Dr. Steven Levin Named Family Physician of the Year

The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) has named Steven J. Levin, MD, associate professor of family medicine, its 2007 Family Physician of the Year. The award was presented at the academy’s Annual Scientific Assembly. The AAFP annually honors an outstanding American family physician who has provided patients with compassionate, comprehensive care and serves as a role model professionally and personally to his or her community, to other health professionals, and to residents and medical students.

Dr. Levin was the first full-time physician at St. John’s Clinic in New Brunswick, which provides care for the medically underserved. He has held this position for 18 years and serves as the clinic’s medical director and primary physician. The center was created by Catholic Charities and receives substantial funding from St. Peter’s University Hospital.

Dr. Levin mentors and educates family medicine residents and medical students at St. John’s. In 1992, a group of his students founded the Homeless and Indigent Population Health Outreach Project (HIPHOP), the student outreach group that he continues to advise. More recently, Dr. Levin helped medical students start The Promise Clinic, which provides medical care to low-income and homeless people who receive meals at Elijah’s Promise Soup Kitchen. Physicians from the Department of Family Medicine take turns super-vising The Promise Clinic students one night a week.

“Caring for patients with diverse backgrounds and complex medical illnesses is consistent with the mission of the clinic and my own desire to provide health care to people who are having difficulties accessing quality health care services,” says Dr. Levin.     

Mission Expands at Center for Clinical and Translational Services

The Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS) opened this past summer. Newly appointed as medical director is Ronald A. Morton, Jr., MD, professor of surgery, chief, division of urology, and director of urologic oncology, The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ). Dr. Morton’s own research focuses on prostate cancer genetics and the use of biosensors in the diagnosis of genitourinary malignancies.

Dr. Morton hopes that by centralizing and streamlining the translational research process, the time will shorten between a basic science discovery and the moment when that discovery becomes a drug available for patient care. “The center will provide an RWJMS core facility for translational research,” he says. “It offers improved opportunities not just for our student researchers and seasoned investigators, but also our partners in the pharmaceutical industry.”

The CCTS is designed exclusively for clinical and translational research and serves all RWJMS clinical and translational researchers. Its regular users include CINJ medical oncologist Antoinette R. Tan, MD ’96, assistant professor of medicine. Dr. Tan is a principal investigator on a phase I clinical trial that involves a novel chemotherapy drug given as a continuous 24-hour infusion; the goal is to determine the maximum tolerated dose. The CCTS provides overnight facilities where her patients receive the drug. The nurses at the CCTS observe patients for side effects, take frequent vital signs, and draw blood samples to assess drug levels. “The CCTS is an important resource, as the abil-
ity to conduct clinical trials is important to the mission of CINJ,” says Dr. Tan. CINJ is the state’s only National Cancer Institute–designated Comprehensive Cancer Center.

This past summer, a multi-disciplinary team of leading RWJMS research faculty and other translational research stakeholders submitted a proposal to the NIH titled “The New Jersey Center for Clinical and Translational Science.” The NIH responded in Sep-
tember with the full $233,000 requested. The grant will support the team’s primary, two-fold goal for CCTS: to provide the infrastructure necessary for training young investigators and to sustain a robust, multi-disciplinary translational research program at RWJMS.             

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