Feature
Strength in Numbers
March 8, 2007
IU and Notre Dame partnership enhances South Bend's medical education center
As director of the IU School of Medicine-South Bend, Rudy Navari matches top quality medical education with a cutting-edge research partnership with Notre Dame.
What's new at Indiana University School of Medicine's medical education center at South Bend? Just about everything, it would seem: a new director, a new building, a new curriculum, new faculty, new business initiatives and a renewed emphasis on the research partnership with the University of Notre Dame.
"The plan is in place, and it's working out well," said center Director Rudy Navari, M.D., Ph.D., who took the post in July 2005 after having directed Notre Dame's Walther Cancer Research Center since 1999 and serving as the associate dean of the College of Science at Notre Dame since 2000.
Although Notre Dame's cancer center had been successful, Navari said, over time it became evident that "to go to the next level in cancer research Notre Dame needed to affiliate with a medical school."
Meanwhile, the IU School of Medicine was looking for a permanent director in South Bend, one of the eight regional centers where half the school's medical students get their first two years of education before finishing their final two years in Indianapolis. In taking the position, Navari said, both he and IU School of Medicine Dean D. Craig Brater saw the potential for "a win-win situation."
"I could accomplish both goals: maintaining high quality education and expanding biomedical research in a partnership with Notre Dame."
Already two new scientists have been added to bolster the biomedical research mission. Suzanne S. Bohls, Ph.D., an assistant professor of microbiology and immunology recruited from the University of California-Irvine, studies the body's immune system cells that gobble up invaders in hopes of developing therapies to strengthen the body's ability to battle infectious particles. Robert Stahelin, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry, formerly at the University of Illinois, researches the role of proteins found on cell membranes in diseases as diverse as cancer, asthma and heart disease.
Recruiting is underway of two additional scientists, whom Navari hopes will start at South Bend this summer.
"There's a lot of potential here for expanding basic research and partnering with the host institution," Navari said.
The South Bend Center's potential has also been bolstered by a new facility. Not long after accepting his new post, Navari and his colleagues moved into the new Ernestine Raclin and O.C. Carmichael Jr. Hall, a $23 million structure that houses classrooms and related educational facilities, as well as Notre Dame's W. M. Keck Center for Transgene Research.
The educational mission has also seen changes, with the center moving from a traditional lecture-based approach to team-based learning that puts more responsibility on students to come to class prepared to participate, Navari said. He also is placing new emphasis on raising money for scholarships to expand financial assistance beyond the 27 percent of students who receive scholarship money now. The effort is off to a good start: a scholarship fundraising dinner in November raised $230,000.
The Center also is working to strengthen ties with South Bend and its health care community, Navari said. About 65 local physicians give lectures to the medical students, and he hopes to get local physicians more involved in providing medical students with additional experiences in clinical practice. Students who are involved in community activities and acquainted with local medical practices are more likely to return to practice in the area. Navari said about 120 of the northern Indiana region's physicians spent their first two years of medical school in South Bend.
The center's outreach efforts include its "mini-medical school" for the public and educational programs for health care professionals, and soon will move into the business world. The center, the city and Notre Dame are developing a biotechnology park adjacent to campus that will include an incubator for startup businesses.
There's plenty of potential for new businesses to grow out of research underway at the center and Notre Dame, said Navari. The park should be finished in the next 12 to 24 months, and "once the buildings get built I think they will fill up pretty fast."
