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Vital Signs
Media Mentions : DMS and DHMC in the News
Among the people and programs coming in for
prominent media coverage in recent months
was Dr. Jonathan Ross. In the "Diagnosis" section of
the New York Times Magazine, the DHMC internist—"
a tall wiry doctor with large silverrimmed
glasses and a gentle manner"—solved a
medical mystery. "I think this is scurvy," the magazine
quoted Ross as saying to
his medical team, which was
taking care of a patient crippled
with a puzzling illness. "He said
they needed to start treating her
immediately," the magazine recounted.
"The team was skeptical.
. . . [But] by Day 5 [of treatment
with vitamin C], the patient was able to
walk again, though she had to use a walker."
In Peter Jennings's last documentary for ABC
News before he died of lung cancer, he interviewed
DMS physician-researcher Elliot Fisher. "Dr.
Fisher and his fellow
researchers at Dartmouth Medical School studied the relationship between
how much is spent on health
care and how beneficial that
health care is," said the narrator
of the documentary. "The findings
were pretty consistent,"
Fisher told Jennings. "More
medical care did not result in
better medical care. In fact, it
goes the other way, if anything." Fisher's work was
also mentioned in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial
and in a feature in the Economist.
Nightmares aren't the only sleep problems that
affect kids. In an article in the Pittsburgh Post-
Gazette, "Dr. Michael Sateia, [former] president of the
American Academy of Sleep
Medicine, noted that the American
Academy of Pediatrics now
recommends that pediatricians
screen all children for snoring,
which can be a sign of sleep
problems. 'This is part of a growing
recognition of the importance
of healthy sleep and sleep disorders in childhood,'
said Sateia, a professor of psychiatry at
Dartmouth. 'Pediatricians are beginning to recognize
how common sleep-related problems of all
kinds are during childhood and what impact these
disorders have on . . . children.'"
In January, after Israel's Ariel Sharon suffered a
stroke, National Public Radio's All Things Considered
interviewed a DHMC expert about medically
induced comas. "Dr. James Bernat is a professor of
neurology at Dartmouth Medical School," the
show's host said. "He says the goal of a medically
induced coma is to reduce the work of the brain
cells and protect them from increased pressure inside
the skull or after an event
such as stroke." Another NPR
show, Weekend Edition, also
talked with Bernat, to get his
opinion on an unusual case in
Massachusetts. One day after a
court decided that an 11-yearold
girl in a coma should be allowed
to die, the girl awoke. The debate over the
case "echoed that over Terri Schiavo," observed
the NPR reporter. "But Dr. James Bernat says the
two cases are different. 'Mrs. Schiavo was in a vegetative
state for 15 years,'" he pointed out.
"A funny thing is happening to hypnosis," according
to Prevention. "It's becoming respectable."
In an article titled "The Healing Power of Hypnosis," the
magazine featured a DHMC nurse who
was having trouble getting pregnant
until she underwent hypnosis
by "Da-Shih Hu, M.D., a psychiatrist
and an assistant professor
at Dartmouth Medical
School." Among the many medical
centers—and the many different
hypnotic treatments—also mentioned in the article was "Dartmouth-
Hitchcock Medical Center, [where] doctors use
hypnosis to reduce pain and nausea" during certain
epilepsy diagnostic procedures.
Major newspapers in Boston, Washington, D.C.,
Baltimore, Seattle, Ottawa, and London, as well
as radio and TV stations worldwide, consulted a
DMS epidemiologist about a fiber study that appeared
recently in the Journal of the
American Medical Association. "In an editorial in the same
journal," reported the BBC, "Dr. John Baron of Dartmouth
Medical School in New Hampshire
said short-term studies appeared to suggest
there was no effect
from high dietary fiber intake
on bowel cancer
risk." Baron was also
quoted about a trial showing
that calcium and vitamin
D supplements don't protect against
colorectal cancer. The study was "probably
not long enough to observe an effect on colorectal
cancer," Baron told USA Today.
For each day of February, Black History
Month, the Indianapolis Star featured a black
individual "who made a difference."
Among the honorees was "Dr. Mae Jemison . . .
the first black female
astronaut in space" and an adjunct
professor of community
and family medicine
at DMS. "After graduating
from medical school, she
joined the Peace Corps,"
explained the Star, "serving
as a medical officer in
the West African countries
of Sierra Leone and Liberia. 'Having
been an astronaut gives me a platform,'" she
told the paper, " 'but I'd blow it if I just
talked about the shuttle.' Instead, she brings
attention to what she sees as unacceptable
disparities in the quality of health care in
the U.S. and in Third World countries."
"The hospital industry has spent nearly $100
billion in inflation-adjusted dollars in the
past five years on new facilities, up
47% from the
previous five years," noted
a recent USA Today article.
For perspective, the
paper turned to a DMS expert.
"'These hospitals are
loaded with technology to
intensively treat chronically ill patients
right up to death,' says physician John Wennberg,
director of the Center for the Evaluative
Clinical Sciences at Dartmouth. 'We know
from research that does not improve outcomes,
but it does drive up costs.'" A Washington
Post editorial by Steven Pearlstein
and a Wall Street Journal article also cited
Wennberg's work. "We know from John
Wennberg and his associates at Dartmouth
that as much as half of all health care consumed
in some regions is medically unnecessary,"
Pearlstein wrote.
"For the first time, the federal Medicare insurance
system will pay for certain people
over 65 to get an ultrasound
screening test to detect
abdominal aortic aneurysms,
a dangerous ballooning
of the body's main
artery that can burst with
lethal results," began an
article in the Wall Street
Journal. "Robert Zwolak, a Dartmouth Medical
School vascular surgeon who has campaigned
for the new law," the Journal continued,
"called it 'a tremendous step forward
and a great victory for patients at risk.'" (For
more on Zwolak's campaign, see "Surgeon leads aneurysm screening campaign" in
the Summer 2005 Dartmouth Medicine.)
Countless commuters listened in as "Dartmouth
Medical School's Dr. James Weinstein,
one of the nation's leading
experts on back pain," was interviewed on
NPR's Morning Edition in
early March. Featuring two
of Weinstein's patients
who were considering back
surgery, the segment described
how "Weinstein
wouldn't tell his patients
what to do," but rather gave them the best
information available about the current
treatment choices. "Weinstein is heading a
federally financed study . . . to compare the
benefits of surgery and nonsurgery," NPR explained.
"Results are due this summer."
Weinstein's name also cropped up in a Wall
Street Journal article about baby slings. The
trendy carriers
are functional
as well as hip, the
Journal said, "because
they distribute the baby's
weight" better and "allow mom or dad to
switch sides periodically. 'If you can change
loads and positions, that's good for the
body,'" Weinstein advised.
Also providing baby-related advice, in the
magazine Parenting, was "Jennifer Shu, M.D., director
of the newborn nursery
at Dartmouth-Hitchcock
Medical Center." Regarding
baby sleeping positions,
she told Parenting,
"I tell my patients: You
should still put them down
on their backs, but what
babies do in the middle of the night is their
business." Later on in the article—titled "Is
My Baby Ready To . . .?"—she offered a word
of caution about attachable crib toys.
" 'Some [babies] will push the buttons repeatedly
until they get sleepy. Other kids
will just get more and more wired,' says Dr.
Shu, the mom of a four-year-old."
The Kansas City Star recently interviewed
Dr. "Lori Arviso Alvord, a Navajo who grew up on
a reservation in New Mexico. Today she is
a surgeon and an associate dean at Dartmouth
Medical School," the Star said. The
article also reported on several talks that
Alvord gave in Kansas City. "Her remarks
touched on Navajo beliefs,
ceremonies, and cultural
practices and how
they relate to healing,"
the Star explained. "For
example, she said the traditional
Native American
lifestyle included a lot of
physical activity and a diet rich in fruits,
vegetables, grains, and nuts. Meat depended
on good hunting and was not a daily staple.
Such a lifestyle reflects modern-day exhortations
for exercise and low-fat diets."
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