Winter 2000

University of Colorado Denver

Volume 3, Number 2

We are pleased to announce that the Hartford/Jahnigen Center of Excellence (COE) in Geriatrics has received renewed funding from the John A. Hartford Foundation. The Hartford/Jahnigen COE is funded for an additional three years at $900,000, which includes cost sharing provided by the Chancellor, Dean, and Department of Medicine. These funds will be used to provide additional Assistant Professor Stipends and grant awards, as well as additional geriatric fellowship support.

On January 25, 2001 from 7:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m., the Hartford/Jahnigen Center of Excellence will be sponsoring a Geriatrics Research Forum on the UCD campus. The 2001 Research Forum will provide an opportunity for students, faculty, and members of the local community to present and discuss their research in the field of geriatrics.

The COE is funded for an
additional three years at
$900,000, which includes
cost sharing provided
by the Chancellor, Dean, and
Department of Medicine

The guest speaker at the Forum will be Linda Fried, MD, MPH, geriatrician and Director of the Johns Hopkins Center on Aging and Health. Dr. Fried leads a research program directed at health promotion and disability prevention in older adults. Her presentation entitled, Precursors to Disability in Older Adults will take place at 7:30 a.m. in the Veterans Administration Auditorium. This year's Forum marks the completion of the first three years of funding for the Hartford/Jahnigen Center of Excellence. To register for the Forum, or to receive further information, please contact

Danielle Holthaus at 303-315-1023 or Danielle.Holthaus@uchsc.edu.

Corinne Rieder, Executive Director of the John A. Hartford Foundation, will visit UCD to conduct the annual site visit evaluation of the Hartford/Jahnigen COE on January 23, 2001. She will be accompanied by visiting consultant John Benson, MD, Dean Emeritus at Oregon Health Sciences University.

The Hartford/Jahnigen COE
will be sponsoring a
Geriatrics Research Forum
on January 25, 2001.

Three new fellows, Lisa Price, MD, Tracy Lippard, MD, and Stacy Meyer, MD, began the geriatrics fellowship program in July 2000. Dr. Price graduated from medical school at Iowa State University and completed her internal medicine training at UCD. Dr. Lippard completed her internal medicine residency at UCD after graduating from medical school at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Under the fellowship program, Drs. Price and Lippard are working with Judith Baxter, Carolyn Swenson, and Susan Shetterly in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics, and Dr. Andrew Kramer to study treatment of depression in an elderly, bi-ethnic population in the San Luis Valley.

Dr. Meyer received her medical degree from the University of Missouri, completed her residency at UCD (including one year as Chief Medical Resident), and spent one year traveling through Central and South America, Europe, and Vietnam. Dr. Meyer is currently working under the mentorship of Dr. Marie Johnson to study housestaff's attitudes and knowledge about end of life care. Her ongoing research interests relate to end of life care for Hispanic populations.

v

The Population-based Palliative Care Research Network (PoPCRN) is committed to improving care for persons at the end of life by conducting rigorous, high quality end-of-life research in settings where palliative care is provided.

Directed by Jean Kutner, MD, MSPH, and David Nowels, MD, MPH, and managed by Cordt Kassner, MA, PoPCRN was initiated in 1998 with project funding from the Hartford/Jahnigen Center of Excellence in Geriatrics. Since its inception, PoPCRN has grown to include 70 sites (33 of 37 Colorado hospices) from 15 states.

The Population-based
Palliative Care Research
Network is committed to
improving care for persons
at the end of life.

Dr. Kutner recently received two faculty development awards - a Paul Beeson Physician Faculty Scholars in Aging Research Award and a Robert Wood Johnson Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar Award - for study of symptoms and symptom management at the end of life among PoPCRN sites. Following are brief summaries of several studies that are currently underway.

Symptom Prevalence and Severity at the End of Life
Data cards were completed by hospice staff on 348 patients at 16 sites. This study describes the most prevalent and severe symptoms among these patients and identifies symptoms that staff did not routinely evaluate. These data were used as pilot data for Dr. Kutner's faculty development award applications. A manuscript describing this study has

Continued on Page 3...