BIDMC News and Notes
4/30/2010 (3:37:14pm)Tags: workforce development nursingComments: (0)
Joanne Pokaski, BIDMC's Director of Workforce Development, spoke this week on a panel at a meeting of the Massachusetts Network of Healthcare Workforce Planning Professionals.
Pokaski presented the results of BIDMC's planning effort focused on the engagement and retention of older nurses in perioperative services. The two other panelists were from UMass Memorial Medical Center and Bay State Medical Center and discussed their planning efforts, also around older nurse retention.
BIDMC was one of seven awardees of a Massachusetts Older Worker Retention Strategies grant.
4/29/2010 (2:05:17pm)Tags: noneComments: (0)
They were called "the warmth that is BIDMC," "kind and professional," "the ones who help stretch staff and resources" and "people who make patients feel at home."
These words of recognition were part of BIDMC's annual Volunteer Recognition Event. Several hundred volunteers of all ages, family members, staff and even a few dogs gathered to lunch in the Shapiro Atrium and celebrate the spirit of past, present and future volunteering at BIDMC.
The dogs - including a charming old pug named Joe - were specially trained therapy pets certified by the non-profit group Caring Canines Visiting Therapy Dogs Inc. They have been visiting patients and staff on inpatient units since 2007. The group received special recognition for the success of the program, which was coordinated by social work, nursing and volunteers services. Dogs sat at the luncheon politely with their handlers.
An additional special recognition was given to Virginia Oliver, a volunteer in pastoral care and education. In accepting her award, Oliver said it has been a privilege to work "from the seventh floor to obstetrics, I have witnessed both the beginning and the end of life here at BIDMC," she said.
Social work and patient information services volunteer Selma Gordon was honored for 20 years of service. Thankful for the good care her aging parents received at Beth Israel Hospital, volunteering there was a natural choice for Gordon when she retired in her mid-60s. She's been a fixture ever since, starting as a candy striper and moving through various departments until landing in social work where she's been for the past nine years.
Midweek Gordon takes a short story analysis class at Boston University and on Fridays she's back at the hospital spending her day assisting BIDMC's Service Ambassador team at the Feldberg Information Desk.
"Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a very special place," says Gordon. "In my experience, everyone's treated like an equal here whether you deliver the mail, you're the head of a department or the president. It's a privilege to volunteer here. I've gotten much more out this than the hospital has. I'm sure of that."
4/26/2010 (4:28:38pm)Tags: Bowdoin Street Health Center Boston MarathonComments: (0)
Team Grateful Nation, BIDMC's Boston Marathon team, crossed the finish line of the 114th Boston Marathon and raised more than $30,000 for children and youth programs at the Bowdoin Street Health Center.
Five runners - four BIDMC staffers and friend of the medical center - completed the 26.2-mile course in support of Healthy Champions at Bowdoin Street. Members of the team are: Jaclyn "Jackie" Everett, RN; Julia Lindenberg, MD, General Internal Medicine and Primary Care; Kathleen Quackenbush Spiegel, Development; Mark Zeidel, MD, Chief of Department of Medicine; and Aaron White.
Throughout their intense training and during the grueling race itself, Team Grateful Nation runners were inspired by the Healthy Champions, wellness program that addresses health challenges in the Bowdoin and Geneva streets neighborhood of Dorchester.
Youth are selected to participate in Healthy Champions and serve as ambassadors of health, spreading the word about nutrition and fitness among their friends and families. In honor of the runners completing the Boston Marathon, the participants fulfilled their own walking/running challenge on Monday, April 19 - "to get a taste of what the runners do!" - according to program coordinator, Jen French.
The runners of Team Grateful Nation are passionate about health - their own and that of others. As a medical/surgical nurse, Everett is vigilant about maintaining her own health, as well as the health of others. "If you don't have your health, your quality of life is not as high as it could be," she said.
Team Grateful Nation and its runners continue to raise funds for the program through May. As they work to reach their highest fundraising potential, the quality of life of the kids and their families in the Bowdoin Street community is what is on their minds. To read more about the runners or to make a donation, visit Grateful Nation.
Mark Zeidel, MD, Chief, Department of Medicine, poses with his wife Susan Freedman, MD, Internal Medicine, and his daughter Rebecca Zeidel. (Photo credit: Alycia Miller/Braga Photography)
4/23/2010 (11:11:36am)Tags: sleep dreamsComments: (0)
It is by now well established that sleep can be an important tool to enhance memory and learning skills. And now, a new study sheds light on the role that dreams play in this important process.
Led by scientists at BIDMC, the findings suggest that dreams may be the sleeping brain's way of telling us that it is hard at work on the process of memory consolidation, integrating our recent experiences to help us with performance-related tasks in the short run and, in the long run, translating this material into information that will have widespread application to our lives.
The study is reported in the April 22 On-line issue of Current Biology. It's also generated stories on The New York Times Well blog, Time Magazine's Wellness blog and on CNN.com.
4/21/2010 (4:10:03pm)Tags: ALS Red SoxComments: (0)
Walter Bentson was a top amateur baseball umpire who is involved in leading Boston's renowned Park League, the oldest amateur baseball league in the United States. That is until he met up with Lou Gehrig's Disease.
Bentson was honored for his contributions to baseball - and for being a tireless advocate and fund-raiser for ALS research - before Sunday's Red Sox-Tampa Bay game at Fenway Park.
The ceremony was part of the second annual event for ALS patients and family members - in box seats donated by Red Sox. These patients come together at BIDMC once each month for a program called Clinic Connections.
Bentson was the inspiration for Clinic Connections, feeling strongly that patients seen on monthly clinic days needed an opportunity to come together to share experiences and offer each other practical and emotional support. Last month 27 patients and family members gathered for lunch to eat food specially-prepared by BIDMC chefs that is compatible with the swallowing problems some of patients face, but is appetizing and beautifully presented.
"Most importantly these patients have truly formed a caring community," said Lissa Kapust, a program manager in the cognitive neurology unit. "The ‘healing' that goes on during the lunch program is critical in light of the fact that there are no cures for ALS."
In addition to the lunch program, Kapust has also coordinated the Legacy Video project which helps patients make videos for family and loved ones. Funding for both the CC lunch program and the Legacy Videos comes from a grant by Elizabeth Lane (Andrea Battit Fisher Fund) whose daughter, Andrea Battit Fisher died of ALS in 1999.
Caption: With Wally and Red Sox Staff member Troup Parkinson looking on during pregame ceremonies April 18, Lissa Kapust presents Walter Bentson with a plaque commemorating his important work on behalf of ALS patients.
4/15/2010 (11:13:08am)Tags: noneComments: (0)
The New England chapter of the National Kidney Foundation celebrated its 60th year by honoring nephrologist Ted Steinman, MD,for his work and dedication to kidney disease. He has provided national leadership in advancing the understanding of how to care for patients with polycystic kidney diseases, and, more recently, has helped develop strategies to improve the outcomes for end-stage renal disease patients.
"The event touched me deeply because I was surrounded by those who mean so much to me, from every aspect of my professional and personal life," Steinman said. "To share an evening of joy with everyone was a special moment in my life. When I heard the wonderful words said about me, it was an affirmation that maybe I did contribute to the well being of patients, helped mold those individuals who trained in our Renal Division over the past 39 years and provided an educational stimulus across Boston. The words of Dr. Joseph Murray, Nobel Laureate from Brigham and Women's Hospital, ring true, ‘Service to others is the rent we pay for living on this earth.'"
4/13/2010 (4:13:46pm)Tags: Julian Aroesty cardiologyComments: (0)
Of the many highlights cardiologist Julian Aroesty, MD, has had during his stellar 45-year career at BIDMC, there is one that overshadows all others - "Getting a job here in the first place!"
Aroesty's eyes light up with a bright smile as he recalls the day he came to Boston to interview for a senior resident position. He met with Hermann Blumgart, MD, George Kurland, MD, and A. Stone Freedberg, MD, who told him there were three things they expected of every physician who worked at Beth Israel Hospital.
"First, they said that everyone has to be a good physician and take care of patients; even those who worked in the labs had to rotate on the medical service for two months so they'd never forget this job is about taking care of patients," he said. "Second, they said you have to love to teach because our job is to teach the next generation. Third, they said we all have to advance medicine and basic science. Well, after the interview I said to myself, ‘This is the place for me.'"
But it wasn't as easy a choice as he makes it sound. Aroesty is a first generation American who comes from a small community of Spanish-speaking Jews in Rochester, NY. The community traces its lineage back to those who were expelled from Spain in 1492 and went to Turkey where they continued to speak Spanish for 500 years despite being in a non-Hispanic country.
"I thought about staying in Rochester and being the first physician to the community, but the offer to come here was so good I decided to take it," he said. "My mentors were men like Drs. Blumgart, Kurland, Freedberg and Paul Zoll - millions of patients the world over have been saved by Zoll's research (heart monitors, pacemakers and defibrillators). Working with people who love to teach is such a huge thrill."
New Beginnings
The cardiac catheterization lab had only recently opened when Aroesty accepted an attending position. "My job was to make it busy, make it high quality," he said. "I went out and spoke at all the neighboring hospitals. I was half-time person, half-time in the lab and half-time in my private practice. My wife said this was actually double-time. She was right, of course, because most days I would leave at 7 in the morning at get home around 9 at night. But it's been a wonderful, thrilling career."
Aroesty met his wife, Elaine, a nurse practitioner, when she was a nurse at BI. "She's gorgeous and wonderful," he said with a smile. "I met her, wooed her and married her. Everyone was chasing her, but I caught her - I still don't know how, but I did."
Now, at age 78 and-a-half, Aroesty says he's starting to slow down so he can spend more time with his grandchildren. "My wife calls this retirement on training wheels," he joked. In fact, that's why he wasn't able to attend this year's Service Awards event - he was visiting his grandchildren in San Francisco.
Among the other highlights Aroesty recalled was the day in the mid'80s when Mike Lipman, then director of admissions, called him into his office and said, "I want you to know you're the number one admitter to the hospital. What's more is that you admit 50 percent more patients than the number two admitter.' I did that by establishing relationships with doctors in the community who knew I never turned off my beeper and I never had an unlisted phone number - and my patients knew that too. I never took off Wednesdays, never joined a country club. I just devoted myself to the job -- and I loved it!"
He also loved the people he worked with. "This is a wonderful hospital because of all the people who work here," he said "The nurses are truly dedicated and absolutely wonderful, and so are all the people who work on the floors. They're the reason this is such a special place."
Changes in the Lab
There have been many changes in the lab over the years, but one of the most important is in imaging. "The big difference is that going from film to digital gives us a much lower radiation exposure - to the patent and to us," he said. "My first experience with cardiac catheratization, in the early-‘60s, I actually had to look into the X-ray tube to guide what we were doing. It wasn't on a separate monitor. So the X-ray beam was coming up through a florescent screen into my eyes. I was reasonably protected, but this is what we had to do at the beginning."
Over his career, Aroesty has performed more than 20,000 cardiac catheterizations and more than 2,000 angioplasties. "I was always very cautious and not afraid to send a patient to surgery if I felt it posed a better outcome," he said. "I always said to myself, ‘If this was my father, or if this were me, what would I want?'"
That's a guiding principle he strives to teach his students.
"Sometimes you'll see something that we could easily fix with a stent, say a proximal LAD lesion in a young guy," he said. "And the fellow standing next to me says, ‘Let's go for it.' I say, ‘No, we're going to send this guy to surgery for a LIMA.' He says, ‘Why, we can fix it.' I say, ‘I know we can fix it. The risks of both procedures are about the same, but he's 50 years old. The LIMA lasts forever. The stent doesn't. If this were you, which one would you want?' He says, ‘Well, I guess I'd take the LIMA.'"
It's these lessons (being thoughtful about what modality is best for each patient) that returning students say they appreciate most from their time as fellows.
"When they come to talk to me the thing that really pleases me is that they tell me the most important thing I taught them was judgment," he said. "They say, ‘You taught me to really think about what I was doing rather than just going forward with the lesion-fix. Knowing that there are many ways to fix a lesion and that we have to choose the best one.'"
Aroesty also jokes that his lessons don't always have their intended effect. "I once heard that a fellow who was on duty when I came in at 3 a.m. to help a patient decided to switch from cardiology to anesthesiology," he said. "This fellow said that if this is what Aroesty is doing at 3 a.m. when he's in his 60s, then I want to be doing something else. I laughed when I heard that, but honestly, it's energizing to get up in the middle of the night and save a life. How many people have a job where you can do that?"
4/12/2010 (3:34:09pm)Tags: noneComments: (0)
Cancer of the lower esophagus develops almost exclusively in patients with Barrett's esophagus, an otherwise benign complication of esophageal reflux that affects approximately 3 million Americans. Although the prognosis of patients diagnosed with esophageal cancer is poor, the chances of successful treatment increase significantly if the disease is detected at an early dysplastic stage.
Now, a new endoscopic scanning technique developed by scientists in the Biomedical Imaging and Spectroscopy Laboratory (BISL) at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has proven successful in the early detection of dysplasia in Barrett's esophagus. The results of the study, which appear in the April 11 on-line issue of the journal Nature Medicine, could help clinicians to diagnose esophageal cancer at an earlier stage, when the condition is still treatable.
For more, click here.
4/12/2010 (11:39:57am)Tags: workforce development AIMComments: (0)
BOSTON - Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has been selected to receive the 13th Annual John Gould Education & Workforce Development Award from Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) at the Association's 95th Annual Meeting & Luncheon on May 14 at the Waltham Westin Hotel.
AIM is a nonprofit, nonpartisan employer association of 6,000 Bay State businesses and institutions chartered to maintain and improve the Commonwealth's economic climate in order to make Massachusetts a good place to live and work.
The Gould Award was created by AIM to annually recognize the contributions of individuals, employers, and institutions for their efforts to improve public education and advancement, employability, and productivity of the residents of the Commonwealth. In 2000, the award was named for John Gould, upon his retirement as President and CEO of AIM, to recognize his many contributions to improve the quality of public education and workforce training activities in Massachusetts.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, is renowned for excellence in patient care, biomedical research, teaching and community service. Located in Boston's Longwood Medical and Academic Area, it hosts nearly three quarters of a million patient visits annually and has a staff of 9,000.
Commenting on this year's Gould Award recipient, Richard Lord, AIM's president & CEO said, "AIM is delighted to have an opportunity to highlight the significant work carried out by BIDMC for not only working collaboratively with the Massachusetts and Greater Boston workforce systems in sharing best practices to better align local resources to connect jobseekers and employers, but for the comprehensive and strategic nature of their several pipeline programs designed to attract, train, enhance and to retain a talented technical and professional workforce."
In addition Lord said, "The variety and number of training and professional development programs that BIDMC offers range from classes designed to advance the careers of medical technicians and professionals, to offering class on for non-native English speakers, to providing career and academic counseling, and is an excellent effort to help area residents and current employees gain new skills and to connect the medical center to the community.
Past recipients of the Gould Award include John Rennie, founder of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education; Middlesex Community College; NYPRO Inc; William Edgerly, Chairman Emeritus, State Street Corporation; Northeastern University; The Davis Family Foundation; Intel Massachusetts; EMC Corporation; IBM Corporation; David Driscoll, former Commissioner of the State Department of Education, and Raytheon Corporation's MathMovesU program, and State Street Corporation and Year Up Boston.
4/9/2010 (12:00:57pm)Tags: noneComments: (0)
Bringing together seven LGBT groups from Harvard and the Harvard teaching hospitals was no April's Fool joke!
Almost 100 guests attended Bridging the Gap: A Discussion on the Future of LGBT Healthcare, held recently at Fenway Health's new auditorium.
Set up as a living room conversation, Lee Swislow, Executive Director of GLAD, facilitated dialogue among the other speakers: Judy Bradford, Director of the Center for Population Research in LGBT health at The Fenway Institute, KJ Ward, Director of Boston GLASS at JRI Health and Scott Leibowitz, psychiatrist at Children's Hospital Boston.
The roundtable discussion, part of National LGBT Health Awareness Week, focused on the current healthcare status of the LGBT community including a summary of Bradford's research that found more than half of LGBT seniors live alone compared to one-third of heterosexual elders. That fact is associated with health risks including, according to Bradford, "increased likelihood of falling, higher rates of smoking, a lower quality of life, and a greater number of hospital readmissions."
Ward elaborated on the issues facing LGBT youth and how, as she explained, "marginalization can lead to risky behaviors." Addressing the role that providers can play, Leibowitz commented that, "prevention starts with demarginalization and with us as health care providers establishing a standard of care that fosters kids' trust in their doctors."
Buoyed by the success of the event, leaders from the seven groups plan to continue this partnership and invite others to join the collaboration. The seven participating groups were from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Children's Hospital Boston, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus, Harvard Medical School, and Massachusetts General Hospital.
For more information on BIDMC's LGBT Advisory Committee, please contact Jim Arrington at jarringt@bidmc.harvard.edu or 617-754-8087.
Photo caption: Bridging the Gap speakers KJ Ward, Director of Boston GLASS at JRI Health, Judy Bradford, Director of the Center for Population Research in LGBT health at The Fenway Institute, Scott Leibowitz, Psychiatrist, Children's Hospital Boston, Lee Swislow, Executive Director of GLAD.
