UNIVERSITY MEDICAL STUDENT COUNCIL AGENDA FOR MARCH 30, 2002
Location: UICOM-Urbana, 10:00am (Breakfast at 9:30am)

PRESENT (REQUIRED ATTENDANCE):
Exec Board = Chris Nelson, Kristy Noonan, John Kim, Eva Escatel, Oveys Mansuri, Michelle Goodman, Dipesh Navsaria
Chicago = Rodrigo Llobet, Brent Tyler, Shrujal Baxi, Cheryl Strzoda, Albert Chan
Peoria = Steven Ullrick
Rockford = Paul Angleton, Michael Nuara, Charles Sweet
Urbana = Connie Wittenberg, Bea Aguado, Chris Erb, Jeannette Ouyang (CCA rep), Jason Barnes (CCIA rep), Tim Meehan (CCSAS rep), Dipesh Navsaria (CCSP rep), Niranjan Karnik (FEC chair), Christina Khan (FEC rep)

ABSENT (REQUIRED ATTENDANCE):
Chicago = Hsin-Yi Chang, Timothy Schaub, Vidooshi Gupta, Carnella Boxley
Peoria = Brian Harrison, Erik Jakubowski
Rockford = none
Urbana = Victor McCray, Lisa Skittone, Chris Hess

PRESENT (NOT-REQUIRED ATTENDANCE):
Chicago = Albert Tseng (CCA shadow)

ABSENT (NOT-REQUIRED ATTENDANCE):
Dr. Jorge Girotti - UMSC advisor

GUESTS:
Jim Hall - UICOM-Urbana Dean of Student Affairs, Dr. Nisha Dogra – presenter, Astrid Herard, Jason Riesinger, David Jho

I. Welcome & Introductions

II. Approval of the Minutes of Jan. 12, 2002 UMSC Meeting at UICOM-Rockford

III. President's Report – Chris Nelson
A. College Executive Committee- March 13, 2002 last meeting in Urbana. College Executive Committee summary as follows:
CCA-Verification of applicant grades & MCAT scores finally took place in late 2001-early 2002. Applications = national down 7%, UICOM down 7%. Eligible applicants to UICOM down 4%. 390 offers have been sent out (as of 3/11), anticipate ~100 more offers to be sent by the end of the process. Anticipate ~800 total interviews by end of the process (last year 1000+).

CCIA-The Educational Coordinating Committees (ECC’s) have shown to be very effective in terms of sharing info.

CCSP- A subcommittee is working on defining “competency” for progression from M2 --> M3 year. The subcommittee has the following charge: “to identify and define a new standard that would establish the appropriate level of competency that must be demonstrated when evaluating individual students who have a deficiency following make-up exams.”

CCR- No new updates on new COM building. No further updates.

Centers for Biodefense Research

è Chicago working on the following (proposal distributed at meeting):

o Therapeutics (immunological & antimicrobials).

o Research & development with microbial pathogens available for weaponization.

o Behavioral Intervention program.

o Strategic analysis for defense and integration.

è Urbana working on the following:

o Food supply issues

o Power grid issues.

o Steve Puepke (College of ACES) & Dave Daniel (College of Engineering)

è UIC & UIUC are working separately on these issues, not an integrated effort, due to separate pools of money.

Searches: Chicago- Biochem/Mol Gen = search re-opened since person declined offer.

Neurosurg = Dr. Charbel was only applicant, therefore likely to be approved. Fam Med = not searching currently. Peoria- none Rockford- Fam Med = search coming to a close, Medicine = active search, Surgery = active search, Psych = active search; Urbana- Pharmacology, Neurosciences, Immunology, Genetics, Biostatistics

Affiliations-Chicago, Peoria, Rockford, Urbana. No changes.

No changes.

State Budget

There is a standard 5.5% reduction in the budgets of all colleges at UIC... therefore, the UICOM budget will be decreased 5.5%.

IV. Vice-President's Report – Kristy Noonan- CCIA retreat- 2 weeks ago in Starved Rock discussed clinical evaluation issues at the different sites. 5 years ago they changed the grading system. Evaluation forms are different at each site. Discussion about how to make things more unified. Each clerkship has an education coordination committee. Individuals were unaware of these committees before. The retreat just demonstrated how big of a problem this all is. No difference in shelf scores, but there are major differences among each site for the subjective clerkship grades. This ultimately affects AOA status and Graduation with Honors.
College Committee reports
A. Instruction and Appraisal (CCIA) – Jason Barnes- CCIA met on 2/6/02 via videoconference. The only order of business discussed was the recently completed review of the James Scholar Program for Independent Study (December 2001). There were two major concerns brought to light by this review. One being that the original intent of the program to provide an independent yet very rigorous curriculum to its participants has waned somewhat over the years. The point being that much of the curricular flexibility has been lost and it has been decided by the committee that this is a serious problem that needs to be remediated. The issue was that the admission requirements across the three participating sites are not uniform. In Chicago only the top 15% of the first year class is considered for participation ultimately accepting about 3% of the class. In Peoria and Rockford, the top third of the class is considered as eligible and ultimately 15% of the class may participate. So, these are disparities that have been brought forward and will be dealt with. The committee approved the report with an amendment that the regional deans report back in six months with comments on how each site evaluates its own program and what improvements could be made. Increase recruitment of M1s in UPR tract.
B. Student Promotions (CCSP) – Dipesh Navsaria- The CCSP is currently working on two issues of general policy. The first issue has to do with the ongoing review of the promotions policy. There is still currently some debate about the process to be used in reforming – right now there is a question about the involvement of a statistics and evaluation expert and what time frame he feels is appropriate for any changes to be made. Additionally, there is some feeling that a return to the previous five percent rule would most probably be very close to any result obtained by further analysis. The debate continues…

The second issue concerns graduation with honors. It appears that graduation with honors is indeed going to be computed on a UICOM-wide basis, rather than by site. An analysis of the class of 2002 showed that the results were essentially the same under both methods. There was a proposal put forward by the MD/PhD students at Chicago requesting that research be included as a partial criterion in determining graduation with honors. A subcommittee (of which I am a part) has been formed to examine this question in greater detail.

C. Admissions (CCA) – Jeannette Ouyang- The last CCA meeting on March 12, reported a total of 3,635 AMCAS applications received so far. This is a 7.1% drop from last year's number at this time - 3,913. Of those 1479 were eligible for consideration and thus far 292 offers have been made which is a 34.7% drop from last year's number of 447. This year there were some problems with the new electronic format of the AMCAS, which delayed much of the processing as compared to previous years. There will be a retreat on May 16 to discuss and reevaluate interviews.
D. Research (CCR) – Chris Hess- The January 17, 2002 meeting was cancelled and the next meeting is in April 18, 2002. Topics to be discussed are the James Scholar Program.
E. Student Awards and Scholarships (CCSAS) – Tim Meehan- Committee has not met. Honor’s Day is April 12, 2002. Golden Apple Awards to be given are as follows: Norman G. Lieska, Ph.D.M1 Year – Chicago, Gary Kirshenbaum, M.D.M2 Year – Chicago, Fred Zar, M.D.M3 Year – Chicago, Maurice Rabb, M.D.M4 Year – Chicago, Barbara D. Bosch, M.D.M2 Year – Peoria, Gil B. Abelita, M.D.M3 Year – Peoria, Gordon L. Woods, M.D.M4 Year – Peoria, Gary Anderson, M.D.M2 Year – Rockford, Errol Baptist, M.D.M3 Year – Rockford, Errol Baptist, M.D.M4 Year – Rockford, Susan Bardwell, M.D.Primary Care Experience – Rockford, Martha Sweeney M1 Year – Urbana, Anahita ArianaM2 Year – Urbana, Susan Eagan, M.D.M3 Year – Urbana, Sari Gilman Aronson, M.D.M4 Year - Urbana
F. Foreign Exchange (FEC) – Niranjan Karnik & Christina Khan- The FEC has not met since our teleconference last semester. After various interactions with administration, I decided that we could not continue our work within present institutional constraints. Chris Nelson has been negotiating with administration about the future of the committee and there are plans in place to create a new College Committee for Foreign Exchange.
The functions of the FEC should be folded into this new committee. In addition, I believe that the new committee should have direct authority over the Richardson Scholarship for International Medical Studies in order to ensure the smooth funding of international awards. This would involve removing this responsibility from the CCSAS.

V. Secretary's Report – Eva Escatel
A. Absences

VI. Treasurer's Report – John Kim
A. Transportation reimbursements- $230 surplus expected. Motion made and accepted to pay Student Affairs offices for food costs they have covered.

VII. Historian's Report – Oveys Mansuri
A. UMSC Website- Everything updated. ITS issues updated. Better directions will be added to website for future reference.

VIII. Election of 2002-2003 UMSC Executive Board – Chris Nelson- Motion made and accepted to include College Committee Reps in voting.
A. President- Kristy Noonan- accepted nomination, Cheryl Strzoda- declined nomination, Oveys Mansuri- withdrew Kristy Noonan will be the new UMSC President.
B. Vice-President- Chris Erb- accepts, Oveys Mansuri- accept, J. Rodrigo Llobet- accept After a very close race, Oveys Mansuri will be the new vice president.
C. Treasurer- Albert Chan- accept, Rodrigo Llobet- decline, John Kim- decline, Chris Erb- decline, Cheryl Strzoda- decline; Albert Chan will be the new Treasurer.
D. Secretary- Connie Wittenberg- accept, Cheryl Strzoda- accept, Rodrigo Llobet- decline After another close race, Connie Wittenberg was elected the new Secretary.
E. Historian- Dipesh Navsaria- decline, Chris Erb- accept, Cheryl Strzoda- decline, Rodrigo Llobet- decline, Charlie Sweet- decline, Bea Aguado- accept After yet another close race, Chris Erb won the election.

IX. Presentation about Diversity in Medical Education – Dr. Nisha Dogra- She is a child and adolescent psychiatrist. Race, culture issues were not being addressed in medical education. Looks at models for teaching cultural diversity to medical students. Cultural competence model commonly used. She is trying to develop an alternative to the model, which looks at the individual. Looks at comparisons between US and UK medical students. If interested please log on to the following website: www.le.ac.uk/greenwood

X. Organization of Student Representative's Report – Michelle Goodman & Dipesh Navsaria
A. OSR Regional Conference- April 13-16 in Palm Springs.
B. “Humanism in Medicine” award- Chicago- Dr. Espat, Urbana- Dr. Aronson

Motion was made to allow individuals to be eligible to vote who came to the meeting to support nominees. Accepted. After a close election, Dr. Espat will be the recipient of the Humanism in Medicine Award.

XI. Site Reports
A. Chicago – Rodrigo Llobet- Elections occurred at the last CMSC meeting. New executive board members are as follows: President- Charlie Inboriboon, Vice President-Deepak Mitra, Secretary- Catherine Choi, Treasurer- Frances Kim, and UMSC Representative- Chethana Chandrupatla. The following awards were decided upon: Thomas Bombeck Award- Dr. Rhone, Frank T. Sparks- Dale Lorens. The CMSC Certificate of Appreciation was given to the following students: M4- Liza Swedarsky, Kevin Dreiden, M3- Michelle Goodman, Leslie Smith, M2- Michelle Hinsch, Siddharth Kakodkar, M1- Frances Kim and Syam Vasireddy.
B. Peoria – Brian Harrison- no report
C. Rockford – Paul Angleton- Elections occurred. RMSC president- Jason Riesinger, Vice President- Paul Angleton, Secretary- Allison Bilyeu, Treasurer- Amanda Friedrichs. Book drive. Urbana M1s visited Rockford.
D. Urbana – Connie Wittenberg- New student gov. meeting this coming week. Spring Formal on 4/20 at the Champaign Country Club. Variety show upcoming. Anatomy Memorial Service will occur. Brown Bag series is continuing. Rockford/Peoria site visits were a huge success.
E. Medical Scholars Program Advisory Council – Chris Erb/Lisa Skittone- Scholar-to-scholar handbook will include MDJ guide. Section will include funding opportunities and a section on how to choose an advisor. They are trying to build bridges between alumni and current students. Career Path Seminar Program continues to be a success. Annual Research Symposium on Friday, April 19, 2002, which will include MSP research along with Residency Research program research.

XII. Old Business
A. Proposed College Committee for Foreign Exchange

B. Tuition- Increase proposed in January. Medical student prospective looked at a few different open forums. Members of the Board of Trustees were there. Final decision was not made officially, but it will happen. 10% increase expected.

XIII. New Business
A. Honor’s Day (April 12, 2002)- see above
B. Reorganization of the Urban Health Program (UHP)- Dean Lillye Hart is the new director. Problems with UHP include the pre-matriculation program in Urbana, according to some of their students. Many students haves issues with the fact that UHP appears as if it is a tutoring office only. Many students want to know if the goals of teaching medical students how to work in an urban environment are still part of their goals. To be looked at more closely in future meetings.

XIII. Closing