First Listen: Medicine, 'Home Everywhere'

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Medicine's new album, Home Everywhere, comes out Oct. 28. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

Medicine's new album, Home Everywhere, comes out Oct. 28.

For a brief moment, Brad Laner's band Medicine seemed to encapsulate the '90s. Signed first to Creation Records and then to Rick Rubin's American Recordings, the shoegaze-y L.A. rock group made a cameo appearance onstage in the 1994 superhero noir The Crow, featuring Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser in a dark yet dreamy pop song. But by the next year, Medicine had disbanded and seemed it might be relegated to a mere footnote in music history.

But in the 21st century, Brad Laner's band is au courant once again. Medicine's first two albums got a recent reissue, just as many new bands Diiv, Wild Nothing, Yuck, Tame Impala were drawing on the smeared melodies and feedbacking guitars of early-'90s alt-rock. Now a trio of Laner, Elizabeth Thompson and Jim Goodall, Medicine released its first album in 18 years (2013's To The Happy Few), played Austin's Psych Fest and a few other gigs, and holed up to work on Home Everywhere.

The noise that once defined Medicine's songs remains intact after two decades; just listen to how the guitars roar to life in "Move Along Down The Road." But Medicine also lets that noise swirl about at the fringes and pop up at surprising moments. Gleeful opener "The Reclaimed Girl" has its guitars flash amid some upright piano before widening into white noise at the song's climax. The slow, piano-led "It's All About You" lets the fuzz flare up and kick the song to a higher gear, while elsewhere a droning trombone gets thrown into the mix.

An 11-minute suite, the title track serves as Medicine's most ambitious song to date. "Home Everywhere" contains lyrical references to the likes of Big Star and even its L.A. brethren, as well as a lilting Brazilian rhythm to the opening section, before shrieking feedback and sleigh bells overtake the song which then drops back into a gentle chorale of voices cooing, "Waiting here for you." A new beat and new levels of fuzz move in, at which point "Home Everywhere" floats even farther out into the psychedelic ether. Medicine may be decades removed from its debut, but its renaissance continues to yield new wrinkles.

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First Listen: Medicine, 'Home Everywhere'

Vikram Patel receives Institute of Medicine's 2014 Sarnat Prize

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

20-Oct-2014

Contact: Jennifer Walsh news@nas.edu 202-334-2138 National Academy of Sciences

WASHINGTON -- The Institute of Medicine today awarded the 2014 Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health to Vikram Patel, professor of international mental health and Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and at the Public Health Foundation of India. Patel led research that has played a central role in the development of the field of global mental health and improved care for those with mental disorders in resource-poor countries. The prize recognizes Patel's achievements with a medal and a $20,000 award.

"Through his research, Vikram Patel not only brought a largely unacknowledged problem mental health disorders in developing nations into the view of the world's policymakers and health care organizations, he has also identified and advanced practical solutions to help those who are suffering," said Victor Dzau, president of the Institute of Medicine.

Patel conducted groundbreaking epidemiological research that revealed the burden of mental disorders in low- and middle-income nations and showed a strong link between mental disorders and poverty. His research also demonstrated that evidence-based treatments for mental illness can be delivered effectively in these countries by non-specialist health care workers. Much of this work was carried out in collaboration with Sangath, a nonprofit organization in India. Patel played a lead role in synthesizing evidence that has shaped the foundation of the field of global mental health and promoted its dissemination by editing key journal series and textbooks that form the basis of teaching and practice in the field.

Patel's research has galvanized policymakers and donors to address the large unmet need for mental health care in developing countries and promoted practical tools to improve care in areas where mental health specialists are lacking. His 2003 manual "Where There Is No Psychiatrist" has been used by community health workers worldwide and has been translated into over a dozen languages.

Since 1992 the Institute of Medicine has presented the Sarnat Prize to individuals, groups, or organizations that have demonstrated outstanding achievement in improving mental health. The annual prize recognizes without regard for professional discipline or nationality achievements in basic science, clinical application, and public policy that lead to progress in the understanding, etiology, prevention, treatment, or cure of mental disorders, or to the promotion of mental health. As defined by the nominating criteria, the field of mental health encompasses neuroscience, psychology, social work, nursing, psychiatry, and advocacy, among other disciplines.

The award is supported by an endowment created by Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat of Los Angeles. Rhoda Sarnat is a licensed clinical social worker, and Bernard Sarnat is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon and researcher. The Sarnats' concern about the destructive effects of mental illness inspired them to establish the award. Nominations for potential recipients are solicited every year from IOM members, mental health professionals, and others. This year's selection committee was chaired by Anne Petersen, research professor, Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan, and founder and president of the Global Philanthropy Alliance. Additional information on the Sarnat Prize can be found at http://www.iom.edu/sarnat.

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Vikram Patel receives Institute of Medicine's 2014 Sarnat Prize

Institute of Medicine names 4 Anniversary Fellows for 2014

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

20-Oct-2014

Contact: Jennifer Walsh news@nas.edu 202-334-2138 National Academy of Sciences @NAS_news

WASHINGTON -- The Institute of Medicine has selected four outstanding health professionals for the class of 2014 Institute of Medicine Anniversary Fellows. Chosen from excellent groups of nominees, they were selected based on their professional qualifications, reputations as scholars, professional accomplishments, and relevance of current field expertise to the work of the Institute of Medicine (IOM). The fellows will collaborate with eminent researchers, policy experts, and clinicians from across the country. They will help facilitate initiatives convened by the IOM to provide nonpartisan, evidence-based guidance to national, state, and local policymakers, academic leaders, health care administrators, and the public.

The class of 2014 IOM Anniversary Fellows is:

Each fellow will continue in his or her primary academic post while engaging part time over a two-year period in IOM's health and science policy work. Each will work with an IOM board and an expert study committee or roundtable related to his or her professional interests, including contributing to its reports or other products. A flexible research stipend of $25,000 will be awarded to every fellow.

The overall purpose of the IOM Anniversary Fellows Program, created in 2005 to celebrate IOM's 35th anniversary, is to enable talented, early career health science scholars to participate actively in the work of the IOM and to further their careers as future leaders in the field.

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Established in 1970 under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine provides independent, objective, evidence-based advice to policymakers, health professionals, the private sector, and the public. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies.

Contacts: Jennifer Walsh, Senior Media Relations Officer Chelsea Dickson, Media Relations Associate Office of News and Public Information 202-334-2138; e-mail news@nas.edu http://national-academies.com/newsroom Twitter: @NAS_news and @NASciences RSS feed: http://www.nationalacademies.org/rss/index.html

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Institute of Medicine names 4 Anniversary Fellows for 2014

Can a bodys own stem cells help heal a heart?

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If you skin your knee, your body makes new skin. If you donate a portion of your liver, whats left will grow back to near-normal size. But if you lose a billion heart cells during a heart attack, only a small fraction of those will be replaced. In the words of Ke Cheng, an associate professor of regenerative medicine at N.C. State, The hearts self-repair potency is very limited.

Cheng has designed a nanomedicine he hopes will give the heart some help. It consists of an engineered nanoparticle that gathers the bodys own self-repair cells and brings them to the injured heart tissue.

In this case, the self-repair cells are adult stem cells. A stem cell is a very rich biological factory, Cheng said. Stem cells can become heart muscle, or they can produce growth factors that are beneficial to the regrowth of heart muscle.

After a heart attack, dying and dead heart cells release chemical signals that alert stem cells circulating in the blood to move to the injured site. But there just arent very many stem cells in the bloodstream, and sometimes they are not sufficiently attracted to the injured tissue.

Matchmakers with hooks

The nanomedicine Cheng designed consists of an iron-based nanoparticle festooned with two different kinds of hooks one kind of hook grabs adult stem cells, and the other kind of hook grabs injured heart tissue. Cheng calls the nanomedicine a matchmaker, because it brings together cells that can make repairs with cells that need repairs.

The hooks are antibodies that seek and grab certain types of cells. Because the antibodies are situated on an iron nanoparticle, they and the stem cells theyve grabbed can be physically directed to the heart using an external magnet. Cheng calls the nanomedicine MagBICE, for magnetic bifunctional cell engager.

The magnet is a first pass to get the iron-based particles and antibodies near the heart. Once there, the antibodies are able to identify and stick to the injured heart tissue, bringing the stem cells right where they need to go. Using two methods of targeting the magnet and the antibodies improves the chances of being able to bring a large number of stem cells at the site of injury.

In addition to providing a way to physically move the stem cells to the heart, the iron nanoparticles are visible on MRI machines, which allows MagBICE to be visualized after its infused into the bloodstream.

Cheng doesnt foresee much toxicity from the nanomedicine unless someone is allergic or particularly sensitive to iron. In fact, the iron-based nanoparticle that forms the platform for the antibodies is an FDA-approved IV treatment for anemia.

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Can a bodys own stem cells help heal a heart?

Linda Aiken receives Institute of Medicine's 2014 Lienhard Award

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

20-Oct-2014

Contact: Jennifer Walsh news@nas.edu 202-334-2138 National Academy of Sciences

WASHINGTON -- The Institute of Medicine today presented the Gustav O. Lienhard Award to Linda Aiken, Claire M. Fagin Leadership Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, for her rigorous research demonstrating the importance of nursing care and work environments in achieving safe, effective, patient-centered, and affordable health care. Consisting of a medal and $40,000, the award recognizes Aiken's research documenting that nurses' education, patient workloads, and work environment are associated with patient outcomes, as well as her work to translate those findings into practice and policy in the U.S. and other nations.

"By illuminating the key role nursing care plays in patient safety and health and identifying concrete ways to support that role such as maintaining staffing levels and encouraging high levels of education for nurses Linda Aiken has made tremendous contributions to the quality of health care here and abroad," said Victor Dzau, president of the Institute of Medicine.

Aiken's pioneering research showed that nurse staffing differences were an important factor in whether patients with serious complications could be "rescued" and discharged from the hospital. She found that each patient added to a nurse's workload was associated with a 7 percent increase in the odds of mortality after common surgical procedures. Her research influenced the determination of state-mandated nurse-to-patient ratios in California hospitals and prompted other states to require public reporting about these ratios in hospitals.

In other groundbreaking research, Aiken demonstrated that a better-educated nurse workforce is associated with better patient outcomes, a finding that has impacted the quality of health care by significantly increasing the number of nurses with at least a bachelor's degree (BSN). Aiken documented that each 10 percent increase in the proportion of bedside care nurses with BSN degrees was associated with a 5 percent to 7 percent decline in risk-adjusted mortality in patients. She established a causal link between increased employment of BSNs and lower mortality in hospitals over time, giving hospital leaders confidence that investments in BSNs will yield value to their organizations. Based largely on Aiken's research, the IOM Committee on the Future of Nursing recommended that 80 percent of U.S. nurses hold a BSN by 2020. Her subsequent research in other countries influenced the European Parliament's decision in 2013 to recommend university education for nurses in the European Union.

Aiken also pioneered empirical study of how the organizational context of clinical practice affects patient outcomes. She demonstrated that many promising strategies to improve care quality and patient safety do not have their intended results because poor work environments disrupt clinicians' adherence to best practices. As president of the American Academy of Nursing in 1979, Aiken led the search for evidence-based interventions to improve clinical work environments, a search that resulted in the successful development of a voluntary accreditation program, Magnet Recognition. Aiken's extensive research documenting the superior outcomes for Magnet hospitals has prompted wider use of the Magnet intervention, an evidence-based cluster of management practices. Nearly 10 percent of the nation's hospitals have achieved Magnet status, a marker of quality now used by Leapfrog and U.S. News and World Report in rankings of health care institutions.

Aiken is the 29th recipient of the Lienhard Award. Given annually, the award recognizes outstanding national achievement in improving personal health care services in the United States. Nominees are eligible for consideration without regard to education or profession, and award recipients are selected by a committee of experts convened by the IOM. This year's selection committee was chaired by Claire Pomeroy, president of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation.

The Lienhard Award is funded by an endowment from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Gustav O. Lienhard was chair of the foundation's board of trustees from the organization's establishment in 1971 to his retirement in 1986 a period in which the foundation moved to the forefront of American philanthropy in health care. Lienhard, who died in 1987, built his career with Johnson & Johnson, beginning as an accountant and retiring 39 years later as its president. Additional information about the Lienhard Award can be found at http://www.iom.edu/lienhard.

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Linda Aiken receives Institute of Medicine's 2014 Lienhard Award

Institute of Medicine honors members for outstanding service

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

20-Oct-2014

Contact: Jennifer Walsh news@nas.edu 202-334-2138 National Academy of Sciences

WASHINGTON -- The Institute of Medicine (IOM) honored members Dan G. Blazer and Richard B. Johnston Jr. for their outstanding service during the IOM's 44th annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Blazer received the Walsh McDermott Medal, awarded to an IOM member for distinguished service over an extended period. Blazer has served on three IOM boards, two of which he chaired. He currently chairs the Board on the Health of Select Populations and a new ad hoc committee on the public health dimensions of cognitive aging. He has been a member of 16 study committees, six of which he chaired, and four advisory committees. Blazer has seen nine IOM studies through the review phase and also served as a member and chair of the IOM Membership Committee. His acumen as a physician, epidemiologist, and researcher, especially pertaining to mental health in older populations, is well-leveraged and recognized both inside and outside of the IOM. He has served as president of the American Geriatrics Society, the Psychiatric Research Society, and the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry. Blazer's consummate epidemiological skills have helped guide several key advisory committees, and his knowledge in the fields of geriatrics and psychiatry made him an ideal chair for the Committee on the Mental Health Workforce for Geriatric Populations. Blazer's extensive work on behalf of military service members and veterans demonstrates how his concern for these populations extends beyond his scientific interests. As a member and chair of the IOM's health outcomes subgroup of the Committee on the Assessment of Readjustment Needs of Military Personnel, Veterans, and their Family Members, his clear focus, leadership, and commitment to detail enabled that group to accomplish their goals and contribute to the overall mission of the committee. Blazer knows how to get the best out of expert volunteers by listening well and leading with competence, compassion, and integrity. Blazer is the J.P. Gibbons Professor of Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center.

Johnston received the David Rall Medal, which is given to an IOM member who has demonstrated distinguished leadership as chair of a study committee or other such activity, showing commitment above and beyond the usual responsibilities of the position. From 1992 to 2001 Johnston chaired a series of committees and participated in vaccine safety activities on the Board of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. This placed him at the center of the vaccine safety controversies that were particularly heated at that time. Working to bring a science base to the study of the adverse effects of vaccines is fraught with challenges, especially dealing with the emotions involved in this debate. Johnston consistently exhibited knowledge of and belief in the IOM process, delivering messages with confidence that science will show the way and empathy to diffuse difficult situations. While in a public workshop to discuss the issue, Johnston deftly addressed the concerns of key stakeholders. He expressed concern for a grieving parent while neither endorsing this individual's beliefs about vaccines nor overstating current scientific knowledge, confronted a controversial researcher who claimed the IOM was treating him badly, and defended the committees' work to fellow scientists. His consistent message: It is important to hear all sides while understanding that all sides are not equally grounded in the evidence from a scientific standpoint. These situations could have easily escalated and undermined what the IOM was trying to accomplish -- bringing science to bear on an important and controversial policy problem. However, Johnston's open, honest, sensitive, and caring leadership led to a relative level of trust and peace during this turbulent period. Johnston is the Associate Dean for Research Development and professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

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Established in 1970 under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine provides independent, objective, evidence-based advice to policymakers, health professionals, the private sector, and the public. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies.

Contacts: Jennifer Walsh, Senior Media Relations Officer Chelsea Dickson, Media Relations Associate Office of News and Public Information 202-334-2138; e-mail news@nas.edu http://national-academies.com/newsroom Twitter: @NAS_news and @NASciences RSS feed: http://www.nationalacademies.org/rss/index.html

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Institute of Medicine honors members for outstanding service

Peter Amenta, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Med. School on Implementing an EHR & Revenue Cycle Billing – Video

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Peter Amenta, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Med. School on Implementing an EHR Revenue Cycle Billing
Peter Amenta, Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a speaker at the marcus evans National Healthcare CFO Summit 2014 discussed ...

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Peter Amenta, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Med. School on Implementing an EHR & Revenue Cycle Billing - Video

Importance of Early Intervention – Youth Anxiety Center – Video

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Importance of Early Intervention - Youth Anxiety Center
In the summer of 2013, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in association with its medical school affiliates, Weill Cornell Medical College and Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, created...

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Importance of Early Intervention - Youth Anxiety Center - Video

Timing of Inguinal Hernia Repair in Premature Babies UTHealth – Video

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Timing of Inguinal Hernia Repair in Premature Babies UTHealth
The problem we are addressing in the HIP Trial is the lack of knowledge regarding whether IH repair in premature infants who are diagnosed while in the NICU is more safely performed, for the...

By: UTHealth Medical School

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Timing of Inguinal Hernia Repair in Premature Babies UTHealth - Video

Alamon: Head and heart, heart and mind

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IN THE past couple of days, I have had the interesting but schizoprenic experience of straddling two seemingly separate worlds engaged in the same task of knowledge production.

Just over the weekend, I was at General Santos City to attend the annual Philippine Sociological Society Conference. It was a happy occasion for a community of practitioners engaged in problematizing social realities to come together and discuss developments in the discipline.

Yesterday (October 20), I was at the launching of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines book Kidlap: A Selection on their experiences working with the lumads and the rural poor in Northern Mindanao. The RMP represents a unique community among the religious and laity who are engaged in the same task of confronting the same social realities -- albeit with divergent methods and shockingly difficult results.

I cannot help but contemplate on the differences of these two worlds. Sociologys history in the country cannot be divorced from the benevolent assimilation goals of our colonial masters and the kind of academic work that is still dominant in various universities in the country still take their cue from the contemporary currents in the field from abroad. The language within the discipline remains steep in positivist science -- a belief that what is knowable about the world, are the only things that can be measured.

There is also a parallel development among young sociologists who have turned their backs on the modern traditions of the discipline and instead adopt the pessimism emanating from the so-called post-political condition. They actually represent the mirror-image of the positivist sociologist who argue that what is true is what is measurable but this time around, they eschew truths completely and suspend themselves in an esoteric language whose hallmark is a deep political agnosticism and undecidability.

The result of these tendencies within the discipline of Sociology is a myopic appreciation of the truth as is the case with positivists and the failure to recognize the enduring social truths of our time as is the case among those who align themselves with the postmodern persuasion. Both fortify Sociologys place in the ivory tower of the academe divorced from the realities of our time that of systemic human suffering and the systemic ways of social movements to end it.

I am glad that within the discipline there are also those who are aware of Sociologys limitations and have sought to free themselves from the blinders that university culture imposes. They are often the pariahs of the discipline, they are denied tenure, or expunged to the margins of academic life. But for this set, these trappings of academic careerism are not the goals of doing sociological work. And their inspiration are not the heralded erudite professors in the field or their fidelity to positivist method, but those who are beyond the walls of the ivory tower yet engage in bravely confronting harsh social realities and seek ways to change it.

I believe that the work that Rural Missionaries of the Philippines does as documented in the book Kidlap that was launched yesterday, together with those that stand with them in the social movement to end human suffering, represent groups that actually live out the ideals of Sociology as an emancipatory discipline even if they do not recognize themselves as sociologists. In fact, I am even brave enough to argue that they are doing more relevant sociological work than most of us who are in the field.

Driven by Christian compassion instead of the indexical parameters ingrained in academic work, they brave state persecution and dangerous working conditions to know the truth among the poorest of the poor and the most historically marginalized - the lumads of Mindanao. More importantly, they empower these communities through their livelihood programs and alternative schools without eliding the issue of historical injustice and the system that similarly victimizes the peasants, workers, moros, women and children in this benighted land of ours.

What I bring with me in my own sociological work after editing the book the said book is the intellectual and should I say spiritual reward as I turn to organizations like RMP and the work they do for inspiration. They prove to me that there need not be a dichotomy between head and heart, heart and mind. That in our shared drive to understand the painful realities of our times, compassion towards others particularly the poorest of the poor is an illuminating resource.

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Alamon: Head and heart, heart and mind