![Jim Bakken](/news/media/k2/users/27.jpg)
Jim Bakken
| This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.jimb@uab.edu • (205) 934-3887
Chief Communications Officer, Public Relations
Chief Communications Officer, Public Relations
As chief communications officer for the University of Alabama at Birmingham and UAB Medicine, Bakken leads teams that set and execute internal and external communications strategy. Prior to joining UAB in 2012, Bakken spent a decade working with a diverse client base at two full-service communications firms. Bakken spent eight years in Nashville at McNeely Pigott and Fox – one of the largest PR firms in the Southeast – prior to launching Peritus Public Relations in Birmingham in 2010. Bakken has served on the board of the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations, is accredited by the Public Relations Society of America and has been a Birmingham Business Journal Top 40 Under 40 honoree.
Suffice it to say that Prine’s April 11 concert at Birmingham’s Alys Stephens Center was a two-hour gem.
Researchers don’t know how long any study participants were married or how recently they were divorced or became widowed. But the results drive home the message that a person’s heart risks can’t be judged by physical measures alone—social factors and stress also matter, said Vera Bittner, a cardiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
That a good doctor-patient relationship can improve health outcomes has been shown before, for example in a study that showed diabetic patients are more successful at monitoring their blood sugar when their doctor is more empathetic, said Rodney Tucker, MD, chief experience officer for the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System.
For Dr. Michael Saag, the director of the Center for AIDS Research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the new drugs eliminate the need to use interferon altogether. “I don’t plan on using interferon again unless I can help it,” he told IBT, pointing to the drug’s harsh side effects, toxicity and relative inefficacy.