Media Coverage
The work done by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine faculty members (and even some students) is regularly highlighted in newspapers, online media outlets and more. Below you’ll find links to articles and videos of Feinberg in the news.
-
TIME
–
Do You Really Store Stress in Your Body?
f you get enough back aches, someone will eventually tell you that’s where your body stores stress. If your stomach hurts, you’ll hear the same thing: Your emotions are trapped in your belly. But what does that mean? Is your anxiety about work or money really coursing through your body and nestling into your organs and limbs? In short, no. “We can and do manifest stress physically. There’s no question about it,” says Steven Tovian, PhD, a clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. “But it’s not like there’s a stress reservoir to the left of our kidneys—and when it bubbles over or overflows, we’ve got problems. It’s not that kind of boiling-cauldron analogy.” Unfortunately, the truth is that stress lives everywhere inside your body. Here’s what really happens in your body when you’re stressed. The type of stress you’re dealing with—and its frequency, duration, and intensity—plays a role in determining how it might manifest in your body. There are a number of different types: acute (sitting in a traffic jam), episodic (work projects that pop up occasionally), chronic (losing a job, getting divorced, or dealing with a long-term illness), and traumatic (childhood abuse). “Stress is not one entity,” Tovian says. While acute stress, for example, is typically fleeting and can be resolved by calming regimens like deep breathing, leaving no lingering effects in its wake, other types of stress require more vigilance.
-
ABC 7 Chicago
–
Grandfather shares experience after awake kidney transplant surgery at Northwestern Medicine
Grandfather shares experience after awake kidney transplant surgery at Northwestern Medicine. Harry Stackhouse was diagnosed with COVID-19 in December 2019, which is when doctors noticed one of his kidneys was failing, and the other was only working at 2%, according to Northwestern. On July 15, Stackhouse underwent a surgery that took just under two hours. He said he did not feel anything and has been able to go on one-mile walks everyday since being discharged. Satish Nadig is the transplant surgeon and director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Transplant Center who performed Stackhouse’s transplant. “Patients who have cardiopulmonary disease may be at higher risk for general anesthesia,” Dr. Nadig said. “There are also some patients around the country who have had complications from their intubations in the past and do not want to be intubated. An awake kidney transplant procedure could be their best option.”
-
ABC 7 Chicago
–
Grandfather shares experience after awake kidney transplant surgery at Northwestern Medicine
A Zion man is the second to recover from an awake kidney transplant at Northwestern Medicine. Harry Stackhouse was diagnosed with COVID-19 in December 2019, which is when doctors noticed one of his kidneys was failing, and the other was only working at 2%, according to Northwestern. One of his daughters offered to donate her kidney to him. Stackhouse fit the criteria for what Northwestern Medicine is hoping to do as it establishes the Accelerated Surgery Without General Anesthesia in Kidney Transplantation program, also known as the AWAKE Kidney Program. Satish Nadig, MD, PhD is the transplant surgeon and director of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive Transplant Center who performed Stackhouse’s transplant. “Patients who have cardiopulmonary disease may be at higher risk for general anesthesia,” Dr. Nadig said. “There are also some patients around the country who have had complications from their intubations in the past and do not want to be intubated. An awake kidney transplant procedure could be their best option.”
-
CBS News
–
Small-town patients face big hurdles as rural hospitals cut cancer care
For many, driving long distances to receive cancer care is necessary. To get treatment, a woman must drive nearly three hours east to San Antonio, TX from her hometown of Del Rio, TX. For rural patients, getting cancer treatment close to home has always been difficult. But in recent years, chemotherapy deserts have expanded across the United States, with 382 rural hospitals halting services from 2014 to 2022, according to a report published this spring by Chartis, a health analytics and consulting firm. Loss of chemotherapy services can signal other gaps in cancer care, such as a shortage of local specialty physicians and nurses, which is bad news for patients, said Marquita Lewis-Thames, PhD, an assistant professor at Northwestern University in Chicago whose research covers rural cancer care. Rural patients are less likely to survive at least five years after a cancer diagnosis compared with their urban counterparts, concluded a study co-authored by Lewis-Thames and published in JAMA Network Open in 2022. While the rural-urban survival gap narrowed over the nearly 40 years researchers studied, the disparity persisted across most racial and ethnic groups, with only a few exceptions, she said.
-
HealthDay
–
When Your Knee Cartilage Wears Out, a ‘Biomaterial’ Might Help Replace It
A newly developed biomaterial might be able to treat crippling arthritis by prompting the growth of new cartilage, a new animal study suggests. The biomaterial successfully regenerated high-quality cartilage in the knee joints of sheep within six months. “Cartilage is a critical component in our joints,” said lead researcher Samuel Stupp, PhD, a professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern University. “When cartilage becomes damaged or breaks down over time, it can have a great impact on people’s overall health and mobility.” Further, Stupp explained, “The problem is that, in adult humans, cartilage does not have an inherent ability to heal,” Stupp added in a university news release. “Our new therapy can induce repair in a tissue that does not naturally regenerate. We think our treatment could help address a serious, unmet clinical need.” The new biomaterial combines an essential protein for cartilage growth and maintenance with a modified hyaluronic acid, which is naturally present in both cartilage and lubricating synovial fluid in joints.
-
CNN
–
‘I feel dismissed’: People experiencing colorism say health system fails them
The term colorism — a form of prejudice and discrimination in which lighter skin is favored over darker skin — was popularized by author Alice Walker in her 1983 book “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose.” Clinicians from various ethnic groups have recently begun to draw a direct line between colorism and poor health. A 2023 KFF survey found that, among Black and Hispanic adults, those with self-described darker skin tones reported more experiences with discrimination in daily life compared with those who have lighter skin tones. People who feel like they experience daily discrimination can be at higher risk for depression, loneliness, increased alcohol and drug use, and anxiety, data shows. And colorism can also lead to physical health concerns. Hair straighteners and skin lighteners commonly used by women of color, sometimes to conform to racialized beauty standards, increase their exposure to toxic chemicals, research shows. The feeling of shame and embarrassment colorism produces in people is palpable and needs to be acknowledged in health care settings, said Roopal Kundu, MD, a dermatologist who founded and directs the Northwestern Medicine Center for Ethnic Skin and Hair in Chicago. Kundu, who is of South Asian heritage, opened the center in 2005 and notes that some cases of diseases like psoriasis, skin cancer, and eczema get diagnosed later, or misdiagnosed, because they present differently on diverse skin tones. “How can we really make sure, as a field, that we’re taking care of everybody?” she said. “Healthy skin is beautiful skin. And beauty is across every single skin tone that there is.”
-
Washington Post
–
Suicide rates in children have continued to climb across 15 years, study finds
The suicide rate for U.S. children 8 to 12 years old has steadily climbed in the past decade and a half, with a disproportionate rise among girls, data released Tuesday by the National Institute of Mental Health shows. The findings, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, highlight pervasive issues regarding mental health that affect U.S. children daily, the study authors said. The coronavirus pandemic worsened the country’s ongoing mental health crisis, leading to increases in anxiety, depression and other mental health issues, according to experts. “This has been going on for a while, and we really saw things pick up when covid started [and] really seeing kids come in being miserable,” said Maria H. Rahmandar, MD, a pediatrician and co-author of the American Academy of Pediatrics clinical report on suicide and suicide risk in adolescents. “All of the pediatric providers I know were all hopeful that once kids were able to get back to school and their friends and a semblance of a normal life that mental health would improve, and we just haven’t seen that,” said Rahmandar, an associate professor at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
-
Chicago Tribune
–
COVID-19 on the upswing in Chicago again this summer
If it seems like you suddenly know a lot of people with COVID-19 this summer, it’s not just you. COVID-19 is again on the rise in the Chicago area and across the country — the fourth consecutive summer the nation has experienced an upswing. “It hasn’t gone away,” said Robert Murphy, MD, executive director of the Havey Institute for Global Health and a professor of medicine in infectious diseases at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “We are personally seeing a large jump in the number of cases, and the number of prescriptions we’re calling in for Paxlovid, the treatment that’s available.” It’s not entirely clear why COVID-19 cases keep rising during the summer months — a time typically associated with lower levels of respiratory illnesses. But doctors say it might have to do with waning immunity from vaccines, which many people received in the fall, and ongoing mutations to the virus. Virus strains known as FLiRT variants are responsible for most of the cases at the moment nationwide, according to the CDC.
-
WebMD
–
Understanding Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy
Sudden death from epilepsy can occur when having an intense seizure. A seizure can be so strong that you don’t wake up afterwards. Fortunately, that is extremely rare and happens infrequently. “To keep it in perspective– most patients with epilepsy are otherwise healthy. You know, it affects you in your best years of life often,” said Stephen Schuele, MD, MPH, chief of epilepsy and clinical neurophysiology in the department of neurology and professor of neurology and physical medicine and rehabilitation at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. According to Schuele, it’s important to look at the course of seizures in a broad context. “I look at it in the broad context of education. You know, when you have your patient coming with the first seizure, they have– many of them have questions which fill a full hour. And I think that that is correct, you know? If I would have my first seizure, I would have an hour of questions for you. So I think if you create a culture of education and being open for questions of your patients, I think that’s probably the most important aspect to actually lead into discussing SUDEP as well.”
-
New York Times
–
Breast Cancer Survival Not Boosted by Double Mastectomy, Study Says
For the more than 310,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer every year, no matter how well the treatment goes, there is always a lingering fear. Could the disease come back, even years later? And what if it comes back in the other breast? Could they protect themselves today by having a double mastectomy? A study has concluded that there is no survival advantage to having the other breast removed. The finding that a double mastectomy is not protective against death for many breast cancers seems counterintuitive, Dr. Narod admitted. An accompanying editorial, by Seema Ahsan Khan, MD, a breast cancer surgeon at Northwestern University, and Masha Kocherginsky, PhD, a biostatistician also at Northwestern, called it a conundrum. Dr. Khan says she too counsels women that a double mastectomy is not a cure-all. But, she said, there are reasons some women choose to have one anyway. Other women who are having one breast removed and reconstructed choose the same for the second breast for cosmetic reasons. “The decisions are complex,” she said. “I have always advised women that a second cancer may occur in the future,” she said. “But if it occurs there is still a good chance of survival.”
