Dean's Update
March 28, 2025 - Aron Sousa, MD
Above (l-r) Senator Slotkin and Aron, Nara Parameswaran (camouflaged with a necktie), Mark Brieve, Representative Moolenaar, Aron, and Jacob Courville, visiting Capitol Hill. Our deep thanks to Jacob for setting up great meetings for us with the Michigan delegation.
Friends,
There is plenty going on,
and each day new anxieties seem to spawn.
It is enough to make one shriek like Muppets,
so today I write in couplets.
When sanity is hard to find,
I try to trick my mind,
and, the silliness of rhymes
helps me with the times.
Of course, the federal situation
creates an inauspicious expectation,
and so I went to Washington, DC,
the Michigan delegation for to see.
We saw Slotkin the Senator
and some congressional health staff we might mentor.
In each office, they were interested in our thoughts on Medicaid
and how research indirects get paid.
We were all about education
of each delegation.
Each delegation clearly loves Sparty, regardless of their party.
We spoke about grant termination
And intergovernmental funds transfer formation.
Intergovernmental transfer is also call IGT,
and our hospitals and physicians use it to expand Medicaid for each patient they see.
It also supports more than 40 psychiatry residents each year,
and if those programs stop, the damage to mental health is something I fear.
Every delegation understood that would hurt,
since Michigan has so many counties that are a mental health desert.
Each delegation clearly loves Sparty, regardless of their party.
We were there for MSU,
so we talked about all we do.
The grants from USAID
that should be paid.
The amazing nurses we educate,
and the science we explicate.
Students who become DOs and MDs,
And all the bacteria in feces.
Really, that information hit home,
‘cause a rep’s son studies the GI biome.
Discoveries that help kids with a rare disease,
and how we pay for storing specimens in deep freeze.
We pay for that with NIH indirect cost reimbursement,
which means we get back money the bursar spent
to make cures cognoscible
and research possible.
Each delegation clearly loves Sparty, regardless of their party.
Sometimes rhymes and couplets feel trivial
when idea juxtaposition does not reveal
just how weird and bizarre
this is so far.
Thanks for indulging me with a bit of sugar
in a world that is a pressure cooker.
We do great work at this university
For Michiganders across their [redacted].
From Downriver to the Sault
Serving the people with you,
Aron
Aron Sousa, MD, FACP
Dean, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine