News
UCLA
Names New Chief of Interventional Radiology
The Department of Radiological Sciences has
appointed Dr. Stephen Kee chief of interventional radiology at the David Geffen
School of Medicine at UCLA. His primary focus will be on enhancing the caliber
and breadth of the hospital’s interventional radiology services.
“My goal is to build the No. 1 fellowship training
program in the country,” says Dr. Kee, who spent 10 years at Stanford University
as an associate professor of radiology and surgery before joining UCLA. “I aim
to re-establish UCLA as the leading clinical enterprise in interventional
radiology on theWest Coast.”
“Dr. Kee is an enthusiastic, dynamic physician
with an impressive range of expertise in interventional radiology,” says Dr.
Dieter Enzmann, department chairman. “I am very pleased that he will be leading
and growing our interventional radiology program.” Dr. Kee’s research pursues
new treatments for vascular disease using biodegradable stents and examines new
technologies for more precise removal of cancerous tissue.
A native of
Donegal, Ireland, Dr. Kee received his medical training in Dublin. He completed
fellowships in thoracic imaging at UC San Francisco, and in interventional
radiology at Stanford University.
UCLA Medical Center Earns Top
Honor for Nursing Excellence UCLA Medical Center has become one of
only seven California hospitals to earn Magnet status from the American Nurses
Credentialing Center, a subsidiary of the American Nurses Association. Announced
Oct. 17, 2005, the designation recognizes healthcare facilities that deliver the
top tier in nursing practice and patient care.
“Magnet status is nursing’s
top honor, and accepted as the national gold standard in nursing excellence,”
says Heidi Crooks, R.N., chief nursing executive and senior associate director
of operations and patient-care services at UCLA Medical Center. “This reflects
UCLA nurses’ compassion and commitment to creating an extraordinary environment
of healing.”
Launched in 1994, the award singles out healthcare facilities
that act as a “magnet” in attracting nurses by creating a work environment that
rewards them for outstanding clinical practice and collaboration with the rest
of the organization.
To earn Magnet status, healthcare organizations must
undergo a vigorous and time-intensive evaluation by the American Nurses
Credentialing Center. Organizations must reapply for Magnet status every four
years. At present, only 169 hospitals in the nation have qualified for Magnet
designation.
Pratt Earns 2006 “Champion” Award for Enhancing
Physician Diversity 
The California Wellness Foundation presented
Patricia Pratt with a 2006 Champion of Health Professions Diversity Award, which
honors leaders who have boosted minority participation in the physician
workforce.
As director of academic enrichment and student outreach at the
David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Pratt has been repeatedly recognized
for pioneering innovative programs to recruit students of all grade levels from
underserved ethnic communities and to create a pipeline to higher education,
UCLA and the medical profession. During her 25-year tenure at UCLA, the number
of ethnicminority and low-income students training inmedicine at UCLA has
increased froma low of 12 percent tomore than 40 percent per class. “I’ve
invested most of my life into medical education,” says Pratt. “What keeps me
going is seeing UCLA alumni practicing medicine in disadvantaged communities
where no one else wants to work.”
She received the award and an unrestricted
$25,000 grant at a ceremony June 12, 2006, in San Francisco.
Cornell’s New President Is a Bruin at Heart It has been 27 years
since Dr. David Skorton called Westwood home, but the new president of Cornell
University says that UCLA remains close to his heart. “I never go to Los Angeles
without finding an excuse to get over to the campus,” says Dr. Skorton, who
completed his medical residency and a cardiology fellowship at UCLA from
1974-1979.
Dr. Skorton assumed the reins of Cornell, in Ithaca, N.Y., in
July, after a career that took him from his beginning as an instructor at the
University of Iowa to the presidency of the state university. During his ascent,
Dr. Skorton continued his research and medical practice, and even found time to
indulge his longstanding interest in jazz, playing the saxophone and flute and
co-hosting a weekly program, “As Night Falls—Latin Jazz,” on the University of
Iowa’s public FM radio station.

Dr. Skorton spent much of his childhood in
the San Fernando Valley. He started his undergraduate education at UCLA, and
then transferred to Northwestern University, where he continued through medical
school. When he matched for his internship and internal medical residency at
UCLA, he says, “I was overjoyed.”
Two UCLA faculty members made a
particularly lasting impression on him, Dr. Skorton recalls. Dr. Kenneth Shine,
who at the time was chief of cardiology and went on to become dean of the UCLA
School of Medicine and, later, president of the Institute of Medicine, “set an
example with the breadth of caring he always showed in education, discovery and
public service,” Dr. Skorton says. “He was a triple threat.” And Dr. Joseph
Perloff, Streisand/American Heart Association Professor of Medicine and
Pediatrics, whose pioneering work in the care of adolescents and adults with
congenital heart disease influenced Dr. Skorton to follow a similar
direction.
At Iowa, Dr. Skorton co-founded the Adolescent and Adult
Congenital Heart Disease Clinic, modeled after Dr. Perloff’s clinic at UCLA. “I
got much good counsel from him over the years,” he says. “Both Ken Shine and Joe
Perloff have been icons, heroes of mine.”
As a cardiology fellow, Dr.
Skorton developed an interest in cardiac imaging and computer-imaging
processing. He also became a national leader in research ethics. Dr. Skorton
served as charter president of the Association for the Accreditation of Human
Research Protection Programs, Inc., the first entity organized specifically to
accredit human-research protection programs.
One thing that won’t be on Dr.
Skorton’s plate at Cornell is clinical practice. Cornell Medical College is in
New York City, 240 miles from the Ithaca campus. “I hope to teach rounds to
whatever extent I can contribute, but I won’t be caring for my own patients as I
did in Iowa,” Dr. Skorton says. “That was a hard part of the decision for me,
leaving medical practice. I loved it, and I will still keep up with the
literature.”
Days before his inauguration as Cornell’s 12th president, Dr.
Skorton was sending his gratitude to the people who influenced him at UCLA, as
well as conveying a message to those currently in postgraduate training: “If
your experience at UCLA does even half as much for you as it did for me, you
will have a very fulfilling career.”
Time for a CHAT
The Ambulatory Pediatric Association awarded UCLA’s Community Health and
Advocacy Training (CHAT) Program in Pediatrics its 2005 Outstanding Teaching
Award. Recognized as an outstanding general-pediatric-teaching program, the CHAT
Program’s educational objectives for pediatric residents focus on child-health
advocacy, community-oriented practice and cultural sensitivity.
Established
in 2001, the CHAT program is based on the belief that emotional, social,
economic and environmental factors influence a child’s health and well-being.
The program provides educational experiences in community-based settings to
provide pediatric residents the competencies and skills needed to foster and
promote a child’s health and development in the context of his or her community.
“By understanding how a child lives in the context of his or her family,
school and community, residents can address the psychosocial, mental-health and
learning problems that can prevent children from reaching their full potential,”
says CHAT Program director Alice Kuo, M.D., Ph.D.
CHAT residents receive the
same clinical training as their peers plus a month-long CHAT rotation, quarterly
evening seminars and required resident projects. The program recruits heavily
among medical students from underrepresented minorities. Future plans include
opening a small pediatric clinic at an elementary school in Mar Vista, promoting
a more community-based approach to pediatric residency training nationally, and
linking the CHAT program to other programs across the country and
internationally.
UCLA Medical Center Ranks Best in West for 17th
Consecutive Year UCLA Medical Center ranks as one of the nation’s
top five hospitals—and the No. 1 hospital in the western United States—for the
17th consecutive year, according to the July 17, 2006, issue of U.S. News &
World Report.
UCLA is the only Southern California hospital to earn a spot
on the magazine’s “honor roll,” which recognizes hospitals demonstrating
excellence across 16 specialties, since U.S. News launched the survey 17 years
ago. The medical center ranked among the top 20 in 15 of the 16 specialties
rated.
“This is a wonderful tribute to our outstanding medical and nursing
staffs, and the entire healthcare team at UCLA Medical Center,” says Dr. David
L. Callender, associate vice chancellor and CEO of the UCLA Hospital System.
UCLA specialty areas ranked
best in the western United States, and their national rankings, include urology
(No. 4), psychiatry at the Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital
at UCLA (No. 5), ophthalmology at UCLA’s Jules Stein Eye Institute (No. 5),
digestive disorders (No. 5), rheumatology (No. 7), kidney disease (No. 8),
orthopaedics (No. 8), and heart and heart surgery (No. 9). Other specialties
ranked nationally in the top 20 were neurology and neurosurgery (No. 7), cancer
at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (No. 9), endocrinology (No. 10),
ear, nose and throat (No. 11), gynecology (No. 12), respiratory disorders (No.
13), and pediatrics (No. 15).