the pursuit of parkinson's - The University of Alabama at Birmingham

An Update on the UASOM in Huntsville and Tuscaloosa
By Dawn Mesa
With the recent opening of the new clinical building,
UASOM faculty and students in Huntsville are
thrilled to be located under one roof. Consisting of
three stories with approximately 93,000 square feet
of space, the building had its grand opening celebration
in March.
The first floor of the building houses the VA clinic, as
well as lease space for a pharmacy and a durable medical
equipment showroom. The second floor is where the
family medicine center is located—with OB/GYN,
pediatrics, and internal medicine clinics. Other clinical
activities also take place on the second floor, with 36
exam rooms and a special procedures area. The administrative
and faculty offices are located on the third floor,
along with the medical library, three classrooms, three
The new clinical space at the UASOM Huntsville
brings all of its departments together in one place.
conference rooms, a student and resident lounge, and an
auditorium. At the same time, the UASOM has kept
space available in the new facility for future growth.
Founded in 1973, the UASOM Huntsville had
been housed in two locations since its inception.
This new building places all of its departments and
people under the same roof. “It’s given us an opportunity
to be one cohesive group,” says Paula
Cothren, director of academic programs and
administrative affairs in Huntsville.
In addition to the new facility, the Huntsville program
recently became a member of the Northern
Alabama Health Education Consortium (NAHEC)—
a pipeline program designed to help identify and mentor
students in junior colleges throughout the state
who are interested in careers in health-related fields
including medicine, nursing, and pharmacy.
NEW BUILDING, ONGOING PROGRAMS
Looking to the south, ground was recently broken
for a new UASOM Tuscaloosa building.
According to William Curry, M.D., FACP, associate
dean of the Tuscaloosa program, “It’s really going to
be a great building, functionally and appearancewise.”
Construction began in December 2002 and
is slated to be complete in April 2004. Totaling
77,000 square feet, the two-story building will
house all faculty and departmental offices, as well as
central administration, clinics, the health-sciences
library, medical student affairs, and all support
services. A few of the rural programs will remain in
Nott Hall because they serve a lot of undergraduate
and graduate students, says Curry.
Another development in Tuscaloosa that involves
both patient care and clinical teaching is the conversion
of the medical records system from a paperbased
to an electronic system. Implementation
began in April 2002, and the last remaining department
was brought on in July 2003.
The Rural Health Scholars Program for rural highschool
students is still a big initiative at the UASOM
Tuscaloosa, as is the Rural Medical Scholars Program,
which is in its eighth year. In this program, rural college
students receive early admission to medical school
if they have expressed an intent to return to rural
Alabama communities to practice medicine once their
formal medical education is complete. There is also a
Rural Minority Scholars Program in place that targets
minority students at the same high-school level as the
Rural Health Scholars Program. “We are looking for
ways to expand that ‘pipeline’ concept to get more
rural college students interested in health professions,
especially rural medicine,” Curry says.
The Institute for Rural Health Research, under
John C. Higginbotham, Ph.D., MPH, at the
UASOM Tuscaloosa has a number of communitybased
research projects under way that have to do with
disparate outcomes in cancer and infant mortality
rates, particularly common in rural Alabama. The
biggest single project they have in place is Project
EXPORT (Excellence in Partnerships for Community
Outreach, Research on Health Disparities and
Training), which is a five-year, $5-million-plus collaborative
effort between the Tuscaloosa program and
Construction continues on the new UASOM
building in Tuscaloosa.
Tuskegee University. The funds are being used to
establish a center of excellence through facilities on
both campuses. The center will demonstrate the effectiveness
of a strategy combining the methods of public
health and bioethics in programs of research, education,
and outreach to reduce disparities in disease
and disabilities in the Black Belt region of Alabama.
progressed so far that he was forced into early
retirement from his practice at St. Vincent’s
Hospital. But it wasn’t until November 1995 that
he was actually diagnosed with the rare disease.
“Prior to that, I thought I had ALS [amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis] because I had a lot of symptoms of
Lou Gehrig’s disease,” he says. But, to his relief, a
steak dinner proved that diagnosis wrong. “I came
home and my wife had cooked some steak,” says
Henderson. “With ALS, you lose the ability to swallow
before you lose the ability to chew. When I was
eating the steak, I found that I couldn’t chew.”
Since then, he’s come a long way in improving
his health. “I feel as good as I will feel until we find
a cure for MG,” he says. “I attribute that to therapy
and my coming to peace with the fact that I am
66 years old and have MG.” He also points to
keeping his stress level down, meaning that he can’t
return to work despite his desire to do so. But for
someone not “working,” he certainly is making a
difference in the world.
In addition to his new role as author, Henderson
is also the founder and chairman of the International
Autoimmune Disease Research Foundation, and he
counsels others with autoimmune diseases. He’s also
enlisted UAB physiology professor J. Edwin Blalock,
Ph.D.—who’s had some successful breakthroughs
already—to research cures, and he’s working on getting
more funding through the National Institutes of
Health and other sources.
So far, though, there haven’t been enough financial
resources dedicated to autoimmune disease
research, he says. “We want our fair share of funding
for research,” considering that the number of workdays
lost by a patient with autoimmune disease is
double those lost by all heart disease and stroke
patients combined, he says.
While the battle for funding continues, so does his
battle against MG. “I have good days and bad days,”
he says, adding that his emotional and spiritual
health are factors that help keep his MG in check.
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