The Gift of Sight

Thirty people saw the world differently when they walked out of the Hamilton Eye Institute (HEI) Surgery Center at UTHSC on June 2. They were patients in the inaugural Ivan Marais Cataract-A-Thon, an outreach conceived by HEI’s Dr. Brian Fowler to provide free cataract surgeries to people who otherwise would have no means of undergoing the sight-saving procedure. The event was in memory of HEI’s Dr. Ivan Marais, who died in April.


Reducing Infant Mortality Overseas

Dr. Giancarlo Mari, second from left, and his team brought the OB F.A.S.T. simulation program to China. He is pictured with Dr. Danielle Tate, left, Bonnie Miller and Dr. Ravpreet Gill, right.

A simulation program created by physicians at UTHSC and partner hospital Regional One Health to train health-care workers in treating obstetrical emergencies is expanding internationally.

Dr. Giancarlo Mari, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at UTHSC, founded OB F.A.S.T. (Obstetrical Feasible Approach to Safety Training) five years ago to tackle the high infant mortality rate in Memphis and Shelby County. It has been used to train more than 500 obstetricians, nurses and medical residents from 15 states.

Mari and a team from UTHSC and Regional One recently took OB F.A.S.T. to China at the invitation of the Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, one of the top maternal and childhealth facilities in China. The team instructed health-care workers from 36 hospitals, who will train other health-care workers across China.


Regional Tuition Expands

The College of Pharmacy in Memphis.

UTHSC’s College of Pharmacy expanded its regional tuition rate to pharmacy students living out of state within a 200-mile radius of the college’s instructional sites in Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville.

The highest-ranked pharmacy school in Tennessee and ranked number 17 in the country by U.S. News & World Report, the college will now be more accessible to students from parts of 13 surrounding states. They will pay only 25 percent of the previous differential between in-state and out-of-state tuition. “We want to expand our access as we continue to recruit the best and brightest students possible,” says pharmacy Dean Marie Chisholm-Burns.