The first Wisconsin resident to receive a new type of miniature heart pump got a heart transplant just before Christmas.
Jerry Seely, 50, of Madison woke up the morning before Christmas at UW Hospital with an easily detectable pulse for the first time in about five months. He had been suffering heart problems for more than 12 years.
Women’s advocates are worried about potential changes in laws affecting reproductive rights that could emerge during the 2005 session of the Wisconsin Legislature. They’re concerned because the Legislature has shifted toward the right after the last election.
….Wisconsin Right to Life plans to keep an eye on Governor Jim Doyle’s plan for stem cell research.
The UW Medical School today announced grants for a baker’s dozen of innovative health programs around the state. Most of them aim at improving public health for minorities and the poor, though one program seeks to extend health insurance to farm families.
Thirteen programs will split a total of $5.4 million that resulted from the conversion of Blue Cross and Blue Shield United of Wisconsin into a for-profit business.
The UW Medical School awarded about $5.4 million to community health programs statewide at a public meeting Tuesday.
But some are now questioning the secrecy surrounding how officials are spending part of roughly $600 million awarded to the state’s two medical schools.
The UW Foundation has received a $15,000 grant from the Helen Bader Foundation to develop and eight-week summer externship in dementia care for medical students.
“The response has been less than overwhelming to Governor Jim Doyle’s proposal to invest nearly $750 million in public and private money in the state’s biotechnology future…,” says Wisconsin Technology Council president Tom Still.
“Doyle should address all legitimate gripes about the specifics of his plan, but he shouldn’t back down a nanometer on the core idea behind it: Wisconsin has a chance to be a national leader in biotechnology, including stem cell research, and that opportunity won’t wait forever while we wring our hands.” (12/26/04 Opinion)
Quoted: Tom Saari, a University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical School pediatrician and vaccine expert.
Now a study has found indications that Aleve – part of a class of drugs known as non- steroid anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs – may also up the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Mary Beth Elliott, a UW-Madison associate pharmacy professor. is quoted in this story.
UW Medical School Dean Dr. Phillip Farrell said Tuesday he will step down next December. There will be a national search for his replacement. (Wisconsin State Journal)
UW-Madison Professor Hector DeLuca and three local proponents of economic development were the winners of the fifth annual Best of Madison Business Awards from Madison Business, which is part of Madison Magazine.
DeLuca, chair of the UW Biochemistry Department and CEO of Deltanoid Pharmaceuticals, received the Brian D. Howell Award for Excellence in Innovation.
University of Wisconsin Medical School Dean Dr. Philip Farrell is expected to relinquish his post in December 2005. That’s when Farrell’s second five-year term will end. He said in an interview he would stay until June 2006 if a successor is not in place. He is the fourth longest-serving Medical School dean in the nation.
Starting next month, UW- Madison will be the only Big Ten university that does not offer health insurance for the partners of its gay and lesbian staff. It’s a distinction school officials say will hurt the university’s ability to recruit and retain employees.
Penn State University, the only other holdout, will add it as an official benefit, likely in January. Penn State now offers such coverage using private donations.
Health insurance for domestic partners is not allowed for state employees, including at the university, under Wisconsin law. Coupled with the state’s long-standing, lower- than-average salaries, it hurts the university’s competitive edge, school officials said.
In an unusual disclosure, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s student health center is telling patients that, because of the USA Patriot Act, if government officials ask for their medical records, they’ll get to see them, and the patients will never know. Quotes Anuj Desai, UW-Madison law professor.
Visitors to Gary Rattmann’s barn dress like they’re in an operating room rather than on a farm.
“We’re very careful,” Rattmann said. “People aren’t allowed in the building unless they’re completely gowned up.”
Dane County, despite its prominent medical facilities and university medical school, is not among the top five counties in new health rankings by the Wisconsin Public Health and Policy Institute, though it did make the top 10. The report, “Wisconsin County Health Rankings – 2004,” is a health checkup of the state’s 72 counties by the University of Wisconsin Medical School faculty and staff.
Quoted: Norman Fost, a pediatrician and head of the University of Wisconsin’s bioethics program
It’s not sheep the sleep-deprived are counting, but jelly doughnuts and Cheetos. New research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Stanford University and the University of Chicago are boosting earlier findings of a relationship between sleep and weight: The less sleep a person gets, the more weight is gained.
Can giving home computers to heart failure patients to track their diet, weight, medications, vital signs and symptoms improve their health and the management of their disease? Researchers with Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have won a $1.7 million federal grant to find out.
Researchers have devised a non-invasive way for disabled people to communicate simply by thinking about it, a technology that someday might even allow them to regain control of limbs.
An abrupt change in policy by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has upset University of Wisconsin pain experts, who fear the result will be that patients won’t get the pain relief they need.
Athletes are often identified by a distinguishing skill. Such as Sharif Chambliss, a cheery 22-year-old senior on the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team. When you think Chambliss, you visualize his jump shot; personalized by a feathery touch. And while his range appears limitless on the court, the depth of his jumper may be no match for the depth of his character, which, like his game, is slowly emerging for all to see.
Marquette coach Tom Crean knows there will be a heckler at this home game, a guy decked out in Wisconsin red near the Golden Eagles bench giving him a hard time on Saturday.
Crean won’t care at all.
That’s how much the Marquette coach appreciates the work of Dr. Robert Love, a transplant guru at the University of Wisconsin Hospital.
The Department of Justice has begun to study Tasers, the electric guns that are increasingly popular with police, in the face of new questions over their safety.
The department has financed a study at the University of Wisconsin to determine how electrical currents move through the body
Republican lawmakers say Gov. Jim Doyle�s plans for a $375 million biomedical and technology research institute at UW-Madison might have a hard time getting funding.
With finals, papers and the distraction of semester break approaching, UW-Madison students often look for ways to intensify their study habits. While many choose the conventional caffeinated methods of coffee or soda, some students turn to prescription drugs like Adderall and Ritalin.
People who don’t sleep very long are more likely to be overweight. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that sleep deprivation makes you fatââ?¬â?it could be that both are caused by being a couch potato, by eating badly, or by something else entirely. Researchers at Stanford and the University of Wisconsinââ?¬â??Madison looked at how sleep deprivation affects levels of hormones that regulate appetite.
The tongue. It wiggles and waggles and shapes words conveying our brain’s thoughts.It also sends signals to the brain. And by manipulating those signals electronically, Wisconsin scientists say they may be able to help chronically dizzy patients walk again, help Navy divers find their way in murky waters and help the blind to see.
On Dec. 3, more than 100 nervous biomedical engineering students gathered in the Engineering Centers Building for a student design exposition. At noon, what had begun as mere ideas culminated in the presentation of 20 prototypes, potential solutions ranging from artificial limbs to X-rays.
As finals loom, students who procrastinated during the semester will be paying the price, burning the midnight oil into the wee hours of the morn. Many of them will stave off sleep with a caffeine source of choice: coffee, tea, soft drinks or caffeine pills. But while caffeine can keep sleep at bay, it can leave you too wired and jittery to study effectively.
Ruby Mick, age 77, passed away on Monday, Dec. 6, 2004. Ruby managed Mac’s Bar and Cafe, on Atwood Ave., for 18 years, before joining University Hospital for 17 years, retiring in 1989.
By Beth Williams Wisconsin State Journal
The patient, head swaddled with wires going every which way to various black boxes, lies still on a hospital bed. A square cursor moves across a computer screen.
With little obvious effort and no physical motion, the patient uses thought alone to move the cursor up or down until it collides with a target at the edge of the screen.
The UW-Madison experiment is about far more than games, it’s about eventually helping people mentally unlock limbs paralyzed by Lou Gehrig’s disease, strokes or other means.
Quoted: Wade Bushman, a urologist and director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison bladder clinic.
With electrodes implanted directly on their brains, two Madison patients were able to control a computer cursor and play a basic video game just by thinking about it.
Growing up, Ben Banks had the urge to yell out that he had HIV, but mostly he had to keep it to himself. His best friends didn’t even know. He assumed his life expectancy would be short…. Banks, 26, who spoke at UW-Madison Science Hall Thursday night in honor of World AIDS Week, is described as the “longest-living person with pediatric AIDS.”
A 20-year-old UW-Madison student took on two much older, academically distinguished professors Wednesday night in a debate about reproductive choice.
The debate at the Pyle Center during Social Justice Awareness Week pitted Erica Christenson, a sophomore majoring in business and political science, against sociology Professor Myra Ferree and Christina Greene, a professor in the department of African-American studies.
Madison, Wis. ââ?¬â? Students at the University of Wisconsin’s biomedical engineering department will have a chance to bring a semesterââ?¬â?¢s worth of work into the spotlight on Friday at the Biomedical Engineering Design Expo.
Looking at 8,000 small red flags – representing the number of lives lost every day to AIDS worldwide – Oliver Barry remembered the terror of waiting for his HIV test results.
ach year, University Health Services sees one to two students newly infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, according to Craig Roberts, manager of UW-Madison’s Blue Bus STD clinic.
AIDS Network, HospiceCare, UW-Madison and other groups are sponsoring a series of events this week honoring World AIDS Day, which is today.
Ann M. Corbett, age 88, passed away on Nov. 29, 2004. Ann worked for University Hospital, from where she retired.
Sex Out Loud staff member and World AIDS Day coordinator Amy Martin points out issues surrounding the HIV/AIDS Day seem distant to students� daily lives until one considers University Health Services diagnoses two or more University of Wisconsin students with HIV annually.
WEDNESDAY, Dec. 1 (HealthDayNews) — Green tea appears to inhibit the spread of prostate cancer in a number of ways, says a study in the Dec. 1 issue of Cancer Research.
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Mentor Corp. announced that it has begun operating its new manufacturing facility at 535 Science Drive in University Research Park.
The plant was designed specifically for the production of products utilizing the botulinum toxin technology that Mentor licensed from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation last December.
Countless couples struggle with something that feels like it ought to be the most natural thing in the world – having a baby. Once upon a time – not that long ago, actually – such couples had to resign themselves to a childless life or lay out thousands of dollars to adopt. Not so anymore.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has been a leader in reproductive endocrinology for years, and the program took another step forward in April 2003 with the arrival of Dr. Stephen Lindheim and his novel approach to the infertility puzzle.
UW-Madison professor emeritus of economics RALPH ANDREANO is just back in Madison from Jordan, where he worked several long days helping Iraq’s new health minister, Ala’din Alwan, assess the country’s troubled health system.
The big problem with pharmaceuticals in not “supply crisis,” but overuse, inappropriate use and overpricing,” says Dr. Bruce Barrett, assistant professor in the UW-Madison Department of Family Medicine. (11/27/04 Capital Times)
Corrine Adaline (Bolson/Brown) Powers, age 82, passed away peacefully on Thursday, Nov. 25, 2004. Corrine worked at University Hospital for 20 years in the environmental services department.
Citizens respond to the question “Should the state exclude research on embryonic stem cells from the proposed biotechnology research institute? (11/27/04 Capital Times print edition)
When UW-Madison Medical School anatomy students want to work on one, they activate a lever that lifts the body out of the liquid. …
In some circles, it’s long been thought that meditation can make a person more compassionate.
Now there’s scientific evidence that suggests just that.
Both the Senate and House have passed key patent legislation backed by the UW-Madison and several state politicians, with President Bush expected to sign the bill in the next few weeks.
Early on a recent Friday morning, doctors from around the area gathered at a Meriter Hospital lecture hall to hear Dennis Maki talk about the flu. The top University of Wisconsin immunologist had plenty to say about the nation’s vaccine shortage. But, as bad as the situation was, that was not his biggest concern.
Quoted: Dr. Michael J. MacDonald, Director of UW Ped. Diabetes Program.
Health care workers at University Hospital and Clinics have approved a new, four-year contract. The union, SEIU District 1199, represents approximately 1,400 employees, including registered nurses, therapists and dieticians. (11/20/04 Capital Times print edition)
The Doyle administration is vowing to balance the next state budget “by trimming the fat and making our government more efficient.” That promise from Administration Secretary Marc Marotta came as state agencies made it official Friday: The state is facing a $1.6 billion general fund problem in the next two-year budget.
UW Hospital and the union representing nurses, therapits and dieticiians there approved a four-year contract Thursday.
The UW-Madison Office of Corporate Relations announced that it will start a program next year to help create, support and sustain start-up companies that are based on research and technology developed at the UW.
Gov. Jim Doyle is ready to take on California to defend Wisconsin’s crown as king of the stem cell states. About two weeks after California voters approved a $3 billion, 10-year referendum for stem cell research, Doyle responded by putting together a comprehensive package to showcase and build on Wisconsin’s investment in biotechnology.
Gov. Jim Doyle announced a proposal Wednesday afternoon to construct a $375 million research institution on the University of Wisconsin campus called the ââ?¬Å?Wisconsin Institution for Discovery.ââ?¬Â
Quoted: George Newman, a professor of neurology and radiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the stroke program.
