Passersby may notice a new look to ATSU’s Academic Building on its Arizona campus. After nine years of displaying a sign reading Arizona School of Health Sciences, the building is now labeled as A.T. Still University.
“We were sad to see the old sign go, but the new A.T. Still University sign completes our physical transition to a University,” said Craig M. Phelps, D.O., FAOASM, ATSU-Arizona provost.
Runners in the 2010 P.F. Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon on January 17 who needed medical assistance found themselves in good hands, as close to 150 of the approximately 700 medical volunteers for this year’s race were students, faculty, staff, or alumni of A.T. Still University.
A team of 20 first-year School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona (SOMA) students manned one of the tents at the finish line, treating runners who showed any kind of distress. “Mostly, we did general histories on runners and handed out Tylenol and ice wraps,” said John Rudolph, OMS I, vice president of the SOMA sports medicine club. “We also watched for signs of dehydration.” Of the approximately 33,000 runners, Rudolph estimates personally treating 30-40.
SOMA students were joined by a third-year resident from a local hospital, a licensed physician, and a few second- and third-year student volunteers from other local medical schools. “The physician on our team was very impressed with our (SOMA students’) speed in treating patients and how efficiently we communicated,” Rudolph continued. “He felt we delivered care at a very high level.”
For the sixth year in a row, Randy Danielsen, Ph.D., PA-C, DFAAPA, dean of ATSU’s Arizona School of Health Sciences (ATSU-ASHS), served as a medical director for the race. Eric Sauers, Ph.D., ATC, chair of the ATSU-ASHS department of interdisciplinary health sciences, served as an assistant medical director. His primary responsibility was to recruit and supervise the race finish sweep teams who helped troubled runners avoid collapse and got those in need to a medical tent.
“This year we had another outstanding turnout from ATSU students and faculty to provide volunteer medical staff for the race,” said Dr. Sauers. “Working this event is always so much fun because it provides a rare opportunity to work alongside colleagues and students providing care to a very appreciative group of participants, many of whom are raising money for important medical research.”
Also included on the volunteer medical team were six full-time faculty and five alumni who served as medical team captains. ASHS PA students also had a significant presence on the race route as part of the medical volunteer team.
Dental patient smiles after receiving free dentures through the ADF/ASDOH Denture Project
In 2008, the Arizona Dental Foundation (ADF) teamed with A.T. Still University’s Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health (ATSU-ASDOH) to provide free dentures for edentulous individuals in Maricopa County. This year, six patients received full dentures thanks to the generosity of local labs and fourth-year ATSU-ASDOH students. What follows is the experience of one patient in the program.
Barbara, age 69, was diagnosed as having “chalk teeth” at a young age. By the time she was 12, all but four teeth had been extracted. In the last couple of years she experienced ever increasing pain from periodontal disease and a cracked upper denture.
Unable to obtain assistance through local clinics she was referred to the Arizona Dental Foundation (ADF). Because of her inability to pay for dental care through any other means, but having strong physical health, Barbara was a perfect candidate for the ADF/ASDOH Denture Project. After completing a preliminary application she was referred to oral surgeon Dr. Donald Johnson for extractions.
At first she was apprehensive presenting as a charity case but, she said, found the doctor and his staff to be both “understanding and generous.” Once she had healed, Barbara began regular visits to the ASDOH Dental Clinic in Mesa, Ariz., a 104-mile round trip. She reported to ADF that the students were “kind, pleasant, instructional, and very accommodating” and that she “never felt inferior to the paying patients.”
After a few minor adjustments Barbara is comfortable that the dentures fit perfectly now. She says her newfound confidence is immeasurable. She can smile without worrying about what others think and, she exclaimed, “Best of all, I can eat real food! While waiting for my dentures, I had to blend all of my food. Imagine liquid spaghetti for dinner.” Barbara reports that she has regained her energy because the pain and stress of finding dental care are gone. “I was beginning to panic and had no hope left. Now every night when I clean my teeth I think of each person who helped me and I say thank you in my heart.”
The Arizona Dental Foundation gratefully acknowledges the following dental laboratories for their compassion to help change the lives of someone they may never know by donating dentures to this project: Bravo Dental Lab, Deutsch Dental Arts, and Enhanced Prosthetics Lab.
INSCRIPTIONS, Journal of the Arizona Dental Association, vol. 24, no. 6, Jan 2010. Reprinted with permission.
Eleven ASDOH students present at the third annual Research Day.
Students, faculty, and judges listened to 11 A.T. Still University Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health (ATSU-ASDOH) student presentations at the third annual Student Research Day on January 14. The students presented on oral health topics from desensitization therapy to latex allergies.
Students who participated in Research Day completed their research at sites including the University of California, Oregon Health & Sciences University, and A.T. Still University’s Arizona campus.
Robert Trujillo, D3, presented the winning presentation, “Bioactive Glass (BAG): The Clinical Application of BAG in the Dental Profession.” Trujillo was awarded the American Dental Association (ADA)/Dentsply Student Clinician’s Research Award and will present his study in Orlando, Fla. at ADA’s 151st annual session.
“It was tremendously gratifying to see the quality of research that was done by the students. We have accomplished a lot in the past three years, and it’s a credit to the faculty and students alike in advancing our research agenda,” said ATSU-ASDOH Dean Jack Dillenberg, D.D.S., M.P.H.
Presenters & topics
Seena Patel: “A Systematic Review on Dental Recall Intervals and Incidence of Dental Caries”
Tiffany Andersen: “Water Leakage and Tensile Strength of Nitrile Gloves”
Elizabeth Padilla: “Systematic Desensitization Therapy for Dental Injection Phobia vs. Pre-needle Phamplet (the CARL study)”
Michelle Barnard: “Compassionate Questionnaire: A Prospective Preliminary Study Looking at Patients, Faculty, Students, & Alumni”
Shelly Kitain: “Measuring Light Transmittance with Dental Materials”
Andreina Ramones: “Fracture Toughness of Restorative Materials for Products Review”
Amy Jensby: “Implications of Dental Allergy in the Dental Office”
Mark Rehorst: “Comparative Properties of Hevea and Guayule Rubber in Clinical Practice”
Krysta Mann: “Latex protein in Commercially Available Products Used in American Dentistry”
Richard Mathias: “Mitigating Risks of Type 1 Allergy in American Dentistry”
The ATSU Diversity Committee sponsored a week of events, held January 18-22, on the Missouri campus to highlight some of the diversity shared at the University.
The annual International Dinner, Talent, and Fashion Show was held January 22 in the Centennial Commons. Attendees brought food to share and showcased their talents or modeled their ethnic dress.
ATSU is proud to announce that iconnect, the University’s go-to news source, is now a Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) award winning publication.
iconnect received a bronze award for Excellence in Alumni Web Sites, Electronic Newsletter for Alumni at the CASE District VI Institutional Awards Ceremony in St. Louis on January 11. Communications & Marketing and ITS spent nearly a year developing the e-news portal.
ATSU competed for the honor with more than fifty institutions from the region, which includes Colorado, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. To see a complete list of CASE VI winners, visit www.casevi.org/case/index.php/site/institutionalawardswinners.
The EBM News Notes Newsletter, which provides a look into KCOM’s evidence-based medicine curriculum, was recently introduced by Academic Affairs. Among the highlights: KCOM’s international recognition for the National Institue of Health R25 Project.
New project to enhance CORE-AT practice-based research network
MESA, Ariz. – A.T. Still University’s Arizona School of Health Sciences (ATSU-ASHS) athletic training program received a $102,153 grant for a new research project that will further enhance its growing body of research of sport-related injuries in young athletes. The grant was recently approved by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE).
“We are thrilled that our grant received full funding,” said Tamara Valovich McLeod, Ph.D., ATC, principal investigator and ATSU-ASHS athletic training associate professor. “This new research project will allow ATSU-ASHS to continue work in determining how concussion affects young athletes’ lives outside of sports, including school, relationships with friends and family, and emotional and social aspects of their lives. All of these areas are important in providing whole person athletic training services.”
The project, titled “The Effect of Sport-Related Concussion on Cognition, Balance, Symptoms and Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) in Adolescent Athletes,” is a two-year project that aims to assess the immediate and prolonged effects of concussion on HRQOL in adolescent athletes; assess the relationship between the measures of impairment and disability; compare the effect of sport-related concussion and musculoskeletal injury on HRQOL in adolescent athletes within the first 10 days post-injury; and collect “sport concussion impact” narratives from adolescents with sport-related concussion, identify the meanings they attribute to that concussion, and qualitatively determine the affects of concussion on their HRQOL.
Frederick Mueller, Ph.D., NOCSAE research director and University of North Carolina department of exercise and sports science professor, said that sport-related concussions are a major concern in all levels of sports participation, and especially for high school athletes. “The research grant approved for funding by Tamara McLeod of A.T. Still University is another major step in helping to reduce concussion injuries in adolescent athletes,” he said.
“There have always been concerns with the quality of life related to athletes with concussion injuries and their recovery period, and Dr. McLeod’s research will play a major role in this area,” Dr. Mueller continued. “The NOCSAE board of directors is looking forward to the recommendations made by Dr. McLeod at the conclusion of her research project.”
According to Dr. Mueller, NOCSAE was formed in 1969 to address the problem of brain injuries in sports and has been involved in funding research for many years. NOCSAE grant applications are highly competitive and are reviewed by the leading sports medicine experts in the country.
“This is a timely public safety issue for the parents, coaches, and healthcare providers of our young athletes,” said Craig M. Phelps, D.O., FAOASM, ATSU-Arizona provost and primary care physician for the Phoenix Suns and Mercury. “We are very grateful that A.T. Still University has an opportunity to play a significant role in providing research and finding answers.”
Along with serving as the project’s principal investigator, Dr. McLeod is also director of ATSU-ASHS interdisciplinary research laboratory and director of the Clinical Outcomes Research Education for Athletic Trainers (CORE-AT) practice-based research network. She has gained a national reputation as an expert clinician, researcher, consultant, and medical educator in the area of sports concussion, and her research has provided insight into the best management practices for young athletes recovering from concussion.
Co-investigators on the project include ASHS-ATSU athletic training faculty members Drs. Alison Snyder, John Parsons, and Curt Bay, as well as consultant Anikar Chhabra, M.D., of The Orthopedic Clinic Association in Phoenix, Ariz.
Funds from the project will allow for a concussion module to be added to the athletic training program’s existing CORE-AT practice-based research network, a project that aims to educate and train post-professional athletic training students in the use of technology for the collection of healthcare outcomes data. The CORE-AT system, which was started with internal ATSU strategic research funds in 2006, has continued to build with external grants, including a $107,012 grant from the National Athletic Trainers’ Association Research and Education Foundation in 2008.
KIRKSVILLE, Mo. – The Still National Osteopathic Museum and the A.T. Still Memorial Library received its second Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant in two years. The $30,577 grant will primarily be used to provide digitalized historic materials online that follow the growth of the founding institution of osteopathic medicine and additional papers of Andrew Taylor Still, M.D., D.O., the founder of osteopathy.
These handwritten papers document the early development of the osteopathic medical profession in rural northeast Missouri. Dr. Still (1828-1917) founded the American School of Osteopathy in 1892 in Kirksville (now A.T. Still University, a health sciences university comprised of five schools), significantly advancing healthcare beyond the standard American medical practice of his day. The digitalization project expands access to this historic collection by significantly increasing the services provided to academic scholars, physicians, researchers, students, the public, and libraries throughout Missouri and the far reaches of the Internet.
In January 2009, the museum and library received its first $38,761 LSTA grant to begin the transcription and digitalization process of Dr. Still’s personal and professional writings, many of which were unpublished at the time. According to Debra Loguda-Summers, museum curator and project director, more than 700 pages of Dr. Still’s documents were made available online at the Missouri Digital Heritage website, sponsored by Missouri State Archives and Secretary of State Robin Carnahan.
The museum’s most recent grant begins February 1. “The next stage of our work on this grant will cover the early growth and administration of the founding school in Kirksville,” said Museum Director Jason Haxton. “We will use the earliest board minutes, legal documents, and letters surrounding our university’s growth from a two-room school house into a national academic institution.”
This phase of the project is expected to take a year to complete and is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the Missouri State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.
The Still National Osteopathic Museum collects, preserves, and makes available artifacts and related materials to communicate the history and philosophy of osteopathic medicine to a global audience. The museum is headquartered on A.T. Still University’s Missouri Campus in Kirksville and is the only museum dedicated to the national history of osteopathic medicine.
The A.T. Still Memorial Library includes more than 80,000 volumes and more than 4,500 audiovisual items supporting education in the clinical and basic sciences at A.T. Still University. The library also serves the general public.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 123,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute’s mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas.
In an effort to support the dire medical needs in Haiti following the 7.0 earthquake, ATSU-KCOM’s class of 2012 began taking up donations from faculty, staff, and fellow students. Their goal on January 15 was to reach $1,000 by January 20 to send to Doctors Without Borders. By the time their deadline rolled around, they had raised $1,564.01.
“Donations ranged from $0.25 to $100 bills to checks of various amounts,” said Class of 2012 President John Thurman, OMS II. “It was motivating to see how determined people were to give. The only thing that mattered was that people gave what they could and to that end, this was a great success.”
*Video uploaded with the permission of News 36, Truman State University’s student produced television station. Any publication or rebroadcast without the expressed consent of News 36 is prohibited.