AWARDS - University Health Services, Melvin Webber, Adam Arkin, Alexis Bell, Jonathan Ellman

27 SEPTEMBER 00

University Health Services honored for CME program

University Health Services' Continuing Medical Education Program has been awarded the California Medical Association's Samuel R. Sherman, MD Award, considered the most prestigious recognition for continuing medical education in the state.

The UHS program, coordinated by Medical Director Pete Dietrich, is among 600 continuing education programs accredited and evaluated by the CMA, including those of the major university hospitals throughout the state. Out of several programs considered as finalists for this year's award, Berkeley's was noted as the only CME program that had demonstrated actual improvements in clinical practice.

Dietrich explains that all physicians are required to receive sufficient hours of continuing education credit annually in order to maintain licensure and board certification. There are many outlets offering education, but conducting an in-house program ensures practical and relevant topics. "We're lucky," says Dietrich. "Our proximity to UCSF, the Berkeley School of Public Health and a dynamic regional medical community affords plenty of great educators."

All clinicians at UHS, including nurses, who receive credit through the Board of Registered Nurses, participate in the weekly program, which includes lectures, case presentations, journal clubs, panel discussions, skill-building and self-directed learning.

Topics are identified through peer review findings or ideas for improving the quality of clinical care. At the awards ceremony, the UHS program was cited for bringing about demonstrated improvements in the care of asthma, depression, smoking cessation, and repetitive stress injury, among others.

Melvin Webber

Melvin Webber, professor emeritus in the College of Environmental Design, is the recipient of the Distinguished Planning Educator Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning.

The award is the highest prize in U.S. planning education and honors career achievement. Awarded to one planner a year nationally, it will be presented at the association's Atlanta conference in November.

Webber's contributions to the national planning field as a builder of Berkeley's overall educational and research program in city and regional planning, as the principal leader in creating and overseeing for decades its doctoral program, and as the long-time leader of the Institute of Urban and Regional Development are also recognized by the award.

Adam Arkin

Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Bioengineering Adam Arkin was selected by Time magazine as one of six young scientists whose innovations will help shape the 21st century. Arkin is trying to design a computer model of how the cell works, with the ultimate goal of designing his own cells.

Alexis Bell

Chemical Engineering Professor Alexis Bell gave the Brdicka Lecture at the Heyrovsky Institute in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on June 29. He has also been invited to deliver the L. K. Doraiswamy Lecture at both Iowa State University and the National Chemical Laboratory in Pune, India, during the coming academic year.

Jonathan Ellman

Professor of Chemistry Jonathan Ellman received the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award of the American Chemical Society at its national meeting in August.

The award recognizes Ellman's pioneering work in the field of combinatorial chemistry. In 1992 he published the first report on the synthesis of libraries of small molecules, the raw materials of which drugs are made. His work created an explosion of interest in the technique. Since that time combinatorial chemistry has become one of the most important methods used by the pharmaceutical industry to discover new drugs.