Supercourse Newsletter, January 1, 2005
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http://www.pitt.edu/~super1
1/1/05�Dreaming into 2005
Living in dreams of yesterday, we find ourselves still dreaming
of impossible future conquests. Charles Lindbergh.
Keep up the great work. You and your team will have done more
for public health education than all the other publishers on the
planet put together! Richard Fielding, Hong Kong
Happy New Year, HAPPY NEW YEAR
It is now 2005, and we look forward to another exciting year. We
briefly wanted to discuss with you the �speed ball� supercourse,
and what developed in 2004. You contributed to a remarkable
year. We would love your vision for the year to come.
Year Faculty Lectures/year Total Lectures
2000 800 70 70
2001 1,750 225 295
2002 4,700 305 600
2003 10,000 500 1,100
2004 14,000 500 1,611
2005 18,000 421 2,032
We are continuing to do �prevention in the fast lane�. When we
were funded by NIH for 4 years we indicated that there would be
300 faculty recruited and 200 lectures. Instead we have 18,000
faculty (RR = 60) received 2,032 lectures (RR=10.1) in 5 years.
We are thus significantly well beyond our wildest expectations.
For the past three years we have received an amazing 1421 lec-
tures. This represents 39 lectures each month. Last year alone
we received 421 wonderful lectures. We have much to thank you
for. We currently have over 18,000 faculty members from 151
countries, making us one of the largest networks of individuals
involved with prevention.
One change is that we have seen many people providing full
courses. This was begun by Nigel Paneth, and during the course
of the year 17 different instructors provided full courses to
the Supercourse. We are pleased to have new distinguished fac-
ulty, 6 Noble prize winners gave lectures, and 60 lectures from
Institute of Medicine members were provided. The nature of the
supercourse is evolving, we are maturing, learning and still
dreaming.
When you cease to dream you cease to live. Malcolm S. Forbes
Major Accomplishments:
1. Bam-Earthquake-Ali-Aladan from Tehren, and Eric Noji from CDC
contributed a set of beautiful JIT lectures on earththquakes,
especially the Bam Earthquake.
2. We contacted all faculty in schools of public health in the
US, Europe and Asia with an extremely positive response, making
us potentially the most recognized prevention program.
3. New modes of usage of the Supercourse have been established.
4. Sadly, the US and International Olympic committees were not
interested in collaborating, but we are approaching China.
5. The BMJ contributed all their lectures to the Supercourse.
6. We published numerous papers in the Lancet, BMJ, Nature, etc.
7. We may be the best known project in Global Health, and the
major provider of content.
We are very pleased as to how much everyone has contributed to
this effort.
Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real. Tupac Shakur
Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without
passion. G. W. F. Hegel
A Vision of 2005
It is very difficult to predict as to where we will be this time
next year. We would very much appreciate your thoughts. Here is
what we envision:
1. Sadly, the Enormous Tsunimi hit Indonesia, we want to prepare
for future disasters so we can help
2. Faculty: + 500 to 25,000
3. Lecturers: +400 to 2400
4. JIT lectures: 4 JIT lectures in relationship to disasters
5. Faina evaluation of quality control
6. Machine translation into different languages
7. Four grants funded
8. The University of Pittsburgh getting rid of their dog com-
puter (unlikely to occur)
9. We would love your thoughts and vision of where to go
We wish you all a Happy New Year, and if you were in Pittsburgh
we could have a �blind robin� with us at the clock strikes
12:00. This will bring good luck into next year. (A blind robin
is a stinky, smoked herring...)
All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue
them. Walt Disney
Ron, Faina, Mita, Soni, Eugene, Samar, Monica
mailto:super1+@pitt.edu