COVID-19 pandemic (2019-21)
Clemson Names Steven Marks Founding Dean For The College Of Veterinary Medicine
Dr. Steven Marks, associate dean and director of veterinary medical services and clinical professor of emergency and internal medicine at North Carolina State University, has been chosen to lead the College of Veterinary Medicine at Clemson University as its founding dean. The Board of Trustees approved the appointment on July 20, 2023, and Marks will begin on August 14.
As Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, Marks' research interests have included emergency and critical care, general internal medicine, cardiopulmonary medicine and pain management. Marks has received numerous awards from NC State University, including the 2009 Pfizer Distinguished Teacher Award, the 2013 Zoetis Distinguished Teacher Award, the 2014 Outstanding Teacher Award, the 2020 Huffman Leadership Award and the Randy and Susan Ward Coat of Excellence. The Triangle Business Journal recognized Marks with its Healthcare Hero Award in 2021. He currently serves as the president of the American Association of Veterinary Clinicians.
People are also reading…
"We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Marks to this founding role for the College of Veterinary Medicine and are grateful for the state's investment in filling this need for South Carolinians," said Clemson University President Jim Clements. "We look forward to welcoming students to this program in the Fall of 2026."
"Dr. Marks' commitment to enhancing student success while building a culture of discovery and innovation aligns with Clemson's goals to improve South Carolina's economy, retain top talent and protect animal and human health, while serving our communities," said Clemson Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Robert H. Jones. "We are excited that he will serve in this historic role and provide steady and effective leadership beneficial to our state's veterinarians, citizens and animals."
Provost Jones also thanked experts in the veterinary discipline, Boyd Parr and Tim Boosinger, for their tireless work as advisors to Clemson throughout the new college development process.
"Boyd and Tim share a passion for higher education and purpose-driven service to the veterinary discipline and practice," said Jones. "Their steadfast commitment in supporting our efforts to spearhead the College of Veterinary Medicine's mission and vision is critically important as we aim to achieve even greater heights of excellence for the University."
"I'm thrilled to accept this new role. It allows me the opportunity to combine my passions of the human-animal bond and veterinary medicine to train the next generation of clinician-scientists and veterinarians at a University that has had an exceptional impact on our family," said Marks, whose son, George, was a four-year student-athlete and starting goaltender on the Clemson men's national championship soccer team in 2021. "We have this family connection with Clemson that is indescribable. The whole experience coming back is very special."
Marks will ensure an inaugural 2026 College of Veterinary Medicine cohort by initiating American Veterinary Medical Association provisional accreditation, recruiting exceptional foundational faculty and developing a rigorous Doctor of Veterinary Medicine curriculum over the next year. Marks is also responsible for providing leadership, vision and strategic planning for the College of Veterinary Medicine's future, including new facilities and new academic programs.
According to a recent feasibility study to support the development of the new college, Clemson found that 33 percent of South Carolina counties have fewer than five veterinarians and veterinary care is one of the fastest growing segments in the nation. The Board of Trustees officially approved development of the new College of Veterinary Medicine to position Clemson as a national leader in veterinary education and research while supporting the University's land grant mission on June 22. The approval followed the completion of the FY24 state budget that included landmark funding to develop the new college and significant support from Governor Henry McMaster and the South Carolina General Assembly.
"The College of Veterinary Medicine is important to South Carolina, and I'm honored to have the opportunity to play a part in positively impacting the people and the animals within the state," added Marks.
Marks joined NC State University's Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine in 2005 as a clinical associate professor and has served as a clinical professor since 2013. In 2014, he was named associate dean and director of veterinary medical services for the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine. Additionally, Marks has held positions at the University of Illinois, Louisiana State University, Colorado State University, Cardio Pet, Inc. And Washington State University. He was president of the Small Animal Internal Medicine Specialty in the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine from 2009 to 2012.
Marks holds a Bachelor of Science in animal sciences from Texas A&M University and a Master of Science in veterinary medicine from Washington State University. Additionally, he is a Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgery and holds a Bachelor of Veterinary Sciences from the University of Liverpool.
Joining him will be his wife, Dianne Dunning, also a veterinarian. In addition to his son, George, Marks has a daughter, Sydney, a rising senior at the University of Michigan.
The Clemson College of Veterinary Medicine will welcome its first class of veterinarians in the Fall of 2026 with the University leveraging its already existing animal health programs and infrastructure.
Get our local education coverage delivered directly to your inbox.
UNC Hospitals, UNC Health Rex And Appalachian Regional Earn Top 5-Star Hospital Ratings From CMS For Quality Of Care And Safety
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 27, 2023--
UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill, UNC Health Rex in Raleigh and Appalachian Regional in Boone have received top 5-Star ratings from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which measures hospital quality and safety to help consumers make informed choices.
The latest CMS hospital ratings, which were posted on the CMS website in late July, use a wide range of publicly available data in categories that include mortality, safety of care, readmissions, timely and effective care, and patient experience. CMS provides the star ratings to help patients make decisions about where to get health care and encourage hospitals to improve the quality of care they provide.
Among UNC Health hospitals:
"We appreciate our teammates and physicians for their commitment to using CMS and other ratings to drive continuous improvement across our health system," said Dr. Wesley Burks, CEO of UNC Health. "In particular, this is a pretty remarkable performance for UNC Hospitals, which as the state's academic medical center cares for the sickest patients from across North Carolina."
To learn more about CMS hospitals ratings or to compare the ratings of other hospitals, visit the Hospital Compare website.
About UNC Health
UNC Health is a state entity and an affiliated enterprise of the University of North Carolina system, comprised of 15 hospitals, 19 hospital campuses and more than 900 clinics along with the clinical patient care programs of the UNC School of Medicine (SOM). It exists to improve the health and well-being of North Carolinians and others we serve and to further the teaching mission of the University of North Carolina SOM. Over the past three years, UNC Health has provided more than $400 million in uncompensated or charity care to the citizens of North Carolina. Our hospitals have received numerous awards and recognition for quality care, patient safety and the overall patient experience. For more information, please visit unchealth.Org.
View source version on businesswire.Com:https://www.Businesswire.Com/news/home/20230726327194/en/
CONTACT: Phil Bridges 919-457-6347
phil.Bridges@unchealth.Unc.Edu
KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA NORTH CAROLINA
INDUSTRY KEYWORD: RESEARCH HOSPITALS HEALTH INSURANCE PRACTICE MANAGEMENT MANAGED CARE HEALTH GENERAL HEALTH OTHER SCIENCE SCIENCE
SOURCE: UNC Health
Copyright Business Wire 2023.
PUB: 07/27/2023 09:45 AM/DISC: 07/27/2023 09:43 AM
http://www.Businesswire.Com/news/home/20230726327194/en
Copyright Business Wire 2023.
Heat 'Wave' Is Far More Than That, Duke Experts Say
Here are excerpts:
ON THIS NEW HEAT SEASON
Ashley Ward, director, Duke's Heat Policy Innovation Hub
"One of the things we've talked about with respect to heat over the years is how difficult it is to capture the public's attention around heat with comparison to other natural disasters. Heat doesn't typically give you this camera-ready fodder that really motivates people to move like we see with hurricanes or tornadoes or other severe weather."
"But this year Mother Nature has shown us in quite spectacular fashion -- through marine heat waves that have sent thousands of dying fish on the shores, particularly on Gulf Coast states, and bleaching our coral reefs. News reports of hikers succumbing to the heat, burn units being filled in places like Arizona with people experiencing critical and sometimes deadly burns from contact with pavement and other sort of structures in our environment."
"What we're seeing and what has been reported is nearly 30 days of triple-digit temperatures, breaking not just high temperature records -- breaking the records of daytime temperatures, but also breaking the records of overnight temperatures."
"We're continually categorizing this extended period as a heat wave, and I see that reported a lot. At 30 days we're not talking about a heat wave anymore. We're talking about a season. We're talking about a marker, a shift. This is not an acute event. Typically you think about a three to five-day event. We're talking about a new chronic state of being for heat season. It isn't unreasonable to think this could quite possibly be the coolest heat season of our lives."
ON WHAT DOCTORS ARE SEEING THIS SUMMER
Dr. J.J. Hoff, emergency medicine specialist
"This summer has been particularly busy. We've seen record temperatures that are continuing to climb so we're seeing a lot of heat-related illnesses."
ON RISKS TO HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETES
Jordan Clark, heat researcher (Read this plan to protect athletes)
"The heat risk for student-athletes is high, simply because of them being a younger population. The critical point here is that it goes from summer to a sudden exposure to extreme heat that also involves doing intense outdoor activities. This all happens to overlap with the most humid and hot part of the summer."
"There is usually a wide spread in how acclimated to heat each player is. Since some may be working this summer outdoors while others may have spent summer indoors, so there's a lot of variation there to try to account for form a coach's perspective."
"The key ultimately to mitigating this is the gradual increase in activity over time so the body can slowly, steadily get used to it. Our bodies are naturally quite good at adapting to heat exposure."
ON MOST HIGH-RISK POPULATIONS DURING HEAT SEASON
Ashley Ward
"Folks who are over 65 who have chronic illnesses, certainly outdoor workers (are very high-risk). But we need to broaden the scope of who is vulnerable and how and why. We focus significantly on the urban heat island affect. Urban populations, how they are vulnerable, when, and what are the appropriate responses."
"However, in North Carolina and in much of the Southeast … rural heat vulnerability is a significant issue, and it's not only about farm workers. In North Carolina and throughout the Southeast, for example, manufacturing is located in rural areas. It is not unusual to have indoor manufacturing temperatures to exceed 90 degrees during the day, with populations that return home and live in either energy-inefficient housing or do not have access to adequate or any cooling in their homes. So expanding who we think is vulnerable is an important aspect to this."
"Also, we need to think about institutionalized populations that often don't come up in these conversations. Those who are incarcerated, for example. There is no rule requiring that prisons must be air conditioned."
"Nursing homes and long care facilities -- there is no federal requirement that they are air conditioned, however many states have state-level requirements."
"Public housing and affordable housing, low-income housing residents, there is no requirement. This is women, children, the disabled. So we really need to think holistically about who is at risk."
ON WHEN TO SEEK MEDICAL HELP
Dr. J.J. Hoff
"It exists on a spectrum. What we're looking for is evidence that this heat has progressed to create an inflammatory cascade within the body where you're seeing evidence of organ disfunction. Very often when we're exposed to heat, you might feel a little bit lightheaded. Very often … we sweat as our body's natural response to try to cool itself off. If you feel that's not doing the job or if your skin seems dryer than it should be, especially when you're in the heat, that'd be time to remove yourself from that exposure and seek shade and seek cooler temperatures and start hydrating."
"Very often you'll progress beyond that and see someone acting different or will seem confused. Anytime someone passes out or loses consciousness due to a heat exposure, that's someone you should call EMS for."
"The most important thing you can do in that situation is get help and on top of that, get them removed from that exposure. Get to as cool as environment as you can and get hydration on board."
ON HOW HEAT IS MEASURED
Jordan Clark
"Most are familiar with the heat index, or a 'feels like' temperature, which really accounts for how our body senses the environment based on the temperature and humidity."
The wet bulb globe temperature takes this a step further. It considers air temperature and humidity but also considers the impact of wind blowing across our bodies and the impact of heat coming from the sun and whatever surface is below us – such as a tennis court versus a grass field."
ON HEAT-RISK DANGERS IN DIFFERENT REGIONS
Ashley Ward
"It's a really important aspect to this national conversation we're having right now. There are certain areas of the country, traditionally in the Western part of the country, where these huge daytime temperatures that we see, in the triple digits, really drive a lot of the health outcomes, and temperatures typically would fall overnight. In those regions of the country, people would open their windows at night, they can cool down their homes, cool down their bodies. Every living being in the environment can cool down and get a reprieve."
"That's not exactly what we're seeing in this heat season. We've seen some incredibly dangerous situations … where we've had these extreme temperatures during the day but also a failure for the temperature to drop overnight. In Arizona we've had several days where it remained above 90 overnight. This is by far one of the most dangerous circumstances where we have both extreme temperatures in each part of the day."
"In the Southeast, however, we have the added humidity, so even if it's not in the 115 (-degree range) -- even if it's 98 with 90 percent or better humidity, we do see really significant health outcomes. It isn't uncommon in the Southeast for overnight temperatures to remain consistently high -- over 75 degrees overnight."
"What's extraordinary about this heat season is we're seeing, across the Sun Belt region, incredibly high daytime temperatures associated with higher-than-normal rates of humidity and persistently high overnight temperatures. This is in fact the worst-case scenario for health outcomes."
ON THE MEDICAL IMPACT ON PEOPLE WHO DON'T GET RELIEF
Dr. J.J. Hoff
"The temperature itself isn't the only measurement we're looking for. The temperature the body sees is the most important thing. So we often look of a critical temperature of 95 degrees that a body experiences that sets off that inflammatory cascade. That's when you see some of the worst results from heat exposure."
"You don't have to be outside as an athlete exerting yourself to have a heat-related illness. You can just be exposed to it over a long period of time."
"If your body for whatever reason is not able to respond … to use sweating and evaporating cooling to cool itself back down to the normal functioning temperature it wants to be at, those organs won't work as well and you'll see some of the effects of heat stroke."
ON THE NEED FOR BETTER, CLOSER HEAT MONITORING USING WET BULB GLOBE PROCESSES
Jordan Clark
"The critical piece here is taking these measurements on site on the field where the activity is occurring. You often see instances where weather conditions from a weather station that may be located two miles away or 20 miles away may being used. The difference between where a given football field is and that given weather station can be quite different."
"Having direct measurements on site allow for the most robust measurements of how hot is it right here, and what actions can we take to mitigate it."
"If you're standing on a tennis court taking a measurement right there, versus standing on a grass field taking the measurement right there, they can be quite different and impact the body in much different ways."
ON THE NEED FOR NATIONAL COOLING STANDARD
Ashley Ward
"I understand that implementing or instituting a national cooling standard would come at considerable effort and cost. We have a standard that buildings be heated during the winter up to a certain level. Landlords are required to provide heating for their tenants; schools are required to have heat; prisons … are protected by this heating standard in the U.S. We do not have a like cooling standard, and this is challenging."
"The funding for cooling for schools would come out of local budgets. So this potentially would strain considerably the ability for local governments to respond. I say that but I also want to point out that Scotland County in North Carolina, one of the poorest counties in the state, implemented universal air conditioning in their schools. So it is possible to do even on a limited budget."
"But along with a cooling standard, there needs to be a process through which either funding or innovative financing mechanisms can be deployed to help people comply with such a standard."
ON WHAT PEOPLE WITHOUT AIR CONDITIONING CAN DO
Dr. J.J. Hoff
"First and foremost, hydration, hydration, hydration. People need to stay hydrated. Our body's response to extreme heat is to sweat, and we lose fluid that way and we need to replace fluid. So we need to stay hydrated."
"On top of that, one of the more effective cooling mechanisms you can do, honestly, is just a fan. We use the evaporative cooling, using a fan to blow that moisture off your skin. That can help to rapidly cool the body. Fans work relatively well. The most important thing though is getting out of that environment and going to a cooler place."
ON STAYING COOL
Ashley Ward
"A 10-minute cool shower can effectively lower your internal body temperature. If you are in a situation where you lose power and don't have air conditioning, that's one way to do it. But even if you have air conditioning … but it's very warm and your air conditioning can't keep up and you notice it's persistently over 80 degrees in your house, taking a cool shower can be extremely effective in lowering your body temperature."
"Immersing your feet over the ankle in cool water – this works great for our aging population or disabled population – also has the same effect of lowering core body temperature. And then the military did some great work – they don't want their soldiers taking their boots off all the time, right? – they discovered that arm immersion over the elbow has the same impact as foot immersion over the ankles."
ON DANGERS OF TOO MUCH HYDRATION
Dr. J.J. Hoff
"First and foremost, the answer is always water. Start with water."
"We do occasionally see people who will over-hydrate with water and can cause critically low sodium levels. But the odds of you overhydrating with water … it takes a pretty decent amount."
Faculty Participants
Jordan Clark, Ph.D.Jordan Clark is a postdoctoral associate for the Heat Policy Innovation Hub and the Water Policy Program at the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability at Duke University, where he studies the effects of extreme heat.
J.J. Hoff, M.D.Dr. J.J. Hoff is an emergency medicine specialist at Duke Health, assistant medical director for Duke Life Flight and medical director for Duke Event Medicine. He is an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Duke's School of Medicine.
Ashley Ward, Ph.D.Ashley Ward directs the Heat Policy Innovation Hub at Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability. Ward's work focuses on the health impacts of climate extremes and community resilience to the changing climate.
Comments
Post a Comment