Category Archives: Medical School

Israeli medical students donate books to Patan Academy for the Health Science

Israeli Ambassador to Nepal Hanan Goder-Goldberger on Thursday handed over a collection of books sent from the Medical School for International Health (Soroka University Medical Center), Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel to Prof. Dr. Rajesh Gangol, Dean of the Patan Academy for the Health Science.

The book was handed over to Dr Gangol amidst a ceremony held at the Patan Hospital.

The books have been collected from the students of the Ben Gurion Unitersity School for International Health in Beer Sheva, Israel with the initiative of Professor Michael Alkan for the students of Patan Academy of Medical Science. Prof. Alkan has been instrumental in promoting Patan Academy for Health Science in Israel since its inception in 2008.

In recent years there is ongoing cooperation and sharing of knowhow and exchange of professional staffs from Israel to Nepal and Nepal to Israel.

During the Ceremony Prof. Dr. Gangol expressed his appreciation for the ongoing cooperation between the two hospitals and the two universities. He hopes that this cooperation will further develop in the future.

Ambassador Goder-Goldberger expressed his satisfaction for the ongoing cooperation between two hospitals and said that the Embassy will be happy to see such projects in the future too. nepalnews.com

See the article here:
Israeli medical students donate books to Patan Academy for the Health Science

Public release date: 4-Jul-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jim Fessenden james.fessenden@umassmed.edu 508-856-2600 University of Massachusetts Medical School

WORCESTER, MA Older patients undergoing cardiac surgery often experience changes in cognitive function, such as memory problems or an inability to focus, in the days immediately following their operations. While these changes are usually temporary, for unknown reasons, a significant number of cardiac patients will encounter long-term cognitive problems, lasting as long as a year after their surgeries.

Now, new research published in the July 5 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), establishes a link between postoperative delirium and prolonged loss of cognitive function in cardiac surgery patients. Led by investigators at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Aging Brain Center at Hebrew SeniorLife, the findings suggest that interventions to prevent delirium in advance of surgery could help cardiac patients avoid long-term cognitive consequences.

A state of confusion that can develop following illness, infection or surgery, delirium is one of the most common complications in hospitalized patients over age 65. "Our findings now suggest that postoperative delirium, once thought of as an acute, transient cognitive disorder, may have longer-term effects on cognitive function in patients undergoing cardiac surgery," said co-lead author Jane Saczynski, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

While delirium has been studied quite extensively in other patient populations, including general medical and surgical patients and orthopedic surgery patients, few studies of delirium have targeted cardiac surgery patients. "With the aging of the patient population undergoing cardiac surgery and increases in survival after surgery, clinicians and patients are increasingly concerned with factors associated with quality of life, including cognitive status, as major outcomes of surgery," the authors write. "Whether postoperative delirium is associated with prolonged cognitive dysfunction has been unclear."

The researchers followed 225 patients, aged 60 to 90, who underwent either coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) or heart valve replacement surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), UMass Memorial Medical Center or the Boston VA Medical Center, for one year after their surgeries, assessing them for both delirium and cognitive impairment.

"One of the real strengths of our study is that we assessed patients' cognitive function preoperatively and an average of five times during the year after surgery," said co-lead author Edward Marcantonio, MD, section chief for research in BIDMC's Division of General Medicine and Primary Care and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. "Previous research had shown an association between postoperative delirium and functional decline in activities of daily living [such as grooming and dressing, driving, shopping, preparing meals and managing medications and finances.] But, believe it or not, the one thing that's been most uncertain is the association between delirium and long-term cognitive difficulties. This study allowed us to accurately model the course of cognitive function and to compare the rate of recovery among patients with and without postoperative delirium."

The results showed that compared with patients who did not experience delirium, the 103 patients who developed delirium after cardiac surgery 46 percent of the total experienced a more significant drop in cognitive performance immediately following surgery, as determined by the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). They also took significantly longer to recover back to their pre-surgical level of function than did patients who did not develop delirium. For example, five days after surgery, nearly half of those who did not develop delirium had returned to pre-operative levels of function while less than 20 percent of those who did develop delirium had returned to pre-operative level of function; six months after surgery, more than three-quarters of those without delirium had recovered cognitively compared to only 60 percent of those with delirium.

Although patients who developed delirium took longer to recover to their pre-operative levels of cognitive performance, they continued to improve in the weeks and months after surgery. Cognitive performance reached preoperative levels and stabilized one month after surgery in patients who did not develop delirium but continued to improve until six months after surgery in those with delirium.

View post:
Postoperative delirium in cardiac surgery patients associated with prolonged cognitive impairment

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Marshall University's medical school and Cabell Huntington Hospital will be featured in Thursday's episode of NBC's Rock Center, the hospital announced Tuesday.

The newsmagazine will feature the Maternal Addiction and Recovery Center at MU's Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Cabell Huntington.

NBC will air the newsmagazine at 10 p.m. Thursday on WSAZ-TV.

An NBC news crew spent time at the hospital in early April and interviewed Dr. David Chaffin, a maternal fetal specialist and Dr. Sean Loudin, a neontologist, about the medical school and hospital's work to address the issue of opiate drug addiction by pregnant women and its effect on newborns.

"It is our hope that the national media exposure will give pregnant women who are addicted the courage to seek care in treatment programs like our center," said Dr. David C. Jude, chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at MUSOM. "Receiving prenatal care early in the pregnancy significantly reduces the likelihood of complications of pregnancy, and we hope that increasing awareness of both the problem and places where help is available will inspire women to seek care sooner in their pregnancy.

"Our experience so far has shown us that a little more than half of these women can either use significantly less or come off the medications completely and by doing so significantly reduces the severity of neonatal withdrawal and may prevent some babies from having withdrawal symptoms," Jude said.

The newsmagazine will feature the Maternal Addiction and Recovery Center at MU's Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Cabell Huntington.

NBC will air the newsmagazine at 10 p.m. Thursday on WSAZ-TV.

An NBC news crew spent time at the hospital in early April and interviewed Dr. David Chaffin, a maternal fetal specialist and Dr. Sean Loudin, a neontologist, about the medical school and hospital's work to address the issue of opiate drug addiction by pregnant women and its effect on newborns.

"It is our hope that the national media exposure will give pregnant women who are addicted the courage to seek care in treatment programs like our center," said Dr. David C. Jude, chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at MUSOM. "Receiving prenatal care early in the pregnancy significantly reduces the likelihood of complications of pregnancy, and we hope that increasing awareness of both the problem and places where help is available will inspire women to seek care sooner in their pregnancy.

View post:
MU med school, Cabell Huntington Hospital to be on TV

Posted on | July 3, 2012 | Comments

Newly amended legislation calls on lawmakers to put UC Riversides medical school at the top of the list for any money from the settlement of a federal lawsuit against the Senior Care Action Network health plan.

Until this week, the measure by Assemblyman Jeff Miller, R-Corona, dealt with improving roads needed for fire suppression. It passed the Assembly in May 2011 and was awaiting consideration in the Senate.

Mondays amendments would require the state to give the UCR Medical School $15 million from the impending settlement of what the bill says is the U.S. Department of Justices investigation of the senior health plans payment rates. The states share is expected to exceed $100 million, according to the bill.

Notwithstanding any other law, from any amount paid to the State of California as a result of an investigation into possible overpayments of state funds to the Senior Care Action Network (SCAN) Health Plan and available for expenditure for the purposes of this act, as the highest priority for the use of these funds, fifteen million dollars ($15,000,000) shall be transferred to the Regents of the University of California for allocation, without regard to fiscal year, to the School of Medicine at the University of California, Riverside, reads the bill.

Millers district doesnt include UC Riverside. The campus, though, is part of the 31st Senate District, where Miller faces Democrat Richard Roth, a Riverside attorney, in one of the states most competitive races. Roth touted his support for the medical school in campaign mailers leading up to the June 5 primary.

By: Jim Miller

See more here:
MEDICAL SCHOOL New bill says school should get $15 million

"We live in a country where people like to point out all the things that are wrong in the U.S. To me, yeah, nothing's perfect, but there are so many things we have right here. To truly be able to be grateful for those things, I need to give back and serve my country." - Linnea Simcik, Bloomfield HS (Courtesy of Linnea Simcik / July 2, 2012)

Linnea Simcik said she wants to go to medical school, and serve her country in the military.

"We live in a country where people like to point out all the things that are wrong in the U.S.," Simcik said. "To me, yeah, nothing's perfect, but there are so many things we have right here. To truly be able to be grateful for those things, I need to give back and serve my country."

Simcik will attend Southern Virginia University in the fall and study biology, with a minor in computer science. She will also attend Virginia Military Institute's ROTC program.

In the future, Simcik said she hopes to be a radiologist and, eventually, a military doctor. She said she is "fascinated" with medicine and how the body works.

"I've always known I wanted to go into a career where I could directly help people," Simcik said.

In addition to playing varsity tennis and leading her church's youth group, Simcik was a member of the National French and Spanish Honors Society and was a battalion commander in JROTC.

Simcik said she received the Yale Book Award and the University of Rochester Academic Award and was a Governor's Scholar Semifinalist, in addition to school achievement awards.

See the rest here:
Class Acts: Linnea Simcik, Bloomfield High School

Using electronic health records could help doctors face fewer malpractice suits, a study by Harvard Medical School researchers revealed.

In their study, called "The Relationship Between Electronic Health Records and Malpractice Claims," the Harvard researchers found that 84 percent of respondents were less likely to face malpractice claims after implementing EHR platforms.

The Archives of Internal Medicine, part of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) network, published the findings on its Website June 25.

Between 2005 and 2007, researchers interviewed 275 doctors in the surgical and medical specialties. Of the claims the doctors received during this period, 49 out of 51 involved events that happened before they adopted EHRs.

Participating doctors were members of Harvard Medical School and covered by a malpractice insurer, Controlled Risk Insurance Company/Risk Management Foundation (CRICO/RMF).

"The high quality and availability of proper documentation in EHRs may increase the likelihood of successful defense against malpractice claims," the report stated.

The authors of the study include Dr. Steven Simon, associate professor with Harvard Medical School and chief of general internal medicine at the VA Boston Healthcare System, as well as Dr. Mariah Quinn of the department of internal medicine at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, a nonprofit medical group practice serving eastern Massachusetts.

"At the very least, this study should provide doctors and medical groups with further assurance that EHR adoption is very unlikely to increase their odds of a malpractice claim," Simon told eWEEK in an email.

To arrive at the study's results, Harvard researchers used a statistical method called Poisson regression to find a linear correlation between its 2005 and 2007 results.

"Because physicians in the sample were insured for different durations and used EHRs for variable amounts of time, the number of insured years was calculated for each physician before and after EHR adoption," the report stated.

Read more:
EHRs Can Reduce Doctors' Malpractice Claims: Study