Sept. 12, 1997
Story by Kirsten Bosnak
KU PHYSICIAN GENETICIST RECEIVES TEACHING PROFESSORSHIP
LAWRENCE -- A professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kan., whose research in human genetics has contributed to the potential for early diagnosis and treatment of diseases and disorders has received a Chancellors Club teaching professorship.
Dr. R. Neil Schimke, professor of medicine and pediatrics, joined the faculty of the KU School of Medicine in 1967. He has been director of the Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Genetics at the school since 1977.
The Chancellors Club teaching professorships, which carry an annual $5,000 stipend, were established in 1981 by the KU Endowment Association to recognize and honor teaching excellence among KU faculty. Recipients are selected for their outstanding teaching ability as acknowledged by students and colleagues. The 13 Chancellors Club Teaching professors retain the title as long as they teach at KU. The Chancellors Club is KU's major-donor organization.
Schimke's research and writings on genetic factors in human diseases and conditions have covered many topics, including cancer, heart disease, mental retardation and schizophrenia. He is working with colleagues at several other institutions on a book about the genetic disorders of sex differentiation.
In addition to being named to the teaching professorship, Schimke has received more than a half-dozen other teaching honors during his career.
"Dr. Schimke is one of our outstanding teachers," said Dr. Donald Hagen, executive vice chancellor for the Medical Center. "His dedication to his students and his patients is well-known. All of KU Medical Center is proud to have him as a faculty member, and we all share in congratulating him on this honor."
Schimke said: "I'm deeply appreciative of those who thought well enough of my teaching over the years to honor me with the professorship. I particularly would like to thank any and all of my former students because I have learned as much from them as they from me -- perhaps more."
Schimke received the professorship after the retirement of Robert Hudson, professor and chair of history and philosophy of medicine, who had held the honor since 1985.
Among Schimke's earlier teaching awards are a 1988 Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence and the 1970 Jayhawker M.D. Award, presented by senior medical students for excellence in teaching. He received two honors from Student Voice, a KU medical student organization: an Outstanding Instructor award for 1991-92 and an Excellence in Teaching award for 1996-97.
"One of the pleasures I get out of student contact is seeing the students grow and develop," Schimke said. "They begin the clinical years full of information about anatomy, physiology, biochemistry -- and at some point, the light clicks on and they see how their knowledge directly applies to patient care. They become more knowledgeable, more sophisticated and more sensitive. I get a big kick out this; I always have."
Schimke, who calls clinical genetics "one of my original loves," is co-author of one of the first books on genetic disorders of the endocrine glands and author of a book on genetics and cancer. He has published more than 150 articles and has served on the editorial boards of publications including the American Journal of Medical Genetics and the Annals of Internal Medicine. He has been editor of the endocrine section in Birth Defects Compendium since 1982.
Schimke served at the Department of Medicine at Kansas City (Mo.) Veterans Administration Hospital from 1972 to 1977 as vice chairman and chief of medicine. He was named 1993 Distinguished Medical Alumnus by the KU Medical Alumni Association. The next year, he was honored with the Mahlon H. Delp Award for Excellence in Medicine. He has served on the boards of directors of the American Society of Human Genetics and the American Board of Medical Genetics. He is a founding fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics.
Schimke earned bachelor's and medical degrees from KU in 1957 and 1962. After completing his undergraduate degree, he studied theoretical organic chemistry as a Fulbright Scholar at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität in Bonn, Germany, and mammalian genetics at Jackson Memorial Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine.
His postgraduate work included an internship at KU Medical Center and a two-year fellowship in human genetics at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. He was a resident at the KU Medical Center before joining the faculty there. During 1976 and 1977, he was a visiting professor in the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
Schimke and his wife, Loretta, have three children and five grandchildren.
The KU Endowment Association is an independent, nonprofit organization serving as the official fund-raising and fund-management foundation for the university. Founded in 1891, the Endowment Association is the oldest foundation of its type at a public university in the United States and one of the largest.
--KUEA--