April 2012 Archive - Penn Medicine News Blog

I remember the first time I heard of preeclampsia . Despite the fact that I’ve worked my whole adult career in hospitals and health care, I didn’t first learn about preeclampsia on the job. In truth, I read about it years ago – and rather graphically – in the John...

Over 350 people/teams participated in Penn Medicine's MyHeartMap Challenge, hunting down more than 1,500 AEDs, in about 800 unique buildings around the city of Philadelphia. AEDs were most commonly located in office buildings, gyms and recreation centers, and schools. Each one of the AEDs found represents fresh chances to save lives from sudden cardiac arrest, which claims the lives of more than 300,000 Americans each year.

The Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (PLM) is celebrating National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week April 22 to 28. Medical laboratory professionals are among the unsung heroes of patient care - the team behind the scenes who are “doing the best with every test.”

Diana Santangelo demonstrates patient wound care to medical student Stuart Carter. Wound care on a patient with diabetic foot ulcers. Pulling together information for a patient discharge. They seem like routine activities in any busy hospital but they often remain hidden from medical students learning the ropes; they’re more apt...

A diverse team of researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania is in New Orleans at the American Academy of Neurology’s 64th Annual Meeting, sharing the latest data aimed at enhancing the speed of diagnosis and treatment, and ultimately helping people with neurologic conditions.

To hospital patients in America, it may seem obvious that their care team – doctors, nurses, technicians, social workers and many other staff – works together to ensure they’re getting proper treatment and monitoring during their stay. But this relationship – often referred to as “interprofessionalism” – has not always been so obvious. Efforts are now under way across the nation to encourage it to flourish in all levels of medical education and hospital care and to foster it in a way that most benefits patients.

The Philadelphia Science Festival Carnival tents have all been folded and hauled away. There have already been four nights of non-stop science cafes at local watering holes. But, there are still six more days of the festival to go, and Penn Medicine faculty will be participating at events on most of those days.

(from l to r: Sandra Kaplan, Jason Cohn, Harry Fisher, Kimberly Fisher, Hayley Fisher, Marion Leary, Jessica Dine, and Erin Sweeney) Hailey is a five-year-old preschooler who loves Disney princesses, dolls, dressing up, Spongebob SquarePants and Mickey Mouse. Hailey is also a voracious learner and is always asking questions. One...

On Monday, April 23, Penn Medicine faculty will be particpating in three events at the Philadelphia Science Festival.

The Perelman School of Medicine, and other schools from around the University of Pennsylvania, has partnered with an innovative new learning platform to make Web-based courses, taught by some of the world’s foremost experts, available free to the general public.

It's less than a week away! The Festival, a citywide collaboration showcasing science and technology every April, will run from April 20-29. Penn students, staff, and faculty will be participating in all kinds of events throughout the entire festival.

The top 'Biggest Loser' team (l. to r.) Jen Naji, Kellie Barnes, Tyesha Godwin and Teel Summer. Not pictured: Jen Perno. In keeping with Penn Medicine’s focus on improving the health of both our patients and employees, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Nursing Renewal – an...

On March 27, 2012, 20 nurses from the Ocean Road Cancer Institute (ORCI) in Tanzania graduated from the first ever OncoLink Cancer Nurse Education Program, a pilot program started in February 2011 that aims to provide oncology nursing training in via e-learning courses. The program was created by oncology nursing experts at OncoLink®, a free cancer information website developed by experts at the University of Pennsylvania's Abramson Cancer Center.

Approximately 12 million Americans are seen in U.S. emergency departments each year for mental health-related symptoms. Of those patients, around 650,000 are evaluated for suicide attempts. For many of these people, it’s a frightening stop on the long and painful road of suffering that results from depression, anxiety, and substance...

The Choosing Wisely initiative, announced last week by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, aims to spark conversation among both doctors and their patients about the types of tests and treatments that are likely to be unnecessary, and perhaps even harmful. More tests, the group explains, does not always mean better care – and overuse of these diagnostics is a huge contributor to the United States’ surging medical costs. The issue of overtesting is a special challenge for emergency physicians. Most of the time, patients are unknown to them, and sometimes, unconscious or otherwise too sick to explain their symptoms or medical history. That often means starting from scratch with determining what might be wrong, and making calls to their previous physicians doesn’t always yield answers, especially during off hours.

William Fahringer and Christopher Gorrell, PT, DPT In 2005, William Fahringer tore his meniscus – the piece of cartilage that acts as a shock absorber for the bones that come together to form the knee -- while working as a plumber for the School District of Philadelphia. What seemed like...