This spring, Virginia Commonwealth University's Acceleration Program is graduating its first group of students.

Launched in the summer of 2005 with an inaugural class of 24, the Acceleration Program is designed to help students whose previous K-12 educational environment might have limited their ability to acquire the math and science skills necessary to pursue a career in the health sciences.

During their freshman and sophomore years and during two summer immersion programs, the acceleration students are required to live together in a residence hall. The students take a specific set of courses together throughout the first year. There also are mandatory requirements for tutoring sessions, study groups and health-related internships and volunteer hours.

"This is a unique program opportunity for undergraduate students because it infuses support services and leadership opportunities in the health sciences curriculum," said Cheryl Chesney-Walker, executive director of health careers/education and special services for students. "The VCU Acceleration Program spans the summer before entering undergraduate studies at VCU through admission into health care programs on the medical campus, and finally employment."

Chesney-Walker founded the program along with Seth Leibowitz, Ed.D., director of pre-health sciences advising. This was the first program that brought together the Division of Health Careers/Education and Special Services for Students on the MCV Campus with the Pre-health Advising Department on the Monroe Park Campus.

"The VCU Acceleration Program is a vital component of the overall VCU Health Careers Pipeline. Increasing the diversity of our health care work force is a national priority to reduce health disparities," said David C. Sarrett, D.M.D, associate vice president for health sciences.

Students who participate in the program begin during the summer session prior to their first year at VCU. The summer includes participation in the four-week student enrichment curriculum, which consists of non-credit undergraduate academic coursework, professional skills development, cultural competency workshops, realistic goal setting and exposure to various specialties in the health professions.

The summer program is designed to help students prepare for pre-health sciences core course work, chemistry and math placement tests.

"The success of the program and the students is clearly evident with the increase each year of applicants," said Chesney-Walker. "It has reached a peak of becoming a very competitive program to enter here at VCU and has gained momentum to attract and retain highly qualified students who are pursuing a health career."

The VCU Acceleration Program has 134 students. The program will graduate 16 students this month. For more information, visit http://www.vcuhealthsciences.vcu.edu/sassdss.

Read press release at: http://www.news.vcu.edu/vcu_view/pages.aspx?nid=2919

Hundreds of scientists, science educators and students from across the state will converge on Virginia Commonwealth University for the annual meetings of the Virginia Academy of Science and the Virginia Junior Academy of Science.

The meetings will be held from May 26 through May 29, with speakers, research presentations and networking opportunities throughout the four-day event. About 700 members from the groups are expected to attend, and a large number of them will stay on campus.

The Virginia Academy of Science furthers science and scientific research in all of its branches, and the Virginia Junior Academy of Science promotes scientific aptitude among students in grades seven through 12. The students, considered among the best and brightest in the sciences, are selected by their teachers to present research to their peers for judging and will have the opportunity to speak with the senior scientists attending the concurrent meeting.

"VCU is excited to again host this important meeting of Virginia scientists," said Thomas F. Huff, vice provost for Life Sciences. "VCU remains at the forefront of life sciences education, integrating all the branches of science under an interdisciplinary umbrella for excellence in biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering, mathematics, medical sciences, physics, psychology and statistics."

The VJAS meeting features a lecture by Kevin Whaley, M.D., with the Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on "Postmortem Identification of Mass Disaster Victims."

Both groups will attend the George W. Jeffers Memorial Lecture, "Necessity is the Mother of Invention: The Story of the SwiPM3," with inventor Sheldon Retchin, M.D., vice president for Health Sciences and CEO of the VCU Health System.

And the senior group will attend the Academy Conference and Sidney S. Negus Memorial Lecture, "Woundstat: From Bench to Bedside and Beyond," with Kevin Ward, M.D., a VCU emergency physician and associate director of the VCU Reanimation Engineering Shock Center (VCURES); Robert Diegelmann, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry, anatomy & emergency medicine at the VCU School of Medicine; and Gary Bowlin, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering.

See the news release.

A Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center physician is among the first in the country to treat a patient using an FDA-approved liquid system for treating wide-necked brain aneurysms.

John Reavey-Cantwell, M.D., an endovascular neurosurgeon and assistant professor and Reynolds Chair in the VCU School of Medicine's Department of Neurosurgery, is one of only a few physicians nationwide exploring the use of a liquid embolic system to fill wide-necked brain aneurysms.

A brain aneurysm is a weakness in a major blood vessel that causes a portion of the vessel wall to balloon out. According to Reavey-Cantwell, this abnormality puts an individual at risk should the aneurysm break open and bleed.

"A wide-necked brain aneurysm occurs in about 25 percent of patients with brain aneurysms," said Reavey-Cantwell. "Wide-necked aneurysms can be difficult to treat surgically, which requires removal of bone and manipulation of the brain.

"However, by using a new liquid treatment called Onyx HD 500, we are able to use a minimally invasive endovascular procedure to treat the aneurysm from within the blood vessel," he said. "Wide-necked aneurysms that were previously untreatable may now be treated with this new agent."

Typically, the surgeon will navigate a small catheter from the groin to the brain aneurysm and fill the aneurysm with metallic coils, causing the aneurysm to clot. However, there is the possibility that the clot may dissolve, resulting in a recurrence of the aneurysm. In addition, some wide-necked aneurysms have such a large opening that the coils may not stay inside the aneurysm sac.

By filling the aneurysm sac or pocket with the Onyx liquid, which solidifies in approximately five minutes, blood flow into the aneurysm is blocked, helping to prevent the aneurysm from rupturing or increasing in size.

"The potential benefit of the liquid embolic system may be the complete blockage of the blood supply to the aneurysm," said Reavey-Cantwell. "This would make a recurrence of the aneurysm less likely than seen with current treatment methods and it may also help to correct or lessen some symptoms."

The release of the liquid treatment was preceded by a lengthy period of education and training for a small group of leading U.S. neurovascular specialists. VCU is one of about 25 hospitals in the United States to perform this procedure as an alternative to conventional surgery.

To date, there have been no research studies conducted to show whether this new liquid system is effective for treating wide-neck aneurysms, but initial clinical results are encouraging, according to Reavey-Cantwell.

The new Onyx liquid treatment has been approved under a humanitarian device exemption from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, which allows physicians to use the liquid to treat the condition, which affects fewer than 4,000 individuals in the United States per year and for which no comparable device is available.

"We are very fortunate to have recruited a person of Dr. Reavey-Cantwell's skills and abilities," said Harold F. Young, M.D., chair of the Department of Neurosurgery.

"It takes a team effort to be able to accomplish what we have done and the support of the VCU Medical Center has helped place us in a leadership position to provide the best cutting edge research, treatment and technologies for our patients."

The VCU Medical Center also is the first in the mid-Atlantic region to have a fully equipped hybrid operating suite dedicated to the full spectrum of treatments for neurovascular diagnoses, such as stroke, carotid disease, aneurysms and other vascular malformations.

For more information on brain aneurysms, visit http://www.ninds.nih.gov or http://www.strokeassociation.org.

Read the news release.

A 33-year-old male is brought to the emergency room complaining of severe stomach pains after an evening of partying with friends in a nearby corn field. He appears rather disoriented, mumbling over and over that he is "feeling sick." The medical team assigned to his care quickly springs into action, asking him questions and checking his vitals. His pupils are dilated, his blood pressure is up and he begins to convulse.

"What next? What's the diagnosis?" a voice behind them asks. They stop what they are doing and begin to discuss the next course of action.

In a true medical emergency, time is of the essence -- but in this scenario, the "patient" is a fully wireless, portable patient simulator that closely mimics the anatomical workings of the human body. The team is a group of third-year medical students from the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.

In this setting, they have the luxury of time. They can talk through the clinical scenario, bounce ideas about diagnosis and treatment off each other and get important feedback about their performance or approach. Through hands-on simulation training, they have room to make mistakes and learn from them.

Those are just a few of the benefits of simulation training and the reason why in recent years it has become a growing trend in medical schools across the country. Simulation has added a new dimension to the adage in medicine, 'See one, do one, teach one.'

"We know that adults learn best when they are challenged. They learn best, in a sense, from games where they have a complex situation and they have to navigate through it. It engages them and forces them to think," said Alan Dow, M.D., assistant dean of clinical curriculum and assistant professor of internal medicine at the VCU School of Medicine.

"Here we can provide students with educational experiences that are not possible during the inner workings of a typical day," he said.

During the week of April 28, the class of 163 third-year students participated in the School of Medicine's Workshop Week. This was the first time simulation activities were included -- in past years the schedule consisted of mainly lectures. The new VCU Center for Human Simulation and Patient Safety was the central location for much of the activity.

"At this point, the third-year students have learned the medical language and have had a lot of patient encounters. They've seen that medicine is not so black and white -- there are a lot of shades of gray and lots of difficult situations," Dow said. "Medicine is not an A, B, C or D multiple-choice test and the students really have to think through things and make some complicated decisions."

The students were given the opportunity to hone their procedural, diagnostic and communication skills through four hands-on simulation activities.

Three of the four activities were stationed at the VCU Center for Human Simulation and Patient Safety, including placing central venous catheters; listening to the heart of a cardiopulmonary simulator called "Harvey" that realistically simulates 30 cardiac conditions; and diagnosing possible conditions for a simulator called iStan.

A fourth workshop focused on communication skills and included faculty from the theater department. Students and faculty were given the opportunity to role play and learn about their strengths and weakness in communication -- a skill some critics believe many physicians do not do very well.

"I think that this year's workshop week and working through the simulation center are examples of where we are headed in the future in medical education. It's a chance for us to be innovative, try some new things, and think about medical training in a different way," said Dow.

"Our goal is to take this form of training and continue to build it. We see we have some really exciting opportunities in medical training to make people better doctors; make them more effective at procedures, more effective communicators, more effective at making diagnoses. All these things are key for us as we look at our goals for the next generation of physicians," said Dow.

Read the news release.

Virginia Commonwealth University recently celebrated a research partnership with the Chesterfield Community Services Board Substance Abuse Division that has helped change and shape the quality of drug addiction treatment and recovery services in the Richmond area.

During a ceremony on May 12, Ned Snead, program director for the Chesterfield Community Services Board Substance Abuse Division, and program staff members were honored with a plaque for their commitment to improving outcomes for substance use patients in the surrounding area by integrating evidence-based practices into "real life" drug-abuse treatment.

Snead and his team have been involved with three National Institutes of Health, multi-site national studies on a variety of topics, the latest of which featured HIV counseling and testing for individuals with alcohol and other drug problems.

For more than a decade, the Chesterfield Community Services Board Substance Abuse Division has had a partnership with researchers from across VCU's campuses and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Together, they have been able to take the knowledge gained from a variety of collaborative research projects and apply the findings to the standard practice at the Chesterfield Community Services Board Substance Abuse Division.

The research is supported by the Clinical Trials Network through the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Faculty from the VCU School of Medicine, the VCU Colleges of Humanities and Sciences and the VCU School of Social Work contributed to the Mid-Atlantic Node of the Clinical Trials Network. Additional support has come from the VCU Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies, the VCU AWHARE Program or Addiction and Women's Health: Advancing Research and Evaluation, and the Addiction Technology Transfer Center.

Awards ceremony presenters included Dace Svikis, Ph.D., principal investigator for the VCU portion of the grant; John Clore, M.D., associate vice president for Clinical Research at VCU; and Roy Pickens, M.D., professor in the Department of Psychiatry.

See the news release.

On Wednesday, May 27, the VCU School of Nursing will host the 2009 Virginia State Simulation Alliance (VASSA) Conference. The conference will address a number of topics including integrating simulation into nursing education, designing scenarios and obtaining funding. Visit the conference registration page for more information or to register. The registration deadline is May 1.