Annual Report 2007-08

Special care

Jill Longstaff has worked at the KU Medical School-Wichita long enough to remember Thomas Schulz when he was a medical student, graduating in 1991. She remembers his service as a resident in internal medicine from ’92 to ’95. She recalls his departure for several years for an oncology fellowship in Denver, and his return in 2000 to join the faculty in Wichita.

As department administrator for Internal Medicine, Schulz’s department, she now assists him with the academic duties associated with his appointment as associate professor. In addition to teaching, he cares for patients and helps to coordinate a research program enrolling Wichita patients in clinical trials to test new drugs or treatments in small groups.

Earlier this year, Longstaff got to know Schulz in a new light:
as her physician. After a diagnosis of early-stage breast cancer,
she needed an oncologist.

“He was, of course, my first choice. It was a no-brainer,” she says. “When you’re looking at going through chemo, you want someone there you can trust, who will be with you along the way. That’s Dr. Schulz.”

Surgery and radiation therapy controlled her cancer, although she expects to be under Schulz’s follow-up care for several years. She signed on for a clinical trial conducted by Schulz in which she made her tumor tissues available for analysis, now and in the future.

Now back to her customary long list of administrative and support duties, she recalls a more recent step in Schulz’s career: his appointment early this year to a professorship created by Frank and Beverly Gaines.

“When I heard he was receiving the endowed professorship, I was just elated,” Longstaff says.

For professorships
In FY 08, donors established 11 new professorships:

  • Bridwell Chair in Otolaryngology
  • Capitol Federal Masonic Distinguished Professorship in Cancer
  • Girod Professorship in Surgical Oncology
  • Jackson Professorship in Sociology
  • Lieberman Family Professorship in the KU Cancer Center
  • Morris Family Chair in Cancer Prevention
  • Neis Professorship in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery
  • RehabCare Professorship in Geriatric Rehabilitation
  • Stella Professorship in Pharmaceutical Chemistry
  • Wolf Masonic Professorship in Urology
  • Zamierowski Professorship in Surgical Oncology.