Dear Colleagues:

As you have heard, Chancellor Gallagher and I will be hosting this very special lecture by VA Secretary Robert A. McDonald, “Caring for Veterans: A Higher Calling,” at noon on Tuesday, November 17 in Lecture Room 6, Scaife Hall. All of the Schools of the Health Sciences are deeply engaged in caring for veterans through the University’s connection to the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, which offers a breadth of career and educational opportunities for health professionals and scientists.

I expect an excellent turnout from all the Schools of the Health Sciences for this important presentation, including health sciences students, faculty, residents, fellows, and others. Please make every effort to attend and encourage all those in your schools to do the same.

Sincerely,

  Art

Arthur S. Levine, M.D. 
Senior Vice Chancellor for the Health Sciences 
John and Gertrude Petersen Dean, School of Medicine

Professor of Medicine and Molecular Genetics
University of Pittsburgh 
Scaife Hall, Suite 401 
3550 Terrace Street 
Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA
phone: (412) 648-8975 
fax: (412) 648-1236 
e-mail: alevine@pitt.edu

c/o Joanna Getting

getting@pitt.edu

SENIOR VICE CHANCELLOR’S SPECIAL LECTURE:
VA Secretary Robert A. McDonald

A senior vice chancellor’s special lecture will be given by Robert A. McDonald, MBA, United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs, on Tuesday, November 17, at noon in Scaife Hall, Lecture Room 6. His talk will address: “Caring for Veterans: A Higher Calling.”

As the second largest agency in the federal government, Veterans Affairs (VA) is the largest fully-integrated health care system in the nation, with 9 million patients. The VA is affiliated with more than 1,800 schools for the health professions and trains more health professionals every year than any other system in the nation. The agency bolsters, as Secretary McDonald says, three pillars of holistic health care: medical and health care education, research, and delivery of clinical care.

An extraordinary diversity of career opportunities is available for health professionals and scientists through the VA. Secretary McDonald’s talk will highlight some of those opportunities while espousing the intangible rewards of a career devoted to caring for the VA’s exceptional patient population. VA career opportunities are increasing, as the agency seeks to expand veterans’ access to excellent clinical care. Since April 2014, net staffing has risen by more than 12,000, including more than 1,000 new physicians and more than 3,700 medical center staff.

In Western Pennsylvania, which is home to some 500,000 veterans, the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System (VAPHS) has long been affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC. Annually, nearly 1,000 interns, residents, nursing students, and advanced fellowship trainees from Pitt and UPMC rotate through the VA hospital and clinics. More than 100 Pitt and UPMC/VAPHS researchers are principal investigators on projects exploring traumatic brain injury, sleep disorders, cancer, regenerative medicine, women’s health, and other important biomedical questions.

Secretary McDonald was nominated by President Obama to serve as the eighth Secretary of Veterans Affairs and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 29, 2014. Prior to his appointment, Secretary McDonald was chair, president, and CEO of the Procter & Gamble Company. An Army veteran, he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1975 and served with the 82nd Airborne Division. He received an MBA from the University of Utah in 1978. 

An informal reception will follow the talk.

CME Information:

The Center for Continuing Education in the Health Sciences will designate the Senior Vice Chancellor’s Special Lecture as a continuing medical education activity eligible for a maximum of one hour of Category 1 credit toward the AMA Physician’s Recognition Award. Nurses and other health professionals are awarded 0.1 Continuing Education Units (CEUs).

For information on future lectures in this series, which highlights the growing body of important research being accomplished by young investigators in the University of Pittsburgh’s Schools of the Health Sciences, please visit our website at http://www.svc-seminar.pitt.edu/ or call the Office of Academic Affairs at 412-383-7382.

Target Audience:

Faculty and students from the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences and the Department of Biological Sciences, and Carnegie Mellon University faculty and students from the Department of Biological Sciences.

The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, as part of the Consortium for Academic Continuing Medical Education, is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The Center for Continuing Education in the Health Sciences designates this continuing medical education activity for a maximum of one hour of Category 1 credit towards the AMA Physician's Recognition Award. Each physician should claim only those hours of credit that he/she actually spent in the educational activity.

Nurses and other health care professionals are awarded 0.1 Continuing Education Units (CEUs).

Disclosure Statement:

In accordance with Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education requirements on disclosure, information about relationships of presenters with commercial interests (if any) will be included in materials that will be distributed at the time of the conference. 

We encourage participation by all individuals. If you have a disability, advance notification of any special needs will help us serve you better. Please notify us of your needs at least two weeks in advance of the program.

Disclaimer Statement:

“The information presented at this CME program represents the views and opinions of the individual presenters and does not constitute the opinion or endorsement of, or promotion by, the UPMC Center for Continuing Education in the Health Sciences, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) or Affiliates and University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Reasonable efforts have been taken intending for education subject matter to be presented in a balanced, unbiased fashion and in compliance with regulatory requirements. However, each program attendee must always use his/her own personal and professional judgment in considering further application of this information, particularly as it may relate to patient diagnostic or treatment decisions including, without limitation, FDA-approved uses and any off-label uses.” 

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