Faculty report outlines enhancements

By Anne Enright Shepherd

Working together, School of Medicine faculty members and administrators have initiated several positive changes to further enhance the academic life of faculty. A report issued this week outlines the enhancements.

The report reflects recommendations that arose from discussions at a faculty retreat in February 2000 and the steps that have been taken as a result.

The retreat raised issues of promotion, annual evaluations and other topics affecting medical school faculty.

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Sluggish heart responses endanger depressed heart attack patients

By Jim Dryden

Investigators at the School of Medicine have found that depression appears to interfere with the heart's ability to speed up or slow down in response to stress or exertion.

Reporting in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, principal investigator Robert M. Carney, Ph.D., professor of medical psychology in psychiatry, said that even after other risk factors such as age, diabetes and smoking were taken into account, depressed heart-attack survivors were significantly more likely than medically comparable patients to have abnormally low variability in heart rate.

Lower heart-rate variability is associated with increased risk of heart attack and death.

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The long haul Edward Richer, research technician in medicine at the School of Medicine, takes a practice run through Forest Park recently as he trains for a marathon in Orlando, Fla., in January. He will run to raise research funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. School of Medicine research funded by the group looks at causes of lymphoma and how leukemia affects the body.