Good news

Ted Speroff commented on Robert Greevy's outstanding work with the VA Health Services Research team, which is a collaborative effort between VU's Institute for Medicine and Public Health and the VA. Ted stated there will be a big gap with Robert’s change of direction. This team is currently seeking a PhD replacement and is always expanding. The department has a likely candidate for this opportunity, who may join in September 2009; she also will join the emergency department team.

Chang Yu has been involved in four or more R01 submissions, including his own.

Tatsuki Koyama has a paper in press at Journal of Biopharmaceutical Statistics.

Frank Harrell is co-author on an article, “Visualizing covariates in proportional hazards model,” published in Statistics in Medicine.

Bill Dupont presented on his research at the department meeting. Thanks, Bill!

People

New employees

New department members include Meredith Blevins, biostatistician II; Regina Smith, administrative assistant III; and Renee Torres, biostatistician I. Welcome!

Promotions

Dan Byrne has expanded departmental responsibilities with the new title of director of quality improvement and program evaluation. Mario Davidson and Pingsheng Wu have been promoted to faculty, as instructor in biostatistics and assistant in biostatistics, respectively. Thomas Dupont has been promoted to computer systems analyst II, and Nate Mercaldo to biostatistician III. Congratulations!

Recruitment update

Several master’s-level staff biostatistician positions are currently open for recruitment.

Service

CTSA vouchers

On July 30th, Frank and Linda will meet with managers in the Department of Finance to discuss the CTSA voucher system, with the goal of clarifying when and how vouchers should be used.

Teacher needed

The department is looking for a volunteer to teach regression analysis in spring 2010. If interested, please contact Jeffrey Blume.

Quality

Scientific observational research

Frank has posted a new Wiki page (http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/ObsResProc) about observational research. If you are involved in an observational study, please visit this page for tips on operationalizing observational research, or to post your own tips or comments.

Reminder page

A reminder: Please visit the Wiki reminder page (http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/DeptReminders) at least once a week.

Weekly seminar

Seminar speakers sometimes run out of time before they have covered all of their prepared material. To avoid this problem in the future, Frank suggested that audience members hold all questions for the end of the talk (unless the speaker specifically encourages questions throughout). In addition, please limit yourself to one question per seminar, until all other audience members with questions have had an opportunity to speak.

Growth

Recharge service center

Jeffrey Blume will be interim director for the new recharge service center. A new accounting staff member is needed for this project.

Finance

Budget update

For fiscal year 2010, the department budget will be reduced an additional 3%. Frank plans to discuss the new budget system with the dean, to plan for future budgeting.

-- JohnBock - 01 Apr 2011