Rose S. Fife, M.D.
Barbara F. Kampen Professor of Women's Health
Associate Dean for Research
Professor of Medicine & Biochemistry &
Molecular Biology
Phone: (317) 274-2754 Lois
Phone: (317) 630-2243 Tina Darling
(note-- for shipping call/send to Tina Darling)
Fax: (317) 274-2785
E-mail: rfife@iupui.edu

Clinical Services Contact:
Tina Darling (317) 630-2243

The mission of the Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSOM) National Center of Excellence (CoE) in Women's Health is to develop a coordinated, unified framework in which to provide state-of-the-art clinical care for women, to teach health care providers and lay individuals about women's health issues, to create new programs to deliver information about preventive medicine and health care to women and their families throughout the State of Indiana, to learn from women how to provide them with better and more user-friendly care, and to foster the development of careers of women in academic health centers.  The CoE will develop a coordinated national resource center consisting of programs to provide for comprehensive women's health care, public and health care professional education, and research into women's health issues. 

To accomplish these goals, the IUCoE is making use of their excellent clinical situation which includes a University teaching hospital, a large inner-city community hospital, a children's hospital, a geriatric facility, and many outreach clinics serving both inner city and more affluent neighborhoods. Through this existing strong network of interlinked facilities, they are coordinating access of care for women and their families through user-friendly entry points, including sites in their own communities. They are developing a model approach of "one-stop shopping" that incorporates the existing resources in their system which will make it easy for a woman to receive appropriate and complete health care and prevention education. In this model, they can provide full medical care, specialty care, gynecologic and obstetrical care, mental health guidance and management, routine screening (including pelvic exams, PAP smears, mammography, and bone densitometry), and extensive diagnostic evaluations, as needed. Additionally, they are developing outreach efforts to take women's health care into more of the inner city and into their rural regions.The IUCoE is developing an educational resource facility within the medical school library with a dedicated "health librarian" who can provide information to professional and lay users alike. This facility is accessible to anyone with a public library card in Central Indiana via the neighborhood or school libraries. They are also building a comprehensive collection of "hard copy" books and journals, as well as the development of on-line publications, for lay and professional users.The IUCoE has begun a pilot program to award small research grants to projects that seek to bridge the gap between basic sciences and clinical women's health.  With the information collected from a survey sent to the faculty, they are developing a catalogue of all women's health-related research on the campus and are working on a women's health research agenda.  They also are examining their clinical trials base to develop a working protocol for optimizing recruitment of women into clinical trials.The IUCoE has a mentoring program for women medical students who are paired with women faculty or women community physicians. They are developing a mentoring program linking junior and senior women faculty. They have a series of monthly lectures for faculty about issues such as promotion and tenure, grant-writing, teaching, ethics, and service.

The IUCoE has strong partnerships with community groups and agencies that are providing then with better ways to serve their citizens and are providing their community with access to the expertise and resources at their medical center.