Scan Times
Weblog of the Department of Radiology
June 2007
Radiology Rays Take a Swing at Their Second Softball Season
After completing a fun-filled season last spring albeit without many wins, the Radiology Rays are playing better than ever in the 2007 Stanford University Medical Center (SUMC) Softball League, which is comprised of 24 teams from the SUMC.
Radiology Rays 2006 Team (back row from left to right): Ted Graves, PhD; Chris Caires, PhD; Tom Brosnan, PhD; Fred, PhD, and Ethan Chin; Min Kyung So, PhD; Gayatri Gowrishankar, PhD; Juergen Willmann, MD; (front row from left to right): Hequan Yao, PhD; Ricky Carrillo; Yan Zhang, PhD; and Amelie Lutz, MD.
On June 13, 2007, we had our first victory of the season against Cha-Ching. Dr. Ted Graves described the game as follows: "Last week's game against Cha-Ching was a fantastic all-around performance. It's amazing to see how far this team has come in just over a year. Players who began with never having thrown a softball or swung a bat are now producing on both offense and defense.
We made it through the first inning giving up only a solo homer, and we responded in the bottom of the inning with Fred belting a two run homer to put us up 2-1. Our defense held strong for the next three innings, giving up only one run in each and producing a number of spectacular defensive plays. Our defensive renaissance continued as we turned not one but two double plays in the game. . . .
However, we surrendered a succession of hits in the top of the fourth and fifth innings to let Cha-Ching sneak back into the game and grab a 9-8 lead. . . . Many of us thought we'd just lost, but the umpire decided that with ten minutes to go we'd squeeze in another inning. We took advantage of this extra chance, shutting down Cha-Ching in the top of the sixth inning by retiring the first three batters. . . . We scored a 10-9 victory on the last play of the game.
It was an incredible effort by all the Rays and a great demonstration of how our little underdog team has developed. I just found out that the other MIPS team, the Radicals, lost to Cha-Ching, so we have a great shot of winning the MIPS grudge match in a few weeks. I hope to see everybody out there putting in another winning performance!"
The Rays' nine-week season began on June 5, 2007 and will wrap up the week of July 31, 2007. After the season, there are also double-elimination playoffs, an All-Star Week (five games: Women's All-Stars, Men's All-Stars, Over 40 Men & Near-40 Women, Best-of-the-Best, and Coed All-Stars) and a fun End-of-the-Season BBQ.
The following schedule lists our team games. Fields A and B are both located on the Sand Hill Athletic Fields bordered by Sand Hill Road, Pasteur Drive, and Oak Road.
Week 1: 6/6/2007 (Wed.); Opponents: Roadies; Time: 5:30; Field: B
Week 2: 6/13/2007 (Wed.); Opponents: Cha-Ching; Time: 5:30; Field: B
Week 3: 6/21/2007 (Thurs.); Opponents: Heart Breakers; Time: 5:30; Field: A
Week 5: 7/5/2007 (Thurs.); Opponents: Radicals; Time: 5:30; Field: A
Week 6: 7/10/2007 (Tues.); Opponents: Traumatizers; Time: 5:30; Field: B
Week 7: 7/18/2007 (Wed.); Opponents: Fill N Kill; Time: 5:30; Field: A
Week 8: 7/26/2007 (Thurs.); Opponents: MSOB's ; Time: 5:30; Field: A
Week 9: 8/02/2007 (Thurs.); Opponents: Rainmakers; Time: 5:30; Field: A
The Radiology Rays welcome anyone who is interested in joining our team. For more information, please contact me at chinf@stanford.edu or visit the SUMC website (http://www.sumcsoftball.com/2007/ ) for additional information (i.e., standings, list of teams, etc.). The following is our most current team roster:
Brosnan, Tom "TJB" #14
Caires, Chris "CAIRES" #26
Chin, Fred "CHIN" #15
De, Abhijit "ABHI" #10
Glazer, Gary "GLAZER" #8
Gowrishankar, Gayatri "GAYATRI" #4
Granlund, Kristin "TIPS" #82
Graves, Ted "GRAVES" #2
Hubbard, Joe "BONDS" #3
So, Min Kyung "SO" #17
Lee, Ha-Young "YOUNG" #77
Lee, Sang-Hoon "SH LEE" #61
Lee, Sheen-Woo "SW LEE" #22
Levin, Craig "LEVIN" #24
Lutz, Amelie "LUTZ" #1
Moseley, Mike "YOGI" #6
Park, Jinha "PARK" #37
Pollio, Sharon "BOO BOO" #5
Ramasamy, Paulmurugan "PAUL" #11
Rao, Jianghong "RAO" #99
Ryu, Eun Kyuong "Daisy" "RYU" #23
Schipper, Meike "SCHIPPER" #12
Willmann, Juergen "WILLMANN" #7
Xiao, Fei "XIAO" #20
Yao, Hequan "YAO" #18
T-shirts are also available for all team members and non-team members for $25. The shirts are grey in color with a two-color design on front and a one-color design on back. The shirts also come in various sizes (S, M, XL, and XXL). If you are interested, please contact me at chinf@stanford.edu and give me the name and number you would like me to put on the shirt.
Please come cheer us on!
Awards and Honors: June 28, 2007
(From left to right: Martin P. Sandler, MD, FACNP, (outgoing SNM President); Sven N. Reske, MD, (awardee); Andrew Quon, MD, (awardee); Tore Bach-Gansmo, MD, PhD, (awardee); and Heinrich R. Schelbert, MD, PhD, (editor-in-chief, The Journal of Nuclear Medicine)
Andrew Quon, MD, assistant professor of radiology and nuclear medicine; Sandy Napel, PhD, professor of radiology and co-director of the 3D Medical Imaging Laboratory; Chris Beaulieu, MD, PhD, professor of radiology; and Sanjiv Sam Gambhir, MD, PhD, professor of radiology and bioengineering; director of the Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford; and chief of the Nuclear Medicine Division, have been awarded the 2007 Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM) Best Clinical Article for their paper entitled "'Flying Through' and 'Flying Around' a PET/CT Scan: Pilot Study and Development of 3D Integrated 18F-FDG PET/CT for Virtual Bronchoscopy and Colonoscopy" published in the July 2006 Journal of Nuclear Medicine. In their article, they present a new imaging and processing protocol that can visually remove the organs and highlight tumors and cancerous "hot spots" in 3D positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) images.
Awards and Honors: June 26, 2007
Melissa Enriquez, MD, was awarded the 2007 Norman Blank Award for the outstanding medical student in Radiology. The award was created in memory of longtime faculty member and Director of Admissions Norman Blank, MD. Faculty who worked with Enriquez were impressed by her "extraordinary organizational and communication skills, ambition, drive, and commitment to radiology" and "great leadership potential." Dr. Enriquez "single-handedly resurrected the moribund Radiology Interest Group at Stanford, served as its president, and organized several after hours events to familiarize medical students with the field of radiology." She also arranged for this group to receive funds from the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU). Dr. Enriquez will graduate from the 2007 class of the Stanford Medical School on June 16. She matched at Harbor-University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center for a transitional year internship, and UCLA for a residency in diagnostic radiology. As award winner, she will receive a popular radiology textbook and a cash prize.
Lifetime Achievement Award: Dr. William Northway, Jr
(Image courtesy of Mark Riesenberger)
During his first year as an assistant professor of Stanford Radiology in 1964, Dr. William Northway, Jr, was captivated by what appeared to be multiple cysts in the chest X-rays of premature infants in severe respiratory failure who had been treated with mechanical ventilation and high oxygen concentrations. With his curiosity piqued, he began his research. By 1967, Dr. Northway had made a startling discovery: the high levels of oxygen used to treat respiratory failure in newborn premature infants were causing a new chronic lung disease, which he called bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD). His pioneering work dramatically changed the treatment of respiratory failure in newborn premature infants.
Dr. Northway is a Stanford legacy, who was born and raised in Palo Alto. His father served as the chair of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Stanford, and his mother was a nurse at Stanford-Lane Hospital before her marriage. He attended Palo Alto High School and Stanford University for his undergraduate and medical degrees. At Stanford, he met Drs. Henry Jones and Henry Kaplan and decided to become a radiologist. After medical school, Dr. Northway headed to the East Coast to complete an internship in internal medicine at the New York Hospital (Cornell University). He returned to Stanford in 1958 to begin his residency in radiology and encountered Dr. Robert Evans, the first pediatric radiologist at Stanford, and Dr. Herb Abrams. Both were critical to his interest in becoming an academic pediatric radiologist.
After finishing his residency in 1961, he enlisted in the air force and was stationed at Keesler Air Force Base Hospital in Biloxi, Mississippi, as the assistant director of the Department of Radiology from 1961 to 1963: "I spent two years in the United States Air Force as a captain and as one of two radiologists at a 500-bed hospital." At Keesler, he met and married his wife, Linda. In 1963, Dr. Northway obtained a fellowship at the Hopital des Enfants-Maladies in Paris, France, with the assistance of Dr. Robert Evans and Professor Jacques Lefevre, the leading French pediatric radiologist at the Hopital des Enfants-Maladies. Through Dr. Kaplan, he also secured a James Picker Foundation Fellowship for support.
Working at the Hopital des Enfants-Maladies was an enlightening experience, according to Dr. Northway: "The hospital had about 500 beds at the time, and it was repudiated to be the largest and oldest children's hospital in the world. Many of my patients had been flown in from the French colonies in Africa, so I saw things that you wouldn't see in the United States, like scurvy, which is caused by vitamin C deficiency; rickets, which is caused by vitamin D deficiency; and tuberculosis (TB) of the spine and other areas. They also had a large ward of patients with congenital bone dysplasias that no one had categorized yet."
He returned to Stanford in 1964 as an instructor in radiology and held a faculty position at Stanford throughout the rest of his 34-year career. Over the years, Dr. Northway has seen a multitude of changes. When he began in the Stanford Department of Radiology, children were not separated from adult patients for radiologic purposes. Also, radiotherapy, nuclear medicine, and diagnostic radiology were still one department when he was the director of the Division of Diagnostic Radiology from 1976 to 1981.
Most memorable were the technological advances. In the 1970s, CT and ultrasound technologies were primitive, but developing, Dr. Northway recalled: "We were just starting to have ultrasound and CT at that time. Initially, Dr. Zatz, who was developing the ultrasound technique, immersed the body part to be examined in water, and he reached in the water bath with the ultrasound equipment to make the images."
Teaching has changed as well. When Dr. Northway presented at grand rounds early in his career, he and his colleagues always presented with X-rays, lab results, and the patient, who is rarely involved with grand rounds today because of privacy issues. These changes in teaching have made it exciting but challenging. "Someone said once that by the time you have been out of medical school for 10 years only 10% of what you learned will still be in effect. When I was in medical school, they hadn't discovered DNA! The fun of teaching is passing on new knowledge," Dr. Northway asserted. Even amidst all the revolutionary changes, Dr. Northway had time to complete his research, in part, because the chair, Henry Kaplan, had established a policy that allowed each new tenure track faculty member to spend two days a week on research and three days on clinical care.
This protected research time allowed Dr. Northway to make a discovery that would permanently alter the treatment of premature infants with respiratory failure or hyaline membrane disease/respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). When he arrived at Stanford in 1964, pediatricians were just beginning to use very high levels of oxygen to treat premature infants with RDS. When a colleague asked him to look at a series of chest X-rays from treated premature infants, Dr. Northway was puzzled by the appearance of cystic changes in the lungs. After ruling out staphylococcus pneumonia, he examined all the infant charts, nursing notes, and pathology and concluded that the lung changes were related to pulmonary oxygen toxicity.
Dr. Northway's findings were published in a seminal article entitled, "Pulmonary Disease Following Respirator Therapy of Hyaline Membrane Disease (Bronchopulmonary Dsyplasia)," in The New England Journal of Medicine (1967 Feb 16;276(7):357-68). His many research studies on BPD helped advance the therapy of premature infants with respiratory failure by promoting the lowering of therapeutic oxygen concentrations. This, along with lower ventilator pressures and other advances in neonatology, significantly decreased the mortality rate for premature infants with respiratory failure.
In 1998, Dr. Northway retired from a 34-year academic career. During the same year, he was selected as the "Pioneer Session Honoree" by the Society for Pediatric Radiology (SPR) for his important contributions to the development of pediatric radiology. In 2003, he was awarded the SPR Gold Medal. In honor of his distinguished career, Dr. Northway also received the 2005 J.E. Wallace Sterling Lifetime Alumni Achievement Award, which is bestowed annually by the Stanford Medical Alumni Association in recognition of "exceptional lifetime achievement" in medicine. He continues to serve our Department as an active emeritus professor of radiology and pediatrics.
Awards and Honors: June 15, 2007
Zibo Li, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in the Molecular Imaging Probe Laboratory (MIPL), has won a second place Young Professionals Committee Best Basic Science Award at the 2007 Annual Convention of the Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM). The objective of the Young Professionals Committee Award is to identify promising scientists and to support their research. Dr. Li's research focuses on the development of novel tracers (peptides, proteins, growth factors, antibodies, and antibody fragments-based) for near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence, MRI, SPECT, and PET imaging of small animal tumor xenografts and, potentially, of cancer patients.
Awards and Honors: June 15, 2007
Mei Huang, PhD, postdoctoral scholar in the Cardiovascular Molecular Imaging Laboratory, received an American Heart Association (AHA) Postdoctoral Fellowship Grant for 2007 to 2009. The AHA award funds highly talented scientists as they complete their research training and begin their careers as independent investigators. Dr. Huang currently researches gene therapy based on RNA interference and the genetic regulation of stem cell differentiation.
Awards and Honors: June 11, 2007
Adam de la Zerda, a PhD candidate in the Multimodality Molecular Imaging Laboratory, and Dr. Milana Trounce, Avishai Shoham, and Kristen Gasior from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, have won first prize in the Bay Area Entrepreneurship Contest for their idea, Laser-Seal. The competition was held at a conference sponsored by Women 2.0, which provides a support network for young women entrepreneurs by supplying mentorship and resources. In front of 12 venture capitalists, the Laser-Seal team presented their idea of using laser technology in the operating room to provide more efficient and cleaner wound closures. They were selected as the grand prize winners along with one other team. Included in their award is the chance to meet with Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurveston and Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital. In the MIPS lab, Mr. de la Zerda researches photoacoustic molecular imaging.
American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Praises Medical Physics at Stanford
During their visit to Stanford on January 19, 2007, members of the AAPM Science Council were extremely complimentary about medical physics at Stanford after touring the Departments of Radiology and Radiation Oncology. AAMP Science Council Chair, John Boone, PhD, described seeing "one impressive lab after another, from MRI to x-ray CT physics, radiation therapy to molecular imaging, image processing to small animal imaging." By the end of the tour, he concluded that "excellence in medical physics research was evident at a scale that is perhaps matched by only a handful of universities in North America."
More than 5,000 medical physicists belong to the AAPM, a scientific, educational, and professional organization that promotes the application of physics to medicine and biology. Composed of 19 members, the AAMP Science Council acts as a clearinghouse for scientific inquiries and makes scientific policy recommendations to the AAMP Board. The Science Council meets on a regular basis and, once a year this meeting is held at a member's institution so that the Council can learn about the science being done by AAPM members. For more information on the AAMP, please visit http://www.aapm.org/org/default.asp.
The chair of our Department, Gary M. Glazer, MD, would like to thank Norbert Pelc, ScD, who is also a member of the AAMP Science Council, and the rest of the Stanford faculty and staff who helped coordinate the Science Council's tour of Stanford facilities: Chris Contag, PhD; David Dick, PhD; Sam Gambhir, MD, PhD; Arun Ganguly, PhD; Gary Glover, PhD; Paul Keall, PhD; Craig Levin, PhD; Sandy Napel, PhD; and Lei Xing, PhD.
Quick Stats: 3D Imaging Laboratory Equipment at the Lucas and Clark Centers
Thanks to Laura Pierce, MPA, RT (CT), for compiling this list.
Announcements II: June 2007
Stanford Association of Research Professionals (SARP) Kickoff Meeting: Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Chelsea vs Club America (professional soccer): Saturday, July 14, 2007
Stanford Association of Research Professionals (SARP) Kickoff Meeting: Tuesday, June 12, 2007, from 12:00 to 1:30 PM at Fairchild Auditorium. On Tuesday, the SARP will initiate its first working group of professionals providing a forum for communication, education, and networking to achieve excellence in clinical research. Come see what SARP is all about! To preregister, please go to http://reggie.stanford.edu/signup.asp?1568. You can also join the SARP member e-mail distribution list at: sarp-members@lists.stanford.edu. Light refreshments will be served.
Chelsea vs Club America (professional soccer): Saturday, July 14, 2007, at 6 PM at the Stanford Stadium. On July 14, the 3-time English league champions Chelsea Football Club (http://www.chelseafc.com) and the 10-time Mexican Primera League champions Club America (http://www.clubamerica.com.mx) will play a friendly match for the Disney Friendship Club as part of Chelsea's fourth consecutive preseason tour in the United States. This is the first time two world-class soccer teams have played in the new Stanford Stadium. The Chelsea Football Club is part of the English Premier League and has won the league title in 2006, 2005, and 1955 since their founding in 1905. Established in 1916, Club America holds ten league titles in Mexico's Primera Division. To buy your tickets, please call the Stanford Athletics ticket office at 1-866-818-0968; visit the Stanford Athletic ticket office at Stanford Stadium Gate 2 (Hours: Mon.-Fri., 9 AM-4 PM PDT); or visit http://www.gostanford.com.
May 7, 2007, Radiology Departmental Staff Retreat
poster design by Mark Riesenberger
How many U.S. presidents have last names that begin with the letter "L"? What is the episode number of the most recent Star Wars movie? What is the abbreviation for the smallest denomination of British currency? Of chlorine, sodium, nitrogen, and iron, which is the only element whose symbol is one letter? Working in teams and drawing on our colleagues' different areas of trivia expertise, we each worked our way through these answers during the treasure hunt portion of our May 7th departmental staff retreat. By the end of the day, eighty-three percent of retreat participants rated their overall retreat experience as either "excellent" or "very good," and eighty-six percent felt that the retreat helped advance their professional and personal development.
All--or nearly all--of the Radiology staff gathered in the morning at the Arrillaga Alumni Center on the Stanford campus for a day of team-building and fun activities. Altogether, there were about 60 of us, which is almost twice the number of people (33) who attended our last retreat in 2003! We certainly are a growing department!
The day began with a lovely breakfast spread, followed by an inspirational address from Dr. Glazer, entreating us to participate directly in the growth of Radiology and challenging us to contribute our considerable talents to improve our processes.
Next, we reviewed the infamous DISC questionnaire, which we had all completed at one of our staff meetings! Dianne Faieta, of Faieta and Associates, spoke about how to interpret and learn about our different work styles from the questionnaire results. We learned about the history behind the DISC questionnaire, the meaning of the results, the interpretation our own results, and where we, as individuals, fell on the DISC framework of work styles. In addition to learning about the rewards and challenges of our own work styles, we discussed how to best engage with and appreciate the different ones of our colleagues. There are essentially four work styles or ways in which people interact with their work environment: (D)ominance, (I)nfluence, (S)teadiness, and (C)onscientiousness. We were grouped at tables in which at least one work style from each of the four types was represented. Rita Hernandez and Deitria Chapman are collating much of what we learned during our morning session on the DISC, and we should be hearing from them soon.
After a yummy gourmet BBQ, we trooped back into the meeting room to meet Dan Kleiber or "Mr. Treasure Hunt," the coordinator of the afternoon event. Mr. Kleiber explained that we would be working with the same teams from our morning session to solve fairly complicated puzzles--cryptograms, mathematics, scrambled words, history facts, etc.--to determine where on campus we needed to go to answer 13 location-specific questions.
For example, to find the answer to question #7, we had to analyze and identify two pictures in order to find the name of a campus building containing a plaque whose photo was partially depicted in question #7. The first picture was a photograph of player #19 from the San Jose Sharks, and the second picture was a cartoon caricature of a doorman. After figuring out the name of the player in the first picture (Joe Thornton) and the title of the profession of the man in the second picture (doorman), we had to find the names of two locations on a Stanford campus map that sounded similar to the names from the two pictures we had identified. Locating these places (Thornton Center and Dorhmann Grove Art Gallery) on the map, we were instructed to find the midpoint between these locations (Stanford Memorial Church). To complete question #7, we had to go to Stanford Memorial Church; find the plaque matching the partial-plaque picture we had been given; and count the number of words in the plaque. The first three groups who completed all 13 location-specific questions correctly in the least amount of time won Amazon.com gift certificates. The winning three teams were as follows:
Table 5: 1st place
Luis Alcazar
Gale Evans
Kathy Marsh
Teresa Newton
Susan Singh
Table 7: 2nd place
Silvia Arriaga
Sofia Gonzales
Jeslyn Rumbold
David Russel
Liliya Semernina
Jackie Walker
Table 1: 3rd place
Sandra Bowers
Jimmy Carrasco
Barbara Hargis
Shalyce Johns
Donna Niernberger
Mark Riesenberger
After enjoying a day filled with teamwork and socializing, we received a generous gift from the Department in honor of our dedication, commitment, energy, and support of the Department's faculty, researchers, and students. To access pictures from our retreat, please see http://www.flickr.com/photos/muninn99/sets/72157600193813160.
Announcements I: June 2007
Radiology Departmental Finance Drop-In Session: Thursday, June 28, 2007
St. Lawrence String Quartet Chamber Music Free Noon Concert Series: Monday, June 25; Wednesday, June 27; and Friday, June 29, 2007
July 3rd Celebration with Big Bad VooDoo Daddy & Fireworks: Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Radiology Departmental Finance Drop-In Session: Thursday, June 28, 2007, from 2:00 to 3:00 PM in Grant S-084. The finance group holds a monthly finance session, typically on the last Thursday of each month. This session is for anyone who may have questions regarding expenditure statements and other finance questions. If you would like more information, please contact Yun-Ting Yeh at ytyeh@stanford.edu.
St. Lawrence String Quartet Chamber Music Free Noon Concert Series: Monday, June 25; Wednesday, June 27; and Friday, June 29, 2007, beginning at 12:15 until approximately 1:15 PM. The Grammy-nominated St. Lawrence String Quartet will be offering free noon concerts at the Dinkelspiel Auditorium. For more information, please contact Barbara Greenwood at bgreenwood@stanford.edu.
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