UIC professor receives international humanitarian award
Dr. Samuel Epstein, professor emeritus of environmental and occupational medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, has received the Albert Schweitzer Golden Grand Medal for Humanitarianism.... ...The award, given by the Albert Schweitzer World Academy of Medicine, honors Epstein for his "longstanding and pioneering international contributions to cancer prevention....UCSF study offers insight into human circadian rhythms
Scientists have identified a gene and mutation within it that causes a rare sleep behavior, in which individuals have a "fast" biological clock. The gene's enzyme could lead to a therapeutic target for the disrupted sleep patterns seen in such groups as those facing jet lag or nighttime work shifts....... More broadly, the gene provides a probe for exploring the regulatory mechanisms of the body'...UW study shows blacks and Latinos are more satisfied with physicians of the same race
Latino and black patients who perceive racism in the health care system prefer and are more satisfied with physicians from the same race or ethnicity, according to a new study published in the March-April edition of the Annals of Family Medicine. ...In analyzing a national survey of more than 3,800 blacks, Latinos and whites, Dr. Frederick Chen, acting assistant professor in the University of Wa...Physicians may not be accurate in their confidence levels of their diagnoses, says Pitt study
PITTSBURGH, March 29 Physicians' often do not have correct perceptions of the accuracy of their diagnoses at the time they make them, and in significant numbers of cases they may be overconfident--wrong when they believe they are right; or underconfident--right when they believe they are wrong--about their diagnostic assessments, according to a University of Pittsburgh study....... "An overconfi...Raw food vegetarians have low bone mass
St. Louis, March 28, 2005 -- Vegetarians who don't cook their food have abnormally low bone mass, usually a sign of osteoporosis and increased fracture risk. But a research team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis also found that raw food vegetarians have other biological markers indicating their bones, although light in weight, may be healthy. ......The study, published in t...Indiana University researchers closer to helping hearing-impaired using stem cells
INDIANAPOLIS -- Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine are several steps closer to the day when a profoundly deaf patient's own bone marrow cells could be used to let him or her hear the world. ......The IU group, led by Eri Hashino, Ph.D., was able to transform, in the laboratory, stem cells taken from adult bone marrow into cells with many of the characteristics of sensory nerve c...NIAID initiates trial of experimental avian flu vaccine
Fast-track recruitment has begun for a trial to investigate the safety of a vaccine against H5N1 avian influenza, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced today. ...... Sites in Rochester, NY, Baltimore and Los Angeles will enroll a total of 450 healthy adults. The clinical sites are part of the NIAID-sponsored V...African-American women with endometrial cancer have more aggressive cancer than Caucasian women
Miami, March 21, 2005--In two studies of African-American women with endometrial cancer, a group of investigators from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Cancer Institute has found that African-American women with advanced endometrial cancer have more aggressive tumors than Caucasian women, potentially leading to worse outcomes. ...... Specifically, the investigators first performe...TB Alliance announces new drug discovery program with GlaxoSmithKline
... ... ...Teleconference to provide overview on launch of broad discovery portfolio to improve the treatment of tuberculosis (TB). The program significantly enhances the TB drug pipeline by adding several novel classes of compounds that use new mechanisms of action. Briefings from the TB Alliance on status of TB drug pipeline and discussion with GlaxoSmithKline, patient and public health group...Giant iceberg B-15A edges past floating ice pier
Envisat radar imagery confirms that the B-15A iceberg the world's largest floating object is adrift once more after two months aground on a shallow seamount. This latest development poses a renewed threat to the nearby pier of land-attached ice known as the Drygalski ice tongue....... The sheer scale of B-15A is best appreciated from space. The bottle-shaped Antarctic iceberg is around 120 kilo...Balance and better interactions between primary-care and specialist physicians improve US health
Communities with more primary-care physicians have lower mortality rates, according to an analysis by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and New York University. The researchers also found that having more specialty-care physicians in a community did not have the same positive impact on health and that increasing the number of specialists would not improve the he...Drug that hinders blood vessel growth under study in ovarian cancer
A drug that may help prevent recurrence of ovarian cancer by inhibiting development of new blood vessels essential to cancer growth is under study at the Medical College of Georgia.... ...MCG is among some 25 centers nationally enrolling patients in remission to see if the investigational drug A6 can help them stay that way, says Dr. Sharad Ghamande, MCG gynecologic oncologist and a principal in...Northwestern Memorial physicians encourage screenings during colon cancer awareness month
March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month and doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital are encouraging Chicagoans to know their family history and get screened. ... ... To help kick-off Colon Cancer Awareness Month and educate patients about the risks, symptoms, prevention, early detection and treatment options for colorectal cancer, Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehens...Common schizophrenia symptoms often overlooked by physicians, according to expert panel
NEW YORK, NY (March 7, 2005) Treatment of schizophrenia has largely focused on controlling positive symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, while another set of symptoms that are equally important to patients is frequently overlooked by physicians, according to the findings of a new national consumer survey and the authors of a new consensus statement aimed at raising the bar for the tre...Increasing physician volume requirement could improve mammogram accuracy, study concludes
Increasing the minimum number of mammograms a physician reads annually might improve the overall accuracy of screening mammography in the United States, according to a new study in the March 2 issue of the ...... Certain patient characteristics, such as age and breast density, are known to contribute to mammographic accuracy, but it is not known how the characteristics of physicians trained for...Physician roles at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo
...On Tuesday, March 1, the Harvard Medical School Division of Medical Ethics will host a public forum, "Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo: Medical Professionalism, Dual Loyalty, and Human Rights."...... This public forum will explore the role of medical military personnel in alleged torture and other violations of human rights in U.S. military facilities at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Medical professio...Changes in ovaries could indicate higher risk of ovarian cancer
Currently, no accurate test for the early detection of ovarian cancer exists. Instead, ovarian cancer usually strikes quietly, becoming known to doctor and patient only after the disease has reached an advanced stage. But a new study in the April issue of Gynecologic Oncology suggests that certain cellular and molecular changes in the ovary could provide the warning signs needed for early detecti...Philadelphian wins national organic chemistry award
Madeleine Joullie of Philadelphia will be honored August 20 by the world's largest scientific society for designing and constructing compounds useful in fields ranging from medicine to forensics. She will receive the 2002 Arthur C. Cope Senior Scholar Award at the American Chemical Society's national meeting in Boston....... Joullie, a synthetic organic chemist, joined the University of Pennsylva...Female physicians more emotionally focused and 'patient-centered' when communicating with patients
Female primary care physicians spend more time with their patients and engage in more positive, social, and emotionally focused talk than their male colleagues, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Northeastern University. Their conclusions are based on a systematic review of previous studies involving physician communication and are published in the...Female physicians more emotionally focused and 'patient-centered' when communicating with patients
Female primary care physicians spend more time with their patients and engage in more positive, social, and emotionally focused talk than their male colleagues, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Northeastern University. Their conclusions are based on a systematic review of previous studies involving physician communication and are published in the...Palliative practice blurs ethical lines, physician says
The use of neuromuscular blockers to stop the appearance of laboured breathing at the end of a patient's life raises ethical concerns and should not be permitted, says a University of Toronto researcher specializing in palliative care.... ..."As we die, our respiratory pattern is altered and we seem to gasp and struggle for each breath," says Dr. Laura Hawryluck, physician leader of the Ian Ander...Australian chemists present new research findings at Pacifichem 2000
... ... ...Click for Abstract 3....Imperial statistician estimates size of French BSE epidemic
.Around one hundred BSE infected animals will have been slaughtered for human consumption in France during 2000, an Imperial College statistician has estimated. Dr Christl Donnelly, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, analysed BSE-incidence data from the French Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, combined with information from the UK epidemic, to estimate the size and course of the...Physicians' Opinions Influenced By Drug Industry
. Researchers examining the effect of financial conflicts of interest.have found a strong association with authors' published positions on the safety.of a type of heart medication and their financial relationships with.pharmaceutical manufacturers. The results of the study are published in the Jan..8 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.. "The pharmaceutical industry provide.... Brand new ways to look at and evaluate medicine have flourished along.with the reach of managed care. But the language of population-based science is.foreign and even intimidating to many doctors, nurses and other health.professionals who were taught to focus on "the patient.". . Researchers at the Center for Clinical Evaluation Sciences at the Emory.University School of Medicin...U of T researchers describe 'Joe Canadian' tongue
New imaging research about tongue shape and volume before and after surgery should ultimately help surgeons decide how to best reconstruct tongue defects resulting from cancer surgery, says a team of researchers at the University of Toronto. ......Tim Bressmann, a professor in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology, and his colleague Jonathan Irish, a professor in the Department of Otolary...British conservatives should beware of Australian health service reforms
Australia is held up as a model of how to increase use of private health care in the United Kingdom. But experts in this week's BMJ warn that the effects of its reforms are not all beneficial and ask what can British and European conservatives learn from an Australian colleague who has deliberately sought to enhance the role of the private sector?...... The Australian prime minister, John Howard,...Physicians call for increased funding for federal infectious disease programs
As President Bush released his proposed budget for fiscal year 2006, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has urged Congress and the Administration not to allow federal infectious disease programs that are vital to the nation's health to stagnate due to lack of funding....... "Although we recognize that fiscal constraint is necessary during a time of war and significant federal budge...Canadian neurologist wins highest award as American Stroke Association honors five
NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 2 One of North America's foremost neurologists and stroke researchers, Vladimir Hachinski, M.D., D.Sc., professor of neurology at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ont., Canada, is the recipient of the American Stroke Association's highest honor the Thomas Willis Award for 2005.... Hachinski will receive the award and deliver the prestigious Willis Lecture today at t...Clinicians report missing patient information is common
A survey of clinicians indicates that missing clinical information for patients is common and may adversely affect patients, according to a study in the February 2 issue of ....... Effectively managing clinical information (patient information such as demographics, medical history, medications, test results, and family structure) is an essential part of all medical care, according to background...New research could help physicians tailor asthma therapy in children
Researchers have identified specific asthma characteristics in children that could help determine the type of asthma treatment they will best respond to. These findings were published in the February 2005 Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology (JACI). The JACI is the peer-reviewed, scientific journal of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI). ... ..."Parents of childre...Minorities who experience pain don't receive the same care as Caucasians
The first issue of Pain Medicine in 2005 will focus on the inequalities and differences in how pain is assessed and treated amongst various racial and ethnic minority groups. Data from the articles in this themed edition provide evidence that African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians and other racial and ethnic minorities do not receive optimal care in treatment for pain. ......"Each articl...Researchers discover genetic variant that may explain why women develop M.S. more than men
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Why do women develop multiple sclerosis (MS) almost twice as often as men? Physicians have long been intrigued by this fact -- and now a Mayo Clinic-led international research team has identified a genetic variation that may explain it. ... ...The report from collaborators in Minnesota, Northern Ireland, Belgium and Italy appears in the Jan. 27 online publication of the journa...Communication between primary-care physicians and patients can reduce medication-related problems
BOSTON Primary-care physicians who encourage their patients to let them know about bothersome side effects of prescribed medications and who address such problems promptly can reduce the chances that patients will be harmed by the medications, according to a new study by researchers in Boston....... , will help researchers develop strategies for decreasing the number of adverse drug events (AD...Alliance for Taxpayer Access asks NIH 'Who really owns publicly-funded medical research?'
WASHINGTON In a letter sent Tuesday to National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director, Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, an informal coalition of stakeholders who support reforms that will make publicly funded biomedical research accessible to the public, expressed deep disappointment after NIH cancelled a planned briefing and announcement on new guidelines. No explanation w...Physician response to conflicts between faith and medicine
How do doctors interpret and respond to conflicts between their best medical advice and a patient's religious concerns? ...... suggests that such conflicts are not uncommon, that most physicians strive to accommodate the demands of a patient's faith, but that certain types of conflict tend to push doctors over a threshold toward negotiation, persuasion, and appeal to other authorities....... "Th...Physicians' response to religion-related conflicts in medicine
CHICAGO Physicians may encounter situations in which their medical recommendations conflict with a patient's religious beliefs, according to an article in the January 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.... ...According to background information in the article, many patients use their religious beliefs and values to understand, cope with, and navigate the...USC researchers find evidence that progesterone signaling influences ovarian cancer risk
Los Angeles, CA, Jan. 4, 2005- A woman's risk of ovarian cancer rises significantly if she carries either of two previously unexamined variations in the gene that codes for the progesterone receptor, according to a team of researchers led by scientists from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. ...... , was initially supposed to be a more in-depth look at one parti...Birth simulator helps physicians I.D. least forceful way to manage problem deliveries
Johns Hopkins researchers, using a novel birthing simulator designed by biomedical engineering faculty, staff and students at the University, have identified what may be the least forceful way to deliver a baby whose shoulders are stuck in the birth canal....... Shoulder dystocia, in which the baby's shoulders won't move past the mother's bony pelvis during delivery, occurs in about 5 percent of...Web-based tool to help clinicians make schizophrenia treatment decisions
A new Web-based tool will be available January 1, 2005 to help clinicians determine the best medication for patients with schizophrenia. An international team led by Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Herbert Meltzer, M.D., recently completed the new algorithms, or step-by-step protocols, which will provide clinicians a resource as they make treatment decisions....... The value of the algorit...