Researchers at The University of Arizona are helping children to recover from severe nerve poisoning following a scorpion sting. Their work studying the effectiveness of a scorpion-specific antivenom has provided added benefits for rural communities, making the powerful treatment available to anyone in Arizona who needs it.

Greetings AHSC faculty and staff!

As we approach a new academic and fiscal year, I want to provide an update on some of our plans for the Arizona Health Sciences Center and the progress that is being made, as well as some of the challenges we must address.

During my first months as UA Vice President for Health Affairs I have been meeting with key individuals statewide, getting to know leadership, faculty and staff at our colleges and hospitals and gaining an understanding of the priorities and challenges facing the organizations that make up the Arizona Health Sciences Center. I am extremely impressed not only by the scope and accomplishment of the health sciences center but with the enthusiasm I find as we move forward.

For example, the leadership of our colleges and hospitals has quickly joined together to begin development of a much-needed long-range strategic plan. This plan will provide a blueprint for AHSC’s future growth and success, incorporating all aspects of the health sciences center – chief among them the alignment of our clinical enterprise – and their relationship to AHSC’s mission for the people of Arizona.

Obviously, the severe economic recession has impacted our plans. We have been working closely with Pima County to ensure sufficient funding to continue our efforts to develop University Physicians Hospital. Under UPH management, the hospital has made tremendous strides, becoming a thriving academic health campus with future plans for additional residency programs, a Level 3 trauma center and a center for excellence in diabetes.

As we work to secure resources for UPH, we also must contend with serious funding threats to our campuses, both in Phoenix and Tucson. The Arizona Legislature has moved to eliminate hundreds of millions of dollars in previously approved economic stimulus funding that would allow expansion of our facilities, class size, faculty numbers and research efforts at the College of Medicine – Phoenix. The University and its supporters are working very hard to salvage this much-needed funding, which would be derived from lottery dollars.

While these tough economic times command our attention, it is important to recognize that AHSC continues to meet its education, research, patient-care and outreach missions. This spring, more than 570 young people received degrees from the four AHSC health colleges and took one step closer to their professional health careers.

The UA College of Medicine is addressing the state’s severe physician shortage, with about half of its graduates remaining in Arizona for their residencies. A new group of students in the College of Medicine’s Rural Health Professions Program just began their work with physician-mentors in rural and underserved communities throughout the state. This summer, resident-physicians will enter new residency programs in neurology and ophthalmology at UPH Hospital. At the same time, the nationally ranked UA Colleges of Nursing and Pharmacy continue to educate much-needed health professionals for Arizona; the College of Nursing also recently graduated its first doctor of nursing practice candidate through a program offered exclusively online.

The UA Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health will offer a new bachelor of science in public health degree beginning next fall to help students gain the skills to develop novel interventions and programs aimed at solving many of today’s public health problems.

Thanks to the remarkable transplant team in the Department of Surgery and University Medical Center, almost 2,000 Arizonans are living today with donor organs, including a woman who recently received the first intestine transplant in the region (and the first intestine transplant using a living donor in the entire Southwest).

As you know, AHSC truly is unique in our state and region. I welcome and encourage your participation as we develop our statewide effort to address Arizona’s critical need for more physicians, pharmacists, nurses and public health professionals; expand AHSC’s world-renowned translational research programs; and enhance patient care.