A Program on Fire: the University of Arizona

There are two ways to interpret the title of this entry, and both would be mostly correct. The University of Arizona Medical Center has new leadership, and the Department of Medical Imaging has a new Chair, new state-of-the-art equipment, and 25 new young, enthusiastic clinical faculty members. At the same time, it was late June when I visited, and that means daytime temperatures in the 100s. Spontaneous human combustion did not seem far-fetched.

The lack of humidity did seem to make the heat more tolerable in the shade (it is, after all, a dry heat), but walk into the sunlight, and you might as well be walking on the sunward surface of the planet mercury. Alternatively, throw a whole bunch of things that bite, sting, or prick you onto mercury with some oxygen and great margaritas, and it might feel like Tucson. Of course, anyone who has ever seen my Flickr page (which is essentially no one) knows that I spend every free minute I can in deserts, so who am I to complain.

The Chair of Medical Imaging, Diego Martin, could not have been more welcoming during my visit, and the time spent with the body imaging section was enjoyable and informative. Diego and I spent over an hour discussing the recent transformation of the Medical Imaging Department and on-going renovations of the physical plant. I was particularly impressed with the concerted effort to give the imaging rooms and patient care areas a more patient-friendly ambience. Seeing the old and the new rooms side by side provided remarkable contrast. The old rooms, standard issue at far too many academic medical centers, seemed better suited for an alien interrogation (referring, of course, to the type of interrogation one is likely to experience at the hands of space aliens, not the type one might experience at the hands of Sheriff Joe Arpaio). The new rooms have faux wood floors, customizable lighting, and are painted to mirror the color palette of the surrounding desert. They seemed to say, “relax, hold your breath, and enjoy some peyote”. Apparently they declined the full desert package that includes heat lamps and a few rattlesnakes.

Diego has worked hard to improve collaboration between the basic scientists and the clinical faculty at the university. I even got to have dinner with an optical scientist- perfect for someone with three telescopes. To encourage integration, the Chair’s offices are located near the research facilities.

The radiology residents and faculty at the University of Arizona in Tucson

Under SAR member Bobby Kalb’s leadership, the department is exploring ways to use unenhanced abdominal/pelvic MRI to streamline the evaluation of young patients with abdominal pain in the emergency department. Hopefully, Bobby will be presenting his data at a meeting in the near future- might I suggest the SAR? I also got to spend some quality time with SAR member Hina Arif Tiwari (3^rd place case of the day winner at the SAR annual meeting!). She might not know it, but she is also on the social media committee of the SAR, so maybe she can help me liven up this blog!

SAR member Bobby Kalb

SAR member Hina Arif Tawari

It wasn’t just the medical center that made this such a rewarding trip, however. Tucson is also a major center for amateur and professional astronomers. I barely slept from Saturday morning until Monday night as I tried to squeeze in some private observing and astrophotography time under the dark, clear skies. After carefully weighing the risk of being eaten by a cougar against getting some photos that no one will ever care about, I spent Saturday night as far from human influence as possible in the Chiricahua mountains  (In bars, cougars generally keep their distance, but I wasn’t sure the same would be true in the mountains).

The milky way from Massai Point in Chiricahua National Monument

A series of images I took of the eagle nebula with various lenses and the help of an observatory at my hotel

As it turns out, mountain cougars aren’t interested in me either, and I survived the night. The drive back to my hotel at 1 am was more exciting, as the Sonoran desert is home to 7 different species of muridae (rats and mice), three different types of leporidae (rabbits and hares), and 10 different species of Heteromyidae (Kangaroo rats and pocket mice), all of which run across the remote desert roads at night in massive numbers (for you animal lovers out there, I didn’t run over any, although I almost swerved off the road a few times). The most interesting Arizona rodent is the grasshopper mouse. Here’s what A natural history of the Sonoran Desert by Steven J. Phillips & Patricia Wentworth Comus has to say about it: “The grasshopper mouse is an efficient predator, killing other mice with a bite to the back of the neck, and biting the stingers off scorpions before consuming them. Pinacate beetles emit a toxic spray from their rear ends, deterring most predators, but grasshopper mice catch them and shove the defensive ends of the beetles into the sand, then bite off the good parts, leaving beetle bottoms embedded in the sand.” Who knew that humans and pinacate beetles have so much in common? And to think I was scared of the cougars…

Night sky desert photography in the city of Tucson turned out to be considerably more dangerous. I had to relocate twice due to the sound of nearby rattling, had to spend about 15 minutes removing cactus spines from my shoes and leg in the dark, and had several photos ruined by passing cars or other forms of light pollution.  Maybe I should take up BASE jumping.