Wanna play doctor?
You can on Oct. 4 when the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine celebrates its 125th anniversary at Fantasy M.D., an interactive gala that begins at 5 p.m. at the Colorado Convention Center.
In exchange for a $500 “tuition fee,” guests can do all sorts of neat stuff: Treat a virtual patient, look at their own insides, deliver a virtual baby, practice tying sutures and more.
“It’s going to be great fun for a great cause,” predicts the school’s dean, Dr. Richard Krugman. “You’ll dine with some of the nation’s finest current and future physicians and learn what it takes to be a real doctor.”
Emergency physicians will help gala-goers to better understand the point of wearing protective headgear by inviting them to try crushing coconuts covered with motorcycle helmets; the division of rheumatology will staff a booth where guests can use a virtual needle to inject virtual relief into a virtual arthritic shoulder. The pediatric infectious disease department will illustrate how hardy bacteria can be by letting guests look through a microscope to see the amount of bacteria that can remain on the skin after a normal handwashing.
The consistently top-rated school of medicine has, among other things, helped eradicate smallpox and revolutionized open-heart surgery. The world’s first liver transplant was performed by its doctors and a team of its scientists are leaders in mapping human genes.
Proceeds from Fantasy M.D. will go to the Dean’s Fund for recruitment and retainment of “the best students and teachers we can find,” Krugman says.
The Anna and John J. Sie Foundation is the gala’s presenting sponsor. They and other sponsors are eligible for such perks as free executive physicals, CU Buffs football and basketball tickets and their very own white doctor’s coat.
Learn more by visiting or by calling 303-724-4252.
Hide Party.
If you thought the last hunk of beef you bought was expensive, it probably didn’t come close to the $110,000 that Steve and Karen Krause paid.
They got the whole cow — or, more accurately, the Grand Champion Steer — at the 2008 National Western Stock Show Auction of Junior Livestock Champions, and on Sept. 11 they were among those honored at a thank-you event called the Hide Party.
None of the buyers goes home with the meat from the champion steers, hogs, lambs and goats; all they get is the hide — and the satisfaction of knowing the money they spent will be put toward the college education of the youngster that raised the animal.
Auction committee chair Buck Hutchison also organizes the Hide Party, which this year included songs by Lloyd Morris, a video salute to the buyers and a thank-you to longtime auctioneer John Korrey.
Society editor Joanne Davidson: 303-809-1314 or jdavidson@denverpost.com; also,
