Department of Communication & Public Affairs

News Release
Date: May 08, 2006
Contact: Jennifer Forbes Coordinator, Communications & Public Affairs
     732-235-6356

UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Hosts
High School Students During Mini-Medical School

--HIV Presentation Last in Series--

New Brunswick, N.J. – One hundred sixty-one high school students will complete Mini-Medical School at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) on Wednesday, May 10, 2006. The students were selected from more than 450 applicants statewide. Mini-Medical School, a program pioneered by the National Institutes of Health, is a community program that educates the attendees about the diagnostic, therapeutic and preventative issues in clinical medicine and scientific research. The RWJMS program also provides high school students with an understanding of the many career options that are available in medicine and biochemical research.

The final presentation of this year’s program, Achieving Excellence in the Sciences, will be given jointly by Terri Goss Kinzy, Ph.D., professor of molecular genetics, microbiology and immunology and assistant dean of medical scientist training, and Patricia Whitley-Williams, M.D., professor of pediatrics and chief, division of allergy, immunology and infectious disease, on the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. The presentation will focus on the continuing epidemic of HIV, current treatments, the advances that have been made and the use of model systems to develop new drugs.

In addition to presenting the clinical and scientific aspects of HIV, the joint presentation demonstrates the collaborative relationship that exists between clinical scientists and basic scientists at the medical school. Such relationships foster translational research opportunities, in other words, applying scientific discoveries to diagnosis, treatment or prevention of disease to improve patient outcomes.

Each of the five two-hour sessions includes a lecture and small group discussion led by faculty and medical students. Topics covered during the previous four sessions included lectures on bone structure and function, given by Thomas McPartland, M.D., chief resident, orthopaedic surgery, and on hand surgery given by Timothy Leddy, M.D., instructor of orthopaedic surgery; and on cardiac transplantation, presented by Mark Anderson, M.D., associate professor of surgery, and the psychiatric aspects of transplantation presented by Christine Skotzco, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry.

Francesco Ramirez, Ph.D., professor of pediatrics and director of the Child Health Institute of New Jersey at RWJMS gave a presentation on Marfan syndrome and translational research. Thomas Coyne, a M.D./Ph.D. candidate at the school, spoke to the students about stem cell research and Marjorie Mark, M.D., associate professor of neurology, lectured on Parkinson’s Disease and treatment.

Carol Terregino, M.D., clinical associate professor of medicine and associate dean for admissions, and coordinator of the Mini-Medical School program, presented The Art of Physical Diagnosis and Patient Centered Care, following which the students broke into small group sessions and had the opportunity to be student doctors by practicing patient interviewing and taking medical histories.

Students participating in this year’s program are from the following counties: Bergen, Burlington, Camden, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Morris, Ocean, Somerset, Sussex and Union. The final session on May 10 will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Main Auditorium at 675 Hoes Lane, Piscataway.