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Service in Action

Fighting Philly’s Food Insecurity, One Grocery Bag at a Time

Eden Engel-Rebitzer was in her third year at PSOM and had started her sub-internship when COVID-19 hit the region. Eager to find “a concrete thing [she] could do to alleviate suffering,” she and a group of compassionate peers created One Extra Bag, a grocery delivery program that aims to address food insecurities caused or worsened by the pandemic. Though the program began as a way to assist Penn Medicine housestaff, it quickly grew to include home-bound geriatric patients and individuals who became home-bound due to positive COVID-19 diagnoses. This is just one of the stories you’ll find in Service in Action, our community impact report for 2020. We invite you to read the stories, watch the videos, and learn about the people who are shaping the way Penn Medicine serves the communities that make us who we are.

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Answering the Call How the COVID Hotline Became Penn Medicines Front Line Against the Outbreak

August 06, 2020

In facing COVID-19, clinicians at least have the benefit of knowing the identity of the enemy they face, but the unknowns — a lack of a cure, what the best treatment course is, how much worse things can get — are similar to those Beck-Dougherty encountered in 1976.
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Uncovering the Neurological Connections to COVID-19

August 04, 2020

Why does COVID-19 cause some patients to lose their sense of smell and taste? What are the psychiatric and neurological complications now associated with COVID-19 infections—and can these issues be prevented?
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How Coronavirus Complicates the Grieving Process

July 30, 2020

Rituals like funerals, shivas and memorial celebrations can often help ease the pain associated with the death of a loved one and allow those left behind to begin healing. But due to social distancing requirements to stem the spread of the virus, the pandemic has forced many people to change the way they say goodbye, complicating the grieving process, though making it no less important.
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Cancer Care in the Time of COVID

July 28, 2020

Whether or not people are actually avoiding going to the doctor when they’re sick — or to the hospital if they’re having a true emergency — is still a matter of some debate. But while no study has shown it definitively, there are two trends that are cause for concern.
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Walk This Way: Dealing with Difficult Colleagues When Working Remotely

July 23, 2020

While interpersonal challenges and difficult personalities at work have always been part of the professional picture, the changing dynamics of how we work, and our reactions have added additional complexity.
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Coordination and Collaboration Across a Health System: Chester County Hospital Shows How Waves of COVID-19 Promote Learning

July 21, 2020

While Chester County Hospital’s leadership organized its COVID-19 response strategy, Sowti, was in frequent contact with his counterparts at PMC offering whatever support they needed to meet the high volume of COVID-19 patients they were seeing.
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