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Message from the Associate Dean - BCH Oakland
August 2020
Welcome

Welcome to all our new faculty and trainees! We continue to feel invigorated by the tremendous new energy and commitment you bring to the well-being of children and to our BCH Oakland community. Please feel free to reach out to your peers, attendings and the dean’s office here in Oakland to answer your questions and to provide support.
Our new website just launched so please check it out!

Kelley
Kelley.Meade@ucsf.edu

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Our New Website Just Launched!
Stop by and check out the new BCH Oakland Dean's Office website! There you will find helpful information and valuable resources!

Welcome New Faculty, Residents, Fellows and Interns
New Faculty

UCSF Faculty Working in Oakland

New Fellows

UCSF Fellows, Pediatric Critical Care

BCH Oakland Chief Residents 2020-2021

Welcome BCH Oakland Pediatric Interns!
Academic Pediatric Association
From Mel Heyman, MD
Professor of Pediatrics
Vice Chair for Faculty Development
 
Elizabeth Rogers MD
Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Associate Vice Chair for Faculty Development and Chief Experience Officer








2021 Call for Applications

The Academic Pediatric Association
is now accepting applications for the below programs!

  •  Advancing Pediatric Leaders Program (APL)
  • *NEW* Health Policy Scholars Program (HPSP)
  •  New Century Scholars Program (NCS)
  • Quality and Safety Improvement Scholars Program (QSIS)
  •  Research in Academic Pediatrics Initiative on Diversity (RAPID)
  •  Research Scholars Program (RSP)
  •  Young Investigator Awards Program (YIA)

 
In particular, the faculty leadership program can be accessed at: https://www.academicpeds.org/program/advancing-pediatric-leaders/
Questions about these programs? We will be having program recruitment webinars
in August. Stay tuned for more information!

EDUCATION
Assessment for Learning
UCSF has embraced assessment for learning to help learners grow into competent and caring physicians. This commitment requires shifting from feedback after the fact as a judgment of past performance to real-time feedback as a way to coach learners towards success.

As part of the Center for Faculty Educator's “Learning and Caring Environment” initiative we developed two brief modules with an overview of assessment for learning and a quick guide to feedback in clinical settings. Access the modules by clicking on the links below.

Center for Faculty Educators (CFE)

From Catherine R. Lucey, MD, MACP
Executive Vice Dean, UCSF School of Medicine 
Vice Dean for Medical Education
Dear UCSF Chairs, Faculty, Residents and Staff,

Thank you for your continued support of medical education during these challenging times. We have been amazed at the incredible work that School of Medicine faculty, staff and learners have undertaken to respond to the educational challenges of the day: from redesigning coursework for remote learning on the fly to showing support and empathy for our community as we collectively grieve the persistence of racism in our society. 

It is clear that structural racism and its manifestations in the form of police brutality, systemic economic and educational disadvantage and health and health care disparities, is a public health crisis. It intersects with and is as much of a pandemic as COVID-19.  

Therefore, as we prepare to welcome a new class and continue to support our current extraordinary students, we are redesigning our educational programs to address these two epidemics, both of which are responsible for intolerable amounts of suffering and loss of life in our communities. Like all important change work, this will require a continuous improvement mindset and the concerted work of all of us. 
In designing the educational recovery for the School of Medicine, we are relying on a core set of principles:

  • We will work with all course and clerkship leaders, faculty and staff to continuously advance our institution’s goal of eliminating health and health care disparities through education, research, patient care and public service.

  • We will support and role model best practices in public health to address the pandemic.  

  • We will design new instructional, assessment and community building methods to enable our learners to advance towards a timely graduation in a remote environment while maintaining our high-performance standards.

  • We will engage in harm reduction strategies to minimize risk of infection to our learners, faculty, staff and patients.

  • We will remain alert to signs of improvement or deterioration in the public health environment and will be prepared to respond to those changes in alignment with our core principles.
  • Differences Matter Orientation: As we have for the last five years, the School will begin with a Differences Matters Orientation focused on bias, privilege, inclusion and equity.


  • Core Curriculum Changes: The UME curriculum will accelerate its efforts to prepare a workforce capable of and committed to eliminating health and healthcare disparities. These issues will be represented in the Core Inquiry Curriculum, the Clinical Microsystems Curriculum and all F1 and F2 blocks and clerkships. New content on the impact of racism on human health will be incorporated across the curriculum, led by faculty with expertise in these areas. 

  • Clinical Education: All Foundations 2 and Career Launch clinical experiences will proceed in clinical environments that have sufficient patients, PPE and physician supervisors to support our students’ education. If sites are unavailable, we will redistribute students to different sites.

  • Lecture/Small Groups: From now through December 31, 2020, all lectures and discussion groups of greater than 10 students will be held remotely for all phases of the curriculum. 

  • In-Person Learning: Small group, experiential learning activities such as physical diagnosis, simulation training, sensitive topic discussions and preceptorships will be held in person on the Parnassus Campus. On average, we expect that each student will be on campus one day a week. Groups will be fixed, so that in the event that a student or faculty contracts COVID-19, only the members of that group will need to be quarantined.  

  • Public Harm Reduction Strategies: All individuals and small groups will be instructed to adopt public health harm reduction strategies: physical distancing and masking in public, universal hand hygiene and remain at home if new symptoms develop. If the planned on-campus activity does not permit social distancing (for instance, physical diagnosis), students and faculty will use standard clinical PPE for those encounters. The School will supply students and faculty involved in these approved on-campus activities with PPE.

  • Symptom Tracking: All learners and faculty will begin symptom tracking using the UCSF Health app two weeks prior to the first on campus activity. All students new to UCSF will undergo COVID-19 PCR testing the week prior to starting on-campus activity. All students and faculty will be instructed to report all new symptoms for evaluation. School of Medicine policies have been adapted to enable more liberal use of sick days.

  • Shadowing: F1 students may shadow clinical physicians if sufficient PPE is available for their safety. 

  • Extracurricular Activities: All extracurricular activities will take place remotely until large group activities are approved. We do not have current plans to resume Student Service-Learning Experiences (previously known as Free Clinics) until those environments have sufficient space and procedures to evaluate patients for suspected COVID-19. 

  • If the pandemic environment improves prior to December: We will first add back small groups with less than 20 members. We do not anticipate returning to in-person lectures until we are at level 4 in California’s COVID-19 recovery plan. 
  • Follow the lead of your course directors in adapting your lecture or discussion groups for remote delivery. School of Medicine Course directors, along with technology and instructional design experts have formed working groups to identify best practices for the critical elements of online learning: content delivery, interactive discussion activities, faculty-student relationship building and student-student community building in the virtual environment, asynchronous office hours and strategies to empower students to continuously engage with the coursework. We are endeavoring to have all classes use the same core technologies to address the functions listed above so that students have a predictable and consistent on-line experience in every block. This will minimize cognitive load so that they can expend more intellectual energy mastering the material. 

  • Set aside time to adapt your content delivery for remote delivery. Remote delivery of content is quite different than in-person delivery. For example, to create connections with the students, you may be advised to start by sharing a little about yourself. You may be advised to use a series of short lecture segments with embedded Q and A and deliberately spend a long time on any complicated slide. 

Thank you for all you do to support our learners.

Sincerely,

Catherine R. Lucey, MD, MACP
Executive Vice Dean, UCSF School of Medicine 
Vice Dean for Medical Education
UCSF Faculty Development Day 2020





Faculty Development Day is Coming!

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

This year all events will be online via Zoom.
Link and password will be e-mailed to registrants.
If you have any questions, please call 415-502-0244
or contact Irené Merry at irene.merry@ucsf.edu

CARES
Join us in a conversation regarding the re-opening of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.
DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION at UCSF BCH
From Marsha J. Treadwell, PhD
Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, UCSF School of Medicine
Jordan Fund Endowed Chair, Department of Hematology/Oncology

The focus of the BCH Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Initiative is to dismantle systemic racism within BCH by taking action to insure that policies, institutional practices, cultural representations and other norms no longer reinforce and perpetuate racial group inequity for Blacks, Indigenous and People of Color. Patients and families and other groups in the workforce, including LGBTQ+ are negatively impacted within the current problematic climate. Our progress in recent weeks includes:

  • The DEI Committee deliberated on the results of the DEI Needs Assessment, with particular focus on the place of BCH as an anchor institution embedded in a system where health disparities and racialized violence have been magnified

  • We conducted Moments of Solidarity on both campuses to hold a space for processing trauma and grief

  • We held our Action Planning Retreat with DEI Committee members, executive sponsors and leadership to design a roadmap for DEI trainings for UCSF BCH Board, Senior Leadership, managers and staff; strategies to increase workforce diversity and improve climate; improve access to needed data such as related to patient experiences

Our DEI Action Plan will be finalized by the end of July. Our work emphasizes accountability, customization not duplication, sustainability and ownership by senior leaders. We are encouraging individual departments and units to create local Action Plans, aligned with the overarching plan, to best integrate progress throughout BCH. For more information, please feel free to reach out to DEI Co-Chair Marsha Treadwell, our program manager Henry Ocampo, or visit our website https://diversitybch.ucsf.edu/
 
Online registration for the BCH Black Caucus Oakland:


Questions? Email Abdur Shemsu at abdur.shemsu@ucsf.edu


Pediatric Grand Rounds
Oakland
Grand Rounds
Tuesday, August 11th at 8:00am

“PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) for HIV Prevention in Youth”
Presented by: Samali Lubega, MD
Bay Area North & Central Coast AIDS Education and Training Center
UCSF Health

Objectives:
1. Describe which communities are disproportionately affected by HIV.
2. Identify potential candidates for PrEP using a sex positive approach.
3. Explain what PrEP is and special considerations for its use among youth.

To obtain CME, you must complete evaluation for this specific 
Please be sure to INCLUDE YOUR NAME TO RECEIVE CME.
This link will expire at 6pm Wednesday, August 12th.
Faxed and emailed evaluations will not be accepted for CME.
Grand Rounds is by Zoom only 8:00 - 9:00 am
Please follow the instructions below

Please go to https://zoom.us/join and enter the meeting ID below:

Meeting ID: 952 8044 6125
PASSWORD: 246806
 
Telephone:
1 669 900 6833 or 1 646 558 8656
 
https://ucsf.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dc2luv6gRwihqfgz40aLzw
Meeting ID: 952 8044 6125 Password: 246806 (dial in numbers will appear after one-time registration.) 
 
UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland is accredited by the California Medical Association
to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland designates this live activity
for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit.™
Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate
with the extent of their participation in the activity.


Previous Grand Rounds (Online)
Did you miss Grand Rounds?
They are available online at http://vimeo.com/album/2238536
Use password CHRCO
New recordings are added every few weeks.
Also check out our calendar for educational offerings: 

Case Conference
Case Conference (M&M)
Thursday, August 13th at 8:00am

"Ethics of Prognostication"
Presented by: Phoebe Winn, MD
PL-2

Zoom Information for Case Conference:
Please go to https://zoom.us/join and enter the meeting ID below:
Meeting ID: 995 2217 1660
Password: 123456
Telephone: +1 669 900 6833

Pediatric Grand Rounds
San Francisco
Thursday, September 3, 2020
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
(TBD)


For the full 2019 – 2020 Pediatrics Grand Rounds schedule please visit the Wiki page: http://tiny.ucsf.edu/PedsGRWiki

Pediatric Grand Rounds takes place every Thursday from 12-1 PM,
currently as webinar only. 


For questions contact: Cherise.Masunaga@ucsf.edu

RESOURCES
Essential Workers Searching for Child Care

If you are an essential worker, Bananas has valuable resources to help you find child care.









This information was obtained from Bananasbunch.org 



Wellness Resources


If you have not had a chance to check it out, UCSF has great emotional health and well-being resources.


As workers on the frontline, you’re dealing with a lot right now. And we know it’s not easy. But help is at hand. Free, confidential mental health counseling is available to you right away through The Frontline Workers Counseling Project, a group of over 400 licensed mental health professionals here in the Bay Area who have reached out to help. 

If you’re ready, please visit fwcp.org/bayarea to learn more and sign up to be connected to a trained mental health professional. It’s free and 100% confidential.
You can also view and share a video we’ve created to spread the word: https://youtu.be/IGh2AAzKiK8


You can find additional materials in these Google files.

Insiders' toolkit:
Allies' toolkit: 


Diabetes Prevention
If you have not already done so, please login and update and/or validate your information.


RESEARCH CORNER
Gradual Ramp Up of Research Began May 18!

As was announced by Dr. Lindsey Criswell, Vice Chancellor of Research on May 14, we are pleased to share the much anticipated plans for gradually increasing activities in UCSF research units on campus. PIs and their research teams should review the detailed directives and safety information found in documents at the following links:



Facilities and Administration Expenditures
From MC Gaisbauer
Business and Integration Manager
UCSF Research Administration
Reimbursement for facilities and administration expenditures – it’s good news!

Recovery of Facilities and Administration (F&A) expenditures is vital to our ability to perform our research, and how these dollars are utilized to further support the research mission is among the most commonly misunderstood aspects of a research institution. In the current federal climate and as recipients of these funds, it is imperative to take the time to understand F&A most often referred to as indirect costs, or in the private sector as overhead.
 
F&A Explained
 
F&A rates are negotiated periodically, and we were concerned about the direction being taken by the current administration in Washington. While some want to reduce the government’s role in reimbursing organizations for F&A costs, UCSF has countered that such a reduction would harm our ability to provide and maintain the critical infrastructure needed to support sponsored research. This includes buying specialized equipment, hiring certified research administrators, purchasing state-of-the-art computers, and most importantly, building and maintaining facilities where research can occur. Thankfully, our team presented a persuasive argument and did a great job negotiating the new federal rates, so we did very well.

Here’s what happened – UCSF prepares and negotiates rates for both UCSF and BCH-Oakland. The UCSF negotiators were successful in presenting our calculated costs to the federal government. The federal government then authorized the increase in the F&A rates. This rate negotiation is very important not only because the federal government is such a significant source of F&A recovery – providing $196 million of our total recovery of $252 million last fiscal year (2018-19) – but also because these F&A rates are used for many industry-funded contracts as well.

In February, BCH-Oakland announced the new rates for the next three fiscal years. The key item in the agreement is the on-campus organized research rate increased from 70 percent to 70.5 percent this year. From BCH-Oakland’s perspective, it’s a great rate. We want to see the federal government pay its share of the cost of doing research here. The improved reimbursement level will provide needed funds to support the research mission in Oakland and UCSF’s standing as a preeminent health science campus.

There is a new federal rate for Other Sponsored Activities of 40 percent, an increase from 35 percent. This rate applies to clinical, public service and educational activities both on-campus and off-campus.

University of California, including BCH-Oakland, requires full F&A cost recovery., The University applies its negotiated F&A rates to all extramural awards received from all categories of sponsors for research, instruction, and Other Sponsored Activities. Uniform Guidance requires full F&A recovery on Federal support including flow-through funding. Only those Federal programs that are statutorily authorized to reimburse less than the Federally negotiated rate are exempted. If a sponsor’s published policy mandates a lower F&A rate, an indirect cost exception (waiver) must be obtained. BCH-Oakland Sponsored Program Office (SPO) will assist with the waiver process. Principal Investigators and other administrators are not delegated this authority nor are they authorized to negotiate with or to accept reduced indirect cost rates from any sponsor. Generally, waivers are only granted for written and verified sponsor policies.

It’s still very challenging to put together all the resources to cover our basic infrastructure needs. Unsurprisingly, BCH-Oakland has the highest federal F&A rates in the UC system, reflecting the higher costs of supporting research here due to both the intensive scientific work we do and the higher cost associated with our location in the San Francisco bay area. But we are in a much better position than we might otherwise be, and we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the team who accomplished this on our behalf.


National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
From Shannon Kelly, MD
Director, Apheresis Program
Assistant Clinical Investigator, Blood Systems Research Institute

Transfusion Medicine Research at BCH Oakland

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health has launched a seven-year multi-center research program to extend a highly successful program assessing blood banking (blood collection, screening, and processing strategies) and transfusion medicine practices. Research conducted both in the U.S. and Brazil under the Recipient Epidemiology and Donor Evaluation Study-IV-Pediatric (REDS-IV-P) will focus on evaluating and improving the safety and availability of the blood supply as well as the safety and effectiveness of transfusion therapies with attention to not only adults, but also neonates and children who need transfusion. The U.S. program includes 4 hubs, each with a blood center linked to transfusion services at specialty and community hospitals. The Bay Area hub includes Vitalant Research Institute linked to UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center and UCSF Medical Center. Large databases linking data regarding blood donors and recipients will be created to investigate the impact of donor characteristics and component modifications on transfusion outcomes in recipients. The project at BCH Oakland is being led by Drs. Elliott Vichinsky, Shannon Kelly, Lynne Neumayr, Ash Lal and Titi Singer. In addition, Dr. Kelly is helping lead part of the REDS-IV-P Brazil program which will continue to follow a large cohort of participants with sickle cell disease (SCD) established during REDS-III and perform targeted studies focused on transfusion outcomes within the cohort. 

Study of Benserazide in Thalassemia Intermedia
From Sylvia "Titi" Singer, MD
Director, Hemostasis and Thrombosis
Pediatric Hematology-Oncology

Dose Ranging Study of Benserazide in Thalassemia Intermedia

The beta-thalassemias and sickle cell syndromes are serious genetic blood diseases, causing a growing global health burden. The disorders decrease production or alter the structure of the beta-chain of adult hemoglobin A, resulting in hemolytic anemia, progressive widespread organ damage, and early mortality. Current treatments are able to reduce morbidity but there are still significant unmet medical needs in both disorders.

Fetal hemoglobin (HbF) is another type of hemoglobin which is high in fetal life but low after infancy. Previous studies have found that pharmacologic augmentation of HbF is a modality known to reduce the clinical severity of both conditions as it corrects some of the anemia. Multiple studies over the past 30 years have attempted to increase HbF to an extent that will be clinically meaningful; most have had only modest success.

In a screening study of existing drugs which are approved for other conditions, Benserazide, stood out as a strong inducer of HbF. Its action was validated in nonhuman primates, in mice and in human red blood cells in the Lab. It was not yet used in human studies for the purpose of HbF induction, but has been used and shown safe combined with drugs for Parkinson’s disease. In baboons it increased HbF 30-fold over baseline. The drug works through suppression of molecules that do not permit expression of HbF, thereby allowing increase in HbF when this suppression is relieved. 

This proposal will evaluate Benserazide in patients with beta thalassemia and sickle-cell disease in a study design that will assess the optimal safe dose for induction of HbF. The hope is that this study will provide a basis for conducting definitive larger scale clinical trials that will prove to improve patients’ clinical course.

The study opens August 30th.
UCSF Office of Research
Town Halls

Here is the link for the Office of Research Town Halls. You can access the Town Hall recordings and other useful info.

Internal COVID-19 Open Proposal Forum
Open Proposal Forum

Gretchen Kiser and the Research Development Office just launched an internal COVID-19 open proposal forum, asking researchers to share ideas, current research, and potential research avenues. The forum can be found online at:

 
This would be a good time to ask researchers to contribute their own ideas, and critically, to offer comments/suggestions to help improve the ideas that have already been proposed.
 
Some of the proposals involve communicating with the public, and it would be helpful if communicators could weigh in. For example, I just saw this citizen science proposal, which would let folks answer online surveys and (optionally) donate smartphone data to help researchers understand how COVID-19 is spreading or presenting to the public:
 

Transition of IRB Review for Research Conducted at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland
As of May 1st, 2020, the UCSF HRPP is receiving transfers of IRB approvals from UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland (BCH Oakland) into the iRIS system.
Human Research Protections Program Updates
Since the beginning of the COVID emergency, the Human Research Protections Program has made rapid adjustments to support the research community.

National Science Foundation on the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)


Funding Opportunities 

From: MLK Sponsored Programs Office

FY20 Funding Opportunity released:
Combat Readiness—Medical Research Program (CRRP)
 
Rapid Development and Translational Research Award (Broad Agency Announcement)

Current Closing Date for Applications: December 03, 2020
Check website for pre-proposal deadline!

Clinical Trials
Office of Clinical Trial Activation

OnCore at BCHO 2020 - For Research Study Teams


Do you have ideas or suggestions for newsletter content?

If you have an idea or suggestion for content that you feel would be helpful,
please let us know. Thank you

Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland Dean’s Office
UCSF School of Medicine

510-428-3726

Mailing Address:
747 52nd Street, Oakland, CA 94609