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.
A study showed that older people who smoked less than 32 “pack years” — 3.2 packs (20 cigarettes per pack) a day for no more than 10 years or less than one pack a day for 30 years — and gave up smoking 15 or fewer years ago lowered their risks of developing heart failure or dying from heart failure, heart attacks and strokes to the same level as those who had never smoked. “It’s good news,” said Ali Ahmed, M.D., M.P.H., senior researcher and professor of cardiovascular disease at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s School of Medicine. “Now there’s a chance for even less of a waiting period to get a cleaner bill of cardiovascular health.”
UAB’s Michael Saag, M.D., served as co-chair of a panel of 27 liver and infectious diseases experts to develop Hepatitis C guidance for clinicians that will live online.
New opportunities exist through the National Dental Practice-Based Research Network for dentists to gather evidence that may have chairside significance. "This input has come enthusiastically at every step of the study development process—from idea generation, to study design, to design of the data collection forms, to study implementation, all to be done in busy clinical practices," said Dr. Gregg Gilbert, network director and chair of the department of clinical and community sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
'One glass of wine a day is better than six! Again, cook with butter - just use a little and most important, do not eat after 7 o'clock in the evening,' Does Raymond Blanc's advice match up to the research? The Michelin-starred chef says women should not eat bacon and eggs every morning, but a high-fat breakfast of bacon and eggs may be the healthiest start to the day, a study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham study. 'The first meal you have appears to program your metabolism for the rest of the day,'said study senior author Martin Young, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine in the UAB Division of Cardiovascular Disease.
A single bad year doesn't typically force a hospital to enter bankruptcy. A new study on the topic by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham found that most hospitals were done in by steadily declining admissions, revenues and relationships with their physicians, and were unable to reverse them.
For patients presenting to the emergency department with acute respiratory tract infections (ARTI), inappropriate utilization of antibiotics has decreased for children, but not for adults, according to a study published online Dec. 16 in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. John P. Donnelly, MSPH, from University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues conducted a retrospective study involving patients presenting to emergency departments with ARTIs from 2001 to 2010 identified from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey.
Cancer patients who are actively being treated for cancer can safely receive flu shots, Mollie deShazo, MD, told The ASCO Post. “It is not going to be dangerous for them. The question is how effective it will be.” Dr. deShazo is Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology and Medical Director of Inpatient Oncology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Like a real-life Indiana Jones, Dr. Jim Pittman had a flair for adventure, despite his bow-tie wearing academic appearance as dean of the UAB School of Medicine. Pittman, dean of the UAB School of Medicine from 1973-92, died on Jan. 12. He was 86. Anyone who attended the Bessemer Air Show in the early 1980s had a chance to ride with Pittman in his 1935 Stearman biplane. Pittman would offer rides all day long.
The UAB campus, like the rest of the Birmingham area, was hit hard and fast by the sudden winter storm on Tuesday. "We had hundreds of folks stranded in buildings," Harlan Sands, UAB vice provost for administration, said on Thursday. "We did two things," Sands said. "We opened up the rec center for warmth and shelter. And we cranked up our dining commons to serve the people who were stuck."
Amy and Duane Donner recently contributed $125,000 to the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Collat School of Business for its Healthcare Leadership Academy. Founded in 2009, the academy is a joint collaboration between the Collat School of Business and School of Medicine, and it has helped the university retain promising health-focused faculty and staff. The academy’s mission is to identify and develop future leaders of the UAB academic medical center.