Date:
10/27/2004
Contact: Wendel Sloan at 505.562.2253
Reporter: Marc Schoder
PORTALES—Dr. James Mrotek of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., is donating 160 copies of an endocrinology textbook he wrote to Eastern New Mexico University.
"This is being paid for by a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, an NIH organization," says Mrotek. "The grant asked for funds to come to institutions with a high percentage of under-represented minorities as students," added Mrotek.
The grant came about because in this country most minorities suffer from different endocrine disorders like diabetes or even low birth weight, according to Mrotek.
During Mrotek's recent six-day visit to ENMU, at the invitation of ENMU associate professor of biology Dr. Zhiming Liu, he gave presentations to 253 ENMU students, and 64 of them chose to join the Endocrine Society, an international society founded in 1916 with 11,000 members from 80 countries.
"We are giving a free three-year electronic subscription to Endocrine Review from the Endocrine Society as a free membership into the society to students interested in going into endocrinology," said Mrotek. "Currently, the Endocrine Society doesn't have enough physician or research members to solve endocrine disorders and, in many cases, we do not know why the problems exist," added Mrotek.
The internationally known endocrinologist noted that European Americans do not suffer from this to the extent that American Indians, among others, suffer.
"To give you an example, in Tucson, Arizona, 70 percent of the Pima Indians are diabetic. For European Americans, on the other side of the coin, it's approximately 30 percent," said Mrotek. "We can't solve it; we do not have enough workers," added Mrotek.