E-mail not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.
Faculty Commons Banner

News for BCM Faculty, Dec. 20, 2018
Please submit items for Faculty Commons to Erin Blair.

Archive / Faculty Affairs / Today at BCM / Employee Discounts


All Faculty

College News

image

Faculty Senate: Senators mingled with Faculty Inclusion Ambassadors at the holiday reception following the Senate meeting Dec. 13. The event served to raise awareness of the Senate, recruit future Senators and heighten visibility of the Ambassadors’ role in faculty recruitment and engagement at the department level.

  • Chair Oluyinka Olutoye provided a year-end review of Senate accomplishments, including:
    • Seven Resolutions passed
    • 10+ College committees with Senate representation
    • Two Lunch & Learn presentations hosted
    • Four affiliate sites visited by the Senate Roadshow
  • Senators have the opportunity to apply for the 2019 Senate Leadership Class developed by the Provost’s Office and UTHealth. The officer positions of chair-elect and secretary are up for election in June 2019.
  • Jennifer Tessin, assistant vice president for SAP reimplementation, gave a demonstration on how to create expense reports in Concur, the new travel and expense reimbursement tool for smart phone and desktop.

Survey Ends Tomorrow: The StandPoint faculty engagement survey closes Friday, Dec. 21. Currently, 43 percent of faculty has completed the survey; 50 percent is considered a meaningful response. If you have not yet taken the survey, look for a reminder email from StandPointSurveys@aamc.org with your personalized link to the survey, sent Tuesday, Dec. 18. For more information and to see how College leadership has used similar surveys in the past to implement change, visit the engagement survey website.

Faculty Kudos

image image image Dr. John Goss, professor and chief in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery, performed his 2,000th liver transplant and was named Master Clinician by Bayor St. Luke’s Medical Center medical executives at a celebration earlier this month. The event also honored Dr. Ali Marian, adjunct associate professor of medicine, with the Distinguished Scientist Award and recognized Dr. Peter Kan, associate professor of neurosurgery, and Dr. Chethan Rao, assistant professor of neurology, for Innovations in Clinical Care.

Susan Green, lead project manager in surgery, has been selected as a 2019 Michael E. DeBakey Fellow in the History of Medicine by the National Library of Medicine. The grant will fund her research project, “The Development of the DeBakey Classification of Aortic Dissection,” including onsite work with the NLM DeBakey Papers and other collections that span 10 centuries, encompass a variety of digital and physical formats, and originate from nearly every part of the globe.

Dr. Thuy Phung, associate professor of pathology & immunology with the Texas Children’s Hospital Vascular Anomalies Center, recently was elected secretary-general of the Asian Society of Dermatopathology, which is charged with promoting the development and advancement of skin pathology as a clinical specialty in Asia.

Dr. Thomas Wheeler, the W.L. Moody Jr. Chair in Pathology, describes his experience of discovering he had additional siblings just this year and considers how DNA testing is redefining the modern family in Policywise, the blog of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy.

College Events

Happy Holidays! The College will be closed on Christmas Day, Tuesday, Dec. 25, and New Year’s Day, Tuesday, Jan. 1.

  • The BCM Shuttle Service will operate on an abbreviated schedule on Christmas Eve, Monday, Dec. 24, and New Year's Eve, Monday, Dec. 31. Only the Red Shuttle Route will be in operation, from 6:45 a.m. to 4 p.m., with the following route: Main Baylor – Baylor Clinic – Jamail Specialty Care Center – BCM Medical Center – VA Hospital – McGovern Campus. Please allow 30 to 45 minutes round trip.
  • The TMC Library will be closed from Saturday, Dec. 22, through Tuesday, Jan. 1
  • Faculty Commons is off to play in the snow and will next publish on Thursday, Jan. 3, 2019.

Faculty Opportunities

Transitions Course Associate Director: The School of Medicine seeks an innovative clinical faculty member to serve as associate course director for the second-year course, Transitions to Clinical Rotations, which begins in early October and ends in early December. This position has 10 percent FTE support. See the website for more information; applications are due Friday, Dec. 28.

Community Engagement Director: The associate provost of Institutional Diversity, Inclusion and Equity & Student Services seeks to identify a community engagement director to enhance, improve and strengthen inclusion and diversity engagement efforts. This part-time position will provide leadership, implementation and coordination of programs to foster engagement in K-12, undergraduate and post-baccalaureate students seeking to enhance their preparedness for subsequent training in the health professions and biomedical sciences. See Faculty Opportunities for more information; the deadline to apply is Monday, Dec. 31.

Diversity Training Director: The associate provost also is hiring a diversity, inclusion and equity training director to enhance, improve and strengthen inclusion and diversity educational and training efforts. This part-time position will lead, implement and coordinate educational programs to raise awareness in BCM community members and teach them to learn and work collaboratively within diverse groups. It also will support students preparing for health professions and biomedical sciences training. See the website for more information; applications are due Monday, Dec. 31.

Learning Community Advisors: The Office of Student Affairs is recruiting for Learning Community Advisors for academic year 2019-2020. These are 10 percent FTE-supported positions. Interested M.D. faculty members should submit a one page statement of interest, their CV, and a letter of support from their department chair to the Learning Community coordinator Dianne Ohnstad by 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 4.

Faculty Resources

Blackboard's New Look: Login to Blackboard to see the academic system's modern new look and try out the new navigation to discover how much easier it is to find important information now. Have questions? Blackboard Learn system administrators have open office hours from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday – Friday in room 271A. You may also contact the system administrators for assistance via email or by phone at (713) 798-7308 or call the IT help desk to be directed to the system administrators.

2019 IRS Forms: Employees must file an amended IRS Form W-4 if their tax filing status, number of exemption allowances or exempt status has changed since the last filing of their FORM W-4. Also, if you claimed exempt for 2018 you must re-file a new W4 for 2019 if you wish to continue with the exempt status. Changes can be made to the Form W-4 directly online using Employee Self Service or can be made prior to Jan 1, 2019, by filling out the IRS Form W-4 and sending it to the Payroll office.

BCM Calendar: Get ready for the new year with the 2019 Baylor College of Medicine calendar, featuring photographs of Houston as well as BCM faculty, staff and trainees. Order the free calendars online for your department, clinic or office. Contact Virginia Young at (713) 798-4726 with any questions.

Summer Interns: Human Resources will offer the summer internship program June 4 – Aug. 2. The unpaid professional development program is for rising high school seniors and college and graduate students. Interns are introduced to the roles that support the clinical, research and education missions of the institution; however the program does not involve lab research. Email adminintern@bcm.edu if you would like to host an intern for the summer or to learn more about the program.


Attention Clinicians: See Clinical Events

Clinical Note

McNair Campus News: Radiology and imaging services located at the McNair Campus, 7200 Cambridge St., have transitioned from Baylor College of Medicine to Baylor St Luke’s Medical Center - McNair Campus as of Dec. 17. All billing is now the responsibility of Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center. As a result of this change, patient co-pays and other charges for radiology and imaging services may increase. For billing questions, please call (832) 355-3081.

Clinical Seminars

Just Medicine: The Baker Institute for Public Policy hosts Dr. Dayna Bowen Matthew of the University of Virginia School of Law, discussing her book on health disparities, “Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in America,” at 5:15 p.m. Jan. 23 in James A. Baker III Hall, Rice University. Register online to attend.


Attention Researchers: See Research Calendar

Research Seminars

Epigenetics: Dr. Robert Waterland, professor of pediatrics and genetics, speaks on “A Genomic Atlas of Systemic Interindividual Epigenetic Variation in Humans – A New Resource to Accelerate Discovery in Epigenetics and Disease” at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 3, in Howland Auditorium, Children’s Nutrition Research Center, 1100 Bates St.

Stem Cells: Dr. Margaret Goodell, director of the STaR Center, presents “Immortal Hematopoietic Stem Cells in Aging and Cancer” at noon Monday, Jan. 7, in Room M112, main Baylor.

XR in Space: The Transitional Research Institute for Space Health hosts a live-streamed workshop on the applications of augmented, virtual and extended reality (XR) in deep space exploration beginning at 10 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 17. The workshop brings together experts from academia and industry to address XR’s use in high priority projects in the NASA Human Research Program. Sign up to watch the free online event.

Research Resources

Precision Medicine RFA: The College has extended the application deadline for its precision medicine and population health grants to 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 4. Projects must leverage large data sets that are currently available at BCM or an affiliated hospital or health network and must be relevant to population-based clinical care, such as diagnosis, risk prediction, treatment, prevention and healthcare delivery. Guidelines are available online.

From the Labs: Read how Dr. Matthew Ellis, professor and director of the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center, is taking an integrated approach to finding new treatments for breast cancer in this post. You can receive twice-weekly articles on Baylor's research and innovation highlights as they are posted by going to From the Labs and entering your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the right.


Questions or Comments?

Faculty Senate: Please contact your senator for faculty-related questions or suggestions.

Institutional Policy Committee: Contact the Policy Committee to learn more about College policies and procedures.

Items for Faculty Commons: To submit items for this weekly email update for Baylor College of Medicine faculty, please contact us.


Connect With Baylor

facebook icon facebook icon twitter icon youtube icon linkedin icon Instagram icon