An assistant professor in Mercer University’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences has been awarded the New Pharmacy Faculty Research Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. The $10,000 grant, which was awarded to no more than 15 pharmacy faculty from across the nation, provides start-up funding for research programs of junior faculty at U.S. colleges and schools of pharmacy.
Kathryn M. Momary, who joined Mercer’s pharmacy practice faculty in 2007, will use her award to support research in cardiovascular pharmacogenomics. Her study examines the correlations among smoking, genetics and how patients respond to the commonly prescribed cardiovascular medication Plavix, also known as clopidogrel. The research aims to improve the ability of health care providers to predict which patients are most likely to respond effectively to the medication.
Tribute to a nurse: A scholarship honoring the late Brenau University alumna Lisha Carnes Page has been established to benefit students with roots in Gwinnett and Hall counties who study nursing at Brenau.
Page, who died last year at age 50, grew up in Hall County and graduated from Johnson High School. At the time of her death, she was a nurse with Gwinnett County schools. Her colleagues in the Gwinnett school system, other nurses in the county, and her husband, Marty, collaborated to create the scholarship fund.
Page received a BSN from Brenau in 1981. Prior to her time as a school nurse in Gwinnett, she worked at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, Kaiser Permanente and Visiting Nurse Health System of Atlanta.
The need-based scholarship is for nursing students who maintain at least a 3.0 grade point average and have ties to Gwinnett County — preferably graduates of the Gwinnett County School System. However, graduates of Gainesville and Hall County public schools are also eligible. The scholarship will benefit undergraduate nursing students who embody Page’s leadership skills and her involvement in community and campus activities.
To contribute to the scholarship fund, contact the GCPS Foundation Fund (678-301-7287, www.gcps-foundation.org) or the Brenau University Alumni Scholarship Fund (770-534-6160, www.brenau.edu/gift.)
New dean/old dean: Dr. E. Andrew Balas has been named dean of the College of Allied Health Sciences at Georgia Health Sciences University. He will join GHSU June 15.
Balas, former dean of the College of Health Sciences at Old Dominion University, served as a Congressional Fellow for the U.S. Senate Public Health and Safety Subcommittee, where he drafted the Healthcare Quality Enhancement Act of 1999 that first achieved government action on reducing errors in health care.
He previously served as dean of the School of Public Health at St. Louis University and as Weil Distinguished Professor of Health Policy at the University of Missouri.
Dr. Peter F. Buckley, interim dean of the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University in Augusta since August 2010, has been named dean of the college.
Buckley, a psychiatrist whose expertise includes leadership development and planning, served on the Association of American Medical College’s Leadership Selection and Development Task Forces from 2008-10.
Buckley helped transform the state’s public mental health care system, serving as a member of Georgia’s Gubernatorial Task Force on Mental Health Commission for a New Georgia and Georgia’s Mental Health Systems Transformation Task Force.
OT’s new home: The occupational therapy department at Brenau University held a grand opening in February at its new 19,000-square-foot facility on the Brenau East campus at Featherbone Communiversity in Gainesville.
“We are extremely proud of our new facilities,” said Barbara A. Schell, department chair.
The new occupational therapy wing of Brenau East is about 10 times the size of the department’s previous base. The state-of-the-art facility includes “smart” classrooms and seminar rooms, 15 offices and three observation/practice laboratories for adults and children. There is also an assessment library, a WiFi-equipped student lounge and a graduate research room.
Honor roll: Gwinnett Medical Center-Lawrenceville and Gwinnett Medical Center-Duluth have been named to the Georgia Hospital Association’s Partnership for Health and Accountability Quality Honor Roll. These facilities are among 56 hospitals in Georgia placed in the Presidential category.
The honor roll is based on clinical data provided by the federal Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services, which administers the nation’s Medicare and Medicaid programs. The data was collected from July 2009 to June 2010.
Nursing awards: The Aflac Cancer Center and Blood Disorders Service of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta recently presented Cara Brown and Melissa Schinck with the Laura Snitzer-Boozer Nursing Award. The award honors nurses who have demonstrated professional excellence and leadership in pediatric cancer care and provides financial support for continued education in oncology.
The award is given in memory of Snitzer-Boozer, an Aflac Cancer Center nurse who died unexpectedly in 1999. Brown and Schinck will receive a scholarship to attend a nursing conference of their choice.
Two more nurses — Erin Connelly and Cindy Couture — were honored with the 2010 Continuing Education Award.
