Newswise Douglas R. Dirschl, MD, a nationally recognized orthopedic surgeon, administrator, teacher and researcher, will chair the newly created Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Chicago Medicine starting Jan. 1, 2013.

Dirschl is coming to Chicago from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, where he has been chairman and the Frank C. Wilson Distinguished Professor in the Department of Orthopedics since 2003. He is a former president of the American Orthopaedic Association (AOA), considered the premiere orthopedic academic organization in the United States.

An extensive national search identified Douglas Dirschl as a leader in orthopedic surgery who is held in highest regard nationally and internationally, said Kenneth Polonsky, MD, executive vice president for medical affairs at the University of Chicago and dean of the Biological Sciences Division and Pritzker School of Medicine. He also is known for his clinical and teaching skills, his ability to motivate scientists and clinicians to work toward shared goals, and for elevating standards and practices of patient care and education.

Dirschl has conducted original research relevant to the practice of orthopedic surgery and to the understanding of the biological basis of the surgery. In his studies of the practice, he has focused on the critical assessment of factors that influence reliability in classifying fractures of various types. His studies focus on the quality of radiographs and the reliability of interpretation, as well as the use of binary decision-making strategies to enhance reliability. In his studies of the biological basis of surgery, Dirschl has focused on a variety of biological correlates of orthopedic injury such as hemorrhage in pelvic fractures as a means of classifying factors that influence pelvic bleeding.

As president of the AOA, Dirschl played an instrumental role in the development and launch of the organizations Own the Bone campaign, designed to increase awareness of the serious consequences of bone loss and the growing prevalence of osteoporosis. There are three times as many fragility fractures each year in the United States as there are heart attacks, he said. This is a huge and under-recognized public health issue.

Dirschl described his new role at the University of Chicago Medicine as a remarkable opportunity to expand on current strengths and establish new programs, particularly with the opening of the Center for Care and Discovery.

The medical center already has many outstanding, cohesive, team-oriented faculty, he said. The state-of-the-art surgical facilities in the Center for Care and Discovery will provide unprecedented opportunities for us to expand orthopedics. We intend to double the number of faculty physicians and find innovative ways to deliver superior patient care.

A leader in medical education and health policy, Dirschl has received multiple teaching awards for his work with medical students and residents. He has co-authored three books, 40 book chapters, and more than 75 peer-reviewed scholarly articles and lectured all over the world. He sits on editorial and review boards for several notable scientific journals, including the Journal of Orthopaedic Research, Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma and Operative Techniques in Orthopaedics.

Dirschl graduated with distinction in 1984 from Stanford University with a degree in chemical engineering and with high honors in 1988 from the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) School of Medicine. He did his internship in general surgery and residency in orthopedic surgery at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Hospitals, where he joined the faculty in 1993. He returned to OHSU in 2001 as professor and chairman of orthopedics, and was recruited back to UNC in 2003.

He is relocating to Chicago with his spouse, Katie Koenig, an accomplished health care administrator, who will be associate vice president of strategic projects at the University of Chicago Medicine.

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Douglas Dirschl to Lead Orthopedics at the University of Chicago Medicine

Nobel medicine laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini, a neurologist and developmental biologist, died on Sunday at her home in Rome aged 103.

She was the oldest living Nobel laureate at the time of her death.

Levi-Montalcini shared the prize with colleague Stanley Cohen in 1986 for their ground-breaking discovery of growth factors.

The Nobel committee cited the pair for advancing "our knowledge from a stage when... growth factors were unknown, to a situation today when the role of growth factors in cell proliferation, organ differentiation, and tumour transformation is generally recognised."

Their work has helped understanding of such disorders as cancer, birth defects and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

Enjoying great affection and respect in Italy, Levi-Montalcini intervened to defend the teaching of evolution in schools when, in 2004, the then education minister, Letizia Moratti, wanted to remove it from the curriculum.

Born into a wealthy Jewish intellectual family in northern Turin in 1909, Levi-Montalcini was the daughter of an engineer and an artist.

In 2001, Italy's then president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi named Levi-Montalcini a senator for life, an honour bestowed on former presidents and prominent figures in social, scientific, artistic or literary fields.

In this role, she was the grand old lady of the Senate, taking pains to turn up for crucial votes in support of the Italian centre-left, even late in life when she was deaf and nearly blind.

In 2007 she cut short a trip to Dubai to help then prime minister Romano Prodi survive a confidence vote.

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Nobel medicine laureate Levi-Montalcini dies aged 103

A large population in India still believes that getting bitten by a dog leads to the birth of puppies inside human body. Medical experts say witch doctors are at the root of the bizarre myth.

When 18-year-old Shankari Mahato was bit by a dog in her village in West Midnapur district in the state of West Bengal last month, instead of going to a regular doctor, she went to a witch doctor in a neighbouring village.

The 70-year-old witch doctor Buddheswar Singh had the girl swallow some mysterious herbs mixed with yogurt and flattened rice, and assured her that she would not face any health complications due to the dog bite.

The 18-year-old girl said she went to the witch doctor because she knew his medicine would save her life.

"We know that if people are bit by dogs, puppies will be born inside their stomach. That leads to rabies and eventually death," she told DW. "The medicine the witch doctor gave me cured me completely."

Malati Mahato, Shankari's illiterate mother, said that she too had taken Mr. Singh's medicine after getting bitten by a dog 8 years ago and she was cured.

"In our village whenever someone gets bitten by a dog, the person is usually taken to Mr. Singh for treatment. We don't go to hospital or regular doctors. His medicine is life-saving," Malati told DW.

Superstition

The belief in the so-called "puppy pregnancy syndrome" (PPS) is prevalent among tens of thousands of people in West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and some other Indian states.

Psychiatrist Kumar Kanti Ghosh, who has researched PPS for almost two decades and helped document the phenomenon for an article in the medical journal Lancet in 2003, said a mass hysteria or group delusion was behind the superstitious belief of puppy pregnancy among illiterate or near-illiterate people.

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Medicine challenges Indian superstition

TAKE out your crystal ball for a peek in the future of modern medicine, and the picture that emerges is bright.

Science fiction is becoming fact as modern medicine embraces hi-tech advances, along with surgical, procedural and pharmaceutical developments that boost the power to save lives, and fight off a host of serious illnesses.

Its also true, though, that this "hymn of praise" is not the full picture. Medicine is increasingly being undermined by negative steps and doubts, a function in part of the relationship between doctors and drug companies that grows ever cosier, and which is proving to have an insidious effect on treatment guidelines.

Dr Eric Campbell is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School who has researched conflicts of interest in treatment guidelines, and is quoted as saying: "At the end of the day, the drug companies own medicine. Weve created a system that allows this."

That gives new meaning to the words of the late Austrian polymath, priest, polemicist and "jet-age ascetic", Ivan Illich.

Illich, who died of cancer in 2002, worked in 10 languages and is widely acknowledged as one of the worlds great thinkers on education and medicine.

He once declared that the medical establishment "has become a major threat to health", and that the "disabling impact of professional control over medicine has reached the proportions of epidemic".

Still, the reality is many diseases once deemed untreatable now have a close to 100% recovery rate, and medical scientific breakthroughs continue to change lives and life spans for the better.

In my view, the most positive sign of a healthy future for modern medicine is the rise of what is known as "functional medicine".

South African-born Dr Frank Lipman, who now lives and practises in the US, is already firmly on board. On his website (www.drfranklipman.com) he describes functional medicine as "a true combination of Chinese medicine, western medicine and scientific research".

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Peek into the natural future of functional medicine