Given his 25 years of teaching and service at Des Moines University, his role in helping develop its podiatric medicine and physician assistant programs, and the thousands of students he taught during his career, the late anatomy Professor Frank Kneussl, Ph.D., has had a huge impact on the University, on health care and on the medical professions. Yet Dr. Kneussl, who died on Jan. 17, 2011, will make another positive difference for even more generations to come: He worked with the DMU development staff to leave 25 percent of his estate to the University in his will, a gift that will benefit DMU students into perpetuity.

“While all gifts to DMU are important and appreciated, planned gifts like Dr. Kneussl’s enable donors to have an especially powerful impact,” says Sue Huppert, vice president for institutional advancement. “Planned gifts also detail wishes of the donors and, if they make us aware of their gifts, allow us to thank them.”

Dr. Kneussl could be “kind of thorny and gruff,” says Daniel Deavers, Ph.D., professor emeritus of physiology and pharmacology. The two men joined the DMU faculty on the same day, July 1, 1980, and became good friends. “But he really cared about teaching. He wanted students to gain the knowledge and skills they needed.”

DMU’s historical book collection, housed in the University Library’s Kendall Reed Rare Book Room, includes two well-known examples of early American materia medica. American Medical Botany by Jacob Bigelow and Vegetable Materia Medica of the United States by William P.C. Barton were standard texts in the early 19th century. Each set contains beautiful hand-colored and aqua-tinted drawings of dozens of American plants with detailed descriptions – some featured here – of their appearance, scientific qualities and medicinal usefulness.

In these 195-year-old texts, the two authors – both medical doctors – wrote about their personal experiences with many of the plants, often using themselves as test subjects as they chewed, heated or otherwise tested each specimen. The volumes also debate the opinions of their contemporaries, as some doctors thrust hefty medicinal claims on particular plants. For the most part, Drs. Barton and Bigelow present the information but allow the reader to decide how to incorporate each specimen into their pharmaceutical arsenal.

Common Erythronium Erythronium Americanum	“This vegetable possesses the power of acting on the stomach as an emetic [vomit-inducer].” - American Medical Botany by Jacob Bigelow, 1817
Sweetscented Water Lily Nymphaea Ororata	“The roots of the water lily are kept by most of our apothecaries, and are much used by the common people in the composition of poultices [moist masses applied on the body].” - American Medical Botany
American Rose Bay Rhododendron Maximum	“Medicinally considered, I think it must be ranked among the astringents, a place which both its sensible and chemical properties entitle it to hold.” - American Medical Botany
Starry Anise Illicium Floridanum	“In some parts of the East Indies the natives and Dutch mix it with their tea and sherbet. It is also burnt as incense before their idols by some of the oriental nations, and carefully kept as an antidote to various poisons.” - American Medical Botany
Common Juniper Juniperus Communis	“The berries of the Juniper have long been employed for the purposes of a diuretic, particularly in dropsy [edema].” - American Medical Botany
Blue Gentian Gentiana Catesbaei	“It is said to increase the appetite, prevent the acidification of the food, and to enable the stomach to bear and digest articles of diet, which before produced oppression and dejection of spirits.” - American Medical Botany
Blood Root Sanguinaria Canadensis	“Dr. Ives thinks highly of its use in influenza, in phthisis, and particularly in hooping cough. He also states, that given in large doses, sufficient to produce full vomiting, it often removes the Croup, if administered in the first stages.” - American Medical Botany
American Centaury Sabbatia Angularis	“On the whole, Centaury may be confidently recommended, for its pure bitter, tonic and stomachic virtues. It ought to have a place in all the apothecaries’ shops of our country.” - Vegetable Materia Medica of the United States by William P.C. Barton, 1817

Lindsey Smith, M.A., is an avid DMU archive buff and historian. You can enjoy the DMU Library exhibits Monday-Friday, 7:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., and explore the Kendall Reed Rare Book Room Monday-Friday, 12:30-4:30 p.m.

This humble creature ’s remarkable ability to process organic matter into compost fertilized a seemingly far-out idea that’s grown into a network of men and women who want to help those in need to help themselves.

“It’s relationships that are at the center of this,” says Elizabeth Schmick, a third-year DMU osteopathic medical student.

The Community Interfaith Worm Project (CIWP) sprouted from her husband Greg’s horticulture background and the couple’s residence at one of Des Moines’ three Catholic Worker Houses during Elizabeth’s first two years at DMU. Catholic Worker Houses are independent centers, not affiliated with the Catholic Church, in communities around the world to provide friendship, meals and other assistance to all.

“For many people who come here, this may be the only community they have,” Elizabeth says. “They can hang out, get their mail here, use the phone, take showers, have a meal. We work to make it easier for people to make good decisions.”

The thousands of meals served annually at the house where the Schmicks lived generate a lot of “green” waste, ripe for red wigglers to work their magic. After the worms digest organic matter, they leave behind excretions called castings, which stimulate super plant growth.

The couple had grown worms for composting in their native Portland, OR, so it was natural for them to do so in Des Moines. They added a dimension, though, designed to benefit Catholic Worker House guests – to employ those without jobs to fill teabag-sized organza sacks with the stuff to sell to gardeners and other plant-lovers.

That launched three years of experimenting with the product and packaging, learning pertinent agricultural regulations and networking with like-minded organizations to find a market.

“When we first started, we had all these nice, rustic bags. But this stuff is so alive, it ate them,” Greg recalls. Now the packaging materials better contain the castings and allow them to “breathe” to preserve their effectiveness. To ensure adequate quantities of castings, they are no longer produced in the Catholic Worker House basement, but rather supplied by a local farmer.

What didn’t change during CIWP’s evolution was the philosophy that started it.

“When we first looked at the project, we thought, ‘Yes! This creates jobs, and it’s recycling.’ But that isn’t the point. We didn’t want to get into a business,” Greg says. “This is about re-establishing relationships – with the earth, among all of us and in our relationship with our creator.”

Elizabeth points to the “transformation” she hopes people will experience when they purchase the castings. “When you do, you provide work and self-value for people who otherwise might not find unemployment. You also do something good for your plants and the environment,” she says. “And when you are watering your plants with it, we hope you’ll say a prayer for the person who assembled the bags.”

The power of worm poop

Annette Canada gets to work in a small classroom in the basement of St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Des Moines. She has a tub of worm castings, a pile of “teabags” and a stack of small paper sacks, each of which will hold three teabags. She places a CIWP sticker on the front and attaches instructions for use on the back. The finishing touch: a stamp on the paper sack that includes the phrase, “Made by Annette.” She is paid for the finished product, on which she is clearly sold.

“My oldest grandson gave me a plant, but the flower didn’t grow,” says Canada, CIWP’s first castings bagger. “I put some of the castings on it, and the flower got so big, the plant wouldn’t fit on my table.”

For Canada and others involved in the project, the power of worm poop far exceeds its perqs for plants. She once received a letter from a woman in Arizona, who’d somehow acquired CIWP castings, expressing gratitude to Canada for producing the product.

“She was telling me what the dirt does to her plants, and she sent along a photo of her flowers,” Canada recalls. “I just cried when I saw those flowers.”

St. Paul’s came to support CIWP when congregation member Helen Dagley met Greg Schmick at a “Hope for the Hungry” conference in Des Moines. She connected the Schmicks with St. Paul’s deacon, John Doherty.

“This is the kind of ministry we want to be involved in, with what the project does for Annette, the environment and in community outreach,” Doherty says.

In addition to CIWP’s goals to create jobs, decrease environmental waste and encourage spirituality, it also seeks “to help other organizations raise money for projects that promote a more just and loving society,” states its website, http://worm project.wordpress.com. Organizations can purchase pre-assembled castings bags for $3 per package and then sell them for $5.

Organizations also can order kits of unassembled materials for $1.50 per finished bag if they agree to hire and support an assembler who struggles to find work – the website suggests people “who are homeless, undereducated, formerly imprisoned, suffering with mental illness, struggling to overcome addictions or haunted by the horrors of violence, abuse and war” – and then pay that person at least $1 per completed package. That lets the organization raise more money while interacting with someone its members might not otherwise meet.

“It’s all about people trying to live their faith a little bit more and to get to know people in their community on a personal level,” Elizabeth Schmick says. “Everybody loses when marginalization occurs.”

“A catalyst for something bigger”

Cultivating the Community Interfaith Worm Project to help people help themselves are Beth Runcie, D.O.’13; Helen Dagley; Annette Canada; John Doherty; Elizabeth Schmick, D.O.’13; and Greg Schmick.

Beth Runcie worked as a graphic designer for nine years before enrolling in DMU’s osteopathic medical program. That transition became serendipitous when she met Elizabeth Schmick at orientation: After Runcie learned about the worm castings project, she contributed her skills to design its logo and support its communication efforts.

“The project has so many facets. It invites people in from various groups,” she explains. “If you like ‘green,’ it’s good for the environment. It can be a fundraiser for your group. It connects people in a way that brings awareness and makes it hard for you to turn your back on others. Everyone understands it from a different perspective.”

Runcie and the Schmicks are quick to point out that CIWP is not about them. Intent to keep the project “spiritually centered,” they made connections that established the project in Davenport, IA, and likely will spark ones in other states. Beth’s and Elizabeth’s third-year rotations may limit their involvement in the project, at least short-term, but that’s fine with them.

“The idea is to start something that can continue on its own,” Runcie says. “It’s gone from a good idea to a catalyst for something bigger.”

The two DMU students took CIWP to that higher level in March when they were accepted by the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U), an annual conference established by President Bill Clinton to engage the next generation of leaders on college campuses around the world. More than 1,000 students from all 50 states, 82 countries and more than 300 universities participated at this year’s event, held in Washington, DC.

CIWP was announced as Schmick and Runcie’s “commitment” during a session on environment and climate change. For CGI U’s exchange fair, they created a display and recruited Elizabeth’s sister, Heidi, to transport from her home in Virginia a live worm farm and plants grown with the worm castings. When they arrived, however, they discovered a communications snafu left them without a table at the fair. It was another serendipitous turn of events.

“We showed up with all these plants and stuff,” Elizabeth says. “Fortunately, the staff got us a table that turned out to have the best location. It was another sign we’re just vehicles. I had a sore throat from talking to so many people.”

The story of CIWP, true to its mission, is the story of entrepreneurial, altruistic people who took a leap of faith on an idea to benefit others. “Beth and I have so much fun with this project,” says Elizabeth, now back in Portland on rotation. “With the people involved, we can do whatever we want. We’re like a bunch of 11-year-olds building a fort.”

TO LEARN MORE about CIWP or to order it’s product, visit wormproject.wordpress.com or email Helen Dagley at helen@communitywormproject.org

Of all the journeys represented by all the people on DMU’s commencement stage on May 26, that of Jaap Jan Lind is perhaps most epic. Born in Holland in 1922, he had completed one year of his pharmacy education when the Germans took over and closed the schools during World War II. Forced to work in a hospital pharmacy in Berlin, he sometimes sneaked out to visit his three brothers in prison camps. After his father sent him fake papers that let him return to Holland, Lind joined the Dutch Underground, delivering newspapers until the war ended.

Lind went on to earn his medical degree at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and then landed a position with a Kansas City hospital. In the early 1960s, he and his wife, Ruth, moved their family to the Panama Canal Zone, where he was the first orthopedic resident at Gorgas Hospital. Eventually settling in West Lafayette, IN, Lind retired in 1986, volunteered for the International Medical Corps and spent a month providing care in Somalia, a civil warwracked nation in Africa.

Among the 29 family members who hooded graduates was Vaughn Johnson, M.D., right, father of Clark Johnson, D.P.M.’12.

“I really admire my grandfather for being such an honorable man,” says Lind’s granddaughter, Jessica Lind, who graduated from DMU’s physical therapy program. “He is who I strive to be like, as a person and a medical professional.”

She was hooded by her grandfather during the ceremony, one of myriad special moments in DMU’s com mencement festivities. They included the annual campus picnic, a ceremony honoring 16 graduates serving in the military, a Friday evening reception and the three college banquets.

In her charge to the Class of 2012 at commencement, DMU President Angela Walker Franklin, Ph.D., encouraged graduates to fulfill the mission of delivering medical care, advancing knowledge and strengthening the health care system.

“Be possessed of an outrageous ambition to make things better,” she said.

“We need you to be leaders”

David Satcher likely would have died of whooping cough and pneumonia at age two if the one black doctor in his rural Alabama community had not made a house call on his day off. Told that story multiple times as a child, Satcher knew by age six that he would become a doctor.

“I was as certain of that as much as anything in my life, even though no one in my family had finished high school,” he says.

Satcher’s deep commitment to health care for all underscored his keynote address at DMU’s commencement ceremony on May 26. The 16th surgeon general of the United States and former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among his many other leadership roles, he encouraged the graduates to embdy the “three very important dimensions of ethical leadership” – integrity, civility and community.

“Integrity involves having a conversation with yourself, in which you ask yourself questions such as, ‘Who am I?’, ‘What do I stand for?’” he said.

Satcher, M.D., Ph.D., FAAFP, FACP M, FACP , shared advice that his father gave him before he boarded a Greyhound bus for the Morehouse College campus.

“He said, “You’re going to meet a lot of people. Some of these people will have much more than you; some of them will have less. I want you to promise me that you will treat everybody with respect.’”

That was an important lesson in civility. “I don’t think any advice has been more important to me than that advice from Wilmer Satcher, who never finished elementary school but who was wise in so many ways and, because of that, a great father,” Satcher said.

Finally, he encouraged graduates to embrace a spirit of community to achieve health care access for all people.

“We must come together to work toward global health equity, beginning with equity of access to quality health care in the United States,” he said.

DMU awarded Satcher an honorary doctor of science degree. The former president of Meharry Medical College in Nashville and of Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, he established the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse in 2006 as an extension of his work in improving public health policy for all Americans and eliminating health disparities.

Satcher concluded his comments with one of his favorite quotations by Benjamin Elijah Mays, president of Morehouse College from 1940 to 1967.

“It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream,” Satcher stated. “It is not a disgrace to fail to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for.

“Not failure, but low aim is the greatest sin. So whatever you do, do not be guilty of low aim.”

Commencement 2012 photos

Reception and banquet
207 photos

Picnic
57 photos

Military Promotion Ceremony
50 photos

DPT Award Ceremony
13 photos

Commencement 2012 videos

Hiral Patel, center, paved the way for DMU students to serve in Honduras.

Patel, who finished her second year of DMU’s osteopathic medical program in May, figured she would turn her interest in medicinal biology into an eventual Ph.D. Then Berkeley classmate Daisy Leon-Martinez talked her into joining her on a medical service trip to Honduras.

“It changed the context of my life,” Patel says.

UC-Berkeley’s partner for the trip was the-then relatively new Global Brigades, which has since become the world’s largest student-led global health and sustainable development organization. While it now has sites in three countries and nine programs in areas including the environment, microfinance and law, at the time it was focused on providing medical care to severely underserved people in Honduras.

“We brought some physicians and medications and saw 300 to 800 patients a day,” Patel recalls. “But I felt I gained more than the community did. Update I was a little dissatisfied with the scope of what we could do there. There is a real need for the services we provided, but we wanted to think of something that would complement them.”

In 2008, Patel, Leon- Martinez and fellow “brigader” John Lee launched an ambitious targeted effort to help bridge the gaps between Global Brigades service trips. Their brainstorm: train local residents in one Honduran village to provide basic medical care and public health education.

“We presented our ideas at Berkeley, got the local Kiwanis to support us and put in our own money,” Patel says. “Global Brigades empowers you if you have ideas. We got their okay to take the education module to Honduras.”

Once they arrived, they walked door-to-door to learn who the local leaders were. They found four individuals who were interested in the module.

D.O. students Justin Chaltry and Hiral Patel work in a Honduran clinic.

“It was very grassroots. We sat at a table in a church, using salt and balloons – ‘This is what a lung looks like when it’s constricted,’” Patel says. “We engaged them in a partnership and constantly adjusted what we were doing.”

Patel, Leon-Martinez and Lee spent the next two years trekking to and from Honduras, coming home to work out of Lee’s one-bedroom studio, network and raise money for the program. In 2009, Global Brigades gave them $2,000 for a pilot project. They also presented it as a “commitment” at that year’s Clinton Global Initiative University, an annual conference established by President Bill Clinton to engage the next generation of leaders on college campuses around the world.

Their success didn’t occur without a few bumps. The CIA estimates that 65 percent of Hondurans live below the poverty line; average family income is less than $1 a day. Patel and her colleagues had to overcome cultural and language barriers, learn how to navigate the network of non-governmental organizations and win the trust of local villagers.

“I’ve been stuck in a military coup. Once Daisy and I had to pretend to be pregnant to get out after curfew,” Patel recalls. “Once we saw a bus that had rolled downhill and we were the only ones there to help, so we made slings out of our t-shirts…Our naiveté really worked for us.”

The community health worker program the three Berkeley grads started now op-  erates in 11 Honduran communities, with expansion planned in four more. Global Brigades employs a Honduran physician, coordinator and an American intern to work in country. Patel and her colleagues developed an online database to monitor the communities and address specific health needs. Amid that progress, what strikes her the most is the spirit of the Honduran people.

“It’s the third-poorest country in the western world, but the people’s positivity really appealed to me,” she says. “Every time we leave, they have a huge mass to make sure we get home safely. We play off that energy. That has helped overcome the frustrations.”

Patel will have a different experience this summer as one of two DMU students, along with Jennifer Wu, D.O.’14, to intern with the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. Working with a very large health organization will add a new dimension to her work in sustainable development.

“As we become more of a global society, boundaries are melting,” she says. “It’s important that we have physicians who are engaging in such personal relationships, to be culturally sensitive, so we can be global physicians.”

Interprofessional team helps in Honduras

Hiral Patel had multiple options when she applied to medical school, but she chose DMU because of its vibrant global health program. She’s helped make it even better.

As an undergraduate at the University of California-Berkeley, she helped establish a discussion-based course on various aspects of global health; last year, she and classmates Abigail Koker and Alexis Beinlich worked with Yogesh Shah, M.D., associate dean of global health, and Pam Duffy, Ph.D., P.T., assistant professor in the public health program, to establish a similar Global Health Learning Collaborative at DMU.

Patel also connected DMU with the nonprofit organization Global Brigades, making possible the University’s first medical service trips to Honduras in 2011 and this past March.

“Hiral is such a strong leader and a good teacher,” Shah says. “The success of our Honduras trips has been because of her.”

DMU’s latest service trip to the Central American country was its largest, with 33 students from seven of the University’s nine programs; four Drake University pharmacy students; four DMU and Drake faculty and adjunct faculty members; two physicians, a social worker and a medical resident from Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines; and a Spanish instructor. The diverse group inspired the opportunity for more than medical service.

Alumnus Kevin Ware seizes a teachable moment with Chaltry, Patel and Larissa Hoover, PA’13.

“This trip was the best interprofessional education opportunity we’ve had at the University,” says Kendall Reed, D.O., FACO S, FACS, dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine. He accompanied the group, as did DMU alumni Kevin Ware, D.O.’73, ABFM, and Larry Braver, D.O.’77.

Prior to the group’s departure, Jennifer Wu, D.O.’14, took the lead in collecting donations of medications and supplies; the group hauled 38 extra-large duffel bags full of the stuff to Honduras. In country, Patel and Sarah Karalus, D.O.’14, scheduled students to work with different health care providers in a variety of roles. The brigaders typically rose at 5:30 a.m. to travel to clinics, most conducted in schools; they concluded each day discussing interprofessional issues, reviewing cases and packing up supplies for the next day. The group also visited an orphanage, provided patient education and supported dental care stations.

“I’ve done lots of medical brigading, and I can say this was one of the best groups we’ve had,” Patel says of the DMU students. “We had the longest days, but no one complained. Plus they paid money to go. That says something about the DMU community.”

The DMU brigade treated an estimated 1,000 patients. Reed praises Global Brigades for providing impeccably organized transportation, housing and security for the group. That partnership will make possible an annual DMU service trip to Honduras, an opportunity he hopes more alumni will consider joining.

Reed also applauds the DMU students who participated.

“Students from all our colleges were nothing short of outstanding,” he says. “It was a dramatic cultural opportunity for them, and they jumped right in.”

On June 30, Steve Dengle concluded 33 years of service to DMU. He joined the University in 1979 as personnel director and then served as executive assistant to the president, executive director of administrative services, vice president for administration and finance, chief financial officer, executive vice president and chief operating officer. He also twice served as interim president of the University, covering a span of two and a half years.

What change haven’t I seen at DMU? During my time here, the institution has had three different names, I’ve had eight different bosses and held eight different positions. The
school has added two colleges and seven programs. Enrollment has
more than doubled. And the way doctors of osteopathic medicine are
perceived has changed significantly not only
at DMU but also in health care nationally.

It sounds cliché, but my favorite memories center around people I’ve
worked with, people who are smart and dedicated and fun. Projects like
building a building or changing a policy can be drudgery or can be
enjoyable depending on the people you work with.

What’s kept me here: inertia? Seriously, it’s been the
variety of  duties I’ve had. Having a broad variety of jobs plus
an expanding sphere of responsibility means you don’t get
stagnant. And because the people I’ve worked with include
a lot of long-tenured employees, I’ve gotten to enjoy
many friendships.

What’s next: “Welcome to Walmart!” I’m kidding. My
family has land in southern Iowa where we spend a lot of
time, but I’ve never had the freedom to do the things I
want to do there. I’ll now be able to work on the
numerous projects that I have been putting off for
the past 20 years, like restoring an oak savannah,
planting a small vineyard and maybe even setting up a
small sawmill.

I spent the last few weekends pulling about 9,000 nails
from the boards in an old barn we tore down. Projects like that
can be tedious, but rewarding once they are completed. I can
now recycle that wood in another building project.

My mom once said my dad’s hobby was having hobbies. The same sentiment applies to me. I like to play golf, ride my bike, garden, do woodworking projects, restore antique furniture and butcher an occasional chord or two on my guitar. I think I know myself well enough to know how to keep busy.

The song lyrics that best describe my tenure at DMU? “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

Argentinian inventor Jorge Ernesto Odon demonstrated his infantdelivery device on DMU simulation center mannequin Noelle in October 2008. Learn more about it at www.odondevice.org.

Every year, approximately 358,000 women around the world die in childbirth. Poised to change that tragic statistic is a low-tech, low-cost instrument, the “Odon Device,” that has journeyed from its invention in Argentina and its successful testing at DMU in 2008 to high praise this May by Margaret Chan, M.D., director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO ).

“She explicitly mentioned the Odon Device as an example of innovation WHO should invest in,” says Mario Merialdi, M.D., Ph.D., coordinator of maternal and perinatal health in WHO ’s Department of Reproductive Health and Research in Geneva, Switzerland.

Invented by Argentinian Jorge Ernesto Odon, the Odon Device is a folded sleeve with a plastic bag designed to fit over a baby’s head in the birth canal, creating an air clamp to facilitate delivery timed with the mother’s contractions. Inexpensive and disposable, the device doesn’t require medical expertise to use, which makes it ideal for developing countries with limited numbers of health care professionals.

The device came to be tested at DMU after Merialdi visited campus to speak at the University’s second annual global health conference. Soon after that, he traveled to Argentina to meet with Odon and a group of physicians; that inspired his request to test the device in DMU’s simulation laboratory. University leaders promptly agreed.

Since that 2008 test, the device has been improved and presented at numerous international conferences, including the Birth World Conference in Chicago last September and the 10th World Congress of Maternal and Neonatal Health in Rome in December. The device won first prize at INNOVAR 2011, an annual competition for technological innovation. It also was one of 19 ideas selected in July 2011 to receive funding at the global call for innovations, “Saving Lives at Birth: a Grand Challenge for Development,” issued by USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the government of Norway, Grand Challenges Canada and the World Bank.

With that $250,000 seed grant, the Odon Device moves into further testing, improvement and use. Merialdi says it soon will be available at WHO centers in Hong Kong, East London, Geneva and Monte Carlo. This spring, he, Odon and their colleagues presented the device to the staff of USAID in Washington and at a meeting on medical devices at WHO in Geneva.

“Ninety-nine percent of maternal deaths occur among the poorest populations in the world. Yet many of these deaths could be prevented with basic medical methods,” says Yogesh Shah, M.D., DMU’s associate dean of global health. “The Odon Device could make this critical difference. Des Moines University is proud it was tested here, and we’ll continue to applaud its development and distribution.”

DMU faculty member Mary Mincer Hansen accepts a prestigious award from Wendy Ringgenberg, Ph.D., immediate past president of the Iowa Public Health Association.

Mary Mincer Hansen has benefited many in her careers: individual patients, when she worked as a nurse; residents of underserved communities, via her global health work; millions of Iowans, as director of the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH); and millions of Americans with her advocacy for public health. She will benefit many more to come as she teaches and mentors DMU students, fellow faculty and colleagues in public health, health care policy and global health.

“I’ve been fortunate in that every position I’ve held has been exciting and rewarding,” she says. “Serving on the Institute of Medicine committee is something I’m very proud of. And being on DMU’s public health faculty, hearing our students talk about the difference we’ve made in their lives, and seeing them go on to make a difference in other people’s lives is incredibly rewarding.”

For her distinguished and diverse leadership in public health, in April Hansen received the 2012 Henry Albert Memorial Award from the Iowa Public Health Association (IPHA). The award is named in honor of the IDPH commissioner from 1926 to 1930.

In 2010, Hansen was one of 15 individuals appointed to the National Health Workforce Commission by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), which serves as a resource to Congress and the GAO. From 2009 to the present, she has been a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Public Health Strategies to Improve Health.

Hansen served as IDPH director from 2003 to 2007; she remains an active advisor to public health professionals. She was president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) in 2006 and currently is president of the ASTHO Alumnae Society.

Recent recommendations from an Institute of Medicine (IOM) report may have raised a lot of eyebrows, but to Mary Mincer Hansen, Ph.D., R.N., they’re no-brainers.

Chair and program director of DMU’s master of public health program and a member of the global health faculty, Hansen has served the past two years on the IOM Committee on Public Health Strategies to Improve Health, which was commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to examine three major topics that influence public health – measurement, laws and funding. In its latest report on the third topic, the 18-member committee recommended, among other actions, that federal spending on public health should be at least doubled from its current level of about $11.6 billion per year to approximately $24 billion.

The committee also proposed implementing a “transaction tax” on medical care services to generate these additional funds.

“Public health touches everyone’s life everyday, from ensuring clean water and safe food to adequate immunizations against infectious disease,” Hansen says. “Public health is also about the economic health of our country. It works to create an environment to help prevent chronic diseases that reduce individual productivity and increase the cost of health care for all of us.”

The IOM committee report states the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services should set goals for U.S. life expectancy and per-person health spending as a first step in achieving better health outcomes. Currently, the U.S. scores lower on many outcomes compared to other wealthy countries, despite spending far more than other nations on health care. Life expectancy in the U.S. ranks 49th among all nations. Infant mortality rates in America are higher than in many less affluent countries.

Hansen points to past campaigns that show the power of public health education, such as promotion of seat belt use and anti-tobacco programs. A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention credits public health efforts for adding 25 years to Americans’ life expectancy during the 20th century. The battle for better public health is far from won, however.

“Some are saying now that because of obesity rates among children, we may experience a decrease in lifespan,” Hansen says. “With the current abysmal investment in public health, we have a health crisis in this country.”

“Some are saying now that because of obesity rates among children, we may experience a decrease in lifespan,” Hansen says. “With the current abysmal investment in public health, we have a health crisis in this country.”

Countering the crisis, she adds, will require new and greater funding to tackle the rising rates of diabetes, heart disease and other chronic diseases as well as to support efforts that enhance health, such as safe public parks, plentiful fruits and vegetables and access to preventive care.

“The future of our children and grandchildren is based on good public health,” she says.

While legislators reacted with “predictable concern” to the report’s recommendations, Hansen says she and her fellow committee members will continue to advocate for their implementation among policymakers, funders and consumers. “We continue to look for ways to share our information and catalyze action,” she adds.

CPMS students aspire…

…while Foot & Ankle Surgery Symposium faculty, many of whom are DMU alumni, and other podiatric physicians inspire their future colleagues to achieve excellence.

DMU’s fourth annual Foot & Ankle Surgery Symposium hit peak stride this year in attendance, stature of its speakers and the myriad engaging discussions it sparked. Held April 27-28 on campus, the symposium drew 139 students and 64 podiatric professionals whose participation earned them up to 12 continuing medical education hours.

Symposium program co-chairs were R. Tim Yoho, D.P.M., FACFAS, dean of the College of Podiatric Medicine and Surgery, and Michael Lee, D.P.M.’96, FACFAS, a podiatrist with Capital Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine in Des Moines. Speakers included several DMU alumni and faculty as well as Michelle Butterworth, D.P.M., FACFAS, president of the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons and a podiatric physician with Pee Dee Foot Center in Kingstree, SC.

DMU’s fifth annual Foot & Ankle Surgery Symposium will occur April 19-20, 2013.