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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 a DHMC pediatrician. "The Ring was one
frightening flick," began a recent Newsweek story.
"But to James Sargent, the scariest part was all the
smoking by stars like Naomi Watts. . . . In the
next issue of Pediatrics, Sargent and his colleagues
report on a survey they conducted
of 6,522 kids between 10
and 14," the article continued.
"The researchers calculated that
38 percent who'd tried smoking
did so because of their exposure
to smoking in movies." Dozens
of other news outlets covered
the study, too, from major papers like the Chicago
Daily Herald and the Los Angeles Daily News to international
outlets like the Hindustan Times and
Agence France Presse. "Anytime a director directs
someone to light a cigarette," Sargent told Forbes,
"anytime an actor lights a cigarette, they should
understand that they're partially responsible for
the teen smoking epidemic."
"'Honey, have some smokes. Do you like smokes?
I like smokes.'" This quote from "an unnamed sixyear-
old offering pretend cigarettes to a doll" in
another DMS study also caught Newsweek's eye—earning a spot on the magazine's "Perspectives"
page. Though neither DMS nor the researchers
were named in the item, more complete coverage
of the study showed up in papers worldwide.
"Preschool children pretending to shop for a Barbie
doll's social evening bought
alcohol and cigarettes if their
parents smoked or drank wine
or beer," the Irish Examiner
wrote. "Parents who watched
from behind a one-way mirror,"
the Washington Post noted,
"were surprised by their children's
choices, said Madeline Dalton of Dartmouth
Medical School, a coauthor of the study." (See
here for more on the study.)
A DMS study about variations in end-of-life care in California drew varying headlines: "LA leads in costly care for the dying" in the Los Angeles Times, and "End-of-life care in Sacramento region praised" in the Sacramento Bee. "'Providers serving Los Angeles relied much more on inpatient care, aggressive use of intensive care units, and medical specialists and frequent referrals, while care in the Sacramento region was characterized by greater reliance on primary care and parsimonious use of inpatient care, physician visits, and referrals,' said Dr. John Wennberg, director of Dartmouth Medical School's Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences," to the Bee.
"Birds do it, bees do it, even human beings do it,"
began a recent Baltimore Sun piece. "We all follow
the internal clock that keeps us
ticking." To explain how important
circadian rhythms are, the
Sun quoted a DMS expert.
"'There's no limit to the role
these rhythms play,' said Jay Dunlap,
chair of genetics at Dartmouth
Medical School, who
studies circadian rhythms in fungi. 'There's enormously
rich biology behind this phenomenon.'"
The Los Angeles Times reported on an increasingly popular therapy for people with severe mental illness: employment. "'Helping people with mental illness find work can be a major step in their recovery
and an important part
in helping them develop a
healthy psychological life,' said
Deborah Becker, a research professor
at Dartmouth Medical School
and a national expert on employment
issues with the mentally
ill," to the Times. The article
continued: "Becker predicts up to a third of
the 8 million Americans with a severe mental illness
may eventually work alongside the general
public. Currently 5% to 10% hold jobs." (See
here for more on her work.)
Most dialysis patients aren't getting a relatively
low-tech procedure that's safer, cheaper, and more
effective than other more high-tech options, the
Washington Post reported in December. "Fewer
than four in 10 dialysis patients nationwide have
a fistula"—a surgically established connection between
an artery and a vein, which strengthens the
vein so it can withstand needle insertions
and heavy blood flow to and from a dialysis
machine. Medicare reimburses
surgeons more for
the other procedures, the
Post noted, "in effect, rewarding
inferior care. . . .
'What's missing is the clinical
value to the patient,'
said Robert Zwolak, a vascular
surgeon at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical
Center and an expert on the payment rules
for dialysis access. 'That's not in there.'"
"It's great 'gee whiz' technology that's staggering
in its complexity and promise," a
DMS surgeon said, in Newsweek, about a robotic
surgery system that can be used for
prostate surgery. "Dr. Sam Finlayson, an assistant
professor of surgery and community and
family medicine at Dartmouth Medical
School, says the question
is whether the procedure
has enough of an upside
compared with established
techniques like laparoscopic
surgery," the Newsweek
article continued.
"'It's not inconceivable
that the threshold for operative intervention
would be lowered by the introduction
of this new technology,' says Finlayson."
For advice on how "this little piggy" can be
more than just a fun game, the magazine
Babytalk consulted a DMS pediatrician.
"You can start playing this game when your
infant's just a few months
old, suggests Jennifer Shu,
M.D., instructor of pediatrics
at Dartmouth Medical
School . . . and coauthor
of Heading Home with
Your Newborn. . . . At
about 12 months, start
numbering each piggy—'Piggy number one
went to market, piggy number two stayed
home'—to turn the game into a fun lesson
in counting, recommends Dr. Shu."
When a New Hampshire law that requires
parental notification for minors seeking
abortions was heard by the U.S. Supreme
Court a few months ago, National Public
Radio's Morning Edition interviewed a
DHMC ob-gyn, Dr. Leslie DeMars. DeMars
commented on the fact that the law doesn't
include an exception for cases where the minor's
health is in jeopardy. "We don't want
to
have to temporize or provide substandard care," she told NPR, referring to ob-gyns in general. Providing "urgent or emergent appropriate care" can sometimes prevent a woman from having a "lifelong complication or organ damage," DeMars said. "In no other circumstance would we not be allowed to perform emergency medical care in the best interests of that teen."
The founder of DHMC's Spine Center and
the chair of orthopaedics at DMS continues
to be quoted, month after month, in articles
about the pros and cons of back surgery.
"There's still no proof surgery works better
than more conservative treatments or doing
nothing at all, said Dr. Jim Weinstein of Dartmouth
Medical School" to
the Chicago Sun-Times.
"But now Weinstein is
wrapping up a landmark
$16-million study that
should provide some badly
needed evidence," the
Sun-Times added. The
New York Times and a Chicago ABC affiliate
also interviewed Weinstein recently.
"Teaching Doctors to Be Nicer" was the
headline on a recent Wall Street Journal article
about a movement among medical
schools to add courses on professionalism,
empathy, and communications. DMS was
presented as a case in point. "Dartmouth
Medical School has a new web-based system
called Dartmouth Medical Encounter System
where students enter their experiences
and encounters
with patients,"
the Journal wrote.
Dartmouth also "has
created
three societies . . . which
pair students with mentors
to promote 'some hard-toget
material, like professionalism,
the privileges
and obligations that come
with it,' says Joseph O'Donnell,
an oncologist and senior advising dean at
Dartmouth Medical School."
A vaccine against human papillomavirus
(HPV), which causes most cervical cancer,
may be on the market as soon as next year,
USA Today reported. " 'Parents probably
won't be required to get their children immunized
against HPV,' says Diane Harper, a
Dartmouth associate professor.
'Given that we
don't have tetanus as a
mandatory vaccine, I don't
think we'll ever get HPV
as a mandatory vaccine,'
says Harper, who has been
involved in clinical trials
of both Glaxo's and Merck's HPV vaccines."
Harper was also quoted on ABC World News
Tonight. (See page 16 for further details.)
In an article about housing for Hurricane
Katrina survivors, the Grand Rapids Press
looked at what can be learned from disasters
elsewhere. "Fran Norris, a Dartmouth Medical
School research professor specializing in
disaster response, cites one
such incident," the 1999
floods and mudslides in
Mexico, the paper wrote.
"'It was very hard on
[those who were evacuated],
even though they
were together,' Norris said.
'Their social routines were totally disrupted.
So I'm concerned about separating people
now out of their natural communities.'"
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