Penn honored as clinical site

Eight top physicians from around the country will be chosen to participate in a prestigious fellowship program at Penn set to begin in 2005, officials announced yesterday. The School of Medicine is one of four schools that has been selected as a host site for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Clinical Scholars Program. Under this two-year fellowship, eight young physicians will be trained by a team of pre-eminent educators from nationally renowned programs, including Penn's, in clinical medicine and many other quantitative and qualitative sciences underlying health services research. According to Jeane Ann Grisso, senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, physicians from across the country will be able to apply to the program, set to begin in 2005. "We are elated at this opportunity," said Harold Feldman, professor of medicine and epidemiology and co-director of the Penn Clinical Scholars Program. "One purpose will be conducting rigorous research and being able to translate that into improving community health." Penn will be working together with ten local organizations, ranging from the Philadelphia Health Management Corporation to various drug prevention and public health education groups. "There will be a major focus on community-based work," Grisso said. "President Rodin has such a major commitment to the community." Grisso added that one of the reasons Penn's Medical School was selected was due to the "breadth and depth of its multi-disciplined faculty." J. Sanford Schwartz, professor of medicine and healthcare management and economics and co-director of the program, shared Feldman's enthusiasm. "Our curriculum is innovative, comprehensive and challenging," Schwartz said in a press release yesterday. The Clinical Scholars Program was established in 1972 and awards medical schools the honor of being training sites. The three other schools chosen as Clinical Scholars sites this year include David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Michigan Medical School and Yale University School of Medicine. Penn's Medical School, under the leadership of Arthur Rubenstein, executive vice president of the Health System and dean of the Medical School, was recently ranked fourth by U.S. News and World Report as a top research-oriented medical school. It was ranked second in the nation for the amount of National Institutes of Health research funds it receives. "This is a really important new initiative," Grisso said. "We are looking forward to working with Penn."

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