Media Coverage

The sisters stuck together. Their surgeries were performed a day apart in March and that set off a chain reaction. Ten donors and recipients met for the first time this week at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

“Given that we found strong associations between certain caregiver features and the likelihood of abuse, it is vitally important for clinicians evaluating the child to ask about who was present at the time of injury,” said study author Dr. Mary Clyde Pierce. She’s an emergency doctor at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Abuse-related injury was much less likely when a female caregiver was present, with the exception of a female babysitter, the findings showed. The researchers also linked different-than-usual caregiving arrangements with increased risk of abuse.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a policy earlier this year to restrict how and where flavored e-cigarettes are sold, calling underage vaping “an epidemic.” This initiative would hold companies responsible for limiting these sales to separate adult-only sections or stores that bar minors, in addition to tightening age verification and bulk sales online. There is not much research available regarding the long-term effects of e-cigarette use. In June, the American Lung Association received a nearly $25 million federal grant to research the lung health of millennials, in partnership with Northwestern Medicine scientists.

Patients who are taking an ARB should contact their pharmacist and physician to determine whether the medications they are taking are on the list, said Dr. Sadiya Khan, a cardiologist and an assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. The FDA has compiled a list of contaminated batches that have been recalled. In addition to losartan, two other ARBs have also been affected, valsartan and irbesartan. But Khan suggests people also check with their doctors. “It can be confusing because there are a lot of different formulations of these medications out there and knowing if your medication is on the list is not clear-cut,” she said.

At the same time, positive experiences during adolescence can have a lasting positive impact on the direction people’s lives take later on, particularly when they learn how to form healthy relationships with other people and make healthy choices about things like sex and drug use. “Many behaviors we have as adults began when we were adolescents – we call this “tracking” of health behaviors,” said Mercedes Carnethon, vice chair of the department of preventive medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

He calculated the median BMI of patients in the unit one day recently. Obesity is defined as a BMI of 30 or above. The unit’s median was 34, he said. Several patients had BMIs over 40. “I think obesity is the new smoking in terms of contribution to heart disease,” said Sadiya Khan, a cardiologist and assistant professor of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “We’ve made such great progress in coming up with smoking-cessation programs. For physical activity, healthy diet and weight loss we haven’t found the right approach.”

Since the early 80s, the 11 centers have been exempt from the “Prospective Payment System,” meaning they are allowed to charge much higher rates for Medicare and Medicaid patients compared to similar centers without being forced to justify that price difference, according to the report in JAMA Internal Medicine. “There does not seem to be a lot of difference between those centers and other high-end National Cancer Institute Cancer Centers,” said study coauthor Dr. Karl Bilimoria, director of the surgical outcomes and quality improvement center at Northwestern Medicine. “We think the system should be critically appraised and reevaluated from time to time and public reporting requirements should be the same across all hospitals.”

The report made Dr. Craig Garfield recall a moment when he was a resident, pushing his 1-year-old in a stroller, with the child in his customary preferred position, his leg bent back. One of his professors — an expert who had recently lectured the residents on child abuse — came up to him and said: “Look, your child is uncomfortable in the stroller. Straighten his leg out.”

People who suffer from norovirus-related dehydration can try commercially available rehydration solutions like Pedialyte, Gatorade, Powerade and WHO rehydration packets, says Dr. Tina Q. Tan, medical director, International Patient Services Program at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. She’s also an infectious diseases physician and a professor of pediatrics at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. In severe cases of dehydration, some people may need medical care, including hospitalization.

“For nasal steroids to have maximum effect, you should start taking them two weeks before the start of ragweed season,” says Dr. Baiju Malde, an allergist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Flonase (fluticasone), Sensimist (fluticasone), Nasacort (triamcinolone), Nasonex (mometasone) and Rhinocort (budesonide) are some of the widely used over-the-counter steroids. OTC oral antihistamines like Claritin (loratadine), Zyrtec (cetirizine), Allegra (fexofenadine) and Xyzal (levocetirizine) can also be used to treat allergies. If you suffer from itchy eyes during ragweed season, ask your health care provider for a prescription for allergy eye drops, or try the version that’s available OTC: Zaditor, or ketotifen.