Abraham shares vision for cardiovascular medicine

By Emily Caldwell, Medical Center Communications

William Abraham has outlined a vision for the OSU Division of Cardiovascular Medicine's next five years, and achieving top-tier national status for the program is at the heart of his plans.

Abraham, director of the division since autumn, would like to see Ohio State's research and clinical care for the human heart rank among the top 20 in academic prominence by 2007.

William Abraham   Courtesy of the Medical Center

"We're growing academically, we're growing as a teaching faculty and we're growing as a training program," Abraham said in a recent presentation about his vision for the future of cardiovascular medicine at the university. "My goal is to see Ohio State faculty viewed as national and international experts in cardiovascular medicine."

Changing the name of the division was among the first steps in that direction. Formerly known as the Division of Cardiology, Abraham said "cardiovascular medicine" more accurately reflects the faculty's research and clinical expertise in the arena of vascular diseases, medicine and biology. The division is housed in the College of Medicine and Public Health's Department of Internal Medicine.

Abraham hopes to see growth in numerous sectors of the division, ranging from an increase in teaching faculty members from 30 to 50 in the next five years, increases in the number of OSU journal publications and presentations at national meetings, and a rise in the number of funded grants and clinical trials in the division. His goals include nearly doubling the number of funded clinical studies and tripling the number of National Institutes of Health-funded grants by 2007.

The scheduled 2004 opening of the Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital will foster research advancements, Abraham said. He expects there will be close interaction between the Ross and the Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute (HLRI) situated next door to the hospital site. Abraham envisions interaction that will allow clinical problems seen at the bedside to help inspire research in the HLRI while bench research in the institute is quickly evaluated and translated into patient care applications.

Patient care also will be enhanced by planned community partnerships for cardiovascular care, which would be expected to both increase patient volume at the Ross Heart Hospital -- key to the fiscal success of any hospital -- while also increasing patient access to important medications and procedures in patient-care settings across central Ohio.

"Some of the specifics about the exact nature of our enhanced referral relationships and outreach in the community are still in development, but ultimately, community partnerships will be good for patients, and that's where our focus should be," Abraham said.

Abraham's vision also involves a more programmatic approach to treatment of cardiovascular diseases by building multidisciplinary medical teams emphasizing care under a subspecialist model and improving integration of clinical research and clinical care in both inpatient and outpatient settings.

"The latest and the greatest in innovative therapies and medications should be available here at Ohio State University," he said.

Author Allan Millett's new book offers personal stories of those who lived through the Korean War.   By Jo McCulty

New book tells how Korean War touched lives

By Jeff Grabmeier, Research Communications

When Ohio State military historian Allan Millett finished his new book on the Korean War, he couldn't have known that renewed tensions would be putting the troubled region back in the news in early 2003.

So his book -- Their War for Korea (Brassey's, 2003) -- seems prescient in noting that conflicts arising from the war's aftermath could resurface at any time.

Millett wrote in the book's introduction that the war's "effects still shape the daily lives of more than sixty million Koreans and might -- through a relatively few number of miscalculations -- once again involve the lives of millions of Chinese, Russians, Japanese and Americans."

Millett said this troubling conclusion is based on the interviews he did with people involved in the war.

"They are keenly aware of the fact that there has been a very delicate balance between the two Koreas that can be radically affected by small misjudgments," said Millett, who is the Raymond E. Mason Jr. Professor of Military History. "It may be misjudgments by America, but it also could be misjudgments by leaders in North and South Korea. Even with the recent tensions, we're not there yet, but that is a concern."

Not many Americans, however, are really familiar with the Korean War and how it has affected history up to the present time, Millett said.

"In terms of the collective memory of the American people, the Korean War is not just forgotten," he wrote. "It was not remembered in the first place."

Sandwiched between two wars that had great effects on American domestic life -- World War II and Vietnam -- Korea is an afterthought to many Americans.

Millett hoped to begin changing that, at least in small part, by writing a traditional history of the war, one that would appeal to interested lay readers. One way he hoped to draw in readers was by telling stories as well as explaining the facts of the conflict.

"In thinking about doing the book, I was trying to come up with ways to personalize it. So I decided to interview people who had participated and observed the war and weave their stories into the book."

However, he couldn't find a format that would allow the stories to be woven into the history. So instead, he decided to put off doing a formal history and write a "prequel" book that included short vignettes about the men and women who fought in or who were affected by the conflict.

The result is Their War for Korea, which includes 46 true stories from all sides: there are stories of North Koreans and their Chinese and Russian allies, as well as stories of South Koreans, Americans, and soldiers from Thailand and various European countries who played roles in the conflict. "I tried to get different perspectives, different nationalities, so you could see the war from many different angles," he said. Millett didn't give up on a formal history of the war; in fact, the history is now planned to be a two-volume set, with the first volume appearing sometime next year.

But he was pleased to write a more personal history of those who actually lived the war. Some of the stories are based on Millett's personal interviews conducted between 1991 and 2001. Others are based on records and case files that he uncovered in Korea and elsewhere. One story is that of a 70-year-old former South Korea soldier, now living in the United States and still crusading to reverse his 1950 court-martial conviction for treason, desertion and espionage. Another story tells about the U.S. Army representative on the armistice negotiating team that brought an end to the war. That representative was Major General William Kelly Harrison Jr., an unabashed practicing Christian who believed the war in Korea had been only part of a global struggle between Christianity and communism.

Millett chose to discuss Harrison's Christianity, and other similar stories, in part because he feels the role of religion in the conflict has not been given enough attention. "The Korean War was to a large degree a religious conflict," he said.

Christianity has played a strong role in the fight against communism in places like Poland, so it should be no surprise that it played a pivotal part in the Korean War. But Americans find it hard to believe that an Asian country could be so thoroughly Christian, as Korea is.

"Christianity and communism are two very different visions of man and you can't reconcile them. There's no compromise. And Koreans are very serious about their Christianity," Millett said.

Another point that Their War for Korea makes is how totally devastating the war was for Koreans. While no one knows exactly, estimates are that about 10 percent of the population of Korea -- three million out of 30 million -- were killed during the war. The U.S. Civil War was not nearly as catastrophic, Millett said.

"During the U.S. Civil War, there were only parts of the country that were really directly affected by the fighting," he said. "But in Korea, it wasn't that way. There was utter devastation."

As consuming as the war was, it is no surprise that ramifications and reverberations can still be felt today, Millett said.

"For Koreans, it was a total war," he said. "People still talk about the war and feel its effects."

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