable.”
The artists in this exhibit used technology to demonstrate their idea of blossoming. The artworks were predominately created with smartphones with some using visual textures produced by a mobile application.
The exhibit will be displayed in the HS/HSL Weise Gallery from May 16 through June 17, 2016.
We asked the commencement marshals and honorary degree recipients what one piece of advice they would like to pass along to UMB’s Class of 2016. Here are some of their responses:
Marjorie Fass, MA
Retired Assistant Dean, Student and Academic Services
School of Nursing
Honorary Student Marshal
“When the day is done and you are about to close your eyes, think about your day’s activities and all the people for whom you have made a difference. You will have pleasant dreams for it is the act of giving that fills your soul.”
Freda Lewis-Hall, MD, DFAPA
Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Pfizer
Honorary Doctor of Science
“I’d ask them to treat their graduations not just as a personal triumph, but also as a symbol of society’s investment in their futures, with the expectation that this investment will be ‘paid forward’ to the generations behind them.”
David Roffman, PharmD, BCPS-AQ Cardiology
Retired Professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science
School of Pharmacy
Honorary University Marshal
“Treat every patient that you encounter as if they were a member of your family, and the best way to do that is to learn something new every day of your career.”
Bruce Stuart, PhD
Professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research
Director, Peter Lamy Center for Drug Therapy and Aging
School of Pharmacy
Honorary Faculty Marshal
“The field of pharmacy is changing in ways that will profoundly affect all current graduates. Don’t sit on your laurels; be opportunistic!”
Abdulafeez Oluyadi and Andong Nkobena, fourth-year students in the Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) program at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, have been awarded fellowships at MedImmune – the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca based in Gaithersburg, Md. The exclusive fellowships will provide Oluyadi and Nkobena with the hands-on experience and leadership skills necessary to pursue careers in clinical drug development following their graduation from the School in May 2016.
“The School of Pharmacy has partnered with MedImmune for more than five years to make this unique fellowship available to new graduates who are interested in pursuing careers in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries,” says Peter Swaan, PhD, associate dean for research and graduate studies and professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences (PSC) at the School. “This fellowship not only provides a wonderful opportunity for outstanding graduates, but also creates a pipeline for the development of highly qualified scientists who will be on the forefront of creating new medicines for the treatment of a variety of diseases. We are thrilled that Abdulafeez and Andong have been selected to participate in this innovative educational and research experience, and look forward to hearing about their research in the future.”
Oluyadi and Nkobena first made their interest in research known in their second year at the School when they applied and were accepted into the School’s research pathway for student pharmacists. The research pathway allowed Oluyadi and Nkobena to complete a number of research-intensive elective courses and conduct research in the laboratory of Sarah Michel, PhD, professor in PSC. Oluyadi studied the biochemical mechanism of ribonucleic acid (RNA) recognition for a protein targeted by the influenza virus, while Nkobena joined researchers on a clinical trial funded by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to examine intravenous iron drugs used to treat chronic kidney disease.
The students presented their research to representatives from MedImmune earlier this year. Although only one fellowship was initially available, the exceptional presentations delivered by Oluyadi and Nkobena persuaded the company to make job offers to both students.
“Faculty at the School of Pharmacy work to leverage the contemporary curriculum, innovative educational experiences, and strategic professional relationships offered at the School to inspire excellence in all of our students,” says Michel. “Having both Abdulafeez and Andong selected to participate in prestigious fellowships at MedImmune truly speaks to the quality of the education that they have received, as well as the caliber of research opportunities in which they were able to participate during their time at the School.”
Fellowships at MedImmune are designed to help recent graduates understand the pathways for preclinical research and the link between preclinical research and clinical development, as well as distinguish the toxicology requirements to enable clinical development plans, the relationship between regulatory and clinical development, and the value of health economics and patient-reported outcomes on clinical development activities.
“The School’s research pathway provided me with exposure to a broad range of research and allowed me to complete rigorous research classes, attend multiple informative seminars, and tap into a source of continuous mentorship,” says Oluyadi. “As I begin my fellowship with MedImmune, I hope to use the knowledge and skills that I have acquired through the pathway to play an integral role in bringing innovative therapies into the clinical landscape.”
“Through my involvement in the School’s research pathway, I was able to participate in an exciting FDA-funded project that allowed me to hone both my research and analytical skills,” adds Nkobena. “This fellowship represents an extension of the transferable skills that I acquired through that project, and I am looking forward to using my time at MedImmune to develop even more skills and further contribute to the scientific advancements being made across the company.”
Oluyadi and Nkobena will begin their two-year fellowships in July 2016.
“Abdulafeez and Andong are superlative students, and I am thrilled to have them join the Clinical Development Fellowship Program at MedImmune,” says Filip Dubovsky, MD, MPH, vice president for clinical biologics and therapeutic area head for infectious disease and vaccines at MedImmune. “Other fellows from the School of Pharmacy have leveraged the experience gained during their time at our organization to obtain highly sought after positions as clinical scientists with a number of major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including within MedImmune and AstraZeneca. It is our goal that, upon the completion of their fellowships, both Abdulafeez and Andong will have acquired the knowledge and hands-on experience necessary to pursue fulfilling careers developing new, life-saving medications.”