While attending high school in his native Colombia, Carlos Mena-Hurtado used to frequently drop in on his older brother Alvaro, who was studying medicine at the University of Antioquia, the nations top medical school and one of the oldest in South America. All of that time in his brothers classes convinced Mena-Hurtado, the son of a social worker and an English teacher, to apply. Though it was a challenge to land one of 40 spots available for 5,000 applicants to the prestigious institution, he was accepted. It was the beginning of a whats become a distinguished career in cardiology.

Cardiology started to grow on me during med school, said Mena-Hurtado, speaking in his office at Yale School of Medicine. What I liked about it was the fact that you can do quick interventions that would change patient outcomes. As he was completing his medical school education in Medelln, he applied for a scholarship that would allow him to continue his training through a series of rotations at institutions outside of his university. One of the possible institutions was Yale.

Yet the young doctor had doubts. It was a long shot, he recalled. I was from a developing country, at a public university, and didnt speak English fluently. So it wasnt necessarily the easiest thing to do.

The best rotation

Mena-Hurtado took the first step, which involved passing board examinations to qualify as a foreign medical student. In the fall of 1999, he worked in a small community hospital in a remote area of Colombia, which was a requirement in his country for having received a free medical education. At the facility, which had only four in-patient beds, Mena-Hurtado typically treated children with respiratory illness or mothers in labor. While he was on-call one night, he heard a knock on the door.

When I opened the door, it was a bunch of armed men asking for the physician on call. I said, Why? And they said, We need that person. So when youre in Colombia and something like that happens, you know you are being taken, he explained.

Dr. Carlos Mena-Hurtado

In Colombia, plagued for decades by revolutionary movements such as the FARC and ELN, kidnappings were not uncommon. That night, Mena-Hurtado understood that he and his best friend, also a physician, were seized because they had valuable medical skills. He later learned that his captors had recently been in a confrontation with the Colombian army, suffering injuries that required medical attention.

Over the course of his captivity, Mena-Hurtado applied his clinical skills to treating the wounded, sick children, and pregnant women in the guerrilla camps. I had the training, he recalled. The problem is that there were not many resources.

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From Colombia to Yale cardiology: Dr. Carlos Mena-Hurtado

AMHERST, Mass., March 11, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --The Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is ranked #11 in the Financial Times ranking of all online MBA programs worldwide, and #7 out of all US Schools.

Isenberg is one of the oldest accredited online MBA programs in the United States with nearly 1300 enrolled students. "In the past 12 years, we have helped thousands of medical doctors, engineers and other working professionals enrich their understanding of business management and reach their career objectives," remarked Mark A. Fuller, Dean of the Isenberg School of Management. "This new top ranking reflects how successful we are at bringing our rigorous curriculum to students who can't be in a classroom full time."

Data for the rankings are collected from participating schools and by alumni who graduated from the programs in 2011.Alumni responses inform six ranking criteria such as "salary today" and "aims achieved" and criteria specific to their online experience: "program delivery" and "online interaction." The full rankings, released this week, are published at http://rankings.ft.com/businessschoolrankings/rankings.

In breaking down the details of the survey, Financial Times ranks Isenberg #5 worldwide on the metric "salary today," with alumni survey participants reporting $131,661 average salary three years after graduation, and #4 worldwide on "program delivery rank" which covers the extent to which alumni rate the online delivery of live teaching sessions, other teaching materials and online exams. Isenberg is also ranked #5 on the Financial Times survey "value for money" metric, which calculates alumni salaries, scholarships, fees and other costs as reported by graduates.

This is the first time Isenberg has been ranked by the Financial Times. Isenberg MBA has also recently been ranked #12 Online and #16 Part-time nationwide by U.S. News & World Report 2015.

"It's important to note that online is just a different delivery system. This is the same accredited curriculum and you earn the same degree as our on-campus students," states says John Wells, Associate Dean of Professional Programs. "What makes Isenberg different is that our professors have had 12 years of experience understanding how to best engage our online students and help them succeed."

For more information about Isenberg's Online MBA program admissions visit http://www.isenberg.umass.edu/info

About Isenberg School of Management:

Founded in 1947, the Isenberg School of Management on the University of Massachusetts flagship Amherst campus has 42,000 alumni in 72 countries. Isenberg offers its AACSB-accredited courses to 4,500 students on campus, online, and in blended formats.The School's 3,200 undergraduates major in core business disciplines including accounting, finance, management, marketing, operations & information management, as well as industry specialties such as hospitality & tourism management and sport management.Over 1,300 students are enrolled in the Isenberg MBA and they can focus their studies in Health Care Administration, Entrepreneurship, Finance and Marketing.

For more information, visit http://www.Isenberg.umass.edu

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Isenberg School of Management Online MBA ranked #11 in the World by Financial Times

As a teenager, Brendan Alleyne picked up an unwanted label high school dropout.

Eleven years later, he earned a far more impressive title doctor.

One things certain about Dr. Brendan Alleyne. The 28-year-old Amherst native has taken the less-traveled path, from high school dropout to plastic-surgery resident at the internationally acclaimed Cleveland Clinic. Along the way, hes earned degrees from Erie Community College, the University at Buffalo and Case Western Reserve University Medical School.

That success has led Erie Community College to name Alleyne one of the schools six Distinguished Alumni for this year. All six will be honored at the Celebrate ECC event inside the colleges City Campus atrium from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday.

As accomplished as Brendan is, hes a perfect example of what we do at ECC, college President Jack Quinn said. We literally change lives, almost every day and every semester. He stands for what ECC is all about.

Alleynes life story chronicles a meteoric rise in academic circles.

Its not that he ever was a bad student. He wanted to be a doctor, and he earned top honors grades at both Amherst middle and high schools, until one awful day in the middle of his sophomore year.

Like many other really bright high school students, Alleyne found a close buddy, who became a friendly academic rival; they prodded each other to do well academically. One middle school teacher even gave them high school-level exams, to push them.

Then in January 2003, in the middle of sophomore year, Alleynes friend was killed when he was struck by a vehicle on Millersport Highway, while running with the schools track team.

The next day, Alleyne remembers walking by his friends empty desk in every class. Suddenly, he started wondering what he was accomplishing in school.

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Dropout-turned-doctor is among group of six alumni to be honored by ECC

March 11, 2015, 4 a.m.

THE DUX of Dubbo High School in 1974 is returning to the city after serving as a world-class paediatrician, teacher and academic.

Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor Professor S Bruce Dowton. Photo contributed.

THE DUX of Dubbo High School in 1974 is returning to the city after serving as a world-class paediatrician, teacher and academic.

Professor S Bruce Dowton will be the guest speaker at a cocktail reception for Western NSW alumni of the University of Sydney on Thursday, March 12.

On Tuesday more than 90 people had signalled their intention to attend the event to be hosted by the University of Sydney's School of Rural Health in Moran Drive.

Among them will be senior doctors who still remember Professor Dowton's first career steps.

"He is remembered locally for his scientific experiments while still a junior student, investigating antibiotic properties in soil micro-organisms, antibiotic-resistant bacterial mutants and the ionising effect of X-rays, among other interests," a spokeswoman for the School of Rural Health said.

"No one doubted that he was headed for an interesting scientific career."

The spokeswoman said in 1973 the University of Sydney Science Foundation for Physics awarded the future professor a scholarship to the 16th International Science School.

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Renowned paediatrician returns to the city

Published February 18, 2015

Donors and alumni of Saint Louis University are up in arms over a proposed sculpture honoring a protest on school grounds against police brutality.

The plan has led those opposed to the art project to launch a petition demanding plans for the monument be shelved according to the College Fix.

The higher education blog also reports that students are divided on the issue and that a campus forum will be held later this week.

Last October, protestors refused to leave the St. Louis campus and end their demonstration, which was intended to extend the Ferguson, Mo. protests of the previous summer.

Demonstrators flew upside-down American flags and gave speeches and teach-ins on topics like "conscious awakening, systematic oppression, white supremacy, and students' responsibility to the community."

In order to get the protestors to leave, University President Fred Pestello agreed to a list of 13 demands, including that a monument be installed on the quad.

The demands came from the coalition of protestors which included Tribe X, the Metro St. Louis Coalition for Inclusion and Equality, and the Black Student Alliance.

The proposed monument is described as a sculpture slated to fulfill the demand of "mutually agreed upon artwork" and capturing "the spirit and importance of the demonstration and encampment at Saint Louis University on October 13-18, 2014," according to a statement released by the university.

There was no indication of the sculpture's size or what form it might take.

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St. Louis University alumni protest planned sculpture honoring demonstrations

Tied for second place last year were Columbia University, Stanford University, Texas Tech University and University of North Carolina. Each school produced three CEOs who took their companies public.

The seven newly publicly traded companies led by Harvard alumni range from online bank Ally Financial to pharmaceutical company Kite Pharma. The group notched an average gain of 74 percent from the date of their market debut to the end of the year. By comparison, the FTSE Renaissance US IPO index, which tracks the performance of U.S. initial public offerings, gained 9.6 percent last year.

The average gain of the companies led by Harvard-schooled CEOs was also better than that of other schools. The IPOs led by former University of North Carolina students rose an average of 39 percent. Stanford graduates posted an average gain of 37 percent. Texas Tech University graduates saw an average increase of nearly 7 percent, while IPOs led by Columbia alumni had an average loss of almost 3 percent.

Read MoreAre hot IPOs likeShake Shack really worth it?

The Harvard executives are following one of the school's most famous students. Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, studied computer science at the school from September 2002 to May 2004 before leaving to focus on the social networking company. Facebook raised about $16 billion in its market debut in 2012.

Among the Harvard graduates who oversaw IPOs in 2014, two earned undergraduate degrees, one completed a residency at Harvard Medical School, while four earned graduate degrees, including two who studied at Harvard Business School.

Thomas Eisenmann, a professor at the business school, says that the program has been placing an emphasis on entrepreneurship for at least a decade. "It's a very strong focus for us," he said, noting that almost half of the school's alumni have started at least one company.

Kent Bennett, a partner at venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners, started at Harvard Business School in 2006 and says the school had not yet launched a lot of the formal entrepreneurship programs that now exist.

Still, he said, a lot of students wanted to start their own companies, and stories about others who attended Harvard and made names for themselves were motivating.

"It really helps when they're exposed to great role models," he said. "Maybe it's just the vision of Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg late at night ...That inspired them to think (they) could start a business."

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The top school for IPO leaders is...

WACO - Despite past efforts to stay out of the courtroom, Baylor University and the Baylor Alumni Association were in one for another hearing Friday.

Baylor University filed a lawsuit to stop the alumni association from using its name, trademarks, and performing alumni services.

Baylor rejected the BAA's final settlement offer last fall and the two sides are on track for a trial next year, but Friday was just one of many hearings until then.

The university filed a motion for a protective order to keep certain documents and information confidential. While both sides do agree some details should be kept private.

Lawyer for the BAA, Shannon Ratcliff, says the alumni association is hoping to strike down that part of the agreement because they say it gives the school the potential to abuse its power.

"We believe that it creates too large an area for not withholding documents from the lawyers but preventing us from sharing those documents or the content of those documents with our board and with our 17,000 members, says Ratcliff.

The BAA also asked the judge to order Baylor to respond to their requests and to hand over other license agreements. The alumni association says the agreements the university has with Baylor Medical and Scott & White prove they have other licensing agreements without termination dates making Baylor's argument against the association invalid.

The BAA says they will continue to pursue their goal.

The overall goal of the alumni association is to be recognized as the official alumni association to not have Baylor University throwing up roadblocks to their being able to perform that function, says Ratliff.

The university says they stand by its decision. Spokeswoman Lori Fogleman sent this statement after Friday's hearing:

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No judgement in Baylor vs. Baylor Alumni Association hearing

By Kathleen J. Sullivan

Karen Hong, a third-year medical student at Stanford Medical School, and Geo Saba, a senior majoring in political science, have been awarded Gates Cambridge Scholarships.

Two Stanford students have been awarded 2015 Gates Cambridge Scholarships for graduate studies at the University of Cambridge in England.

Geo Saba, a senior majoring in political science with honors in international security studies, and Karen Hong, a third-year student at Stanford Medical School, are among the 40 American students awarded scholarships, the Gates Cambridge Trust announced Wednesday.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation established the Gates Cambridge Scholarships in 2000 with a $210 million endowment to enable outstanding graduate students from outside the United Kingdom to pursue full-time graduate studies in any subject at Cambridge University. The scholarships cover the full cost of studying at the storied university.

Geo Saba, 22, of San Mateo, Calif., is a senior majoring in political science with honors in international security studies.

At Cambridge, he plans to pursue a master's degree in international relations and politics.

"Receiving the Gates Cambridge scholarship could not have occurred without the many faculty and fellow students who have shaped my interests, challenged my thinking, opened doors of opportunity and supported me as I embark on a career in public service," Saba said.

Saba is a member of the Class of 2015 Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford. His honors thesis is entitled, The Power of the National Security Advisor in Presidential Decision-Making.

Currently, Saba is serving as a research assistant to former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is a professor of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a professor of political science and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

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Two Stanford students named 2015 Gates Cambridge Scholars

HAMDEN It was a telling moment in the hot and cold relationship between Quinnipiac University and the town strained by a zoning dispute arising, as they usually do, from the school's unbridled growth over the years.

There was university President John Lahey, who is called a visionary even by critics, delivering the school's first annual $750,000 voluntary payment for town services to Mayor Scott Jackson on Thursday morning.

"Quinnipiac University is proud to call Hamden home," Lahey said after the check presentation. "Providing this voluntary payment is an affirmation of the university's ongoing support and appreciation of all that Hamden does for Quinnipiac."

At the same time, the university was spending another day in violation at least according to the town of a 2006 agreement to house all of its students on campus. The university, subject to a fine of $150 per day since being cited last month, is appealing.

The two poles in the marriage were neatly represented here: tremendous economic and social benefits to the town, but difficulty in getting along day to day.

The complicated coupling has earned Quinnipiac and Hamden a place in the lexicon of town-gown relations in Connecticut, not as fiery as the struggle between New Haven and Yale University before Mayor John DeStefano and Yale President Rick Levin turned things around in the 1990s, but simmering, to the point where Jackson said something has to be done.

"We agree on 90 percent plus of the points that come up, but the less than 10 percent is important to resolve. We have to communicate better," said Jackson, after accepting the $1.23 million check from Lahey. The amount included the $750,000 payment and about $400,000 that the school already pays annually for extra-duty police, fire and emergency medical services.

Jackson said any unease flowing between the town and the university "always, always" comes back to the party houses the homes in single-family neighborhoods that are owned by absentee landlords and rented to up to four students. Sometimes, though, a fifth or sixth student slides in, even a seventh or an eighth, Divided so many ways, the rent is cheaper than living on campus and makes it an attractive arrangement for the kids.

Residents in Middletown, Hartford, West Hartford, New London, New Haven, West Haven, Fairfield, Bridgeport, Storrs, New Britain, Willimantic, and Danbury may recognize this. It doesn't take too many 2 a.m. keg parties, which often bring the police and sometimes ambulances, for the students to make a deep and indelibly negative mark on the neighborhood.

Hamden town planner Leslie Creane calls it the "disassembling" of single-family routines and rhythms. She doesn't begrudge the students their good times, only the relatively few rowdy ones.

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Town Vs. Gown: Student Housing Strains Quinnipiac-Hamden Relationship

At the UMKC School of Medicine, we advance the health of our community through cutting-edge research and innovative, patient-driven medical education. The School of Medicines story starts with a collective vision and spirit of partnership, resulting in an academic medical center that partners with six of the best hospitals in the region to provide its students with early patient interaction and high quality medical training.

Responding to an ever-growing need, we are proud of the more than 3,200 graduates who serve their communities. Our program admits the majority of its almost 700 students into the combined baccalaureate-MD program. Hallmarks of our program are in-depth peer and physician mentoring in docent teams, application of state-of-the-art technology, and team-based care. In fact, our program offers more patient contact than most other medical programs in the nation.

The School of Medicine continues to seek new ways to address health care needs through graduate and allied health masters programs. The School offers masters level programs for anesthesia assistants, physician assistants, health professions education and bioinformatics. It also provides almost 50 post-graduate programs for more than 500 residents and fellows in partnership with our six affiliates: Truman Medical Centers, Childrens Mercy Kansas City, Saint Lukes Hospital of Kansas City, Center for Behavioral Medicine, the Kansas City Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Research Medical Center.

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School of Medicine : University of Missouri - Kansas City