Media Mentions: DMS & DHMC in the News
Among the people and programs coming in
for prominent media coverage during recent
months was Dr. James Sargent, an associate professor
of pediatrics, who "surveyed the 25 top-grossing
movies each year from 1988 to 1997 and found
that 95 percent contained scenes of tobacco use,"
according to ABCNews.com.
The story said Sargent found
3,346 examples of tobacco use
in the 250 films. "'You ask yourself,
"Where do kids get the idea
that smoking is going to calm
them down or make it easier to
socialize?"' asks Sargent. 'But
just look at My Best Friend's Wedding. Every time
Julia Roberts gets nervous, she lights up.'"
Columnist Matthew Miller wrote in the Baltimore Sun about the "nutty economics" of Medicare funding cuts, which mean "Medicare payments to HMOs vary widely across the country, ranging from $3,000 per beneficiary in some Midwestern towns to more than $9,000 in big cities. . . . Enter Dr. John Wennberg of Dartmouth, the nation's leading student of these variations. As he told me recently, only a tiny portion of these regional cost variations can be explained by cost-ofliving differences for supplies, wages, and the like. Instead, they're driven by local differences in the number of doctors and hospital beds . . . a self-interested case of supply driving demand."
Several recent studies have shown that survival
rates after complex surgery are higher at hospitals
that do a lot of the procedure. Nevertheless,
"the importance of volume
still isn't recognized," said U.S.
News & World Report. "Busy
hospitals aren't safer merely because
surgeons there get lots of
practice, contends John Birkmeyer, a
surgeon at Dartmouth-Hitchcock
Medical Center, who has
published widely on the significance of volume.
'Hospital volume is a proxy for so many other
things,' he says. 'Like a blood bank that can support
major bleeding.' . . . Birkmeyer has concluded,
in fact, that hospital volume is more important
than are an individual surgeon's numbers." (See
"Faculty Matters" in the Summer 2000 issue for
more on Birkmeyer's research.)
Associated Press reported on a recent study examining
"the five-year survival ratethe standard
measurement of a cancer treatment's success."
The study had concluded that such statistics can
be misleading. "Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, lead author of the
study and a professor at Dartmouth Medical
School, said the increase in the
survival rates is mostly influenced
by earlier diagnoses of
cancer, not advances in treatment.
. . . 'We know that the
five-year survival rate always
goes up when we find cancer earlier
in patients' lives. Whether
or not these patients have their deaths postponed
is a different matter altogether,' said Welch."
The Washington Post turned to another Dartmouth
expert for commentary on a similar topic.
"In cancer, early detection is a medical mantra,"
said the article. "Catching tumors before they
have a chance to spread gives treatment the best
chance of working. But that logical
bedrock gets slippery when
doctors ask a much-trickier
question: Should people without
symptoms be routinely screened
for cancer? . . . William Black of
Dartmouth Medical School said
the Duke findings [which cast
doubt on the value of such screenings] 'remind us
that survival statistics can be misleading.'"
The Detroit Free Press turned to DHMC for advice in a story on bed-wetting. Dr. Marc Cendron, a pediatric urologist, is quoted as urging parents to explain the problem to children as "a medical condition that may be hereditary, and they are not to blame. 'Children deserve an explanation of what is happening to them,' he says."
A recent feature in Newsday explored the risks
and benefits of hormone replacement therapy
(HRT) for postmenopausal women. Among the
effects cited was quality of life. "A recent
study by researchers at Dartmouth Medical
School asked 286 women,
116 of them current HRT
users, to assess quality of
life. Current HRT users
had a 'higher health-related
quality of life than past
or never users,' according
to the study. . . . But the
authors said women's perceptions of potential
side effects were 'highly variable.'" The
lead author of the study was Dr. Anna Tosteson,
an associate professor of medicine.
The shores of Cape Cod are the setting
for "a conflict that reflects the precarious
balance of ocean life," reported the Boston
Globe. Increased demand for calamari is
jeopardizing the supply of "the slim, translucent
squid [that] give scientists
insight into everything
from the roots of
Alzheimer's disease to the
mechanics of vision. . . .
George Langford, a biologist at
Dartmouth College, has
been studying the squid at
Woods Hole since 1972. In three decades,
he has seen the understanding of nerve
functions grow exponentially."
A study by DMS's Tim Ahles continues to
attract major media attention. Wrote Reader's
Digest: "According to a Dartmouth Medical
School study, chemotherapy may leave
some patients with poor
memories and concentration
problems. Psychologist
Tim Ahles found that
people who got standard
chemotherapy for breast
cancer or lymphoma appeared
to be twice as likely
as those having surgery and/or local radiation
to score poorly on memory and concentration
tests. And the effects were present
an average of 10 years after treatment."
The Los Angeles Times also covered Ahles's
work, saying he "estimates that 20% to 30%
of cancer patients who have chemotherapy
continue to have cognitive impairment
more than two years after treatment."
Biography magazine asked Dartmouth's C. Everett Koop, "perhaps America's most recognizable doctor" for "25 ways to stay healthy." His tips included "don't smoke" (#1), "stay fit" (#7), "buckle up" (#15), and "get shots and vaccines" (#21).
The Learning Channel featured a patient
of Dartmouth neurologist Richard Nordgren,
M.D. (pictured at right),
and neuropsychologist
Andrew Saykin, Psy.D., (below)
in a show on cold-water
survival. Caleb Record, a
high school senior, was driving
home one snowy
night in 1997 when his car
slipped off an icy road and landed upside
down in a river. He was trapped underwater
for 20 minutes; although the extreme cold
kept him alive, he didn't regain consciousness
for five days. "When
he arrived here he was still
very sick [and] unresponsive,"
Nordgren said on
the show. Record had to
relearn everything, from
walking to reading, but
was able to finish high
school. Two years after the accident, he underwent
functional MRI testing at DHMC
to determine how well the memory portions
of his brain worked. "What we found is that
performance was excellent," said Saykin.
"We think that this probably bodes well for
. . . further recovery of memory."
How to distinguish between a sprain and a strain, and what to do in each case, was the topic of an item in Walking Magazine. "'Although minor strains and sprains will heal on their own, you should seek medical attention immediately if there is acute swelling at a joint and/or persistent pain and tenderness to the touch,' says Ken Dolkart, M.D., an adjunct assistant professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School."
Another summer injurybee stings was covered in Child magazine. "If your child faints or has difficulty breathing, seek medical attention right away, because this may indicate a serious allergic reaction, says William Boyle, M.D., a pediatrician and professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School."
In a profile of a teenager with severe bulimia,
the CBSNews.com Web site quoted
Marcia Herrin, a nutritionist at
Dartmouth College, on
the role that perfectionism
often plays in eating disorders.
"'It's so prevalent in
our society, this idea that
one needs to be perfect to
succeed,' she says. 'The
perfect grades, the perfect family, why not
add in the perfect body?'"
National Public Radio's Joanne Silberner reported on two recent studies that assessed screening for colon cancer. Some experts advocate screening everyone over age 50, said Silberner. But, she added, a national task force "found no evidence that colonoscopy should be routinely done on people with no special predisposition to cancer, though it is useful for people at high risk. Dr. Harold Sox of Dartmouth Medical School was on the task force, and the new studies haven't sold him on colonoscopy." Said Sox, "Is the standard going to be 'It looks like it might work, so let's do it' or is the standard going to be 'We've proven that it works'?" Silberner concluded by noting that "smokers routinely got x-rays to check for lung cancer, until someone proved that such screenings didn't extend their lives."
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