For immediate release: September 20, 2002.
For more information, contact George Stamatis, 216-368-3635 or gxs18@po.cwru.edu

CLEVELAND—Re-energizing the research program in general internal medicine and health care research is one of the goals of that division's new chief, Joseph P. Frolkis, a 1980 graduate of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine who began in his new role earlier this year.

"As the national health care focus shifts from acute illness toward the management of chronic diseases, the research agendas of programs in academic general internal medicine have become increasingly relevant," Frolkis said. "These include examining the barriers to the delivery of preventive services; exploring the causes and consequences of disparities in health care, especially as they affect vulnerable populations like the elderly and the urban poor; and elucidating how the organization of health care delivery impacts quality, cost and clinical outcomes."

Frolkis came to CWRU/University Hospitals of Cleveland's Department of Medicine from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, where he had been the director of clinical operations in the section of preventive cardiology since 1998. Prior to moving to CCF, he had a long association with Mt. Sinai Medical Center, where he did his internal medicine residency and was chief resident.

After completing his training, he stayed on staff, where from 1983 until 1998, he directed the hypertension control center and lipid research center. He also was chief of the division of primary care medicine and director of the Mt. Sinai primary care clerkship for fourth-year CWRU medical students.

He became an assistant professor of medicine at CWRU in 1984 and today is associate professor.

UHC's division of general internal medicine comprises faculty in three areas: hospitalists who care for patients in the hospital and work with community physicians to manage their patients when they are admitted; ambulatory generalists who teach medical students and residents how to provide ambulatory and primary care and who see patients in the Douglas Moore Center; and geriatricians.

The division also includes 11 internists and geriatricians at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Frolkis hopes to recruit more clinical physicians for each of these areas, in addition to hiring researchers in both geriatrics and general medicine.

"Despite the increasing specialization in medicine, I strongly feel that academic generalists are uniquely positioned to contribute to the education of medical students and residents and to the research mission of the medical school and university," asserts Frolkis. "The breadth of their training makes them ideal teachers on the general medical floors and outpatient clinics, where they can offer a comprehensive perspective on patient care often lost on the subspecialty units. In addition, they are the natural champions of the advantages of continuity of care, which has been linked not only to greater patient satisfaction but better clinical outcomes as well."

Frolkis' own interest is in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease. A particular focus is translating the research findings from the evolving science of vascular biology into the modification of both traditional (cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes) and non-traditional (C-reactive protein, homocysteine) risk factors for vascular disease.

As a general internist, however, he is also focused on the impact of both patient and physician non-compliance with recommended guidelines on suboptimal clinical outcomes.

"The so-called Îtreatment gapâ is really a hidden but lethal epidemic," Frolkis said. "When, despite broadly-disseminated guidelines based on sound science, only 20 to 30 percent of patients are getting to recommended targets for cholesterol and blood pressure, we are pretty clearly continuing to lose the battle against cardiovascular disease-consistently the leading cause of death in America."

–CWRU–

 

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