CMMC Given New Clinical Research Unit

              The Shreveport Times
Sunday, Dec. 15, 1974
N«
THE S
CMMC Given
New Clinical |
Research Unit
By Elaine King
Times Medical Writer
Clinical research to aid physicians in
learning about disease processes and
ultimately how to treat the diseases will
begin at the Louisiana Stale University
School of Medicine here early next year
The clinical research center will be
housed on first floor of Confederate
Memorial Medical Center (CMMC) and is
expected to open in January, according to
Dr. James W. Johnson, director of the cen-ter
Most of the participants in the research
program will be patients at CMMC. All
participation by patients will be on a
voluntary basis, emphasized Dr. Marion
Hargrove, head of the department of
medicine at the medical school. CMMC is
teaching hospital for the medical school.
A possible research area at the center
might deal with hypertension and the ef-fect
of salt on the body, Dr. Johnson ex-plained.
The researcher would be in-terested
in how long it takes for reduction
of salt in the diet to have an effect on blood
pressure, he said. Also the research would
try to establish any possible side effects.
Funding for the center was through a
private foundation grant of $125,000, which
included the funds for renovation -of the
hospital space provided for the clinic, Dr.
Hargrove said
There will be five registered nurses on
the clinical research staff who will be em-ployed
by CMMC. Sharon Chambliss, head
nurse for the unit, will visit a clinical
research center in Dallas, Tex., this week
to become familiar with operations of that
center.
Physical facilities, still incomplete, in-clude
four private patient rooms, an
examination room, a laboratory to collect
and store specimens and a waiting area.
Actual laboratory work will be done in
medical school laboratories. CMMC is con-nected
to the new medical school building
which is under construction and expected
to be open for classes next year.
Operation of a clinical research
laboratory is seen as another means of
strengthening the educational - medical
environment and should benefit the com-munity,
Dr. Hargrove said.
Volunteers in research will be selected
on the basis of research programs under
way at the center, the physicians said.
Clinical research programs are usually
funded by the National Institute of Health,
Dr. Hargrove noted, but the federal
agency felt that the medical school here
was too young and not enough research
was under way to award funds for
establishing such a unit.
The private contribution, he said,
provided enough funds for renovation and
seed money for the first few years until the
program, hopefully, can attract federal
research grants.
The clinical research center, Dr. John-son
said, provides an added incentive to
prospective faculty members.
The unit will be operated under control- Iled conditions so that the environment is
free from extraneous influences.