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.

“We found that people with Parkinson’s disease who maintained exercise 150 minutes per week had a smaller decline in quality of life and mobility over two years compared to people who did not exercise or exercised less,” said lead investigator Miriam Rafferty, of Northwestern University and Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

Judith T. Moskowitz, medical social sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, developed a set of eight skills to help foster positive emotions. In earlier research at the University of California, San Francisco, she and colleagues found that people with new diagnoses of HIV infection who practiced these skills carried a lower load of the virus, were more likely to take their medication correctly, and were less likely to need antidepressants to help them cope with their illness.

Scientists say they’ve made a device in the lab that can mimic the human female reproductive cycle. “An avatar is kind of a digital representation of an individual in a virtual environment,” says Teresa Woodruff, a biomedical engineer in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University who helped create the system. “So when we thought about this synthetic version of the female reproductive tract we thought of the word EVATAR.”

“I’m a little concerned that there hasn’t been a complete eruption that the NIH is being targeted for such substantial cuts. This is a landmine waiting to explode,” said Dr. Clyde Yancy, a former American Heart Association president. “Laboratories will be shut down; personnel would be released; ideas would be left incomplete; proposals would go unaddressed. We just can’t afford to have the pace of scientific discovery slowed down like this,” said Yancy, from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

While it’s important to know the symptoms of rhabdomyolysis, Dr. Susan Quaggin stressed that she doesn’t want people to become so scared they stop working out. “Lots of people spin and we’re not seeing an epidemic of people coming to the hospital with rhabdomyolysis,” said Quaggin, chief of the department of nephrology and hypertension and director of the Feinberg Cardiovascular Research Institute at Northwestern University. “We don’t want hysteria. We don’t want people to stop doing exercise.” Rhabdomyolysis is less likely if people are fit, she said. She also reminded spinners to make sure they stay hydrated and to talk to their doctor if they start to develop any warning signs. “There’s a big risk if you don’t seek medical attention,” she said. “Electrolyte imbalances can be fatal, particularly potassium which is released into the bloodstream when muscle cells break down. Potassium can then go very high and can cause the heart to stop.”

A recent Northwestern Medicine study that examined the South Side neighborhood of Oakland found that 29 percent of the 72 African-American study participants have the disorder and an additional 7 percent exhibited a large number of signs that are part of a PTSD diagnosis. Researchers said they believe that points to a need for more mental health services and screenings in poor neighborhoods. “People are struggling severely, and I think that sometimes the negative implications of mental illness are really underestimated,” said Inger Burnett-Zeigler, a clinical psychologist and one of the authors on the study.

One of the areas of great importance for advocacy and research in the young adult cancer movement is Oncofertility. What we know is that cancer and its treatment (surgery, chemotherapy and radiation) can affect the ability for a person to have children. Oncofertility (oncology + fertility) is a term that was coined by Dr. Teresa K. Woodruff of Northwestern University to define this area of academic research and practice.

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