Thanks to a new UC Davis program, 10-year-old Ian Killmer’s doctor was able to perform a life-saving procedure on him under the instruction of pediatric trauma specialists 100 miles away via teleconference.

After passing out at home, Ian arrived at a rural hospital in Willitis, Calif. unresponsive. Dr. Ace Barash of the Willits hospital needed help from UC Davis specialists Drs. Kourosh Parsapour and James Marcin, two of the best pediatric intensive care specialists in California, 107 miles away.

Using UC Davis’ telehealth program, a network of videoconferencing connecting underserved hospitals with major medical centers, the UC Davis specialists were able to guide Dr. Barash through a procedure that he had not performed in 20 years. The doctors were able to see each other through the telemedicine screen and perform the procedure correctly to save Ian’s life.

“Our telemedicine program pioneered videoconferencing technology for use in medicine and we have conducted more than 20,000 video-based consultations at more than 100 clinics and hospital sites throughout the state and beyond since the 1990,” said Javeed Siddiqui, an associate medical director for the UC Davis Center for Health and Technology.

Telemedicine allows patients who live in remote areas to connect to some of the best medical specialists throughout California without risking the health of the patient by transporting them. Specialists are able to guide doctors in underserved areas through a portable terminal screen to diagnose, treat and provide the medical care that the patients need.

Telehealth can save patients in remote rural areas time and money because instead of taking a long trip to see a specialist, they can travel to a nearby hospital that offers the telehealth program.

“One of the benefits of telehealth (or telemedicine) is that it can potentially reduce the cost of care,” said Jana Katz-Bell, a senior administrator for the UC Davis Center for Health and Technology.

Smaller hospitals will also be able to save money by using the telehealth program when specialist care is needed, instead of hiring more costly on-site expertise that is only needed on an infrequent basis.

UC Davis is a state and national leader in telehealth, Siddiqui said.

The program started as a fetal monitoring project, in which expectant mothers from a small rural hospital in Colusa County were connected to the Medical Center and its specialists via teleconference. The mothers were able to remain in their hometown while still receiving the best medical expertise.

“UC Davis Health System now offers 40 medical specialties via telemedicine, which range from dermatology and infectious disease to psychiatry and pediatric critical care,” Siddiqui said.

“In addition, we are a leader in training and education related to telehealth,” he said. “The UC Davis telemedicine program continues to expand each year.”

As the program expands, millions of dollars from new federal and state funds are becoming available to support the development of telehealth throughout the state.

Voters passed Proposition 1D in 2006, which led to funding being distributed towards expanding medical education within California.

“$200 million of the overall $10.4 billion 1D bond measure specifically supports University of California’s medical schools and is helping to enhance its telemedicine programs throughout the state,” Katz-Bell said.

$10 million from Prop. 1D is already predetermined to be used to purchase more telehealth equipments that will be made available to areas where socioeconomic barriers present challenges to health-care access.

This funding also provides state of the art facilities and equipment to promote an increase in medical school enrollment in the UCs.

“UC Davis School of Medicine already has been able to expand its class size by just over 10 percent,” Katz-Bell said.

The Federal Communications Commision (FCC) invested a total of more than $30 million to identify and eventually connect hundreds of primarily rural California health-care facilities to a statewide and nationwide broadband telehealth network, Katz-Bell said.

The California Center for Connected Health (CCCH), the Sacramento-based organization that was created to coordinate telehealth throughout California, will connect stakeholders to set the strategy for a sustainable telehealth model in California.

“Working together, we can realize telehealth’s potential to improve access and quality for underserved populations,” said Sandra Shewry, president and CEO of the organization.

In addition to providing underserved areas with increased access to medical care, programs like telemedicine also benefit newly graduated UC students by providing more job opportunities in California’s future, Siddiqui said.

“Telecommunications experts, policymakers and health-care professionals will all be involved with this expanding field,” he said. “The need is great to increase access to specialty care throughout the state in an effective and efficient manner.”

MINH PHAM can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

Recyclemania, a nationwide competition among 100 universities, kicked off on Sunday, running until Mar. 27.

During the competition universities strive to collect as much recyclables as they can during the allotted time period. The more a university collects, the higher they will be ranked.

The first two weeks are a trial period in order for participants to prepare for the competition as well as to develop their strategies. Items recycled during this period do not count toward the overall standings. The competition will officially begin Feb. 1.

UC Davis has been participating in Recyclemania since its start in 2004, but this is the first year in which the whole campus will be involved. In prior years, only the residence halls hosted recycling competitions.

UC Davis, which has been a past participant (ranked eighth last year with an average recycling rate of 39.59 percent) will be taking an even more active role this year by encouraging more students and faculty to recycle and reduce waste, and educating more people about the benefits of recycling.

“The whole purpose for Recyclemania is to encourage people to recycle and compost more, educate them on how to recycle and take action on their campus to reduce waste, and to show people how their efforts make a difference for their campus and community,” said Maddison Greaves, a coordinator for the competition on Davis’ campus as well as a member of UC Davis’ R4 Recycling Program.

The Davis campus aims to do more to help the environment than just participating in this competition. UC Davis has developed the goal of producing zero waste by 2020, which means all waste by that time will either have become recyclable or able to put into compost.

“Recyclemania provides UC Davis with an excellent opportunity to display our leadership in sustainability,” said Eric Wulfemeyer, the event coordinator for Recylemania and a member of R4. “We pride ourselves on being stewards of the environment, promoting innovative research in conservation biology and other environmental areas,” he said.

Student and faculty participation is easy, organizers say. They simply have to make sure they recycle their bottles, cans, glass paper and anything else that can be reused. This year UC Davis is hoping to beat everyone by achieving first place through the cooperation of the entire campus.

“Stanford ranked first in total volume of recyclables last year, which provides UC Davis an incentive to recycle as much as ecologically possible to defeat the Cardinal,” Wulfemeyer said.

In the coming days one should expect to see flyers and promotions advertising the competition to be shown everywhere on campus.

Those interested in the competition can contact the R4 office at 752-7456 or visit the website at recyclemaniacs.org.

“It’s go green or go home,” Wulfemeyer said.

CORY BULLIS can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

It’s time Aggies, to start thinking about roommates, leases and housing for the upcoming year. No idea how to start? Have no fear, for Housing Day’s here!

More than 40 apartment complexes will be present in Freeborn Hall from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. today with information regarding off-campus housing.

Housing Day is an annual event organized by ASUCD for the sole purpose of bringing apartment complexes from all over Davis to one centralized and convenient location so that students can easily shop around for off-campus housing.

Over 800 students attended the event last year, and more are expected this time around.

Students can pick up brochures and flyers about the complexes as well as speak to staff members about prices, floor plans and other concerns.

“I really recommend that students ask as many questions as possible and not rush into making any decisions,” said Steven D. Lee, the ASUCD director of city and county affairs for fall quarter in an e-mail interview.

Lee encourages students to take the time to think about what they are looking for in an apartment, whether it’s location, cost or other factors.

“Students especially need to figure out who they want to live with,” Lee said.

“A lot of renting problems I see involve students finding out that the people they think they can live with are actually not good matches,” he said.

Meilin Luh, a second-year linguistics major who lives in a four-bedroom apartment with four other girls, advises house-hunters to know who they’re going to live with.

“When you live with [roommates] in the dorms versus an apartment, it’s completely different,” Luh said. “Sometimes you get to know someone too much. In the dorms you know everybody [equally]. Just know that when you live in an apartment, you’re going to find out some things that you didn’t know ahead of time.”

Karina Summers, a senior economics major, who shares a two-bedroom apartment with two others, believes flexibility is essential to maintaining a cordial relationship among housemates.

“Understand that there are days when you’re not going to be able to do the dishes and there are days when your roommates are not going to be able to do the dishes. So as long as you can tolerate people, you’re fine,” she said.

Brian Brown, a junior political science major, who lives with three others, looks at housing in college as a temporary thing.

“It’s not going to be forever,” Brown said. “People are people. The more you try to change somebody else, the more you end up changing in the opposite direction.”

“Students need to feel comfortable with where they are living and if at any time something just does not feel right, I would discourage them from living there,” he said.

Summers also emphasizes the importance of considering location, as opposed to amenities.

“You don’t spend as much time at your apartment as you think you would because you’re at school a lot, you might have other activities – so one of the big things [to consider] is that you’re going to have to sleep there and manage commuting to campus,” Summers said. “So if you’re living at a place that doesn’t have any bus lines, that’s probably not a good place.”

Arushi Kapoor, a senior neurobiology, physiology and behavior major, suggests establishing priorities and looking for housing close to campus to make use of on-campus dining if cooking will be an issue.

“Once the year starts, you are not really going to The Grad every single night – but you do need to eat every single day,” she said.

Lee advises students to pay careful attention to the terms of the leases they sign.

Once a lease is signed, the terms are binding – so a careful read can go a long way, he said. Lee encourages students to seek out leases such as the Davis Model Lease, which was negotiated by ASUCD to protect the interests of Davis students.

In addition to getting information, Housing Day is a wonderful source for “free swag.” Complexes are known to entice students with candy, Jamba Juice, pens, Frisbees and bags.

Housing Day is sponsored by Sequoia Equities, a local property management company.

POOJA DEOPURA can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

UC Davis and partners recently broke ground on a $13 million project to construct a Hyatt Place just off Interstate-80, neighboring the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts on the UC Davis campus.

The 75-room, 49,000 square foot hotel is expected to be finished by 2010.

The facility will stand alongside two other new buildings: a conference center and a new home for the Graduate School of Management.

“We’ve begun digging the trenches to what we feel is a nice complement to the conference center and graduate school of management,” said Guneet Bajwa, chief operating officer of Presidio Companies, the hospitality development and management company that will oversee construction and operate the new Hyatt Place hotel.

“It’s our position that we’re going to grow a business and accommodate larger conferences that currently we can’t have here because there is not enough hotel room,” said Mary Hayakawa, executive director of Real Estate Services for UC Davis.

The inspiration behind the project was the need to provide sufficient meeting and lodging space for conferences organized by UC Davis faculty and staff, said Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef

“Past conferences have largely taken place in Sacramento because of its adequate hotel space, or conferences went elsewhere entirely,” he said. “So we’ve been losing the opportunity to have people from all over the world come here and get to know the campus.”

Outsourcing both construction and management of the hotel leaves UC Davis on the hook for only minor infrastructure costs.

“We’ve ground leased the property to University Hospitality Group – and they’ll build it without significant cost to UC Davis,” Hayakawa said. “The majority of the cost will be borne by the third party developer.”

This is not a traditional, multi-story Hyatt that adorns many of America’s major cities – but rather a sleek, business class model.

This product is complete with business and personal amenities for the modern traveler,” Bajwa said. “It’s for the Gen X and Gen Y traveler that just wants a nice meal, a room that’s comfortable and has value for the money they spend on it.”

Among the unique amenities in the rooms is an iPod docking station and a Starbucks in the lobby.

When you walk into a hotel, you normally see a front desk – but here you see a Starbucks, complete with a cappuccino machine,” Bajwa said.

Bajwa said that while room prices will vary, they will average out to approximately $140 per night, with both higher and lower options.

The project was not without opposition from the community, especially from local motel and hotel owners who were worried that a new hotel would cut into their opportunities. Blueprints were originally sketched for a 150-room hotel before a series of litigation was brought against the university.

The most serious of which was a 2002 lawsuit filed by Davis resident Norman Rogers, which alleged that the environmental impact report for the project was not in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act.

“There was a lot of community discussion and interest in the project that has since been resolved,” said Karl Mohr, assistant vice chancellor in the Office of Resource Management and Planning, about the litigation that resulted in the 75-room limit to the hotel.

Chancellor Vanderhoef suggested that the room cap may end up a blessing in disguise to the community. Some events will certainly have more attendees that can be contained within the 75-room hotel and will need to stay elsewhere in Davis and travel to the Hyatt Place for business.

“Additionally, those conference attendees will likely eat in local restaurants and shop at local businesses – a plus for our local business community,” Vanderhoef said.

MIKE DORSEY can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

090121_ca_cjr.c

Kicker: Campus Judicial Report

Not In Violation

A student was referred for copying during an exam. The student correctly answered multiple-choice questions on recordings played before the student arrived at the exam. The SJA officer determined that there was not enough evidence to find the student in violation, but due to concerns about the incident, the student received an Administrative Notice regarding UC Davis policies on copying exams. An administrative notice is not a disciplinary sanction, but a formal notice of university policy.

Altering an exam

A math student submitted an altered examination for re-grading. The student erased the original answer and wrote in the correct answer. Upon meeting with an SJA officer, the student admitted to altering the exam, believing that she would not get caught. Her honesty was a mitigating factor, and the student agreed to a sanction of Disciplinary Probation for one year. A student on Disciplinary Probation is more likely to be removed from the university if found in violation of any campus policy.

Multiple violations

A student was referred for plagiarism and for submitting false information on a homework assignment. The student claimed to attend an event that she had not, and plagiarized multiple sections of the paper on the event. Due to the multiple violations and prior referrals, the student received a sanction of deferred separation, an assignment and workshop on plagiarism, tutoring at the Learning Skills Center and 25 hours of community service.

The Campus Judicial Report is compiled by student members of the Campus Judicial Board. Additional information about SJA and the Campus Judicial Board may be found at sja.ucdavis.edu.