6A • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2002
University officials interview four candidates for technology coordinator
By Mike Gilligan Kansan staff writer
Technological issues like bandwidth and online enrollment will have a new voice next year.
Four candidates are being interviewed to fill the new position, Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Services, which will help coordinate computing and technology on campus.
Donna Liss, director of information systems at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, visited the campus Feb. 27 and Feb. 28. Three more candidates will visit the campus before spring break.
Each of the candidates will visit Lawrence for two days and attend a series of meetings, said Greg Freix chair of the Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology Services Search Committee.
Each candidate will also give a public talk followed by a question and
answer session, he said
answer session. Reix, also director of information technology for the School of Business, said Liss talked about her experiences at Nebraska, having implemented touch-tone registration and then online enrollment.
Andy Knopp, Manhattan sophomore, student senator and student representative for the search committee, said most of the people at the public session were faculty from information services.
"They asked questions about systems she has used and programs she would like to use," he said. "She sounded like someone who was interested in working with the students. She has experience in online enrollment and that's something we are well on the way to implementing here."
Knopp said online teacher evaluations were another issue she was interested in.
Freix said the search committee received between 200 to 250 applications for the position and began looking at resumes in November.
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The search committee narrowed the field to four candidates, looking for people with broad experience, Freix said.
"The four people coming to campus are top-notch," he said. "There are excellent candidates who didn't even make it to the last four."
Marilu Goodyear, vice chancellor for information services and chief information officer, said the position was a new variation of the old Director of Academic Computing position. The new position will combine it with the job of the Director of Administrative Computing.
In the past, there were separate managers for administrative and academic computing.
m computing.
"The idea is for one manager to integrate the two departments," she said.
Goodyear said the candidate that was chosen would be involved in computing issues like e-mail, admissions and tools for research and instructions in classrooms.
The three other candidates are Harvard Townsend, director of computing and network services at Kansas State University, who will visit campus March 7 and 8. Larry Rapagnani, assistant provost for information technologies at Notre Dame, will visit March 12 and 13, and Bahram Nassersharif, department head of mechanical engineering at New Mexico State University, will visit March 14 and 15.
Students are encouraged to attend the candidate's question and answer sessions. Times and locations of these sessions will be posted on the department's Web site, www.ku.edu/~vcinfo/.
Contact Gilligan at mgilligan@kansan.com. This story was edited by Justin Henning.
New rural doctors could become rare commodities
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Rural hospital officials say their struggle to recruit doctors to sparsely populated communities will worsen under a federal agency's decision to stop seeking waivers that allow foreign physicians to remain after their training in the United States.
At issue are visas for foreign students who come to the United States for graduate medical study. The so-called J-1 visas require these physicians to return home for two years when they complete training as residents or fellows, but the government often waives the requirement when physicians agree to work in rural or urban areas where physicians are in short supply.
The government frequently grants waivers at the request of federal agencies, primarily the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But last week, USDA officials abruptly decided to drop their involvement in the program, even for waivers the agency had been considering since last fall.
"I understand the USDA's concern.
Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback appealed this week to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and other Bush administration officials to reconsider.
but I don't see any reason for changing the program, given how well it has worked," Brownback said yesterday. "I hope it can be handled administratively. If not, we will go the legislative route and pursue this in an appropriations bill.
troublesbim
"Ithink we'll have a pretty receptive audience through the appropriations route, as there are a number of rural states impacted by this decision by USDA," Brownback added.
The news is especially alarming to rural hospitals that have failed to lure American doctors and now are trying to hire foreign physicians. For example, William Newton Hospital in Winfield, Kan., has been trying since August to find a primary care doctor for a clinic in nearby Chautauqua County in southeast Kansas.
"We've advertised, and you just can't get a non-]-1 physician to apply for a position like that," said Danny Huckvale, the hospital's assistant administrator. "There's not a lot of things going on in Sedan, Kansas"
Clinics in Chautauqua and neighboring Elk County, areas among poorest in Kansas, saw more than 6,000 patients last year but right now have only one physician. The hospital is ready to hire a board-certified physician from India who has finished a residency in Wichita and a fellowship at
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the University of Kansas Medical Center.
"We've had the waiver application sitting on the USDA undersecretary's desk for months, approved, waiting for a signature," Huckvale said. "They said all the applications that were pending or in the works are going to be returned, and that's not good. They didn't notify anybody — they sent out an e-mail to our attorney, is how I got it."
As of yesterday, USDA still had not issued any notice of its decision. But the e-mail, obtained by The Associated Press, advised immigration lawyers that USDA was withdrawing from the program, effective last Thursday.
"As a result of its program review, USDA has come to the conclusion that while the program served valid and important purposes, the benefits of USDA's involvement are clearly outweighed by potential problems and risks," the message read.
Department spokeswoman Alisa Harrison pointed out the agency does not issue visas. USDA makes a recommendation, which goes to the State Department's waiver review division. The Immigration and Naturalization
Service issues final waiver approval.
"Putting all of the program into INS is probably the more efficient thing to do," Harrison said. She could not provide further information about the agency's rationale.
INS officials did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment, and a State Department spokesman was unfamiliar with the decision.
Sylvia Tigemeyer, who chairs the Missouri-Kansas chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said hospitals in the two states have a handful of waiver applications pending for foreign physicians who have agreed to work there.
State health departments can also seek the waivers, but each state is limited to 20 waivers each year, and those slots tend to fill quickly with requests from inner-city urban hospitals. Pending legislation would double the number of state-requested waivers, Titgemeyer said, but that can't match the hundreds of waivers requested through USDA.
"There's going to be a lot of fallout," she said. "These are people who have been recruiting for a long time to find doctors, and now everything's out of kilter."
Bush, Mubarak call for end to Mideast violence
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Bush and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak searched yesterday for solutions to the spiraling violence in the Middle East, with Bush emphasizing the need to stop Palestinian attacks on Israelis while Mubarak demanded that Israel ease up on the Palestinians.
Bush said peace in the Middle East was "only possible if there is a maximum effort to end violence throughout the region, starting with Palestinian efforts to stop attacks on Israel."
norms and customs." "Nothing can be achieved through violence or resolved by force," the Egyptian said.
Mubarak, for his part, called for an end to forceful Israeli military tactics such as demolishing Palestinian homes and closing roads.
Bush also spoke favorably of a
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Saudi Arabian proposal, which would offerIsrael peace, trade and security in exchange for the land the Arabs lost in war, and of Mubarak's offer to be the host for talks between Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Israeli officials have said they are eager to go to the Arab kingdom to follow it up with talks, but the Saudis are discouraging such discussions
Asked about that disagreement, Bush came down squarely on Israel's side. He praised the Saudi "vision" of peace and said he supports those who "are trying to look at what it means."
Mubarak, who wants to play a middleman role in peace efforts, criticized only Israel for the current crisis. Bush directed his call for an end to violence
to the Palestinians.
Mubarak said of the Israelis, "The closure of roads, the siege of towns and villages, the demolition of houses, the collective punishment that make progress more difficult should stop."
Speaking of the growing violence Bush said officials in both the United States and Egypt "view this situation with great alarm."
"We're both determined to redouble our efforts to work for peace," Bush said, referring to himself and the Egyptian president.
In Jerusalem, Israeli officials let it be known Sharon considers a meeting with Arafat useless while Palestinian attacks against Israelis continue. Mubarak said he would not meet with Sharon unless Arafat attended as well.
"We both feel deep sympathy for the people in the region who are trying to live their lives in peace." he said.
"Nothing can be achieved through violence or resolved by force."
Hosni Mubarak Egyptian president
In a speech before he met with Bush, Mubarak said the United States and Israel must deal with Arafat as the leader of the Palestinian people. "It is a great mistake to think otherwise," he said.
Without referring to Israel directly, he said "land was occupied by force" and an entire population denied its right to nationhood.
Pharmacist plea could hamper related lawsuits
The Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The guilty plea by the pharmacist who diluted cancer medication is likely to bolster drug companies' defense that Robert R. Courtney is solely responsible, a legal scholar said.
scholar said.
Pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly Co. and Bris-
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Pharmaceutical giants Etol-Myers Squibb are defendants in roughly 200 lawsuits filed in Jackson County by the druggist's former patients.
At a hearing here tomorrow, the companies will seek dismissal of the lawsuits, which allege they should have done more to stop their medicine from being diluted.
"The drug companies can point to the pharmacist and say he caused this," said Nicolas Terry,
Courtney, 49, pleaded guilty last week to 20 counts of tampering with and adulterating or misbranding the drugs Gemzar and Taxol, made by Lilly and Squibb, respectively. Earlier, he said he did it because he owed about $1 million in taxes and a pledge to his church.
law professor and director of the center for health law studies at Saint Louis University. "If someone intends to do harm there's little that someone else can do to prevent it."
But Michael Ketchmark, an attorney handling 173 of the lawsuits, said Courtney's admission made his case stronger because Lilly and Squibb had been arguing he couldn't prove any dilutions beyond the eight listed in the pharmacist's indictment.
In the guilty plea, Courtney admitted to diluting medications 158 times for 34 patients.
"Missouri law poses a duty on a drug manufacturer to warn about any tampering of their products that they know about or should have
"Missouri law poses a duty on a drug manufacture r to warn about any tampering of their products that they know about or should have known about."
Micheal Ketchmark prosecutor
about or should have known about." Ketchmark said. "The whole question focuses on whether (Lilly and Squibb) knew or should have known. The answer is a resounding yes."
Lilly and Squibb each buy 165 million records per month tracking drug sales, giving them all they needed to determine what Courtney was doing. Ketchmark said.
Beyond the sales database, he said Lilly knew that Courtney was allegedly diluting drugs in early 2000 but failed to tell anyone.
Lilly sales representative Darryl Ashley reported a discrepancy in those drug-sales records and triggered the investigation that led to Courtney's arrest last August.
Lilly has denied that it knew about the dilutions, saying the sales discrepancy merely alerted Ashley to take a closer look.
A spokesman for New York City-based Squibb declined to comment.
Jeff Newton, spokesman for Indianapolis-based Lilly, said the lawsuits are baseless.
"The issue here is Robert Courtney and the horrible thing he did." Newton said. "We're already a heavily regulated industry, and I don't think additional regulation is the answer here. What he did is a very isolated incident."
Terry said the companies' argument was "not bulletproof but it will reduce the settlement value of the case."
Ketchmark said his clients weren't after cash settlements. They want the drug companies to make it harder for pharmacists to tamper with their drugs, he said.
then drugs, he said.
Even so, a dismissal of the claims against deep-pocketed Lilly and Squibb would significantly decrease the money available to compensate the hundreds who say they are victims — and to pay fees for Ketchmark and other attorneys.
Only Courtney's pharmacist's insurance would remain as a target of the lawsuits, which also name the druggist and his business as defendants.
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