Forums to gather suggestions for equity, civility, respect

Seeking feedback from faculty, staff and students, the Commission on Equity, Civility and Respect will host forums from noon to 1:30 p.m. on Monday, May 19, and Friday, May 30, to gather input on its draft of 10 priority recommendations designed to ensure that Johns Hopkins is a community that is open, respectful and welcoming for all its members.

The May 19 forum will be on the Homewood campus, in Hodson Hall Auditorium, and the May 30 event will be on the East Baltimore campus, in Hurd Hall.

Established by President William R. Brody in 2006, the commission is a universitywide group of faculty, staff and students charged with developing an action plan to address gender, ethnic and racial diversity issues. The commission's goal is to propose programs, policies and procedures that put the university's "Principles for Ensuring Equity, Civility and Respect for All" into practice in the day-to-day operations of Johns Hopkins.

The priority recommendations, online at: equitycivilityrespect.jhu.edu/recommendations.html emerged from months of discussion among the group's members. Input from the Johns Hopkins community is critical at this stage of the commission's work because this set of guidelines will form the foundation of future action. In addition to participating in the forums, faculty, staff and students can e-mail comments and suggestions to ECR@jhu.edu.

 

Mobile POC-IT ABX Guide free to SoM students, house staff

The Johns Hopkins Point-of-Care Information Technology Center is making available at no cost to all current Johns Hopkins medical students and house staff the mobile version of the POC-IT ABX Guide. This mobile antibiotic guide was recently chosen by Medical Economics as one of the 10 best medical software applications for 2008, in the category of personal digital assistants.

The Johns Hopkins-developed ABX Guide is a free, Web-based, clinical decision support resource that has been used since 2000 by more than 400,000 physicians, nurses and medical students worldwide.

In January, the university licensed the guide to Skyscape, a firm that is among the leaders in mobile-accessed medical information software. Licensing the guide has made it available for the first time by subscription on all mobile devices, including the Palm and Pocket PC operating systems. The ABX Guide is also accessible from smartphones such as the iPhone and BlackBerry. The guide can be integrated with any of Skyscape's more than 500 other medical information software applications at their regular subscription rates.

"I know so many of our students and house staff rely on the ABX Guide in their daily work," said David Nichols, vice dean for Education at the School of Medicine. "Not only is it used to access a wealth of information on infections and antibiotics, but we also consider it a vital resource to ensure patient safety."

Students and house staff with jhmi.edu e-mail accounts can download the free version of the guide by going to www.skyscape.com/jhu/abxguide and following the prompts.

John G. Bartlett, former chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, championed the development of the POC-IT Guides and remains the ABX Guide's editor in chief. Paul G. Auwaerter, associate professor and clinical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases, is the POC-IT Center's chief medical officer and managing editor of the ABX Guide. For more, go to www.poc-it.org.

 

Riccardo Giacconi publishes memoir on modern astronomy

Riccardo Giacconi of the Henry A. Rowland Department of Physics and Astronomy is not only a Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist and winner of numerous other awards and prizes, he is also author of a new book being published by The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Secrets of the Hoary Deep: A Personal History of Modern Astronomy is part history, part memoir, part cutting-edge science and offers an in-depth look at X-ray astronomy from its infancy through today.

The book and its author will be celebrated this week at a reception and book signing being held at 6 p.m. on Thursday, May 15, in the Bloomberg Center on the Homewood campus. Giacconi is scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. in Schafler Auditorium. Admission is by reservation only; contact Jack Holmes at 410-516-6928 or jmh@jhu.edu.

 

Undergrad volunteer program hosts community health fair

Sponsored by Project Health, a volunteer program for undergraduates, Baltimore HealthFest '08 was held May 3 at Tench Tilghman Elementary School in East Baltimore. The goal of the fair, which organizers plan to run annually, was to connect families with community resources such as employment services, GED/education, housing and health insurance that are key to good health outcomes.

The Baltimore HealthFest was designed to instantly refer families to city agencies and community organizations that fit their needs, offer specific services and translation to the city's Spanish-speaking population and provide a variety of health education and demonstration opportunities.

Among those attending the fair were the Women's, Infants & Children's Program; Baltimore Housing; Black Mental Health Alliance; and many campus groups and volunteers. The event was co- sponsored by the Johns Hopkins undergraduate Public Health Studies Program, JHU Alumni Association, Baltimore Healthcare Access, SOURCE and the Baltimore City Health Department.

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