Bertagnolli Anticipated to Be NIH Nominee; Mifepristone Court Fight Could Harm FDA; AAMC Commends White House Proposal on Health Coverage for DACA Enrollees; and Other Items of Interest
Nature and other news outlets are reporting that the White House appears likely to nominate Monica Bertagnolli, MD, as the next head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). An oncologist, Dr. Bertagnolli leads the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Prior to her role with the NCI, she served as the Richard E. Wilson Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a member of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Treatment and Sarcoma Centers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. If nominated, Dr. Bertagnolli would face senate confirmation before becoming the head of the NIH. The Washington Post in its reporting on the anticipated nomination noted her recent personal experience with cancer and her significant successes during her tenure leading the NCI.
Read More
Read More
In the event that a nomination of Dr. Bertagnolli makes it to the U.S. Senate, Bloomberg Law reported on the kinds of questions she would likely receive in confirmation hearings.
Read More
Citing AAMC data, the Washington Post reported a steep drop in OB-GYN residency applications in states that have enacted abortion bans in recent months. Those states have seen a 10.5% drop in applications in 2023 over the prior year, with implications for the long-term prospects of physicians being able to provide services to pregnant people and to deliver babies in parts of the South and Midwest in particular. The piece, which quoted Atul Grover, MD, PhD, executive director of the AAMC Research and Action Institute, also reported a drop in the number of Emergency Medicine residency applications, noting it is often the front line for the initial treatment of obstetrics-related cases. The institute recently issued a report on the post-Dobbs impact of training location preference among U.S. med school graduates.
Read More
Read More
Read More
GenBioPro, a drug manufacturer that produces a generic version of mifepristone, has sued the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to prohibit the agency from taking any action to limit access to the drug, reported NPR. A temporary stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, which allowed the drug to remain available last week in the wake of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas’ decision to invalidate the approval of mifepristone, is set to expire tonight without further court action.
Read More
Jack Resneck Jr., MD, president of the American Medical Association, contributed a guest essay to the New York Times on the threats to medicine presented by the court wrangling around the legality of mifepristone. “In seeking to restrict access to abortion across the United States, the plaintiffs in this case have, intentionally or not, seriously jeopardized our nation’s 85-year-old drug regulatory system,” Dr. Resneck wrote. “We must be cleareyed; upholding any parts of the district court’s dangerous ruling would in all likelihood almost immediately prompt challenges to other longstanding safe and effective F.D.A.-approved drugs that doctors and patients rely on every day.”
Read More
Ellen MacKenzie, PhD, dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Joanne Rosen, JD, MA, an associate lecturer in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the school, published an opinion piece in STAT on the public health impact of judicial overreach given the mifepristone rulings and its potentially cascading effects. “While much remains in flux, what we do know for certain is that limits on preventive care and restrictions on reproductive care will harm Americans. Providing a full range of reproductive health services, including abortion, safeguards mothers and children and supports the health and financial security of families and communities,” they wrote.
Read More
AAMC President and CEO David J. Skorton, MD, and Chief Public Policy Officer Danielle Turnipseed, JD, MHSA, MPP, issued a statement on the Biden administration's proposal allowing the nearly 600,000 people enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to obtain health coverage through Medicaid or the marketplace. “The AAMC commends President Biden for his plan to expand federal health care programs to DACA recipients, or ‘Dreamers.’ These individuals came to the United States as children, built their lives here, make valuable impacts on our communities, and are American in every way except for their immigration status.”
Read More
The bivalent COVID-19 shot is now available as a booster for people 65 and older and those who are immunocompromised, reported STAT, which noted that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was “not asked to vote on the changes, announced Tuesday by the Food and Drug Administration,” but in their discussions, the committee appeared “broadly supportive of the new guidance.”
Read More
STAT ran an article critical of the NIH for pouring $1 billion into long COVID-19 research and having “nothing to show for it.” The piece noted that despite a mandate from Congress to study the disease and funding in place to conduct studies, there are no trials or direct studies designed to bring relief to patients suffering from the sometimes debilitating symptoms of the disease.
Read More
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and other agencies have made several changes to the expiration dates for the COVID-19 flexibilities and waivers that impact teaching hospitals and physicians. These changes are now reflected in an updated version of the AAMC resource COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) Waivers and Flexibilities Status Update. The chart includes an overview of the status of these waivers and flexibilities post-PHE and indicates which of the flexibilities and waivers have been made permanent and the expiration dates of those that will be terminated.
Read More
People without stable housing often suffer from poor health and are frequent users of the emergency department, prompting more hospitals to invest in affordable housing, reported AAMCNews in a piece that explored the relationship between academic medicine care delivery and community housing.
Read More
On April 27, the AAMC, the National Medical Association (NMA), and Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), founder and chair of the Caucus on the Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys, will host a briefing on strategies, policies, and action to address the scarcity of Black male physicians and Black men and boys on the pathway to becoming physicians. Representatives from the AAMC, the NMA, and Young Doctors Project, along with practicing physicians and current medical students, will discuss the work of the Action Collaborative for Black Men in Medicine and the need to increase opportunities and incentives for Black men to join the medical profession. A livestream of the briefing will be available on Wilson’s YouTube channel on April 27 at 3 p.m. ET.
Read More
Watch on YouTube
NPR covered why diversity is lagging among medical students despite the widespread recognition of the value of having a racially diverse array of physicians in the workforce. A range of factors, from financial challenges to discrimination, stand in the way of more students of color making their way into medical school, even after taking affirmatives step, such as enrolling in and completing the MCAT exam.
Read More
The AAMC joined members of the Federation of Associations of Schools of the Health Professions in a statement on ensuring academic freedom and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in associations and schools of health professions. The statement noted the importance of “academic freedom as a critical element of successful higher education,” and how “creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive academic health community is essential to patient care and a core competency of health professions education.”
Read More
Becker’s Hospital Review published a series of quotes from 30 leaders in health care delivery on how they believe artificial intelligence will be most useful in medicine and health care.
Read More
Writing for USA Today, Marc Siegel, MD, clinical professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, observed that while AI may bring to bear an enormous array of facts to a medical case, it may lack a physician’s essential clinical judgement. And while the technology may play a bigger role in medical decision-making over the coming years — especially in trying to mitigate malpractice — doctors may be wary of setting aside their own judgement against the recommendations of an AI system.
Read More
The AAMC will host a webinar on April 28 at 1 p.m. ET to discuss changes that will occur when the COVID-19 PHE ends on May 11. During the PHE, the CMS and other agencies have used emergency waiver authorities to establish regulatory flexibilities for providers that enable access to health care. The webinar will include discussion of the Hospital Without Walls program, Acute Hospital Care at Home, telehealth, behavioral health, virtual supervision of residents and other personnel, Drug Enforcement Agency-proposed changes on prescribing controlled substances, graduate medical education, and more. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions once the presentation has concluded. The webinar is free for AAMC members (registration is required).
Read More
The AAMC peer-reviewed journal Academic Medicine is seeking original artwork related to an academic medicine experience for its popular cover art feature. The journal’s cover design prominently features original artwork, and artists will have an opportunity to submit their work for consideration by an expert panel of reviewers. The submission period will close on April 28.
Read More
Amy Gottlieb, MD, has been named vice dean for Faculty Affairs, Advancement, and Inclusion at Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, effective Oct. 1. Dr. Gottlieb is currently associate dean for Faculty Affairs at University of Massachusetts T.H. Chan School of Medicine - Baystate and chief faculty development officer at Baystate Health. She is additionally professor of Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology at UMass Chan SOM - Baystate. Dr. Gottlieb was a plenary presenter on salary equity in academic medicine at the recently completed CFAS Spring Meeting in Salt Lake City. She is also the current chair of the AAMC Group on Women in Medicine and Science.
Ana Fernandez-Sesma, PhD, has been appointed chair of the Department of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Fernandez-Sesma will direct all educational and research functions of the department while cultivating an academic culture that advances insights into virology, vaccinology, immunology, and microbiology and encourages innovative approaches to teaching and mentoring.
Read More
J. Victor Garcia-Martinez, PhD, has been named the chair of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine. Garcia-Martinez currently serves as a professor of medicine, microbiology, and immunology in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. He is also an Oliver Smithies Investigator and director of the UNC International Center for the Advancement of Translational Science.
Read More
Andrei Alexandrov, MD, has joined the University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix as chair of the Department of Neurology. Prior to joining the college, Dr. Alexandrov served as chair of the Department of Neurology and Semmes-Murphey Professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine.
Read More
Isaiah Johnson, MD, has been named chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and at Carilion Clinic. Dr. Johnson has served as interim chair since 2021.
Read More
William Torrey, MD, has been named chair of the Department of Psychiatry for Dartmouth Health and the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, a role he has held on an interim basis since 2020.
Read More
Scientists have discovered yet another parallel between humans and their distant cousins, roundworms. Researchers from the University of Oregon Institute for Neuroscience discovered that nematodes essentially get the munchies, just as humans do, upon consumption of marijuana. “The nematodes not only get the munchies, but they get them through the same process as mammals,” Shawn Lockery, PhD, a professor of biology at University of Oregon, told Live Science. “The effects of cannabinoids in nematodes parallel the effects of marijuana on human appetites.” The experiment placed the worms — some high, some not — in a maze and deposited different bacteria in sections of the maze, including some that essentially serves as growth-inducing food for worms. Guess which worms made it to the especially appetizing bacteria first? The research was published in the journal Current Biology.
Read More
Read More
And finally, if you’re among those with the munchies this weekend, it turns out that popping a couple of bugs isn’t the worst thing you can do. In addition to ample research indicating that eating insect-derived food is sustainable, environmentally sound, and nutritionally beneficial, new science out of Colorado State University (CSU) has found that chowing down on bugs is good for your microbiome and global health generally. “Insects are touted as a good source of protein, but the fiber component, chitin, is not found in other animal foods, and the omega-3 content may be higher than what is found in many plant foods,” said Tiffany Weir, PhD, associate professor in CSU’s Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. “These components may provide unique benefits for the gut by encouraging healthy gut microbiota and reducing intestinal inflammation.” As for the positive impact on global health along with other benefits, “some species are also adept recyclers that can consume and convert low-value organic byproducts and wastes, including food waste, into nutritious, high-quality food or animal feed.” Don’t think about that too deeply while you chew. Bon appétit, or yuck, whatever the case may be.
Read More
Visit the CFAS Resources page for an archive of the previous edition of CFAS News as well as our People of Academic Medicine page, which features a running list of academic promotions, appointments, and departures.
Your comments and news tips are always welcome. Please email them to Eric Weissman at eweissman@aamc.org.
Eric Weissman
Senior Director, Faculty and Academic Society Engagement
AAMC
eweissman@aamc.org
www.aamc.org/cfas