February 2008

Medical Center Adopts New Identity

The University of Rochester Medical Center has a new comprehensive branding strategy to establish a more cohesive identity for our institution and affiliates, and to celebrate our rich legacy as one of the nation’s first academic medical centers. The brand strategy includes a new logo, a unified name for all of the Medical Center’s diverse components, and a new advertising campaign that will communicate the changes to the Rochester community.

According to Medical Center CEO Bradford C. Berk, M.D., Ph.D., the Medical Center’s recently completed strategic planning process identified the need to more clearly define the Medical Center as a nationally respected magnet for research, education, patient care, and community service.

“Our strategic plan has set ambitious goals for the University of Rochester Medical Center, and part of our success hinges on our ability to build a national reputation,” Berk said. “To achieve this, we need one consistent identity that not only ties together and amplifies the diverse components that comprise our institution, but one that visibly communicates our link with the University of Rochester.”

The University of Rochester Medical Center name, which underscores its academic approach to medicine, now serves as the unifying brand for all of the Medical Center’s entities and affiliates. In particular, University of Rochester Medical Center is the new name for our clinical enterprise, replacing Strong Health (which includes Strong Memorial Hospital, the University of Rochester Medical Faculty Group, Eastman Dental Center, Visiting Nurse Service, Highland Hospital, the Highlands at Pittsford and the Highlands at Brighton). This name change will not affect the name of the Medical Center’s main teaching hospital, Strong Memorial Hospital.

The Medical Center is launching the new brand to the Rochester community with a multimedia advertising campaign. The theme of the ads, Medicine of the Highest Order, pays tribute to the Medical Center’s roots. As one of the first to adopt well-known educator Abraham Flexner’s new model of university-based medical schooling, the University of Rochester Medical Center quickly became proof that integrating scientific inquiry, learning and patient care could dramatically improve physician education, advance research opportunities, and improve patient outcomes. When Flexner looked to establish a medical school based on this philosophy in New York, he told then University President Rush Rhees that the University of Rochester presented an ideal place for “a medical school of the highest order.”

“This is what makes the University of Rochester Medical Center so unique,” Berk added. “ Because we were one of the first to adopt Flexner’s philosophy, we had the opportunity to build – from the ground up – an institution that was part of an established University, where the strengths of three disciplines could flourish, allowing us to achieve the highest level of excellence and innovation in medical care.”

The ads are running on television, billboards, radio and print through June, and also officially unveil the Medical Center’s new logo, which closely follows the look and feel of the University of Rochester’s logo.

“Given that our new brand emphasizes our vital link with the University of Rochester, it is only fitting that we proudly and prominently celebrate this relationship by incorporating the core components of the University’s logo into our own,” Berk added.

A new system to manage how our new logo interacts with some of our larger entities like the Wilmot Cancer Center, Golisano Children’s Hospital and Highland Hospital, also has been designed.

As with most new logo introductions, ours will be a gradual process, as we all work cost-effectively to incorporate the new logo across our institution. A new Brand Center website, accessible through the intranet, is available for faculty and staff to download the new logo, review guidelines for logo usage, access many tools such as powerpoint templates, order letterhead, and more (see sidebar for more information)

Departments should order new materials only as they need to be replaced. In the meantime, our new look is displayed in two prominent locations: our public website and our intranet, both of which have been streamlined for easier navigation and use.

Research Funding to Medical School Jumps 11% to Record Level

Funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the School of Medicine and Dentistry jumped 11 percent in the last year. The sizable increase is especially notable because it comes in a year when the overall budget growth at NIH, the nation’s largest funder of basic and clinical biomedical research, was essentially flat.

In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2007, the NIH supported $159.3 million in research and teaching at the school. That record amount is up from $143.2 million for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2006.

The jump in funding is the result of several factors, said David Guzick, M.D., Ph.D., dean of the School of Medicine and Dentistry, where NIH funding has more than doubled since 1999.

“This increase speaks to the outstanding caliber of our faculty,” said Guzick. “To see such a boost when the climate for research funding is so tight is a tremendous tribute to our scientists. It is also a credit to the significant strategic investment that this institution has made in our scientific enterprise over the last 10 years.”

Since 1996, the Medical Center has invested $500 million in its biomedical research enterprise. This included the addition of more than 600,000 square feet of new and renovated state-of-the-art laboratory space and the number of research faculty has grown from 304 to 484.

The jump in funding at the school is all the more remarkable, Guzick notes, because it has occurred in an environment where the NIH budget has remained flat. “During a year when the number of new grants awarded to medical schools by NIH declined from 2477 to 2065, new awards to our faculty actually increased.”

More than 400 projects at the school are currently funded by NIH.

Medical Center Research Gets Boost from NY State

The positive effects research by Medical Center faculty and staff can have both on patients worldwide and the economy right here in Rochester is increasingly being recognized by the state government in Albany, which in the past month has announced more than $50 million to help support basic and clinical translations research at the Medical Center.

The Medical Center received $1 million from the Empire State Stem Cell Fund, which plans to distribute $600 million over the next 11 years to support stem cell research in New York state. The University of Rochester played a central role in the creation of the fund. President Joel Seligman was instrumental in bringing together a coalition of 17 university presidents to successfully lobby Albany for this critical research support and, last year, Medical Center CEO Bradford C. Berk, M.D., Ph.D., was appointed to the panel that will oversee the fund.

The funding will be spread over several research programs at the Medical Center, including ongoing initiatives in spinal cord repair, pediatric leukodystrophies, multiple sclerosis, bone fracture repair, and cancer.

Translational research also received a boost when Governor Elliot Spitzer included a pledge of $50 million in funding for the University’s Clinical and Translational Science Building in his Upstate State-of-the-State address held in January.

The building will house the “academic home” for the new Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), which was made possible by a $40 million award from the National Institutes of Health, and aims to produce innovative technology and methods that more efficiently and more quickly advance treatments to patients. The CTSI will bring about synergies by placing under one roof hundreds of scientists, who now can work in close proximity, along with the infrastructure and resources necessary to speed up the outcomes of clinical research.

The facility also will serve as a home for the Upstate New York Translational Research Network, a consortium of 10 major medical institutions from Albany to Buffalo that will foster research collaboration on a regional scale, as well as several leading clinical research programs, including a clinical trials center that oversees some of the largest studies of neurological conditions in the world.

The Center for Governmental Research estimates that the CTSI will result in the creation of 600 new jobs both inside and outside the University and an annual economic impact of $30 million. The construction phase of building will create an additional 850 jobs.

The Medical Center plans to break ground on the new 150,000-square-foot Clinical and Translational Sciences Building in the spring.

New Chair Takes Over Helm at Otolaryngology

A national search has led to the appointment of Shawn D. Newlands, M.D., Ph.D., as chair of the Department of Otolaryngology at the School of Medicine and Dentistry, effective Jan. 1, 2008.

An expert in head and neck oncologic surgery and an accomplished neuroscientist, Newlands succeeded Arthur S. Hengerer, M.D., who since 1981, led Otolaryngology at the Medical Center, overseeing a period of tremendous growth.

“Dr. Newlands combines a national reputation in the clinical practice of head and neck surgery, a record of substantial NIH funding and scientific contributions to our understanding of vestibular function and spatial orientation, and extensive administrative experience as a chair of otolaryngology,” said David S. Guzick, M.D., Ph.D., dean of the School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Newlands came to Rochester from the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, where he has served as Harry Carothers Wiess Professor and Chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology since 2003. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of California in Santa Barbara and was among the first graduates of the combined M.D.-Ph.D. program at the University of Texas Medical Branch, earning a Ph.D. in neuroscience along with his medical degree.

He completed an internship in general surgery at Virginia-Mason Medical Center in Seattle, followed by a residency in otolaryngology at the University of Washington in Seattle. Newlands also earned a master’s in business administration from the University of Texas in Austin in 2002. Following a year at the University of Washington, Newlands served on the faculty of the Division of Otolaryngology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center for three years. He joined the University of Texas in 1999.

“I am eager to contribute to medical knowledge at the University of Rochester while building research, patient care and education all to a level that allows the department to stand among the best in the country,” Newlands said. “I welcome this opportunity to build to national prominence a department that suits this institution’s strength and stature.”

After 27 years, Hengerer stepped down as chair but continues his practice specializing in pediatric otolaryngology. During his tenure at the University of Rochester Medical Center, the department grew from a division in the Department of Surgery with a handful of faculty members, to a full department with fellowship-trained faculty in all otolaryngology subspecialties. He also was instrumental in the expansion of University Otolaryngology Associates to a new clinical facility, which opened in 2004 to accommodate the department’s growth and better serve its patients.

Ruth A. Lawrence Wins Rochester Women’s Council's Top Honor

Ruth A. Lawrence, M.D.

Ruth A. Lawrence, M.D., professor of Pediatrics, and Obstetrics and Gynecology, at the University of Rochester Medical Center, was selected as Rochester’s 22nd ATHENA winner.

The award, an international program with more than 3,000 recipients, was founded in 1982 to recognize and honor the achievements of outstanding and professional business women. Introduced to Rochester in 1987 by Women's Council of The Rochester Business Alliance, Inc., the program celebrates women of achievement in the community, noting their professional excellence and community service, and their active and generous assistance in helping other women develop professional excellence and leadership skills.

Lawrence is a pediatrician and neonatologist at Golisano Children’s Hospital at Strong and the medical director of the Ruth A. Lawrence Poison and Drug Information Center (formerly the Finger Lakes Regional Poison and Drug Information Center).

“People have always asked what my business is,” Lawrence said, while accepting the award. “I used to tell them babies. Now I tell them children. If you’re interested in a safe investment in today’s world, they’re one of the surest.”

Lawrence is renowned as a global expert on breastfeeding medicine, and her text, Breastfeeding: A Guide for the Medical Profession is the gold-standard for the scientific understanding of human lactation and clinical breastfeeding practices.

She helped to create Rochester’s first Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Units, as well as the poison and drug information center (housed in the University of Rochester Medical Center) that now bears her name. She also helped found Life Line, a predecessor to today’s 911 system, and guided the Health Association of Rochester and Monroe County for more than a decade.

As the first woman in Yale’s medical residency program, and a mother of nine, Lawrence actively champions young women and urges them to pursue their dreams.