Endocrine Society Honors Sen. Dick Durbin with Biomedical Research Champion Award
The Endocrine Society presented U.S. Senate Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) with the Biomedical Research Champion Award during a ceremony at ICE/ ENDO 2014 in Chicago.
“I am honored to receive the Endocrine Society’s National Biomedical Leadership Award and to share the Society’s commitment to federal funding for biomedical research in order to help us live longer and healthier lives,” Durbin tells Endocrine News.
The award recognizes and commends members of Congress who strive to advance endocrine research and enhance public understanding of health issues pertaining to the field of endocrinology. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Durbin has worked to accelerate and secure financial support for research.
“Sen. Durbin has led the way in acknowledging the importance of biomedical research to all Americans,” says Teresa K. Woodruff, PhD, immediate past-president of the Endocrine Society. “He has fought to increase funding and create new revenue streams for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). I’m proud to honor my senator for his tireless efforts to advance research needed to identify the medical treatments of tomorrow.”
In March, Durbin introduced legislation called the American Cures Act. The proposed bill, endorsed by the Endocrine Society, would create a trust fund to support a mandatory funding stream for biomedical research. The bill would increase funding annually for the NIH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Defense Health Program, and Veterans Medical and Prosthetics Research Program at a rate of 5%.
Durbin noted that with diabetes and many other endocrine diseases, the biggest obstacle to better treatments and cures is not lack of science, it’s lack of money. “That is why I’ve introduced the American Cures Act,” Durbin says, “which would make federal funding for cutting-edge biomedical research less political and more predictable. I look forward to working with the Endocrine Society on this effort.”
Endocrine Society Award for Excellence in Science and Medical Journalism Awarded
Freelance journalist Cathryn Jakobson Ramin (left) received the Endocrine Society’s annual Award for Excellence in Science and Medical Journalism.
Ramin, of Mill Valley, Calif., was honored at ICE/ENDO 2014 in Chicago, for her winning article, “The Hormone Hoax Thousands Fall For.” The article was published in the October 2013 issue of More magazine.
Established in 2008, the Endocrine Society created the award to recognize outstanding reporting that enhances the public understanding of health issues pertaining to the field of endocrinology.
In her investigative article, Ramin examined the process of compounding medications and the health risks this can pose to women who are prescribed hormone therapy for hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms. Her coverage found inconsistencies in the level of hormones when identical prescriptions were filled by 12 different compounding pharmacies. She was recognized for her indepth research and ability to clearly explain how hormones function in terms easily understood by the average reader.
The Award for Excellence in Science and Medical Journalism consists of a presentation at the Society’s awards banquet, as well as travel and accommodations to attend the Society’s Annual Meeting.
Endocrine Society to Host Summit on ACA and Diabetes
On Sept. 12, 2014, the Endocrine Society will host “ACA Implementation: Impact on the Patient with Diabetes” in the Atrium Ballroom of the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C.
The all-day conference will explore the impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) on patients with diabetes. Specifically, the summit will explore:
• The current state of diabetes care in the U.S., including its epidemiology, prevalence, and challenges relevant to care management.
• The cost of diabetes care and the impact on various
stakeholder groups, including individual patients, thirdparty payers, and healthcare systems.
• Intended benefits of the ACA and how this shift in healthcare policy may impact diabetes care and outcomes.
After the summit, attendees should have a much better understanding of the humanistic and economic burden of diabetes, as well as the challenges of diagnosis, treatment, management, and prevention of long-term complications. They will also get an indepth appraisal of the ACA—both positive and negative—from various perspectives including those of physicians, private payers, as well as patients. There will also be a vigorous discussion of future healthcare policy recommendations that favor treatment options for patients with diabetes and therapies that could prevent the disease or its progression.
Among the speakers invited to the summit are Robert Vigersky, MD, Endocrine Society past president, director, Diabetes Institute, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center; Ann Albright, PhD, RD, director, Division of Diabetes Translation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Sherita Golden, MD, MHS, associate professor of Medicine/Endocrinology and Metabolism, Johns Hopkins University; Patrick Conway, MD, MSc, deputy administrator for Innovation and Quality and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; Carter Blakey, deputy director, Offfice of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion; Kelly Close, Close Concerns, as well as White House officials, congressional staff, key policy makers, and more.
The Ronald Reagan Building is located at 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. For more information, go to www.endocrine.org/ meetings/policy-summit.
Society Journals Make the Top of the GOOGLE SCHOLAR LIST
Three of the Endocrine Society’s journals were classified as the most influential in their field, according to data released in June by Google Scholar Metrics.
The top publication in Google Scholar’s endocrinology category is The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), with Endocrinology in the number two slot, and Endocrine Reviews rated number four. The Society’s Molecular Endocrinology also made the top 20 list at number 11.
“The Editors and staff at JCEM are very proud of the Google Scholar rankings which confirm what we all believe to be the preeminence of JCEM amongst 120 journals in endocrinology,” says Leonard Wartofsky, MD, MACP, editor-in-chief of JCEM and professor of medicine, Georgetown University School of Medicine; Department of Medicine, Washington Hospital Center. “We owe that success to our readers and members who submit their best work for publication and to our reviewers who provide expert critical analysis of the manuscripts submitted leading to publication of only the very best.”
This system provides authors a quick and easy way to gauge the influence and visibility of the articles in various scientific journals. It also summarizes recent citations to a number of publications so authors can decide which journals are worthy of their research. Further, the articles are ranked in Google Scholar the same way researchers rank them: weighing the full text of each document, where it was published, who it was written by, as well as how often and how recently it has been cited in other scholarly literature.
Google Scholar ranks journals based on the h-index, which is a measurement that gauges the productivity as well as the impact of a published work by a specific scientist or author. The index is based on the author’s most cited papers as well as the number of citations the author has received in other publications.
First suggested in 2005 by Jorge E. Hirsch — the H in h-index — a physicist at the University of California in San Diego, the h-index was developed to address the perceived faults of other measurements such as simply citing the total number of papers. Hirsh felt that by just citing the volume of published works did not necessarily mean said works were of the highest quality. The h-index addresses this conundrum by including the number of citations on a given paper in other scholarly publications.
The other major measurement of journal metrics is the impact factor, which was scheduled to be released at the end of July.
Revamped Menopause Map Now Online
The Hormone Health Network (HHN) recently released a “new and improved” Menopause Map™, an updated interactive online tool that is essentially a onestop source for all things relating to menopause.
“The Menopause Map can be used by women of all ages to learn more about the hormonal changes that occur during all stages of menopause, which include: preparing for menopause, premature menopause, perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause,” says Cheretta Clerkley, director, Hormone Health Network, adding that “women who are currently on this journey should find it useful, and even fun, to use. An additional bonus is that the Network has developed tools for healthcare professionals because they are critical to helping women find the right treatment options. The healthcare professional microsite offers free tools to help medical professionals learn how to use this new interactive tool with their patients.”
Clerkley states that HHN is committed to empowering all women when it comes to menopause. “With this in mind, we recognized it was time to provide a refresh of the current map to better educate women of all the stages of menopause, to provide additional information on managing symptoms, and to inform women on where to go for peer-to-peer support resources,” she says. “This new version of the tool accomplishes these goals and enhances the women’s experience with the map, while keeping the integrity of the original Menopause Map.”
The Menopause Map can be accessed at www.menopausemap.org.
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