Clergy Day is free, but registration is due by June 1, by calling Upstate Connect at 1-315-464-8668.

The day begins at 8 a.m. with registration in the Cedar Cafe, 810 E. Genesee St., including a continental breakfast and time for fellowship.

Rev. Terry Culbertson from the Department of Spiritual Care will speak about “Mental Illness and the Modern Pastoral Care Movement,” and Upstate psychiatrists Jason Stepkovitch, MD will speak on “Notes from Real Life Psychiatry,” and Georgian Mustata, MD will speak on “Somatic, Psychological and Spiritual Therapies: A Hopeful Encounter.” Then a panel discussion will include a former patient, a congregational clergy member and psychiatric chaplains.

A closing blessing takes place at noon.

Upstate Medical University’s hour-long “HealthLink on Air” program joins WRVO Public Media‘s Sunday evening lineup from 9 to 10 p.m. Sunday, May 26 .

Registered dietitian Terry Podolak provides the “Healthy Eats” segment.

WRVO — part of the National Public Radio digital network — can be heard from Cortland to Watertown, and Utica to Geneva. Its station is headquartered on the SUNY Oswego campus. Partnering with Upstate, also part of the State University of New York, allows the two schools to engage in what SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher, PhD calls “systemness.”

“HealthLink on Air” is one way that Upstate educates and informs the Central New York community on matters of health, medicine and science. Since launching in 2006, “HealthLink” has showcased hundreds of experts from the academic medical center, the Syracuse community and beyond, creating a treasure trove of archived interviews.

Among the topics: what to expect from weight loss surgery; how new techniques are allowing doctors to personalize cancer care; why you should be concerned about whooping cough, and hepatitis C; and many, many more. “HealthLink” also features regular guest segments, including:

psychologist Rich O’Neill‘s “Check Up From the Neck Up,”

Dr. Donna Bacchi‘s “Public Health Today,”

Dr. Derek Cooney‘s “What’s Your Emergency?”

Registered dietitian Terry Podolak‘s “Healthy Eats,”

Dr. Richard Cantor‘s “Peds to Parents”

and bioethics and humanities professor Deirdre Neilen‘s “Healing Muse.”

Richard Cantor, MD is interviewed about how to keep children safe this summer in the “Peds to Parents” segment.

“We are thrilled to make this program available to the WRVO audience and to partner with another SUNY campus,” said Leah Caldwell, interim director of marketing for Upstate. Previously “HealthLink” aired Sunday mornings on WSYR FM Newsradio 106.9.

The program’s producer is Amber Smith, a veteran newspaper journalist who covered health and medicine for The Post-Standard for 23 years before joining Upstate. Linda Cohen serves as host of “HealthLink on Air,” and a dedicated team from SUNY Upstate’s Educational Communications and Marketing departments provides technical services.

You can make suggestions for “HealthLink on Air” segments via email at HLOA@Upstate.edu

Tune in 9 to 10 p.m. Sundays on WRVO, on these channels:

89.9 FM & HD Oswego/Syracuse

Deirdre Neilen, PhD provides a weekly “Healing Muse” segment.

90.3 FM & HD2 Syracuse

91.7 FM & 99.9 Watertown

90.1 FM & 92.3 FM Hamilton

91.9 FM Utica

90.5 FM Cortland

90.7 FM Geneva

89.9 Norwich

With the aid of a scissor lift, photographer Susan Kahn takes a group photograph of emergency responders and physicians in the parking lot at Upstate University Hospital’s Community Campus. Photo by Susan Keeter.

Upstate emergency physician Derek Cooney, MD speaks to the media. Photo by Darryl Geddes.

In celebration of National EMS Week, May 19 to 23, Upstate University Hospital will present free training to EMS providers in Cayuga County in what will be one of the largest EMS training efforts undertaken by the hospital outside of Onondaga County.

The Emergency Medical Services training in Cayuga County will take place Wednesday, May 22 at the Auburn Holiday Inn, 75 North St., Auburn. It will feature presentations on Upstate’s EMS Physician Response Team and Mercy Flight Central Air Ambulance. Also part of the training will be presentations on how to take care of an obese patient before they get to the hospital and the importance of conducting a quick assessment of stroke patients and how stroke care differs from hospital to hospital.

EMS officials say it is essential that first responders, including EMS providers, get regular, ongoing education about new techniques and protocols for providing treatment in the field. “Upstate is providing us a valuable opportunity to receive high quality training for all our EMS providers, including individuals working in public safety, nursing, fire and police,” said Brian Dahl, director of emergency medical services for Cayuga County Emergency Management.  “It’s important for everyone to come together and receive this training.”

Mercy Flight was available for the photo shoot. Photo by Susan Keeter.

Cayuga County has about 360 individuals working as EMS providers. Some are paid, and many are volunteers, who live in rural areas that make up most of the county’s 720 square miles. That’s challenging geography in which to provide programming to EMS providers, where many would have to travel significant distances to receive such training, officials say.

Thus Upstate and Cayuga County officials worked on a plan to bring programming to Cayuga County. “Presenting a comprehensive EMS training program where first responders live is essential to ensuring all who arrive first on the scene of an accident, have the most advanced training possible,” said Doug Sandbrook, Upstate’s EMS liaison and director of its paramedic program.

Upstate says it will consider additional educational programming in other outlying communities and is examining the use of provide some training through teleconferencing.

“As the region’s only academic medical center, we are responding to the needs of the region to ensure that individuals throughout Central New York have the very best in care when first responders arrive on the scene,” said Derek Cooney, MD, director of Upstate’s Fellowship Program for EMS and Disaster Medicine.

Upstate University Hospital is the area’s only Level 1 trauma center and provides certification and continuing medical education program to more than 700 EMS professionals annually.

Group photo by Susan Kahn.

One of our goals is to serve our region, both by recruiting and admitting students from New York state, and to prepare our graduates  to care for our state’s diverse population. We have made a concerted effort to supply a well-educated workforce to the region and this ties back to our original mission.

Our values go back for generations. We were founded, in 1834, to serve the new population that was emerging along the Erie Canal — not to mention the disease and pestilence that followed that growth, and the environmental hazards along the way. We were created to train doctors who would work to solve those problems and who would care for the community.        

I’m not sure we’ve ever turned our back on the urgency from which we were created. It has always been in our roots. The values are still there. That sense of place and of being well-grounded continues today. That’s why we’ve been able to attract such engaged, passionate students. It’s remarkable. Across our four colleges, our students have a keen awareness of the environment and individual circumstances. They have a high level of compassion and caring. They are doing and going above and beyond what is just required in the classroom and the laboratory. They are ready and willing to meet today’s needs.

So their potential probably has not been fully realized — which gives us great hope for being able to do the things we’re going to have to do in the future.

1. This excerpt is from what year? “It was evident that if the College was to survive, even greater financial support was necessary.”

Answer: 1949, when Syracuse University was lobbying for the medical school to be acquired by the State University of New York.

2. In the late 1880s, the Department of Health of the City of Syracuse established a building for contagious diseases on a large plot east of Teall Avenue. It was commonly known as what?

Answer: The “Pest House.” And, by the late 1920s, patients with contagious disease were treated within the new City Hospital, which was later renamed Silverman Hall — and now houses Upstate’s College of Health Professions.

3. Two separate studies in the early 1950s concluded that several of Syracuse’s 10 hospitals merge and that a new hospital be built. What happened before those recommendations were followed?

Answer:  After a bad experience at a local hospital, the late Alexander “Casey” Jones, executive editor of the now-defunct Herald-Journal newspaper, encouraged then Syracuse Mayor Donald Mead to fix the city’s antiquated hospital system. A commission was appointed, public hearings were held, and the decision was made to build a new hospital outside of downtown. Community Hospital opened in 1963. The following year it merged with Syracuse General Hospital and became Community General Hospital. It became part of Upstate in 2011.

Julius Richmond, MD went on to become US Surgeon General.

4. Which former chairman of pediatrics went on to become US Surgeon General, overseeing tobacco control efforts?

Answer: Julius Richmond, MD served as surgeon general from 1977 to 1981.

5. A gifted parasitologist and artist who became an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Bacteriology in 1930 (later joining the faculty) made basic discoveries about the life cycle of the tapeworm and drew meticulous illustrations of his findings. Justus Mueller, PhD took multiple scientific expeditions into the rainforests of Central and South America, which earned him election into which elite club in 1980?

Answer:  The Explorers Club, an international professional society dedicated to preserving the instinct to explore. The club, with headquarters in New York City, unifies explorers and scientists from a variety of disciplines from more than 60 countries. Among its members are the first men to reach the North and South poles, the first to summit Mount Everest, the first to the deepest point in the ocean and the first to the surface of the moon.

Dr. Jayne Charlamb, MD is interviewed. Photo by Kathleen Paice Froio.

NewsChannel 9 interviewed Dr. Jayne Charlamb, MD, about actress/director Angelina Jolie’s disclosure that she underwent a double mastectomy to reduce her chances of developing breast cancer. The Syracuse television station focused on Andrea Riccelli, another woman who chose to have her breasts removed because of an 87-percent risk of breast cancer.

“I decided I’d rather choose the preventive mastectomy rather than illness, I’d rather choose that – than have my kids see me sick, or not be here in a decade or so,” Riccelli told NewsChannel 9′s Caitlin Nuclo.

Charlamb said that many patients in the same situation also choose surgery. “It’s not perfect. We can never say you won’t get breast cancer, but it’s the most effective way. Again though, it has to be the right decision for the woman involved.”

Read/watch the Newschannel 9 coverage.

The old physiology-pharmacology lab.

This little trip down memory lane wraps up today with five final trivia questions having to do with the history of Upstate. I’ll post answers this afternoon. Thanks for playing along.

1. This excerpt is from what year? “It was evident that if the College was to survive, even greater financial support was necessary.”

2. In the late 1880s, the Department of Health of the City of Syracuse established a building for contagious diseases on a large plot east of Teall Avenue. It was commonly known as what?

3. Two separate studies in the early 1950s concluded that several of Syracuse’s 10 hospitals merge and that a new hospital be built. What happened before those recommendations were followed?

4. Which former chairman of pediatrics went on to become US Surgeon General, overseeing tobacco control efforts?

5. A gifted parasitologist and artist who became an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Bacteriology in 1930 (later joining the faculty) made basic discoveries about the life cycle of the tapeworm and drew meticulous illustrations of his findings. Justus Mueller, PhD took multiple scientific expeditions into the rainforests of Central and South America, which earned him election into which elite club in 1980?

Answer: 1879. (And judging from the use of three exclamation points in the narrative history, this was an especially exciting development!!!)

State University Hospital, 1965.

2. It would take four years to build, but when was the groundbreaking for the State University Hospital (now Upstate University Hospital?)

Answer: 1961.

3. What was the first full-time educational department that was established?

Answer: Physiology, in 1892. This was followed by pathology in 1900, biochemistry in 1903, anatomy in 1907 and microbiology in 1914.

4. How much money was donated by businesses, foundations and individuals  in order for Community Hospital to open its doors Jan. 1, 1963? (Community Hospital became Community General Hospital in 1964 after merging with Syracuse General Hospital, and it became part of Upstate in 2011.)

Answer: More than 48,000 businesses, foundations and individuals raised more than $7 million. The federal government contributed $2.2 million.

5. What placed Syracuse in the forefront of medical education in the late 1800s? (Hint, Syracuse was following the lead of Harvard and Michigan in this.)

Answer: The plan and establishment of a three-year graded curriculum, which was considered a daring move in the face of the economics of medical training. Many medical students preferred the standard two 16-week series of lectures followed by three years of preceptorship at little or no expense to them.

This welcomes everyone to Weiskotten Hall.

Here’s part two of the pop quiz I’ve assembled regarding Upstate’s history, based on the research I’ve been conducting for a forthcoming Upstate Health magazine article. Later this afternoon, I’ll post the answers.

1. In what year did the college adopt the metric system?

2. It would take four years to build, but when was the groundbreaking for the State University Hospital (now Upstate University Hospital?)

3. What was the first full-time educational department that was established?

4. How much money was donated by businesses, foundations and individuals  in order for Community Hospital to open its doors Jan. 1, 1963? (Community Hospital became Community General Hospital in 1964 after merging with Syracuse General Hospital, and it became part of Upstate in 2011.)

5. What placed Syracuse in the forefront of medical education in the late 1800s? (Hint: Syracuse was following the lead of Harvard and Michigan in this.)

1. This weekend, Upstate will graduate 477 students — 170 from the College of Health Professions, 149 from the College of Medicine, 135 from the College of Nursing, and 23 from the College of Graduate Studies. How many students graduated 50 years ago?

Answer: In 1963, the College of Medicine had 75 graduates, and the College of Nursing had 54. In addition, three individuals obtained doctorates.

2. Name the Upstate founding father who was among the first group of physicians to promote vaccination (against smallpox, in 1803.)

Answer: Edward Cutbush, MD, the first dean at Geneva Medical College.

This is part of the historical collection at Upstate’s Health Sciences Library.

3. What was the total price of a bill dated Sept. 11, 1892 for an operation and five-day hospital stay?

Answer:  $4.65

4. What began to disappear when, starting in 1930, the senior medical students were assigned 10-day rotations living in the hospital?

Answer: Home births. Prior to the 1930s, students helped staff prenatal clinics and were in charge of home delivery services for clinic patients. More women began delivering in the hospital when student residencies in obstetrics began.

5. Today’s in-state tuition for medical school is $29,530. What was it 100 years ago?

Answer: $175 (Which, in today’s dollars, would be in the $4,000 ballpark.)