TODAY news - February 5, 2004 - Loma Linda University news

In 1999 the LLU department of physical therapy collaborated with the Antillean Adventist University (AAU) in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, to bring graduate-level physical therapy education to this Caribbean island nation.

"Since then," reports Everett B. Lohman III, DPTSc, OCS, program director, "we will have graduated approximately 80 MPTs from our LLU post-professional program in Puerto Rico. This coming June, our five-year contact will be complete."

Dr. Lohman explains that the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) has just started their first cohort group of 12 entry-level MPT students, to graduate in 2006. Therefore, for two more years, LLU alumni will continue to be the only graduate-level PTs trained in Puerto Rico.

Alumni from the LLU PP-MPT program hold major leadership offices throughout the island. They are filling positions such as president of the Puerto Rico American Physical Therapy Association, president and vice-president of the private practice association on the island, and director of Bella Vista Hospital, to name a few.

On January 7, 2004, Craig R. Jackson, JD, MSW, dean of the School of Allied Health Professions, and Dr. Lohman met with Dr. Myrna Costa, president of AAU, to discuss future collaborations with Antillean Adventist University.

Dr. Jackson comments, "Loma Linda University's presence on the island has had a consistently positive influence on the quality and manner of health care that is being delivered in Puerto Rico. Our graduates have distinguished themselves as true leaders in the health-care community as well. They have the reputation of being the best-prepared and best-educated physical therapists in their country.

"We are currently in the planning stages of taking a post-professional DPT program to Puerto Rico," Dr. Jackson continues. "This will be the first and only allied health doctorate on the island and may have an even greater impact on health care than our master's program."

Dr. Lohman reports that there are already 47 potential applicants for the PP-DPT program. "I will be meeting with the Council of Higher Education this spring to request approval to start the application process for the doctorate program. LLU is now a known and valued entity to the Council of Higher Education; however, taking a doctorate degree in allied health to Puerto Rico, means charting unknown waters.

Dr. Lohman adds that UPR has approached Loma Linda University with considerable interest in having UPR's faculty with master's degrees apply to enter the PP-DPT. Consequently, LLU will be not only training leaders in the field of physical therapy in Puerto Rico, but also helping to train faculty in the only entry-level physical therapy program that currently exists in Puerto Rico. He concludes, "I have taught all five cohorts during the past five years and could not be prouder of our alumni who are making such an enormous impact on health care in their country."

The LLU student association is sponsoring Restoration 2004: Eleventh Hour Evidence, beginning Wednesday, February 18, and continuing through Sabbath, March 6.

This is the second annual series of meetings. Restoration 2004 will explore last day events and Bible prophecy. The meetings will be presented by David Asscherick, senior pastor of the Troy Seventh-day Adventist Church, Troy, Michigan.

Pastor Asscherick, a former professional-level skateboarder and punk rocker, accepted Christ after reading The Great Controversy while a pre-medical student at the University of Wyoming, Laramie.

During Restoration 2004, Pastor Asscherick will survey both apologetic evidence and prophetic evidence for the soon-coming of Jesus Christ.

Meetings will be held at 12 noon Tuesday through Friday in Linda Hall (lunch will be provided), and at 6:45 p.m. Sunday and Tuesday through Thursday in the Campus Hill Church. Weekend meetings will be held in the Loma Linda Academy Chan Auditorium at 6:45 p.m. on Fridays, and at 9:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. on Saturdays.

Standing with Richard H. Hart, MD, DrPH, chancellor, Loma Linda University, and Nancy Young, executive director of SACHS, is Jose Marquez, program officer for the California Endowment. Mr. Marquez presented the $60,000 grant from the endowment to SACHS.

This past November, the California Endowment, one of the state's foremost private health-care foundations, awarded an unrequested grant of $60,000 to Loma Linda University's Social Action Community Health System (SACHS) clinics. In response to the recent fires in Southern California, the endowment established an Emergency Wildfire Disaster Relief fund which generated the grant to SACHS.

"This grant was unexpected,"notes Richard H. Hart, MD, DrPH, chancellor of Loma Linda University and president of SACHS. "We are grateful and admire the endowment's response to the tragedies produced by the recent fires."

"The grant is a tangible act, a great expression of active philanthropy from a leading foundation in the state of California, one that is greatly concerned for the health and welfare of our state's citizenry."

The California Endowment made its grant to SACHS along with similar grants to three other community clinic systems that provided primary health-care services to victims of the devastating fires. The endowment established the disaster relief fund to assist patients with asthma or other respiratory diseases who required care as a result of the fires, or to provide victims with pharmaceutical and other medical supplies or mental health services.

The endowment's mission is to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities, and to promote fundamental improvements of the health status of all Californians.

• Ruth Jeffries, OTR/L, and Judi Palladino, MA, OTR/L, instructors in the department of occupational therapy, School of Allied Health Professions, represented the California Occupational Therapy Fieldwork Council with a poster presentation at the Annual Occupational Therapy Association of California state conference in November, 2003. The presentation, titled "What the California OT Council can do for you," provided an overview of the services and training the council offers to fieldwork educators throughout the state. Both Ms. Jeffries and Ms. Palladino are members of the fieldwork council, which has representatives from academic OT and OT assistant programs throughout California.

• Edward (Ted) Rowsell, MD, PhD, assistant professor, pathology/human anatomy, LLU, recently helped acquire an LCX system for Loma Linda University Medical Center. The gift came from Abbott Laboratories to be used solely for educational purposes. The Medical Center is housing the equipment at the School of Allied Health Professions to enhance the clinical laboratory science program.