Student receives MLK Jr. award

Medical student David Darrow was honored with the 2012 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Service Award. Darrow founded the Green House Foundation, an organization that promotes community food gardens in Galveston.

He also has been active as a volunteer director for Frontera de Salud, the St. Vincent’s Student Clinic, and Hope Clinic and frequently partners with Galveston’s Families, Children and Youth Board and the Jesse Tree. Darrow led the Grow Your Own Food drive in October at the Wright Cuney Recreation Center in Galveston that helped 200 families and worked to install 20 raised garden beds at the center.

UTMB Alerts Test

Wednesday, University of Texas Medical Branch will test its campus emergency notification system. In compliance with UT System requirements, all members of the UTMB community are automatically enrolled to receive messages in the event of an emergency.

This notification is delivered via telephone and text messages, email, the website and institutional Facebook and Twitter postings.

Lefeber Lectures

The Lefeber Winter Lecture Series on Aging launches on Jan. 31 with “Predicting survival of older adults: Findings from a biosocial survey” by Noreen Goldman, professor of demography in the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. Her presentation is from 5 to 6 p.m. on Jan. 31 in Levin Hall, Market and 10th Streets. Six lectures will be presented on consecutive Tuesdays through March 6, all from 5 to 6 p.m. at Levin Hall. For more information on the free, public lectures, contact kaprevou(at)utmb.edu.

State Leadership Role

Dr. Angelica S. Robinson has been named a director-at-large for the Gulf Coast Region of the Breast Health Collaborative of Texas. The organization’s mission is to educate, advocate and leverage resources to ensure no Texan goes without breast health care.

UTMB has been a member of the collaborative since it was founded; other academic institutions actively involved with this statewide effort include Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Leadership panelist

Donna Sollenberger, executive vice president and CEO of UTMB Health, will join other women executives for “Rise to the top, sprint or marathon,” a panel discussion and luncheon of the Women’s Leadership Committee of the Greater Houston Partnership, 11:15 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 9 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, 1200 Louisiana St. in Houston. For ticket information, call 713-844-3681.

Visiting Campus

“The secret lives of the brain” was the topic of David M. Eagleman, assistant professor of neuroscience and psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and author of the books “Sum” and “Incognito.”

The WHO/PAHO Collaborating Center on Aging and Health welcomed Dr. Larissa Avilés-Santa of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health and her presentation “The Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos: An update and opportunities for collaborations.”

The 2012 Chauncey Leake Lecture, “Opioid analgesics: Behavior meets pharmacology,” was delivered by Linda Dykstra, distinguished professor in the behavioral neuroscience program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Presentations

In an overview of difficult topics in aging and disease, Dr. James Goodwin, director of the Sealy Center on Aging, addressed “How to think about disease and aging.” He was joined by Dr. Mukaila Raji who discussed “When to stop: Identifying over-treatment in patients with dementia” and by Yolanda R. Davila, associate professor of nursing, who spoke on “Assessing factors that impact the health of older adults.”

“Ethical issues in personalized medicine: Selection and privacy” was addressed by Jan Heller, clinical ethicist at the Institute for the Medical Humanities.