A diagnosis of pancreatic cancer usually carries with it a poor prognosis, and the news may be even worse for those who are obese: It could mean dying two to three months sooner than pancreatic cancer patients of normal weight, new research shows. Brian Wolpin, HMS assistant professor of medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, led the team.
Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, wrote a blog post about The Cancer Genome Atlas project, which involves many HMS affiliated researchers.
You’ve heard of decoding the genome — the monumental scientific project to learn the blueprint of a human being by reading the DNA book of life, letter by letter. George Church, the Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics, and a colleague at Yale University reported in a pair of papers on new efforts to advance a technique developed a few years ago that enables massive editing of the genome.
More than half of new mothers feel some sadness, but postpartum depression is a serious, and treatable, condition. A new study shows that a mother’s depression during pregnancy or in the first months after giving birth can increase her child’s risk for depression 18 years later. Ann Shinn, HMS instructor in psychiatry at McLean Hospital, is quoted.
In our complex, changing world, leaders need the inner skill of emotional agility to manage their thoughts and emotions in a mindful, values driven and productive way. While much is being written on the requirement that leaders be adaptive, this article focuses on the critical internal, emotional skills that are necessary to achieve this. Susan David, HMS clinical instructor in psychology at McLean Hospital, is one of the co-authors of the article.
It’s estimated that seventy percent of a primary-care doctor’s practice now involves management of psychosocial issues ranging from marriage counseling to treatment of anxiety and depression. The HMS Center for Primary Care’s new program to improve the quality of psychiatric care offered by primary-care doctors is highlighted. Russell Phillips, HMS professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and director of the Center for Primary Care, is quoted. The author, Suzanne Koven, is an assistant professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Being accepted into medical school used to mean selecting time-honored disciplines such as biology or chemistry, taking a more traditional route as a “pre-med” to gain entrance. In the past two decades, however, with the advent of the problem based learning promoted through HMS, along with an earlier exposure to seeing patients in various electives, the traditional pre-med student that admission committees use to seek out has begun to change.
Laura M. Prager, HMS assistant professor of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, authored this article about how to handle situations when children draw violent pictures.
