U.S. Women’s Open Trophy at Lancaster Country Club in Lancaster, PA. Copyright USGA/ Jason E. Miczek Beginning May 28, more than 100,000 spectators will line the fairways at the Lancaster Country Club for the U.S. Women’s Open golf championship. While most will leave with only happy memories, for others, an unexpected illness and injury will…
Emergency departments are hospitals’ “front door,” so Penn Medicine is doing everything it can to make them a trusted space for everyone.
By Kevin B. Mahoney Chief Executive Officer University of Pennsylvania Health System The statistics are daunting: U.S. health care workers are five times more likely to experience workplace violence than employees in other industries, according to government reports. A Press Ganey survey also found that two nurses an hour are assaulted in the acute-care setting. Data shows…
By Abby Alten Schwartz You’re an emergency department (ED) nurse on a hectic Saturday night. A patient has been waiting for hours to be seen. He’s in pain, but a dozen people ahead of him have more urgent needs. Suddenly, he’s shouting at the staff, demanding attention, and is heading directly toward you. What do…
“Each member of the family—Jackie, Rachel, and Kim—touched an important part of this patient’s care journey,” said David Porter, MD, director of Cell Therapy and Transplant, pictured at left with the three nurses. The patient was at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) with severe graft versus host disease (GVHD), a common and…
Fred Kaplan, MD “I’ve seen about a thousand patients worldwide with FOP,” said Fred Kaplan, MD, a professor of Orthopaedic Molecular Medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “Most of them are immobilized by the time they are 20. But this patient was not.” Kaplan is arguably the world’s most…
Research is a driving force of medical progress—but is it truly inclusive of the voices and experiences of those it seeks to help? The way research is conducted can often leave out important voices, like people from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds, those who speak languages other than English, or those with limited literacy. Rachel…
One day you hear that red wine is good for your heart. The next day, it’s not. The same goes for chocolate. And coffee. The see-saw of contradicting information isn’t anything new, but what happens when clinicians hear conflicting studies about a medication they use for their patients? Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine…
Maria Del Carpio grew up in Sabandia, a hilly village in rural Peru, where nearly half of the population lives in poverty. Even as a child, she noticed the stark disparity between her own comfortable existence and that of her less fortunate neighbors. She was troubled by the unfairness of it all. Why, she wondered,…
Are gift cards and cash one way to help ease the drug overdose crisis? The number of overdose deaths in the United States has doubled since 2015, exceeding 106,000 deaths in 2023. Although the overdose crisis is commonly referred to as the “opioid” overdose crisis, by 2021 approximately 50 percent of overdose-death toxicology reports showed…