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HIPAA Highlights

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Tell us about your awards and accomplishments, or those of your colleagues. Send your contributions to Sara Selis by e-mail selis@stanford.edu or fax (650) 723-7172, or call her at (650) 723-7798.

NORMAN E. SHUMWAY, emeritus professor of cardiothoracic surgery and the Frances and Charles Field professor of cardiovascular surgery, was honored by the American Heart Association at its Valentine gala in February in Santa Barbara, Calif. The chair of the event, Joseph Ilvento, praised Shumway as "one of the giants of 20th-century medicine." In an announcement by the heart association, Shumway was named the father of heart transplantation and was credited with training an entire generation of cardiac surgeons.

JAMES CHANG, associate professor of surgery (plastic surgery and hand surgery), was awarded the Royal College of Surgeons Traveling Fellowship for 2004. The fellowship promotes academic interchange between surgeons from the United Kingdom and the United States and provides for travel to various centers of excellence throughout the U.K. during the 2003 academic year. Chang will visit hand and microsurgery centers and will present lectures on pediatric hand surgery and microsurgery, microvascular head and neck reconstruction, facial paralysis surgery and molecular modulation of flexor tendon wound healing. He will also present several papers this month at a meeting of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand held in Cambridge, England.

THOMAS N. ROBINSON, assistant professor of pediatrics and of medicine, was chosen to serve on the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Prevention of Obesity in Children and Youth. Robinson's appointment to the newly formed 16-member committee - for which there were more than 400 nominees nationwide - recognizes his outstanding national reputation in this field. As part of a project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the committee will review the scientific literature on the epidemiology of obesity, its determinants and prevention. The committee will then seek to identify promising interventions, including an action plan, policy recommendations and a research agenda.

RALPH J. SPIEGL, a retired community physician and internist, received the Dean's Medal from medical school dean Philip Pizzo at a March 4 dinner in Spiegl's honor. Friends, colleagues and more than 150 former patients turned out for the event, which was hosted by Pizzo at the Faculty Club. Spiegl was awarded the medal in recognition of his many years of distinguished service as a fundraising volunteer for the medical school. The medal, first presented to Pizzo in April 2001 upon his arrival at Stanford, may be given periodically by the dean to individuals who have rendered exemplary service or provided extraordinary support to the medical school. It is the school's highest award for volunteers and donors.

SAMUEL SO, professor of surgery, was given the 2003 Ally Award for the Jade Ribbon Campaign, a health-education effort he launched in 2001 to raise awareness about the high rate of chronic hepatitis B infection among Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Americans. The award, given by the Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center, recognizes So for compassion and commitment to the Asian and Pacific Islander communities and applauds the mission of the Jade Ribbon Campaign. At Stanford, So directs the Asian Liver Center, which he established in 1996. The award will be presented in May at the wellness center's sixth annual community awards event in San Francisco.