Donors allow LSU to beef up medical post
*Change Year to 2006
Further adding to the efforts at Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center to grow its radiation therapy research initiatives created by the successful 2004 "Whatever it Takes" Capital Campaign, an endowed chair at LSU, the Dr. Charles M. Smith Chair of Medical Physics, has been established. The following article, written by business writer Ted Griggs, appeared on 2theadvocate.com, the Advocate's online news service, on November 22.
LSU's medical physics program reached an important milestone by securing $600,000 to establish an endowed chair, one of only a few such positions nationwide and the only one in Louisiana.
"It's a method of helping seed new basic research programs as well as translational research programs … translating research from the lab to the clinic," said Kenneth Hogstrom, director of the medical physics program and chief of physics at Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center.
In addition to providing an ongoing amount of discretionary funding, the endowed chair will also provide long-term stability for the program and help LSU recruit faculty and graduate students, Hogstrom said.
Hogstrom said he will be at LSU and Mary Bird for three to five more years at a minimum. When he retires, the endowed chair will help ensure the work he began continues by a quality replacement, Hogstrom said.
Medical physics involves applying radiation to medicine, such as diagnosing and treating cancer with radiation.
The Dr. Charles M. Smith Chair of Medical Physics was funded by donations from LSU and Mary Bird Perkins. LSU donor Smith, who is from Sulphur, gave $300,000 of the $600,000 required to endow a chair at LSU. The rest of the money came from a Mary Bird Perkins fund drive. The $600,000 in donations means LSU qualifies for $400,000 in matching funds from the state Board of Regents Support Fund. The chair is the latest success in the partnership between LSU and Mary Bird Perkins.
The two combined to recruit and pay the salary of Hogstrom, who came to Baton Rouge from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. LSU and Mary Bird are also sharing the cost of beefing up LSU's medical physics program. LSU and Mary Bird have also announced plans to establish a medical physics doctorate program.
Another of Hogstrom's goals for the medical physics program, gaining accreditation, is also close to becoming a reality, he said. Less than a dozen schools have accredited graduate medical physics programs.
LSU has already submitted its application and had a site visit; all that remains is a decision from the accrediting agency. Hogstrom said he does not know exactly how many endowed chairs there are in medical physics but he suspects there may only be a handful.
Mary Bird Perkins President and Chief Executive Todd D. Stevens described the endowed chair as a critical building block for education, research and development in cancer treatment. The community really stepped up to support the chair, Stevens said in a news release. Smith made the gift to LSU because of his passion for patient care and because he wanted to make a difference in cancer treatment, he said in a press release. Hogstrom said the next step will be for LSU to look at top-level medical physics researchers and to hire one of those people to fill the position.