Departments promise cutting-edge research
| • | Medical school aiming for top |
Advertiser Staff
• Department of Complementary Alternative Medicine
Americans spend more money now on alternative medicine than they do on physicians. Although traditional doctors in the West are often hesitant to embrace therapies such as aromatherapy, acupuncture or herbal medicine, the demand exists, and people are using them.
That means doctors need to understand such therapies, said medical school dean Dr. Edwin Cadman. A case in point: Researchers recently found that St. John's Wort, an herb touted as a treatment for clinical depression, can interfere with many prescription drugs, including medications used to treat heart disease, depression, seizures, cancer and to prevent pregnancy.
UH will become only the fourth or fifth medical school in the country to enter the burgeoning study of alternative complementary medicine. Researchers will use scientific methods to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of various therapies and explore the use of natural substances as potential therapies. Medical school students will learn about the potential benefits and risks of alternative therapies and how to integrate them into traditional methods.
The National Institutes of Health has $300 million available for such research, and federal officials have expressed enthusiasm for Hawai'i's plans.
• Department of Native Hawaiian Health
Native Hawaiians have some of the most abysmal health statistics in the state, including cancer, diabetes and heart disease deaths at alarmingly young ages. The medical school is stepping forward to help. A Native Hawaiian steering committee has been established to set goals, objectives and needs.
Cadman sees the department as leading the way in research on Native Hawaiian health issues and putting that research into practice.
"There are funds available through the Health Disparities Act, and we want to take advantage of that," he noted.
He also hopes part of the curriculum for medical students will include information about traditional healing.
Cadman also would like to see more Native Hawaiians pursue careers in health, encouraging children as early as middle school to consider such choices for themselves. The medical school currently has two programs — the federally financed Native Hawaiian Center of Excellence and the Imi Ho'ola program — which provide support for disadvantaged students to pursue studies in medicine.
• Division of Neuroscience
The study of the brain and nervous system has what Pacific Biomedical Research Center Interim Director Martin Rayner calls a "ghostly" presence at the university. Although there are some 40 neuroscientists scattered around the campus, they do not know each other or what colleagues are doing, Rayner said.
A letter is being sent to those researchers, inviting them to join in a new division that could plumb their collaborative potential. Researchers are doing cutting-edge work already, Rayner said. One project uses a component of box jellyfish toxins to discover what inflames cells in the central nervous system and leads to degenerative diseases such as AIDS dementia, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
The neuroscience division would offer a graduate program and some courses for undergraduates.
• Division of Sports Medicine/Human Performance
Hawai'i's climate and lifestyle make it a natural fit for sports medicine. The field is still in its infancy, and UH sports medicine director Dr. Andrew Nichols sees a perfect opportunity for Hawai'i to seize the moment and become a national leader.
Nichols is developing a division of sports medicine/human performance to train students. Plans include evolving from sports medicine into human performance to help athletes improve.
Cadman hopes also to tap into the "weekend warrior" market, people who want to improve their golf swing or swim stroke — which in turn could be applied to help the elderly, disabled and the military.
Nichols would like to see a doctoral program in sports medicine and athletic training, to train non-physician researchers. He also aims to launch a fellowship program in 2003.
His dream is eventually to establish a department of sports medicine, a national first.
• Division of Ecology and Health
UH is embarking on one of the newest concepts in medicine: looking at human health as part of the broader environment.
As a confined island "laboratory" with 11 of the world's 13 climate zones, Hawai'i makes an ideal place to study the impacts of ecosystem disruption and the resulting effects on human health.
"If you deforest a hillside and all the topsoil runs away, and that community is an agricultural and fishing community, in the absence of the trees pretty soon they can't grow their food and they can't fish," Cadman said. "Then you wonder why the community is dysfunctional."
A more holistic approach might promise change for communities plagued by the combined effects of poverty, unemployment, drug use and illness, Cadman said.
