Portland State University Alumni Newspaper On the Inside PSU's premiere "University College" ....................... Exatn~nesthe city rn sociely 2 Diplomat-in-Residence Ambassador bnngs experience in foreign policy to PSU .............................. 3 Alumni Notes & Features ......................... 5-9 Study~ngchimp behavior in ........................ Africa with Jane Goodall 7 ......... The many hats of of Joann Reese 8 Alumni News .................. Survey reveals views, interests 9 Faculty Feature Sam Yorks i~ves 8 teaches Playwritf?'~philosophies .......................... 10 In the News Campus capsules ................................. 12 Enrollment drop follows program cuts ......................................... 13 Calendar ..................................................... 15 by Cliff Johnson he cavalier prescription of antibiotics in hospitals to prevent '"T infections may in fact be causing more infections than they are preventing," PSU's Dr. Katherine Chavigny stated recently: Asked whether this could make some of the nation's major drug manufacturerswish that she had concentrated her latest research interests somewhere else, she answered with typical candor. "I'm really not worried about that." Chavigny, Director of PSU's Center for Public Health Studies since 1979, has the combination of professional curiosity and persistencenecessary to probe the complex world of hospital prescriptionpractices. She is examining whether or not antibiotics - the "magic bullets" designed to knock out infections without killing the patient - may do some patients more harm than good, depending on H c uch is too much? how and when they are prescribed. Chavigny is scheduled to issue her research findings on May 1. They are expected to show that the r~skof developing new infection increases in a large, urban public hospital setting when a patient is undergoing long-term treatment for periods ranging from nine to 30 days. This finding, she emphasizes, applies only to antibiotics given to patients who have no infection (a practice known as prophylactic antibiotics), ostensibly to protect them from any future hospital "bugs" they might catch. Chavigny is careful to say she has no quarrel with the judicious use of such antibiotics once the symptoms of infection have become clear (known as treatment antibiotics). Actually, Chavigny is not the first researcher to issue such a warning about the over-prescribeduse of antibiotics. But Chavigny's research method offers a new approach to the problem. She specializes in population-basedresearch, which attempts to spot trends by analyzing the experiences of large groups of patients. This is a means to discover something new by looking at "the big picture" of mass statistics and records, rather than by looking over ! each doctor and patient's shoulder, and having to reconcile small individual differences. Chavigny is an epidemiologic methodologist,with an abiding interest in preventing unnecessary hospital-contractedinfections. In the 1960's, she was part of a pioneering effort to initiate a hospital infection I control program at a large urban Oregon hospital, and her interest has continued through completion of her ', doctoral dissertation in 1976, to her present teaching position with PSU. Her years spent conducting research around hospitals enabled I Conhnued on page 2 i
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