President-Elect

Lynn Drake, M.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of dermatology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City, OK., was elected this past fall to be the President-Elect of the American Academy of Dermatology. After serving in this capacity starting March, 1997, she will become the AAD President at the 1998 Annual in Orlando, Florida in February - March, 1998.

Vice President-Elect

Richard Scher, M.D., Professor of Clinical Dermatology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, attending in Dermatology at Presbyterian Hospital and in private practice in New York, NY., was elected this past fall to be the Vice President-Elect of the American Academy of Dermatology. After serving in this capacity starting March, 1997, he will become the AAD Vice-President at the 1998 Annual in Orlando, Florida in February - March, 1998.

August 26, 1996

Thomas J. Lawley, M.D. has been named Dean of the School of Medicine and Vice Chair of the Emory University System of Health Care, effective Sept. 1. The appointment gives Lawley full titles to roles he has played since mid-May, when he was named interim Dean and Vice Chair following the resignation of the previous dean, Jeffrey L. Houpt.

Before becoming interim dean, Lawley was Executive Associate Dean of the School of Medicine, and Chairman of the Department of Dermatology. Lawley will step down as Chair of Dermatology and Director of the Dermatology Section of The Emory Clinic, positions which he held after coming from the National Institutes of Health in 1988.

Lawley is a member of the executive committee of The Emory Clinic's board of directors and also serves on the committees for finance and managed care. He is president of the Emory Medical Care Foundation, part of Emory's contractual arrangements with Grady Memorial Hospital.

Among numerous national honors, Lawley was selected for membership in the American Society for Clinical Investigation, whose members are invited based on their accomplishments in research, and the Association of American Physicians. He is on the board of directors of the American Academy of Dermatology, the Society for Investigative Dermatology, and the American Professors of Dermatology.

Lawley graduated from Canisius College in 1968, received his medical degree in 1972 and was an intern in 1973-74 at State University of New York (SUNY) School of Medicine in Buffalo. He completed residencies in Dermatology at Yale University and SUNY. In 1975, he went to the National Cancer Institute as a clinical associate and remained to move up through the ranks to become senior investigator at the Dermatology Branch before coming to Emory in 1988.

19th World Congress of Dermatology in Sydney

The 19th World Congress of Dermatology will be held in Sydney, Australia, June 15 - 21, 1997. There is very high interest in this meeting by dermatologists world-wide. According to Robin Marks, President of the 19th World Congress, the program has been expanded "to accomodate the overwhelming number of requests we are receiving from those wishing to participate in one way or another". Anyone interested in the attending this meeting should contact:

Alan Cooper, Secretary General P.O. Box 272 Northbridge, New South Wales AUSTRALIA Tel: + 61 2 958-5281 FAX: + 61 2 958-0219

OR

19th World Congress of Dermatology Secretariat C/- ICMS Pty Ltd 84 Queensbridge Street SOUTHBANK VIC 3006 AUSTRALIA Tel: + 61 3 9682 0244 FAX: + 61 3 9682 0288 E-mail: cmd97@icms.com.au

(Reproduced, with permission, from the American Association of Medical Colleges e-mail list =====AAMC STAT===== dated 01-27-97.)

In an important effort to modify the Office of the Inspector General's (OIG) ongoing audit of Medicare billings by teaching physicians, AAMC President Jordan J. Cohen, M.D., personally delivered a briefing paper to HHS Secretary Donna Shalala at a meeting last Friday, Jan. 24, that detailed concerns about the Physicians at Teaching Hospitals (PATH) initiative, and provided recommendations to improve the process.

The objective of this briefing document, developed in collaboration with the Association of Academic Health Centers (AHC), is to impress upon the Secretary the modifications needed if the PATH initiative is be a fair, cooperative, and effective effort for academic medicine and the government.

The briefing paper contends that the PATH initiative is "fundamentally unfair" as currently implemented, in that it "amounts to an OIG program to coerce medical schools and teaching physicians into forfeiting millions of dollars of fees billed in good faith by threatening punitive damages if they do not settle audits based on the retroactive application of Health Care Financing Administration regulations." The paper then presents four recommended solutions to address the perceived inequalities in the PATH audits.

The concerns and recommendations depicted in the briefing paper serve as the unifying foundation for the PATH Advocacy Coalition, spearheaded by the AAMC and the AHC. This group, which includes organizations such as the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, and the Medical Group Management Association, has been convened to foster greater information sharing about the PATH initiative and greater collaboration to achieve the recommended modifications in the audit process.