Penn Medicine News Blog Archive: Patient Stories

To celebrate February as American Heart Month, the News Blog is highlighting some of the latest heart-centric news and stories from all areas of Penn Medicine. In honor of Heart Month and Valentine's Day, we're revisiting some of our most inspirational heart health patient stories from the last year. Penn...

Taking a look back, 2012 has been a year marked by breakthroughs in medical research, system-wide growth, and landmark philanthropic support for Penn Medicine. As we set our sights on the year ahead, we also celebrate the past year's accomplishments and give thanks to the outstanding faculty, staff, and students...

While most artificial hip joints in use today will last 10-20 years, like all devices, the artificial hip joint – which replaces the natural hip bone with a metal ball and resurfaces the hip socket with a metal shell and plastic liner – wears out over time. For younger patients, this means a second surgery (and maybe even a third) will be required to replace the artificial joint. Fortunately, a rare procedure now being offered by specialists at Penn Medicine provides a long-term alternative for younger patients with chronic hip pain.

In April 2009, Penn patient Elliot Gordon suffered from an aortic dissection, and required almost immediate open-heart surgery. Less than four years later Gordon will attempt to complete the Philadelphia Half-Marathon Sunday.

Do you donate blood? If you’re like the majority of Americans –- more than 90 percent -- the answer is no. Most people don’t think about it in their busy lives. Or they feel someone else will take up the slack. Unfortunately that’s not the case. Less than 40 percent...

On October 20th, 2012, HUP traumatic brain injury survivor Candace Gantt will participate in an Ironman Triathlon in Wilmington, North Carolina called Beach to Battleship to raise funds for brain injury research in Penn’s Center for Brain Injury and Repair (CBIR).

A team of Perelman School of Medicine researchers, led by Edna Foa PhD, director of the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety, are conducting the first study that examines whether one of the most effective forms of psychotherapy for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), exposure and ritual prevention (EX/RP), can help people with OCD achieve and maintain wellness after they stop taking the medications their doctors prescribe for their OCD.

Chemo luauBeach Boys music, hot dogs, sheet cake and feather boas aren’t the tools oncologists usually use to attack cancer. But along with powerful drugs and targeted radiation treatments, they’ve all played a big role in helping Debbie Hemmes, a 52-year-old Abramson Cancer Center patient from Westampton, NJ, fight lung cancer. Debbie’s daughter, Kelly McCollister, quickly added her own prescription to the list: a special party during each chemo session to help her mom count down the days until she finished her treatment.

One man’s refusal to let choroideremia slow him down Image courtesy of E.J. Scott Earlier this year, the world paused to watch its greatest athletes take center stage and compete for the gold in the Games of the XXX Olympiad. The United States’ Michael Phelps became the most decorated Olympian...

The Penn Transplant Institute’s reputation draws patients from across the nation who are waiting for a second chance at life. It is the region’s leader in total number of organ transplants performed; Penn transplant surgeons performed over 400 solid organ transplants during the 2011 fiscal year, including heart, liver, kidney,...

“We need new and better ways to treat our patients, not just ‘me, too’ medications. We need new and daring approaches. Our patients deserve it!”

Drugs used in hospitals are meant to save lives – to battle infections, kill cancer cells, control pain, steady uneven heart beats, and prevent blood clots from forming when patients are unable to get out of bed and move around. But despite these healing powers, medication errors are common, and the consequences can be severe. According to the Food and Drug Administration, medication errors cause at least one death every day and injure approximately 1.3 million people each year in the United States. And countless so-called "near-misses" with incorrect dosing or drug mix-ups go unreported. In response, the federal government and hospitals across the nation have made cutting medication errors a cornerstone of patient safety initiatives. Baligh Yehia, MD, MSHP, MPP, an Infectious Diseases fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, recently published a study in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases examining the prevalence of antiretroviral medication errors among hospital patients infected with HIV. Medication errors are a risk during hospitalizations of all kinds, but HIV patients are especially vulnerable.

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...

Educators, researchers, and practitioners across in the United States and abroad have been working to address the rift between personal and impersonal care by developing models that introduce ways to encourage humanism and professionalism to the practice of 21st century medicine.

To celebrate February as American Heart Month, the News Blog is highlighting some of the latest heart-centric news and stories from all parts of Penn Medicine. It may seem thoroughly unromantic, but researchers at Penn Medicine’s Cardiovascular Institute are hoping for some broken hearts this Valentine’s Day. But these broken...

To celebrate February as American Heart Month, the News Blog is highlighting some of the latest heart-centric news and stories from all parts of Penn Medicine. Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the number one birth defect in the U.S., affecting one out of 120 babies. This group of conditions consists...

In pursuit of a cure, cancer patients must turn their bodies over to doctors, nurses and family caregivers. But the human touches that are ultimately meant to be healing – needle sticks for placement of chemotherapy lines and blood samples, positioning on the table for radiation treatments and imaging tests, and countless physical exams – often feel anything but soothing. The Beauty of Healing, a new salon-based program for women dealing with cancer that is helping patients at Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center, aims to inject a unique type of TLC into cancer care.

The Joint Commission and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services now formally call for hospitals to make provisions for each patient, if they choose, to be accompanied any point during their stay by a family member, friend or other support person. As part of HUP’s Patient- and Family-Centered Care Initiative, leaders have rolled out new ways to accommodate visitors and help them support their loved ones during these often scary, stressful times.

A genetic mistake that arose thousands of years ago spares rare HIV-infected individuals the ravages of AIDS. Researchers at Penn’s School of Medicine are in the midst of translating the language of ancient genetic mistakes into today’s cures.