Innovators Café at IUN Featured Unveiling of New South Shore Painting

Northwest (IUSM-NW) will served as host of the 11th Innovators Café — The Art of Medicine, on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2009 in the Library Conference Center. At the luncheon, a new South Shore painting, commemorating the Northwest campus of the IU School of Medicine, was unveiled. There were also be presentations on IUSM-NW research and on plans to expand that and other IUSM regional campuses into four-year medical education centers.  

The Innovators Café Series is sponsored by Ivy Tech Community College. It is a series of two-hour luncheon programs held “on location” to familiarize the region’s leaders with the significant and diverse innovation found in the workplace and available in Lake, Porter and LaPorte Counties. The aim is to share best practices in a leader-to-leader format to encourage innovative and entrepreneurial activities that can be introduced in any workplace.

The program is implemented through the Gerald I. Lamkin Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center, and supported by the Society of Innovators, which celebrates innovation and innovators in Northwest Indiana. The Lamkin Center was established in 2004.

Among the speakers scheduled for the Sept. 24 Café are: Patrick Bankston, Ph.D., assistant dean and director of IUSM-NW and dean of the IU Northwest College of Health and Human Services; Dipika Gupta, Ph.D., associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, and a lead researcher on groundbreaking IUSM-NW research on human immunity proteins; and Dr. Stephen Leapman, M.D., former IUSM executive associate dean for educational affairs.

A highlight of the Café will be the unveiling of the IUSM-NW South Shore Poster, by noted region artist Michael Chelich. James Jorgensen, chair of South Shore Poster Art Management, Inc., will join Chelich and the Northwest Indiana Forum Board of Directors and Executive Committee in unveiling this striking representation of medical innovation at IUSM-NW.

The Northwest Indiana media is invited to attend this gathering of regional innovators at IU Northwest and learn more about important advances in medicine and medical education that are taking place at IUSM-NW. Media members also are invited to join Café attendees on a tour of the Dunes Medical/Professional Building, which houses IUSM-NW, the College of Health and Human Services, and other IU Northwest programs.   

For more information about the 11th Innovators Café’ - The Art of Medicine at IUSM-NW, contact Christopher Sheid in the IU Northwest Office of Marketing and Communications at (219) 980-6802, or email him at ccsheid@iun.edu.