Med school’s pulse
stays strong

New leadership guides students
and faculty to a new UH campus

Dr. Ed Cadman's vision lives on at the John A. Burns School of Medicine because of his team, says Dr. David Easa, associate dean.

"We are very optimistic grant dollars will continue to come in, and research excellence will continue to be a major focus for the school of medicine," Easa said, pointing out Cadman set that direction before he resigned as dean because of illness.

"He hired a bunch of good people, including Vice Dean Sam Shomaker (now acting dean), who not only is carrying out his vision, but was part of the development of the vision," Easa said.

He said Shomaker was hired shortly after Cadman arrived from the Yale-New Haven Hospital and Health System. The two worked hard to establish programs.

"Probably no one is more knowledgeable of day-to-day activities than Sam," he said.

Shomaker, who took over in June when Cadman resigned because of a neuro-degenerative disorder called primary progressive aphasia, said the former dean still is at the medical school, helping where needed.

The faculty is excited about the research building nearing completion on the new Kakaako campus, he said.

"It's spectacular," said Shomaker. "It has created all kinds of new opportunities for us in new educational techniques."

Shomaker said the school is scheduled to take over the building Friday for furniture installation. Researchers expect to start moving in later next month, and a blessing and dedication will be held Sept. 30.

"Probably we will be fully moved in by mid-November," Shomaker said. "Certainly we all owe him (Cadman) a big debt of gratitude. He was the catalyst."

Space already is expected to be inadequate at the 216,000-square-foot research building.

Shomaker said they will examine the actual situation after everyone moves in: "We will have a much better idea how much space may be left for future expansion."

Some programs, particularly those relating to undergraduates, will remain in the biomedical building on the University of Hawaii-Manoa campus, Shomaker said.

They will include medical technology, speech pathology and public health, he said: "We still do a significant amount of undergraduate teaching, and faculty primarily engaged in that largely will remain at Manoa."

Several research programs, including Ryuzo Yanagimachi's Institute for Biogenesis Research, will remain at Manoa because there will not be space to fully accommodate them at Kakaako, Shomaker said.

The biogenesis building was hit hard by the Oct. 30 floods, but it has been rebuilt and the program has continued to expand, he said.

Shomaker said the medical school still is in a competitive research environment with a flat National Institutes of Health budget. Proposals that would have been funded a couple years ago are not being funded by NIH now, he said.

Associate Dean Roseanne Harrigan said, "Everyone in the whole country is very concerned about increased competition (for research dollars).

"But we hope, because we have significant populations with health disparities here, we will be able to compete."

She said the medical school's Clinical Research Center has received high marks and is expected to be funded by NIH for a third five-year cycle.

The center, directed by Easa, started in 1995 to develop infrastructure necessary to expand the clinical research environment for underrepresented populations.

Easa said he and Harrigan helped Cadman build up research programs, and NIH funding has grown to $1.5 million a year from $600,000.

He said the center has "startlingly good people all working together" and bringing in "significant money."

The medical school's total revenue in 2004-2005 was about $113 million, including $53 million from contracts and grants, $22.5 million in state funding, $17 million from residency programs, $10 million from clinical practices, $6 million from tuition and $4 million in gifts and endowments.