News in Brief

Medical faculty begin new training program
UW Medical School faculty will begin a three-year training to improve how they teach students to better gather and analyze information, and then communicate it with patients in a sensitive manner.

Twenty faculty members of the Medical School’s departments of Family Medicine, Internal Medicine and Pediatrics will explore how to teach advanced communication skills and how to best integrate these skills into the curriculum. The Medical School also will expand programs for leadership training and community service for medical students.

The faculty plan to alter the curriculum so it addresses communication skills such as responding to emotional cues, offering support and partnership, negotiating management plans, identifying barriers to implementing treatment plans, assessing compliance non-judgmentally and motivating to promote behavior change.

Through the new curriculum, faculty and students will identify clinical questions, evaluate study designs, locate clinical evidence using Web databases, explore and summarize patient values and priorities, summarize and interpret the evidence, and negotiate clinical decisions using the best evidence and considering the patient’s perspectives on illness and treatment options.

“Physicians must develop strengths to become lifelong learners, to address questions for which answers are not readily available,” says Cynthia Haq, principal investigator. “Physicians must assess the quality of medical information and keep pace with exponential increases in medical information.”

“Finding and evaluating clinical information is only part of the task,” she adds. “Communicating this information to patients to arrive at a common understanding is equally important.”

The training is funded by a $780,000 three-year grant from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Dean’s board raises money for Policano naming gift
The Dean’s Advisory Board of the School of Business has raised nearly $800,000 to name a floor of the school’s new executive education center for Andrew J. Policano.

Policano stepped down Aug. 31 after 10 years as dean of the School of Business.

In his 10 years at the helm, Policano’s tenure was marked by launching a number of entrepreneurial ventures, including the Fluno Center for Executive Education, a $25.3 million state-of-the-art facility that opened in 2000.

“We felt it was fitting to raise the funds to perpetuate Andy’s name in the Fluno Center because it is a project close to his heart,” says Michael Lehman, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Sun Microsystems, Palo Alto, Calif., and chair of the Dean’s Advisory Board. “The gift is our way of saying thanks for his 10 years of dedication and leadership.”

The board originally planned to raise funds to name a classroom in Fluno for Policano, but the response was so overwhelming, it was decided the entire second floor should be named for him. Eighty-five past and present board members participated in the gift. The funds will be used to develop and support the school’s executive education programs.

International Institute to host four visiting scholars
Four distinguished international scholars, including a former ambassador, will be on campus this fall as guests of the International Institute and several of its programs.

The scholars will teach courses, give public lectures, participate in institute research circles, and meet with faculty, staff and students throughout the semester.

The scholars are: Alfred Defago, International Institute Visiting Professor, who will be in residence for the academic year; Bernhard Ebbinghaus, International Institute Visiting Professor; Paloma Aguilar, Edward Larocque Tinker Visiting Professor; and Adolfo Figueroa, Edward Larocque Tinker Visiting Professor.

Defago, who will teach a course on U.S.-European relations in the International Studies Program this fall, was ambassador of Switzerland to the United States, 1997-2001.

Ebbinghaus is a leading authority on trade unions, and the relationship between welfare states and labor relations in western Europe. He will teach an advanced course in comparative industrial relations in developed countries.

Aguilar has published on issues of democratic transitions, historical memory, and legacies of war and authoritarian regimes. She will teach the course “The Challenge of Democratization: Memory and Politics in Post-Authoritarian Latin America and Europe.”

Figueroa is one of Latin America’s most distinguished economists. His most recent work, “The Inequality of Nations,” examines why, after decades of reform and revolution, economic inequality still persists across Latin America. Figueroa will teach the interdepartmental seminar “Income Inequality and Social Exclusion in Latin America.” Information: 262-5590, rlhess@facstaff.wisc.edu

Bush-watcher to visit
The editor and co-owner of Texas Weekly, the premier newsletter on government and politics in the Lone Star State, will serve as the university’s first public affairs writer-in-residence Sept. 24-28.

Ross Ramsey took the reins of Texas Weekly in 1998 after three years in Texas state government and 17 years in journalism. He will spend his week’s residency talking to classes in public affairs, political science and journalism, and consulting with individual students and faculty.

Ramsey is a longtime observer of President George Bush and the Bush family in Texas. His newsletter, Texas Weekly, has become a trusted source for Texas officeholders, lobbyists, financiers, reporters and other political junkies.

Before coming to Texas Weekly, he served as associate deputy comptroller for policy with the Texas comptroller of public accounts. He previously was a reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the Dallas Times-Herald, and, before that, a radio reporter in Denton and Dallas.

Ramsey was educated at the University of Texas at El Paso and the University of North Texas.

This is the inaugural semester of the public affairs writer-in-residence program, which has sister residencies each semester in science and business reporting. It is sponsored by the La Follette School of Public Affairs, the Department of Political Science and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication; coordinated by University Communications; and supported by the University of Wisconsin Foundation.

Foreign exchange rates are focus of conference
A foreign exchange rate conference will be held Sept. 28-29, sponsored by the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy, a program of the International Institute.

The conference comes at an important moment in world financial markets. The movements in exchange rates in the 1990s have had profound effects on economies throughout the world.

“It is critical that we gain a better understanding of exchange-rate behavior as globalization proceeds,” says Donald Nichols, WAGE senior fellow and professor of economics.

The invitation-only conference will be at the Fluno Center for Executive Education. Information: 262-3929, cwilliam@facstaff.wisc.edu.

WISCAPE presentation set
New faculty member Adam Nelson, assistant professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies, will present “Alexander Meiklejohn on “Accountability'” Wednesday, Sept. 19, noon-1 p.m., 405 Education, for the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education.

Nelson joined the faculty this fall as a WISCAPE faculty affiliate. He is the author of “Education and Democracy: The Meaning of Alexander Meiklejohn, 1872-1964,” published in spring 2001 by UW Press. WISCAPE is a newly formed center examining postsecondary education through research, professional education and public forums. Information: 265-5812, http://www.wiscape.wisc.edu.

German consul general to speak on U.S.-European tensions
Michael Engelhard, consul general of the Federal Republic of Germany, will discuss U.S.-European relations in a talk entitled “At Crossed Signals? Transatlantic Transitions, Global Agendas and Current Challenges for European-American Relations,” Tuesday, Sept. 25, at 3:30 p.m., 206 Ingraham. Engelhard’s talk, sponsored by the European Studies Alliance at the International Institute, comes at a time of reassessment of the U.S.-European relationship. Information: 262-2042, dlveatch@facstaff.wisc.edu.

Almendares visits
Physician and activist Juan Almendares will present a free public lecture, “Healing, Human Rights and Complementary Medicine: Combining Ancient Folk Wisdom with Modern Science and Social Justice in Latin America and Beyond, ” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2650 Mosse Humanities. Almendares received the 2001 Barbara Chester Award for his landmark work with torture victims.

Van Potter dies at 90
Cancer researcher Van R. Potter, the Hilldale Professor Emeritus of Oncology, died Sept. 6. He was 90.

Potter pioneered the use of a combination of drugs to treat cancer. He did graduate work under Conrad Elvehjem and was adviser to Nobel Prize-winning cell biologist Günter Blobel while he studied oncology here.

Potter was instrumental in helping build the McArdle Cancer Research Laboratory at UW–Madison. His research in biochemistry and oncology included liver regeneration studies and pioneering work in the treatment of liver cancer, and innovations in chemotherapy that are now common practice in cancer treatment.

Potter’s family is in the process of scheduling a memorial service to be held in Madison in mid-October.

Expert addresses climate for small-business innovation
Ann Eskesen, president of the Innovation Development Institute, Swampscott, Mass.will address a brown-bag lunch session sponsored by the University Research Park and Wisconsin Small Business Innovation on Wednesday, Sept. 26, from 12:30-2:30 p.m.

The presentation is being held in the east wing, lower level conference room of the MGE Innovation Center, 505 S. Rosa Rd., University Research Park.

Eskesen is a leading expert on effective usage of the federal Small Business Innovation Research program. She has served on the boards of such technology development organizations as the NSF Industrial Board, the National Technology Transfer Center, the MMR Innovative Technology Project and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative. She has worked with organizations to encourage the growth of small technology-based companies. She will discuss the changing climate in the research and development of new products; and how large corporations are outsourcing research and development opportunities to small- and medium-sized companies.

Please register with Tom Mulhern, University Research Park, by September 19, 2001 either by phone at 263.3008 or e-mail, tmmulhern@facstaff.wisc.edu.