For Alumni
Stanford
MD

On the Cover

Cover illustration by San Francisco-based artist Jeffrey Decoster.

Stanford Medicine, published quarterly by Stanford University Medical Center, aims to keep readers informed about the education, research, clinical care and other goings on at the Medical Center.

Dear Friends,

I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE MY ENTHUSIASM FOR WHAT IS PROVING TO BE AN EXCITING YEAR. In particular, I am pleased to tell you about several initiatives the faculty and administration have set in motion over the summer and fall months. We believe these programs will allow us to achieve two of our key priorities: to provide the best possible education for our students and to continue to shine as a preeminent center of biomedical research.

ONE NEW INITIATIVE, CALLED THE GALE PROJECT, will allow us to upgrade our library and classrooms. Our available educational facilities, built in 1959, do not adequately support the phenomenal advances in medical education and instructional technology. So I am pleased to tell you that in October 1999 the Board of Trustees gave concept approval for the GALE Project, which will provide instructional and research resources that merge the high-tech future of medical education with our tradition of individual attention to students. Specifically, the project will include the renovation of the Grant, Alway and Lane buildings and the construction of a new education building that will replace the Edwards building. The new building will create, we hope, a vibrant center for the medical education community by bringing administration, student services and teaching functions under one contiguous roof. The project will also include major improvements at Lane Library -- most notably an increase in size and a complete information technology upgrade. One of our goals is to provide all students easy access to digitized videos of lectures, online versions of class handouts and visuals and other medical resources.

Bricks and mortar in and of themselves, however, do not make a great education. As part of our overall goal to make this the consummate medical school, we are working toward a streamlined curriculum, fully integrated with modern technology and pedagogy, that promotes not only fundamental medical knowledge but the development of the critical thinking skills that will serve our students throughout their careers.

Another of our initiatives will invigorate our focus on interdisciplinary research and education. Since the School of Medicine moved from San Francisco to Palo Alto in 1959, it has had a rich history of collaboration among faculty and students from a variety of disciplines. Today, we are formalizing these alliances and are building broad inter-school programs that will bridge the clinical and basic sciences across Campus Drive. The most prominent of these ventures is the Program for Biomedical Eng ineering and Sciences -- also known as "Bio-X." Currently in the planning stage, Bio-X, when fully implemented, will draw together faculty and students from biology, chemistry, engineering, physics and medicine to develop new approaches to explore the fundamental structures and systems of living organisms. The intellectual hub for Bio-X will be a new 225,000-square-foot building located close to the medical campus and the Schools of Engineering and Humanities and Sciences.

The past few months have brought some sobering news along with the announcements of these exciting initiatives -- I refer in particular to the decision to end the merger of our clinical operation with that of UCSF. In October, President Casper asked the University of California to begin the separation process. Though this is disappointing, let me reassure you that the separation will not disrupt patient care or interfere with the School's commitment to its educational and research activities. You will find more news about the merger's dissolution in an article on page 3 of this issue of Stanford Medicine.

Stanford is an extraordinary place. As we enter the 21st century, we stand at a point where information technology, biomedical science and the School of Medicine's long tradition of caring and innovation will combine to the benefit of patients and physicians everywhere. Together, we shall achieve this exciting future.

Cordially yours,

EUGENE A. BAUER, MD

Vice President for Medical Affairs

Dean, Stanford University School of Medicine