Friday, February 25, 2011

Macy Faculty Scholars program


About the Program

The Macy Faculty Scholars program – the first of its kind – launched in December 2010. The program aims to accelerate needed reforms in health professions education to accommodate the dramatic changes occurring in medical practice and health care delivery.
Under the program, the Foundation will select up to five faculty leaders each year. Each Scholar will receive salary support at $100,000 per year over two years.  Scholars must be nominated by the Dean of their institutions, who must commit to protecting at least 50 percent of the Scholars’ time to pursue education reform projects at their institution.  Each school may nominate only one candidate each year, and will be expected to provide a senior faculty member to mentor the Scholar.
The Foundation will support educational change in each Scholar’s institution and develop a national network for the Scholars, who will receive career advice from a National Advisory Committee and participate in an Annual Meeting for the program.

Become a Faculty Scholar

The Foundation is looking for faculty who are committed to careers in health professional education, have served for more than five years on the faculty of the sponsoring school, are innovators, and have shown promise as future leaders.
The eligible candidate must:
  • Be an RN, MD, or DO faculty member in good standing at the sponsoring school;
  • Have served for more than five years on the faculty of the sponsoring school of nursing or medicine;
  • Have an identified faculty mentor who will provide advice on the candidate’s project and career development;
  • Have an educational innovation project with the appropriate institutional support; and
  • Be a citizen or permanent resident of the United States or its territories.
The application must include:
  1. Candidate’s statement of career objectives and personal goals for the program (no more than 2 pages);
  2. Description of the educational innovation project to be undertaken (no more than 3 pages);
  3. Nominating letter from the Dean of the school;
  4. Letter from the candidate’s mentor indicating a commitment to advise the candidate on project work and career development;
  5. Letter from the candidate’s department Chair indicating the Chair’s commitment to protecting the time of the candidate and describing the role of the candidate in the department;
  6. Letter from one other senior faculty member familiar with the work of the candidate; and
  7. Current Curriculum Vitae of the candidate.
The Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation is now accepting online applications for the Faculty Scholars program. The closing date for applications is March 15, 2011.

Call for Pre-Proposals: Regional Awards for Cyber-enabled Research - NECC

The Northeast Cyberinfrastructure Consortium (NECC) is pleased to offer a funding opportunity for cyber-enabled research. The NECC is an interdisciplinary consortium of research and higher education institutions in five states (Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) that are collaborating to build cyberinfrastructure in the Northeast region. The Consortium is currently affiliated with both NSF EPSCoR and NIH IDeA for specific fiber, research, workforce development, outreach and diversity programs in the region that support collaborative cyber-enabled research and education.

Regional Awards for Cyber-enabled Research (RACER) pilot awards are designed to initiate collaborative, cyber-enabled research among investigators in NECC states. The maximum amount of each award is $10,000 for a project period of 1 September 2011 through 1 August 2012. Projects must involve investigators from at least two NECC states; preference will be given to projects in water-related environmental research or bioinformatics.

RFP: http://www.uvm.edu/~epscor/pdfFiles/2011_NECC_RACER_RFP_11_01_05_1.pdf
Pre-proposal: http://www.necyberconsortium.org/Solicitations.html

Please read the RFP carefully: a pre-proposal process will be used. Pre-proposals are due 15 April 2011.

Electronic Submission forms are available on the web at the above links.

Questions? Visit us on the web at http://necyberconsortium.org

Informatics Grand Rounds - Tuesday, March 15th 4PM-5PM

INFORMATICS GRAND ROUNDS

"RESEARCH FROM EXTRACTED EMR DATA IN A MULTI-VENDOR ENVIRONMENT: PROMISE, PITFALLS, & PROGRESS"


Date/Time: 
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011 
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Location:
Medical Education Center Room 300 (Reardon Classroom)

Abstract:
Although created for documentation and billing purposes rather than for scientific investigation, EMR data offer a rich resource for researchers.  Numerous methodological and technical challenges face those wishing to generate new knowledge from EMR data, especially when the data arise from diverse implementations of different EMR systems.  The speaker will outline these challenges and address some potential solutions in the context of a new multi-EMR-system primary care research network – the electronic version of Pediatric Research in Office Settings (ePROS).

Speaker Bio: Dr. Richard C. "Mort" Wasserman has been a general pediatrician in the UVM Department of Pediatrics since 1983, conducting primary care research, teaching, and providing primary care.  Dr. Wasserman's research has focused on using practice-based research networks to better understand and improve the delivery of preventive services and the care of common conditions in pediatric populations.  He recently returned from a sabbatical leave at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), where he investigated the use of EMR data in epidemiological and comparative effectiveness research.  While at CHOP, he wrote a grant proposal to create an EMR-based "subnetwork" within Pediatric Research in Office Settings (PROS), the practice-based research network of the American Academy of Pediatrics.  That three-year grant was funded by the HRSA Maternal and Child Health Bureau in September of 2010.


Informatics Grand Rounds is a joint initiative between the University of Vermont (Center for Clinical and Translational Science Biomedical Informatics Unit, Continuing Education, and Dana Medical Library), Fletcher Allen Health Care, and the State of Vermont.


Monday, February 21, 2011

2-way Contingency Table Analysis

I ran across this handy website today. You enter 4 numbers in a 2-by-2 table (a contingency table) and it calculates the P-value and over 30 other measure of association from Sensitivity to Yule's Q. Enjoy!


2-way Contingency Table Analysis

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Secondary Data Analysis Tutorial

The Journal of General Internal Medicine has published a very nice introduction and tutorial on Secondary Data Analysis. It specifically mentions the SGIM Compendium of Datasets which is referenced on this blog's homepage on the right under "Handy Resources for Doing CTS."


Conducting High-Value Secondary Dataset Analysis: An Introductory Guide and Resources



Abstract

Secondary analyses of large datasets provide a mechanism for researchers to address high impact questions that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to study. This paper presents a guide to assist investigators interested in conducting secondary data analysis, including advice on the process of successful secondary data analysis as well as a brief summary of high-value datasets and online resources for researchers, including the SGIM dataset compendium (www.sgim.org/go/datasets). The same basic research principles that apply to primary data analysis apply to secondary data analysis, including the development of a clear and clinically relevant research question, study sample, appropriate measures, and a thoughtful analytic approach. A real-world case description illustrates key steps: (1) define your research topic and question; (2) select a dataset; (3) get to know your dataset; and (4) structure your analysis and presentation of findings in a way that is clinically meaningful. Secondary dataset analysis is a well-established methodology. Secondary analysis is particularly valuable for junior investigators, who have limited time and resources to demonstrate expertise and productivity.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Fwd: SEMINAR BY DR. TIM RELUGA - Monday 2/14


--
Benjamin Littenberg, MD
Henry and Carleen Tufo Professor of Medicine and Professor of Nursing
University of Vermont
89 Beaumont Avenue, Room S459, Burlington, Vermont 05405
802-656-4560 fax 802-656-4576




Forwarded conversation
Subject: SEMINAR BY DR. TIM RELUGA - Monday 2/14
------------------------

From: John Barlow <John.Barlow@uvm.edu>
Date: Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 11:58 AM
To: CSC@list.uvm.edu


Hi all,
Please note this seminar. There are opportunities during the afternoon Monday to meet with Tim individually for anyone who might be interested. Please contact me if you would like to schedule a time.


*Dr. Timothy Reluga*
Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Biology
Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics
Penn State University

*Behavior, Immunity, and Bistability in Simple Epidemiology Models *

*Monday February 14, 2011
11:00 am
Livak Room – 419 Davis Center*

Abstract:
In elementary models of endemic disease transmission, long-term dynamics can usually be summarized in terms of a single global attractor. However, a number of theoretical studies in the last decade have been shown that some epidemiological scenarios can have two or more locally stable equilibria, with population-dynamics that can potentially converge to either. This bistability may have important repercussions for public health policy and epidemic preparedness because it may lead to rapid and unexpected changes in disease prevalence. However, our understanding of the mechanisms creating bistability remains fuzzy. One potential cause of bistability is natural variation in the degree of individual resistance created by behavior changes and naturally acquired immunity. In this talk, I'll discuss some illustrative models of resistance to disease transmission. We'll see how different mechanisms of disease resistance lead to different population dynamics, and how over-simplified models can sometimes mislead us about general scenarios.

Dr. Reluga's research interests concern the description, understanding, and prediction of the dynamics of biological systems, and the implications of biology for human communities. This currently includes work in ecology, epidemiology, immunology, evolution, medicine, human behavior, and economics. Dr. Reluga completed his PhD in Applied Mathematics, "Results on Temporal and Spatial Heterogeneity in Theoretical Ecology" supervised by Prof. Mark Kot, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (June, 2004). He was a Research Fellow in Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale University (October, 2004 - May, 2006 ) in the Galvani laboratory, and a postdoctoral researcher at Los Alamos National Lab (September, 2006 - June, 2007) prior to accepting his current faculty position at Penn State.

More information on Dr. Reluga's research and publications can be found at
http://www.cidd.psu.edu/people/tcr2 or http://www.math.psu.edu/treluga/

cheers,
John
--

John Barlow DVM PhD
Department of Animal Science
University of Vermont
802-656-1395
fax 802-656-8196



Monday, February 7, 2011

Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: Feb 3, 2011

Present: Abby Crocker, Kairn Kelly, Rodger Kessler, Ben Littenberg, Connie van Eeghen

1. Check In:

a. Library books are due! Ben is interesting in getting long-loaned books back; Connie, Abby, Rodger, and Kairn all have outstanding loans.

b. Plan: book club on Tuftee’s first book: display of quantitative data. Ben will ask Debi to order additional copies.

2. Connie – Case Study #1 Analysis

a. Overview and analytic plan: discussion of how to describe mixed methods studies and the relationships they are measuring. Connie’s study is labeled a concurrent nested mixed methods study based on the strength of the measurement tools, not the dependence of one kind of design on another.

b. Outcome measures: measurement approach and tools changed pre/post the project. Connie has some new homework to do on how the pre-project patient charts were sampled and how to measure the denominator for post-project results.

c. Presentation of analysis: small “n” studies work with in dot plots, rather than bar charts. We began to interpret some of the results presented but ran out of time.

d. Great input – thanks everybody!

3. Next Workshop Meeting(s): Thursday, 2:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m., at Given Courtyard Level 4

a. February 10: Connie’s qualitative analysis of her first case study (no Rodger)

b. February 17: Rodger & Connie’s draft paper for PPRP (No Amanda, Ben)

c. February 24: (no Amanda, Kairn, Connie, Ben – schools are on winter break)

d. March 3: (no Rodger)

e. March 10: (no Rodger)

f. March 17: John Senders - engineer and psychologist with deep expertise in human error and an international authority on medical errors; Ben as host

g. March 24: Rodger: NCQA survey data (no Amanda)

h. March 31:

i. Future agenda to consider:

i. Rodger: Mixed methods article; article on Behavior’s Influence on Medical Conditions (unpublished)

ii. Future: Review of different types of journal articles (lit review, case study, original article, letter to editor…), when each is appropriate, tips on planning/writing (Abby)

Recorder: Connie van Eeghen

Fwd: 2011 UVM Student Research Conference

This should be great fun AND a chance to develop your abstract writing and presentation skills.

Ben


2011 UVM Student Research Conference

Co-sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Research,

 the Graduate College, and the Honors College

Online Application Available: uvm.edu/~uvmsrc
Deadline:  5:00 PM on Friday, February 18, 2011

Eligibility:  All students (Undergraduate, Graduate, and Medical) working
on a research or creative project with a UVM faculty member are eligible
to present. Research and creative projects at any stage of completion are
welcome. Please see complete details at uvm.edu/~uvmsrc.

If you have any questions about the 2011 SRC, e-mail

uvmsrc@uvm.edu or call Andrea Elledge at 6-8867.

We look forward to your participation!

CONFERENCE DATE: Tuesday, April 26, 2011 - Davis Center 4th Floor




Abstract Workshops for Students

Your application form requires the submission of an abstract.

If you need help with your abstract, please attend one of the below abstract writing

workshops specifically designed to support SRC applicants. Click a date to

register for that workshop and/or get additional information:

   * Wednesday, February 9th, 12:45 - 1:45 pm
   * Thursday, February 10th, 1:00 - 2:00 pm


Wednesday, February 2, 2011

STATA Videos on YouTube

Here is a very nice series of YouTube videos on using STATA from the University of Minnesota. They are short, practical and easy to follow. Enjoy!


And, if you get hungry from all that STATA, check out Mealtime Hero

 Ben