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BREAKING NEWS -
Fellowships Expanded - Surgical Critical Care/Acute Care Surgery Fellowships currently seeking highly qualified applicants for additional 2 positions starting August 2019. Contact: susan.thompson1@unlv.edu

Dean's Fellows Named - New progam designed to provide faculty the opportunity to contribute to leadership and gain insight into upper administration of the SOM: Dr. Ken Izuora (Internal Medicine) and Dr. Susanna Sorrentino (Pediatrics) will work on a variety of School-wide initiatives.
MAKING THE ROUNDS WITH FOUNDING DEAN BARBARA ATKINSON
 Issue 180 - January 29TH, 2019
Hello everyone!
In the year 2000, while still in his 20s, Terry Shirey was a CPA who moved to Las Vegas from Wyoming because he thought the Silver State might offer more opportunity for a quality numbers guy with a lot of energy. Did it ever. In less than 14 years he became Nevada State Bank President and Chief Operating Officer. Two years later he became the bank’s President and Chief Executive Officer. In December, Terry also was named chairman of the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce, an organization that has placed the UNLV School of Medicine as one of its priorities for the 2019 legislative session. Needless to say, we’re happy to have a man who makes things happen engaged on our behalf. I hope you’ll enjoy learning more about why Terry is a passionate supporter of the UNLV School of Medicine.
Barbara signature, first name only
Nevada State Bank's Terry Shirey:
Quality is Job #1
Terry Shirey, Nevada State Bank President/CEO and Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce Chairman, is a longtime supporter of UNLV, and, more recently, the School of Medicine
It has long been said you can learn a lot about people from how they respond to important books that they read.

So it goes with Terry Shirey, the Nevada State Bank President who’s also chairman of the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce, the largest business organization in Nevada. After Shirey read “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isacson, his biggest takeaway wasn’t that Jobs was a tough guy to work for or even his amazing innovation -- it was his intense focus on ensuring Apple’s products were of the highest quality, an insistence that sometimes irritated his board of directors and other company leaders, whose concentration on profits as soon as possible could have allowed quality to slide.

Today, Shirey believes that what made Apple so successful was as much about Jobs’ insistence on quality, which helps assure a company’s long term survival, as it was about creating innovative products.

“Delivering a quality product in whatever you do is critical,” says Shirey, who notes that the quality fundamentals Jobs insisted on caused him to reflect on how those principles could be integrated into his banking practice and the experience of clients.  

Quality. You hear Shirey bring it up repeatedly as he talks about why the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce supports the expansion of the UNLV School of Medicine, why he and other Chamber representatives are discussing with state legislators the importance of the medical school to Southern Nevada.

“Having a quality medical school that is producing doctors who practice world class medicine not only helps make our residents more healthy but it also allows Las Vegas to compete with other cities that are delivering quality medicine,” Shirey says. “Cities are in constant competition for the best professional and business talent. The perception has been that our health care is not on a par with other communities, that we’re not creating our own pipeline of excellent doctors. The UNLV School of Medicine can change that with top faculty and facilities.”

Shirey says he came away highly impressed after meeting with UNLV School of Medicine Founding Dean Dr. Barbara Atkinson, who was elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and is the only American woman to head three medical schools. “I hear very consistently that residents of Southern Nevada are very supportive of the medical school and hopeful it will reach its potential. Ultimately, it will enhance the quality of life here and make Las Vegas a world class city, one that is a destination for medical tourism.”

When UNLV was designated as a Carnegie R1 research institution in December, Shirey was ecstatic. “UNLV is now among schools such as Harvard, Princeton and UCLA with RI status that are driving innovation in their communities,” he says, adding that R1 status will help drive economic development for high-tech companies seeking a top-level university research partner. “The medical school helps ensure that UNLV is seen as the intellectual hub of the community.”
According to studies commissioned by the city of Las Vegas, the medical school will also be an economic engine, with a projected yearly impact of $1.2 billion by 2030. Together, the Las Vegas Medical District, with the medical school as the crown jewel, will have a combined economic impact of $3.6 billion and add nearly 25,000 new jobs.
“It’s a no brainer,” he says. “People will have better health outcomes and we will attract better talent and more business to Southern Nevada. The UNLV School of Medicine is an important component."
Irene Bustamante Adams , a former Nevada Assemblywoman and now Deputy Director and Chief Strategy Officer for Workforce Connections, Southern Nevada’s Local Workforce Development Board, says the Chamber’s decision to make the medical school a priority during its discussions with legislators is critical to Southern Nevada’s well being.

“It’s both an economic and healthcare priority,” says Bustamante Adams, who often worked in tandem with the Chamber during her eight years in the assembly.

Shirey noted that Paul Moradkhan, the Chamber’s Vice-President of Government Affairs, is heading the Chamber’s work with legislators. “It is important legislators see what the research shows,” Moradkhan says.

Shirey says his work with the Chamber and as a banker is “a nice fit...Nevada State Bank is set on serving the small business community as is the Chamber...it seems seamless.”

Nevada State Bank has been a recent supporter of the medical school. Under the direction of Rita Vaswani, a vice president of the bank, proceeds from a fashion show put on by the Las Vegas India Chamber of Commerce Community Awards Gala went to UNLV School of Medicine and Touro School of Medicine students.


“Our bank believes in community service,” says Shirey, pointing out that bank employees donated nearly 5,000 hours of community service in the past year, including teaching students, at-risk individuals and social service providers about the basics of handling money and credit. Dozens of individuals also mobilized at the last minute to pack meals for workers hurt by the government shutdown.

There is no question, Shirey says, that enhancing the quality of life through better healthcare in Southern Nevada is now one of his top priorities.

“It’s a no brainer,” he says. “People will have better health outcomes and we will attract better talent and more business to Southern Nevada. The UNLV School of Medicine is an important component to that equation.”
IN THE NEWS   Recent stories about the School of Medicine
"The Year of Living Well"
Dr. Alison Netski in David Magazine


David Magazine, Jan/Feb 2019
"Giving Research it's Due"

Dr. Buddhadeb Dawn in La Voce Magazine

La Voce Mgazine, January, 2019
MEDICINE BY THE NUMBERS
3.8 Million Babies

Women in the US gave birth to around 3,853,472 babies in 2017 — a 2% drop from 2016. At just over 60 births per every 1,000 women (between the ages of 15 and 44), this is the lowest birth rate the country has ever recorded.


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