Upstate surgeon speaks about preventive mastectomy

Dr. Jayne Charlamb, MD is interviewed. Photo by Kathleen Paice Froio.

NewsChannel 9 interviewed Dr. Jayne Charlamb, MD, about actress/director Angelina Jolie’s disclosure that she underwent a double mastectomy to reduce her chances of developing breast cancer. The Syracuse television station focused on Andrea Riccelli, another woman who chose to have her breasts removed because of an 87-percent risk of breast cancer.

“I decided I’d rather choose the preventive mastectomy rather than illness, I’d rather choose that – than have my kids see me sick, or not be here in a decade or so,” Riccelli told NewsChannel 9′s Caitlin Nuclo.

Charlamb said that many patients in the same situation also choose surgery. “It’s not perfect. We can never say you won’t get breast cancer, but it’s the most effective way. Again though, it has to be the right decision for the woman involved.”

Read/watch the Newschannel 9 coverage.

More historical trivia about Upstate — five final questions

The old physiology-pharmacology lab.

This little trip down memory lane wraps up today with five final trivia questions having to do with the history of Upstate. I’ll post answers this afternoon. Thanks for playing along.

1. This excerpt is from what year? “It was evident that if the College was to survive, even greater financial support was necessary.”

2. In the late 1880s, the Department of Health of the City of Syracuse established a building for contagious diseases on a large plot east of Teall Avenue. It was commonly known as what?

3. Two separate studies in the early 1950s concluded that several of Syracuse’s 10 hospitals merge and that a new hospital be built. What happened before those recommendations were followed?

4. Which former chairman of pediatrics went on to become US Surgeon General, overseeing tobacco control efforts?

5. A gifted parasitologist and artist who became an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Bacteriology in 1930 (later joining the faculty) made basic discoveries about the life cycle of the tapeworm and drew meticulous illustrations of his findings. Justus Mueller, PhD took multiple scientific expeditions into the rainforests of Central and South America, which earned him election into which elite club in 1980?

More historical trivia about Upstate – five new answers

1. In what year did the college adopt the metric system?

Answer: 1879. (And judging from the use of three exclamation points in the narrative history, this was an especially exciting development!!!)

State University Hospital, 1965.

2. It would take four years to build, but when was the groundbreaking for the State University Hospital (now Upstate University Hospital?)

Answer: 1961.

3. What was the first full-time educational department that was established?

Answer: Physiology, in 1892. This was followed by pathology in 1900, biochemistry in 1903, anatomy in 1907 and microbiology in 1914.

4. How much money was donated by businesses, foundations and individuals  in order for Community Hospital to open its doors Jan. 1, 1963? (Community Hospital became Community General Hospital in 1964 after merging with Syracuse General Hospital, and it became part of Upstate in 2011.)

Answer: More than 48,000 businesses, foundations and individuals raised more than $7 million. The federal government contributed $2.2 million.

5. What placed Syracuse in the forefront of medical education in the late 1800s? (Hint, Syracuse was following the lead of Harvard and Michigan in this.)

Answer: The plan and establishment of a three-year graded curriculum, which was considered a daring move in the face of the economics of medical training. Many medical students preferred the standard two 16-week series of lectures followed by three years of preceptorship at little or no expense to them.

More historical trivia about Upstate — five new questions

This welcomes everyone to Weiskotten Hall.

Here’s part two of the pop quiz I’ve assembled regarding Upstate’s history, based on the research I’ve been conducting for a forthcoming Upstate Health magazine article. Later this afternoon, I’ll post the answers.

1. In what year did the college adopt the metric system?

2. It would take four years to build, but when was the groundbreaking for the State University Hospital (now Upstate University Hospital?)

3. What was the first full-time educational department that was established?

4. How much money was donated by businesses, foundations and individuals  in order for Community Hospital to open its doors Jan. 1, 1963? (Community Hospital became Community General Hospital in 1964 after merging with Syracuse General Hospital, and it became part of Upstate in 2011.)

5. What placed Syracuse in the forefront of medical education in the late 1800s? (Hint: Syracuse was following the lead of Harvard and Michigan in this.)

Time for historical trivia about Upstate — five answers

Here are the answers to the questions I posed this morning having to do with interesting tidbits in the history of Upstate. I’ll post five more trivia questions tomorrow.

1. This weekend, Upstate will graduate 477 students — 170 from the College of Health Professions, 149 from the College of Medicine, 135 from the College of Nursing, and 23 from the College of Graduate Studies. How many students graduated 50 years ago?

Answer: In 1963, the College of Medicine had 75 graduates, and the College of Nursing had 54. In addition, three individuals obtained doctorates.

2. Name the Upstate founding father who was among the first group of physicians to promote vaccination (against smallpox, in 1803.)

Answer: Edward Cutbush, MD, the first dean at Geneva Medical College.

This is part of the historical collection at Upstate’s Health Sciences Library.

3. What was the total price of a bill dated Sept. 11, 1892 for an operation and five-day hospital stay?

Answer:  $4.65

4. What began to disappear when, starting in 1930, the senior medical students were assigned 10-day rotations living in the hospital?

Answer: Home births. Prior to the 1930s, students helped staff prenatal clinics and were in charge of home delivery services for clinic patients. More women began delivering in the hospital when student residencies in obstetrics began.

5. Today’s in-state tuition for medical school is $29,530. What was it 100 years ago?

Answer: $175 (Which, in today’s dollars, would be in the $4,000 ballpark.)

Time for historical trivia about Upstate — five questions

This undated newspaper ad is part of the historical collection in the Upstate Health Sciences Library. Chancellor Charles N. Sims is first mentioned in the college catalogue in 1888.

I’ve been delving into records about the history of Upstate Medical University lately. I spent some time in the Upstate Health Sciences Library archives, and I perused a scrapbook compiled by J. Howard Ferguson, MD in 1968 that is full of interesting information. So I thought I would offer a pop quiz this morning – with answers to be posted later this afternoon.

1. This weekend, Upstate will graduate 477 students — 170 from the College of Health Professions, 149 from the College of Medicine, 135 from the College of Nursing, and 23 from the College of Graduate Studies. How many students graduated 50 years ago?

2. Name the Upstate founding father who was among the first group of physicians to promote vaccination (against smallpox, in 1803.)

3. What was the total price of a bill dated Sept. 11, 1892 for an operation and a five-day hospital stay?

4. What began to disappear when, starting in 1930, the senior medical students were assigned 10-day rotations living in the hospital?

5. Today’s in-state tuition for medical school is almost $29,530. What was it 100 years ago?

Personalized medicine lecture open to the public May 20

Aaron Ciechanover, MD

After he receives an honorary degree at Upstate Medical University’s commencement Sunday, Nobel laureate Aaron Ciechanover, MD will give a talk on personalized medicine that’s open to the public from 9 to 10 a.m. Monday, May 20 in the Medical Alumni Auditorium of Weiskotten Hall on the Upstate campus.

Ciechanover speaks about “The Revolution of Personalized Medicine — Are we Going to Cure All Diseases, and at What Price?” In 2004, he and his collaborators —  Avram Hershko, MD, PhD, and Irwin Rose, PhD — received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of ubiquitin mediated protein degradation that revolutionized today’s approach to treating cancer and that created new pathways to develop more effective therapies for neurodegenerative disorders and other genetic diseases.

Ciechanover is distinguished research professor of the Cancer and Vascular Biology Research Center, The Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Research Institute at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel.

Promotional spots celebrate Upstate during weeks that honor hospital, nurses

Have  you seen the new commercial spots promoting Upstate? They feature employees talking about what makes them proud. Dozens of employees were interviewed and photographed for the spots, produced by Solon Quinn Studios.

One commercial focuses on nursing, another on patients, and a third on the Upstate team. See which is your favorite.

View posters that are part of the Proud to Know campaign.

Here is the spot focused on nursing.

Here is the spot focused on the Upstate team.

 Here is the spot focused on Upstate patients.

Watch the Proud to Know videos.

He’s 97 — and still volunteering

Bob Donahue has volunteered for 36 years.

Have you met Bob Donahue? He’s been a fixture on the Community Campus since 1976. He has contributed some 18,000 hours of his time, and he continues to volunteer weekly. Read about Donahue in this month’s newsletter from the Community Campus: Meet Bob Donahue

Syracuse Press Club awards Upstate writer, photographers

Photographer Susan Kahn and humor writer Jeff Kramer pose at the Syracuse Press Club awards banquet Saturday night. Photograph by Susan Keeter.

Humorist Jeff Kramer.

Upstate humor writer Jeff Kramer and photographers Susan Kahn and Bob Mescavage received awards from the Syracuse Press Club Saturday night during the annual banquet. Their work appears in Upstate’s magazine, Upstate Health, as well as this blog.

Kramer won first place for column writing in the special interest print category for his column, “Stress threatens to trip humorist Jeff Kramer’s healthy lifestyle.” He has written many columns about his journey to improve his health, since he ended up in the emergency department in 2011 with symptoms of a heart attack. He also wrote about his experience as a “victim” at a mock disaster last summer at the Syracuse airport.

Photographer Susan Kahn.

Photographs from that disaster drill, by photographers Bob Mescavage and Susan Kahn, were awarded second place in the press club category of photo essay. (See a slideshow of the photos, here.)

This was the press club’s 35th annual professional recognition awards dinner, in which media professionals from throughout the Central New York region gathered to honor one another for online journalism, as well as print, television and radio. There is also a category featuring work from college students. The event was held at Drumlins.

Read Kramer’s first-place column

See Mescavage and Kahn’s photos from the drill

Upstate’s Dr. Sharon Brangman, MD, division chief of geriatrics, was quoted in Matt Porter’s story for NCC News (Syracuse University’s Newhouse Communications Center) called “Too Many Pills Create Problems for Patients.” Porter took first place.