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.

That mirrored the conclusions of a recent study from Rush University Medical College and Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Researchers there noticed patients complaining about sleep data collected by apps and devices from Nike, Apple, Fitbit and others. In their study, the researchers warned that sleep-tracking tech could provide inaccurate data and worsen insomnia by making people obsessed with achieving perfect slumber, a condition they called orthosomnia. It was one of the latest pieces of research supporting the idea that health apps don’t necessarily make people healthier.

That won’t happen overnight. Demetrios Kyriacou, an emergency medicine physician at Northwestern University, wrote a cautionary editorial in JAMA saying that “major public health interventions cannot be based on [Kahn’s] single observational study.” “Because demands on nurses and physicians to provide rapid intensive care to patients in critical settings can affect patient treatment,” he wrote, “any strategy aimed toward reducing sepsis-related morbidity and mortality must be based on convincing evidence before being mandated by governmental regulations.”

Now a study has answers, finding no difference in hospital deaths, readmissions or costs when comparing results from doctors trained before and after caps limiting duties to 80 hours per week took effect. “Some still long for the old days of 100-hour work weeks, but most of the world has moved on and realized there are better ways to train residents,” said Dr. Karl Bilimoria of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research published Thursday in the journal BMJ. Eliminating extra paperwork and some academic conferences for residents, while adding nurse practitioners to the workforce help make training more efficient, Bilimoria said.

While Clarkson sings the praises of a lectin-free diet, the regimen is not advisable for vegetarians and vegans, says Elizabeth Spencer, a registered dietitian at Northwestern Medicine Metabolic Health and Surgical Weight Loss Center at Delnor Hospital in Geneva, Illinois. For vegetarians and vegans, a lectin-free diet “would exclude essential food groups that plant-based eaters rely on for their protein, vitamin and mineral needs,” Spencer says. “If one were to follow a lectin-free diet, (one) would need to eliminate legumes, soybeans, wheat, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, eggplant, peppers, some fruits and peanuts.”

Now a study has answers, finding no difference in hospital deaths, readmissions or costs when comparing results from doctors trained before and after caps limiting duties to 80 hours per week took effect. “Some still long for the old days of 100-hour work weeks, but most of the world has moved on and realized there are better ways to train residents,” said Dr. Karl Bilimoria of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research published Thursday in the journal BMJ.

Now a study has answers, finding no difference in hospital deaths, readmissions or costs when comparing results from doctors trained before and after caps limiting duties to 80 hours per week took effect. “Some still long for the old days of 100-hour work weeks, but most of the world has moved on and realized there are better ways to train residents,” said Dr. Karl Bilimoria of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research published Thursday in the journal BMJ.

“We know that the particulate matter in air when absorbed in the lungs causes inflammation that’s immediately reflected in the cardiovascular system,” said Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones, chair of the department of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “That has direct toxic effects.” In the short term, vulnerable people are urged to stay indoors or wear masks when the air quality is particularly bad. A recent study in Denmark showed the benefits of exercising outdoors to prevent heart attacks outweighed the risks of air pollution, while a U.S.-based study published in January in the American Heart Association journal Circulation indicated a heart-healthy Mediterranean diet can mitigate some of the damage caused by air pollution.

Patients will go out of their way to visit hospitals that treat them well and avoid those that don’t. Karen Stillwell, of Marseilles, said she and her husband had a “nightmare” experience at one Chicago-area hospital after her husband’s heart transplant in 2012. Eventually, they switched hospitals, heading to Northwestern Memorial. Stillwell’s husband has visited Northwestern three times this year. When he had an issue, she said, multiple levels of Northwestern management contacted her to see how they could help.

Now a study has answers, finding no difference in hospital deaths, readmissions or costs when comparing results from doctors trained before and after caps limiting duties to 80 hours per week took effect. “Some still long for the old days of 100-hour work weeks, but most of the world has moved on and realized there are better ways to train residents,” said Dr. Karl Bilimoria of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research published Thursday in the journal BMJ.

The study wasn’t designed to prove whether or how penalties might alter the quality of care. Researchers also lacked data on what specific efforts hospitals made to target certain quality issues, and it’s possible that some hospitals focused improvement programs on things that weren’t directly measured by the HACRP scores, the study authors note. Even so, the results add to growing evidence suggesting that the program designed to prevent infections and other hospital-acquired conditions “is paradoxically penalizing high-performing hospitals and those hospitals taking care of socioeconomically disadvantaged patients,” said Dr. Karl Bilimoria, director of the Surgical Outcomes and Quality Improvement Center at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

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