News in brief - Sept. 10, 2007

Colorado to open the state's first public health school - Lawsuit dropped after North Carolina revamps medical board appointments - University of New Mexico housestaff signs first union contract - Psychologists specify unethical interrogation techniques

Colorado to open the state's first public health school

Three Colorado universities have joined forces to open the Colorado School of Public Health, the first of its type in the state. The first class is slated to start in 2008.

The school will oversee residencies for medical graduates in occupational health and preventive medicine.

Among other things, it will offer master of public health degrees in biostatistics; community behavioral health; environmental and occupational health; epidemiology; and health systems management and policy.

"The Colorado School of Public Health will fill a significant regional void and no doubt will play a vital role in the national public health arena," said M. Roy Wilson, MD, chancellor of the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center.

Administrative offices will be at the University of Colorado Denver campus, with classes held in Denver and at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.

The University of Colorado schools raised $4 million in grants and gifts to develop the new school. Funding for the $15 million annual operating budget will come from the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center's preventive medicine program, which will become part of the public health school.

Lawsuit dropped after North Carolina revamps medical board appointments

A physician and three patients dropped a lawsuit that claimed the North Carolina Medical Society had too much control over the state medical board.

The move came Aug. 21, two weeks after the governor signed a law that changes who makes nominations to the medical board. The measure takes effect Jan. 1.

On Feb. 28, family physician John Faulkner, MD, and three patients sued the North Carolina Medical Board, Gov. Michael Easley, the state and the medical society.

The lawsuit asked that the process of the medical society nominating seven of the 12 board members to the governor be declared unconstitutional. The society and medical board said the nomination process was fair.

In March, state legislators introduced a bill to change the practice. The medical society supported the proposal.

The new law calls for a nine-member review panel, which will include six physicians, to make recommendations of potential board members to the governor.

University of New Mexico housestaff signs first union contract

Residents, interns and fellows at the University of New Mexico approved their first union contract in August, a move they hope will give them more say in patient care issues.

The new contract gives the doctors pay raises that range from 5.3% for those in their first year of training to 10.3% for those in their fifth year.

The agreement also creates a $25,000 annual Patient Care Fund to help doctors pay for hospital equipment. Qualified physicians can receive tuition reimbursements. In addition, taxi reimbursements are available to residents who cannot drive home after a 24-hour shift.

The 550 physicians unionized in February through the Committee of Interns & Residents, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.

Psychologists specify unethical interrogation techniques

The American Psychological Assn. last month adopted a resolution condemning psychologists who participate in any of 19 interrogation techniques it says are unethical.

The policy falls short of the stricter standards the American Psychiatric Assn. and the AMA set last year. Those say that physicians should not conduct, monitor or directly participate in the interrogation of prisoners.

The psychologists' new policy says that it is unethical to directly or indirectly participate in activities such as mock execution; simulated drowning or suffocation; sexual, religious or cultural humiliation; exploitation of phobias; extreme sleep deprivation; or induced hypothermia. The group also called on the U.S. government to prohibit the techniques.

"We have had a long-standing position that torture and other forms of inhuman and degrading treatment are unethical," said Stephen Behnke, PhD, director of the American Psychological Assn.'s Ethics Office.

"The strength of this new resolution is that it adds specificity to that prohibition," Dr. Behnke said.

Behavioral-science consultant teams composed partially of psychologists helped to devise brutal interrogation tactics that were employed against suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, according to numerous government reports, medical journal articles, leaked classified documents, human rights groups, court filings and news accounts.

Space invader The exam room where a meteorite hit a Virginia doctors' office has become the most requested room among patients, who joke about wearing hard hats to appointments. Story