Recognition

We’re pleased to share news of three Awards of Excellence the spring 2008 issue of Medicine at Michigan received from the University and College Designers Association: for the cover, and for the opening spreads of two feature articles, “Imprisoned by Pain” and “The First 21 Days.” UCDA is the leading association for professionals who create visual communications for educational institutions.

Shortly before going to press with this issue, we learned that Medicine at Michigan also won a Gold Medal as best college-level publication from Region V of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. CASE is the premier professional organization for college and university communications and advancement professionals. Region V includes Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Michigan.

Ever more meaningful, however, are the comments we’ve received from readers about the magazine’s improved readability, fresh visual appeal and content that continues to engage and inform. Your satisfaction is the greatest award of all.

—Rick Krupinski, Editor

Pioneering, Quietly

I enjoyed reading about Elizabeth Crosby’s personal and professional life (“Quiet Pioneer,” spring and summer 2008). An inspiring figure in our school’s history, Crosby helped students and clinicians understand research in neurology and neuroscience and its implications for clinical care. Her career is a great example of how all we do is for the big picture — to improve human health. While slightly more women than men have entered our school each year since 2006, and an impressive number of women are being promoted to senior faculty positions, medicine still can sometimes feel kind of like an “old boys’ network” for some female students and faculty. I can’t imagine what it would have been like in Dr. Crosby’s day. As a physician, scientist and teacher dedicated to my career, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to fulfill my dream of becoming a parent, but with my partner of more than 20 years (also a full-time physician at the Medical School), I adopted two boys, in 2002 and 2003, creating our own non-traditional, multicultural family. I was fortunate to receive an Elizabeth C. Crosby Award for my research in 2004, providing support when I needed it most as I learned to juggle my career and new job as an inexperienced mother. I’m grateful to Dr. Crosby and others like her for paving the way for women like us in academic medicine, and to Medicine at Michigan for bringing Dr. Crosby’s unique story to our community. It’s important to inspire and empower our students and our next generation of physicians and scientists, as well as to celebrate and embrace their diversity. We are fortunate to be involved with an academic community that opened doors for Dr. Cosby and today promotes acceptance, provides support, and permits freedom of personal choice among its patients, students, staff, faculty, alumni and friends.

—Elizabeth Petty, M.D., Associate Dean of Student Programs, Professor of Internal Medicine and of Human Genetics

A Sense of Shared Experience

The articles on Elizabeth Crosby and Jimmy Crudup (“Quiet Pioneer” and “Genius in His Hands,” spring 2008) were marvelous. The entire magazine is very good, but I particularly like the “closer look” at legends of the University. They are a nice complement to the updates on what’s new, and I believe they strengthen the sense of a shared experience among alumni. The University of Michigan helped shape the history of medicine in this country; I’d love to read more on how we got where we are today.

—Jean Holland (M.D. 1977), Birmingham, Michigan