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Blog Topic: Heart Month 2013

  • summer

    Summer Break: Time to Learn or Time to Let Kids Be Kids?

    July 12, 2017

    Summer is becoming a time during which certain children are prone to experience summer learning loss — the loss of academic skills and knowledge over the summer months – and parents are desperately fighting to prevent their children from falling behind. When it comes to keeping their kids academically focused over the summer, Penn Medicine's Martin Franklin says some parents might be overdoing it.

  • p acnes

    Skin in the Game: Dermatology’s Role in Antibiotic Stewardship

    July 10, 2017

    Data from the CDC shows the average dermatology provider wrote 669 antibiotic prescriptions in 2014. That is, by far, the highest average of any provider specialty.

  • penndulum

    Resident Physician Magazine Breaks Silence and Stigma through Creative Expression

    July 07, 2017

    When he was approached by a colleague about writing for a magazine with the theme “unspeakables and ineffables,” Lary Campbell had one idea for a personal essay that kept coming to mind. He had doubts about sharing it, though. The colleague, Lisa Jacobs, knew Campbell was an accomplished playwright and filmmaker who would be a talented contributor to the second issue of the magazine she had founded, Penndulum. She didn’t know that Campbell was HIV positive.

  • ajabu-gorilla-philly

    “So, a Surgeon Walks Into a Zoo…” – A Wild Delivery Story That’s No Joke

    July 05, 2017

    On Friday, June 2, an unlikely group of local medical professionals assembled Avengers-style at the Philadelphia Zoo to bring its newest addition into the world: a five pound baby western lowland gorilla. On the scene with the multidisciplinary group was Sean P. Harbison, MD, chief of General Surgery at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

  • nudge

    When Push Comes to Nudge

    July 03, 2017

    Imagine if health care costs could be dramatically reduced, and outcomes improved without any heavy lifting – no bills would need to be passed, no policies approved, and no major restructuring required. What if we could simply will people to make decisions that resulted in better care and a healthier population?

  • town hall

    “Science in the Service of the People”

    June 30, 2017

    “Are you unhappy with your environment?” asked the flyer for a Town Hall meeting at the Faith Temple Holy Church in Chester, PA held earlier this month.

  • couple

    How HIV Positive Men Safely Become Fathers

    June 28, 2017

    Last year, Helen Koenig, MD, an infectious disease expert at Penn Medicine, met a married couple faced with an uncommon fertility challenge they wanted to safely overcome: The husband is HIV positive and the wife is not. Every day, 400 babies are born HIV positive around the world, but with newer technologies and discoveries, having healthy, HIV-free children has become a reality for more and more couples.

  • guatemala

    Creating New Borders for Clinical Rotations Abroad

    June 26, 2017

    Many clinical rotations abroad only go one way: residents from the United States travel to a foreign country for a few weeks and then they leave, unsure of what, if any, lasting impact their time will have on the community or their medical careers. But four years ago, Jules Lipoff, MD, an assistant professor of Clinical Dermatology and his colleague, Rudolf Roth, MD, a professor of Dermatology, sought to change that dynamic.

  • path blog

    The Path Through Penn Medicine: Halfway There

    June 22, 2017

    In the fall of 2015, as the Perelman School of Medicine celebrated its 250th year, Penn Medicine magazine profiled nine entering medical students who each had an interesting path to medical school. We checked in with a few of these students recently as they approached the halfway point of their four years in medical school.

  • widlml

    When I Die, Let Me Live

    June 21, 2017

    The first two-part episode of Perelman School of Medicine graduate Lauren Kelly, MD’s podcast, “When I Die, Let Me Live,” is not always an easy listen — but that’s kind of the point. Kelly aims to present the listener with firsthand stories from patients, families, and caretakers dealing with the myriad physical, mental, emotional, and moral complexities of end-of-life care.

  • jaw

    [Liquid] Food for Thought

    June 19, 2017

    After a bike accident left me with a broken jaw wired shut, one of my biggest concerns was figuring out how and what to eat when I could only sip it through a straw. After discovering meal replacement shakes weren't going to cut it, I decided to talk with a pro to see what I was lacking and how I could get it.

  • sleep

    The Latest on Sleep Medicine from A to Zzz's

    June 16, 2017

    Each year, many of the nation’s leading sleep clinicians and researchers gather to share recent progress made in addressing sleep apnea, insomnia, circadian rhythm disorders, and other issues plaguing society today. This year’s meeting, SLEEP 2017, gathered such experts in Boston for poster and speaker sessions on the latest ongoing research in sleep and circadian science.

  • alcohol

    Drinking to Blackout: What Happens When Young Brains get Boozed

    June 14, 2017

    Though alcohol has become an integral part of many social functions, especially holidays, few people truly understand the damage that too many drinks can do to your body and your brain. In fact, years of chronic alcohol use can actually contribute to a person developing a serious brain disorder that affects cognition, movement, and memory.

  • NICU nurses demonstrate the switch from manual logging to the new Keriton system

    Breast Milk “Bartending”: There’s An App for That

    June 12, 2017

    Nurses in neonatal intensive care units spend close to 13,000 hours every year “bartending” – monitoring, labeling, printing, and logging – breast milk for the nearly 500,000 babies across the U.S. that require special care. And for moms of these fragile patients, keeping a full inventory can add stress to an already trying time. Enter Keriton, a new breast milk management system designed for nurses and new moms, by nurses and new moms.

  • challenge

    Addressing Adherence: PrEP’s Achilles Heel

    June 09, 2017

    Prevention is still our best weapon against HIV. One prevention method that has gained a lot of public attention in recent years is pre-exposure prophylaxis, also known as PrEP. Daily PrEP use can lower the risk of getting HIV from sex by more than 90 percent and from injection drug use by more than 70 percent—but the challenge with PrEP, like many other daily medications, is adherence. That’s where Penn Medicine's Helen Koenig and recent Perelman School of Medicine graduate Giffin Daughtridge come in.

  • sarcoidosis

    Rare Disease Revolution: Changing Research Through an App

    June 07, 2017

    Ever since Apple rolled out its ResearchKit framework two years ago, valuable data collected from the iPhones of patients who opt-in has poured into medical centers investigating better ways to study and treat diseases. The latest foray into mobile research technologies comes from researchers in Penn Dermatology, who recently launched a ResearchKit app focused on sarcoidosis.

  • big data

    Mining the Data Mother Lode

    June 05, 2017

    One of the newest entities with the Penn Institute for Biomedical Informatics, the Health Language Processing Lab combines social media content with other sources of health information in a unique way aimed at understanding how people use language to communicate health needs.

  • pimple

    The Obsession with Pimple-Popping

    June 02, 2017

    There’s no grey area when it comes to the eruption of pimple-popping videos floating around the internet. People either “pore” over them, or burst out in horror just seeing the links. I happen to like them. They’re incredibly grotesque, I admit, but also inexplicably gratifying to me – and many others. That’s why they’re all over YouTube, bubbling up on Facebook feeds, and popping up in news stories.

  • youths

    18 to 30: The Under-Recognized At Risk Patient Population

    May 31, 2017

    Today’s uncertain health care climate is a source of confusion and anxiety for many—and while there was an uptick in Millennials who cited health care as a key concern during the 2016 Presidential campaign, many young adults might be more at risk for gaps in coverage than they realize.

  • women surgeons

    #ILookLikeASurgeon and the Push for Gender Equity in Surgery

    May 26, 2017

    What women experience when working as surgeons is different from what male surgeons experience — not necessarily in the specific acts of wielding a scalpel and other instruments, but in virtually every other area of their working lives. Over the past year, female surgeons across the country and world have reinvigorated a push toward visibility and toward changes to empower equitable success for women in a persistently male-dominated field.

  • kelly

    The Three Careers of Kelly Parsons

    May 24, 2017

    Surgeon, professor, novelist: It’s a lofty trio of career choices, each particularly demanding in its own way. Certain pairings among the three do fit together rather well — plenty of professors have written a novel or two, and certainly plenty of surgeons are also professors — but it’s a rare individual that looks at those three choices and says, “Yeah, sure, I’ll take ‘em all.”

  • abuse

    A Sexual Abuse Survivor Speaks Out to Help Others Heal

    May 22, 2017

    At the start of his one-man show, Michael Broussard points to a blown-up photo of himself with his grandmother, whom he adored. “That’s me at 6. I was a happy, outgoing child who loved everything, everyone…. My favorite thing was to dance.” A year later, that child didn’t exist. “I have no memory of that kid. I can’t remember ever feeling that free.” Broussard had become a victim of sexual abuse.

  • nurses week

    Unity in Community

    May 19, 2017

    After a winter that felt like it could last forever, spring is in full swing. For some, spring means flowers (and sometimes allergies), baseball, and rain showers, but for Penn Medicine, it’s one of the busiest seasons for health fairs, 5K fundraisers, and other community events. One of those 5K fundraisers held earlier this month was the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania’s inaugural “Nurses Week” 5K.

  • abc

    Facing Our Fears: Why it Works

    May 17, 2017

    Everyone fears something. In fact, it is estimated that more than 19 million Americans suffer from specific phobia. But the things that we fear and the extent to which we fear them can vary greatly from person to person. In his role as the associate director at the Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety, David A. Yusko, Psy.D., sees dozens of patients living with a variety of debilitating phobias.

  • acupuncture

    Opening Up the Playbook

    May 15, 2017

    The Abramson Cancer Center is the only cancer center in the region offering acupuncture. Penn has been offering the service for years, after research made the benefits clear—but the man currently leading the therapy brings his own unique background and approach.

  • dwayne

    Managing Body Donations Can Be Quite the Undertaking

    May 12, 2017

    Unlike with organ donation, people who elect to donate their bodies do so in the name of science. For those who donate their bodies to the Perelman School of Medicine, the first person to receive this generous gift is Dwayne Hallman, manager of PSOM’s morgue, who prepares the donations for students and researchers.

  • nursing

    From the Rain, There Comes a Rainbow

    May 10, 2017

    It rained hard on Thursday, March 10, 2011. So hard that track practice at Saucon Valley High School was cancelled, leaving sophomore Amanda Illingworth a bit stranded and looking for a ride home. Little did she know the ride she accepted would change the course of the rest of her life.

  • hts

    Hands-on Chemistry Course Has Students Taking on Rare Cancers

    May 08, 2017

    With graduation just around the corner, a few undergraduates finishing up a hands-on chemistry course will be taking very useful skills with them to the next stop on their career and education path. With robotic arms and moving trays to run automated chemical analyses, measured how effective dozens of cancer drugs are against cells found in a rare type of cancer.

  • insurance

    The Health Problem That's Not Going Away

    May 05, 2017

    Define “co-insurance”. What about “premium”? If you’re struggling with answers, you’re not alone. Ever since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) rolled out and brought 20 million more people into the fold, health insurance literacy has been a glaring issue – one that needs constant attention, experts say, no matter what direction health care heads in.

  • soccer

    Hormonal Changes Affect Female Athletic Performance. Period.

    May 03, 2017

    Over the past year, several notable female athletes have publically discussed the impact of their menstrual cycles on athletic performance. While the stories caused a bit of a stir, with people questioning the validity of the claims, science may indicate that performance can be impacted by a woman’s menstrual cycle.

  • garden

    Then and Now: The Healing Power of an Urban Garden

    May 01, 2017

    Originally proposed in 1774 and intended as an on-site location to grow healing medicinal plants to be eaten or brewed into tea, the Physic Garden was finally built in 1976 — and now offers therapeutic benefits in a less direct fashion, as green spaces continue to emerge as a potential tool to improve population-level health in urban settings.

  • 13rw

    "13 Reasons Why" and the Difficult Subject of Teen Suicide

    April 28, 2017

    Netflix's "13 Reasons Why" has received significant attention, not all of it positive, for the graphic way it portrays suicide, sexual assault, and bullying. For Steve Berkowitz, MD, director of the Penn Center for Youth and Family Trauma Response and Recovery, the show fails to adequately handle the subject of teenage suicide in a number of ways — some all too common.

  • baby

    Making a Big Impact Doesn’t Always Take a Lot

    April 26, 2017

    Some of Penn Medicine's smaller – but no less important – global outreach endeavors target populations that have little or no access to basic health care. Such was the volunteer effort that six HUP staff undertook earlier this year, working 12- to 14-hour days to help members of Guatemala’s indigenous populations get the health care they need.

  • diversity

    Charting the Course for Inclusion and Diversity

    April 24, 2017

    We hear about disparities and discrimination nationally both in healthcare and in many aspects of society at large so frequently improvements can feel slow and cumbersome. At Penn Medicine, words of inclusivity and diversity have been followed up with progressive actions, and the benefits are experienced throughout the institution.

  • books

    Rare 19th Century Notebooks Reveal New Lessons in Neurology

    April 21, 2017

    The crinkly pages filled with elegant script, a dispatch from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania’s Dispensary in the late 19th century, are a window into medical history. Geoffrey Aguirre, MD, PhD, an associate professor of Neurology, recently received the notebooks after they were discovered by a colleague. Now, they’re getting fresh life as an official Penn historical artifact.

  • oncolink team

    The Little Care Plan That Could

    April 19, 2017

    In April of 2007, OncoLink—the first cancer information website (and still one of the largest)—launched the OncoLife™ Survivorship Care Plan, a user-generated service that creates care plans for patients who have survived cancer. As that plan marks 10 years, OncoLink’s Managing Editor, Carolyn Vachani, looks back on the program’s origins.

  • yellow jack

    Could Yellow Fever Rise Again?

    April 17, 2017

    Many people might not have heard of the Aedes aegypti mosquito until this past year, when the mosquito, and the disease it can carry – Zika – began to make headlines. But more than 220 years ago, this same breed of mosquito was spreading a different and deadly epidemic right here in Philadelphia and just like Zika, this epidemic is seeing a modern resurgence, with Brazil at its epicenter.

  • fallopian

    Ovarian Cancer: A Master of Disguise No More

    April 14, 2017

    Experts in the Penn Ovarian Cancer Research Center and the Basser Center for BRCA are developing new detection and prevention strategies for high-risk patients—and, at the same time, offering a one-two punch birth control and cancer risk-reduction method for average-risk women who do not have, do not want, or are done having children.

  • ff2017

    A Matter of Facts

    April 12, 2017

    The 2017 edition of Penn Medicine's Facts & Figures is now available. Facts & Figures is a pocket-sized publication that keeps faculty, students, staff, the media, government officials, and others, informed about the latest expansion projects, rankings, at-a-glance statistics, and much more.

  • drinks

    Effects of Smoking and Alcohol on Smell and Taste (It’s Not What You Think)

    April 10, 2017

    Smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol can wreak havoc on the organs, but what do these two vices do to the senses? Considering what's known, overdoing it presumably damages a person's sense of smell and taste—however, the work of Richard Doty, PhD, the director of the Penn Smell and Taste Center, along with colleagues at Harvard University, suggests it may be more nuanced.

  • organs

    10 minutes. 22 people. 54 percent.

    April 07, 2017

    One single person can potentially save the lives of more than eight others, if they are an organ donor. And if someone is also a tissue donor, they can save or change the lives of nearly 75 people. But, according to Donate Life America, while 95 percent of U.S. adults support organ donation, only 54 percent are actual registered donors.

  • psf

    Penn Medicine Poised for Strong Showing at 7th Philly Science Festival

    April 05, 2017

    The Philadelphia Science Festival kicks off on April 21st and Penn Medicine will again play a leading role in the seventh annual city-wide event that highlights science and technology from the entire region.

  • thumb

    The Creative Scientist, the Scientific Creative

    April 03, 2017

    Before starting here, I didn’t put much thought into the fact that the lady who performs joint replacements by day could also be performing Spanish guitar at open mic nights. My experience here has, of course, taught me otherwise: Creative minds are everywhere. In retrospect, though, it’s a lesson I could have learned without such experience. History has shown us creativity and medicine make good bedfellows.

  • wasp

    Proudly Parasitic: Penn Scientist Highlights the Positives in “Research Parasites”

    March 31, 2017

    It may sound like an insult, but “research parasite” is a label that Casey Greene, PhD, wears with pride—and so do many other scientists like him. Greene is helping to reclaim that seemingly ugly title by granting an annual set of awards for two scientists, one junior and one established, for research that finds novel insights from reusing and analyzing other people’s data.

  • colon cancer teaser

    When it Comes to Colon Cancer Screenings, Trust Your Gut

    March 29, 2017

    Colon cancer is considered one of the most preventable but deadly illnesses; it’s the second leading cause of cancer death among men and women in the United States. Screening tests like colonoscopies can prevent cancer or detect it at an early stage, when treatment can be highly effective. Even with these well-known facts, few people get the recommended screening.

  • Jason Han

    Half a world away, he feels his parents' presence on Match Day

    March 28, 2017

    Jason Han, a medical student at Penn, recently wrote about how his experience as an immigrant inspired his path to a medical career.

  • ribbon

    New Proton Center Research Room Will Have an Impact Near and Far

    March 27, 2017

    The new Albert Chadwick Research Room inside the Roberts Proton Therapy Center is no ordinary laboratory space. In fact, there’s nothing else quite like it anywhere else in the United States, and whether it’s treating patients with cancer or helping NASA with its plans to send astronauts to Mars, the discoveries that could propel scientists forward will happen right here.

  • matchday

    A Lot of Hard Work and a Little Luck O’ the Irish Pay Off for PSOM’s Class of 2017

    March 24, 2017

    On Friday, March 17, while most people were celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, soon-to-be graduating students in the Perelman School of Medicine were hoping that in addition to a little “luck o’ the Irish, ” their years of hard work would pay off as their residency placements were revealed during Penn’s annual Match Day ceremony.

  • baby

    Solving the Riddle of Preterm Birth

    March 22, 2017

    Nearly 15 million babies in the world are born prematurely every year, and recent data show the number is on the rise, but the exact cause of premature birth remains one of Mother Nature’s best kept secrets. Doctors simply can’t explain why an otherwise healthy woman might go into labor early, making it difficult to treat—but perhaps there is a key.

  • meili

    Mind Your Brain: Closing the Gap for Brain Injury Survivors

    March 20, 2017

    In 1989, Trisha Meili was viciously attacked, leaving her with a severe traumatic brain injury. Doctors didn’t think she’d survive. But Meili did more than survive: She thrived. What kept her going is part of the message she’ll share with attendees at this week’s annual Mind Your Brain @ Penn Medicine conference, all of whom are brain injury survivors, families, and caretakers.

About this Blog

This blog is written and produced by Penn Medicine’s Department of Communications. Subscribe to our mailing list to receive an e-mail notification when new content goes live!

Views expressed are those of the author or other attributed individual and do not necessarily represent the official opinion of the related Department(s), University of Pennsylvania Health System (Penn Medicine), or the University of Pennsylvania, unless explicitly stated with the authority to do so.

Health information is provided for educational purposes and should not be used as a source of personal medical advice.

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