March 2, 2012

Mayo Clinic in the News Weekly Highlights

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March 2, 2012

Mayo Clinic in the News is a weekly highlights summary of major media coverage. If you would like to be added to the weekly distribution list, send a note to Emily Blahnik with this subject line: SUBSCRIBE to Mayo Clinic in the News.

Thank you.

Karl Oestreich, manager enterprise media relations
oestreich.karl@mayo.edu

WDIO, 'Still Waiting': The Jessica Danielson Story – Part I
by Paige Calhoun

From streamers and cake to party hats and presents, it looks like an average birthday party. But this celebration is different. Jessica Danielson is celebrating her 30th Birthday. A birthday doctors said she would never have. "At the time, they told me that I actually had about three years, but it's been ten, so I've actually done pretty good."… She went to Mayo for a check-up. Once there, doctors dropped a bombshell. The lack of blood flow to her organs over the years had caused significant liver damage and now she needed not only a new heart, but a liver too."I got kind of terrified. I was like, 'I've been walking around not knowing how sick I was'."

WDIO Duluth, 'Still Waiting:' How Organ Transplants Work – Part II
by Paige Calhoun

"You can't wake up every day thinking, maybe it will happen today because you'll end up disappointed a lot." But the unknown isn't wearing on her today. Jessica Danielson is celebrating her milestone 30th birthday, and finding humor in her situation. As she opens presents with her family, she jokes that a candy heart is one of the organs she's been waiting for…Her liver has been damaged during the ten years her heart could not pump enough blood to her organs. Getting those transplants is not easy, or simple. The organs will have to come to Jessica. The nation is divided into regions, and Mayo only takes organs from nearby states such as Wisconsin, Illinois, and the Dakotas, if their patients don't need them.

Reach: WDIO-TV/10, Duluth, Minn. and WIRT-TV/13, Hibbing, Minn., are owned by Hubbard Broadcasting. WDIO has traditionally finished first in news ratings since it first went on the air in the mid 1960s. The station’s broadcast coverage is northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin.

Context: Naveen L. Pereira, M.D., Mayo Clinic Transplant Center and Manoj K. Jain, M.D., radiology, were interviewed for the two-part story on Jessica Danielson. Besides chronicling Jessica’s story, the piece was a good overview on the need for organs for patients who are waiting for transplants.  Mayo Clinic has one of the largest and most experienced transplant practices in the United States, with campuses in Minnesota, Arizona and Florida. Experts perform about 1,000 transplants a year. Doctors and surgeons at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota perform about 300 transplants a year.

Public Affairs Contacts: hanson.nicholas@mayo.edu, plumbo.ginger@mayo.edu

KCMO Radio, LIVE From Jasper's Kitchen

Mayo Clinic Chef Mark Beland is interviewed about fruits and vegetables, spices, herbs, gardening, salt, sugar, plate size, weight loss, etc…(Click on the podcast window on the right side of the page. His interview is the last 10 minutes, starting at about 050:08.)

Reach: KCMO-AM is a talk radio station in Kansas City, MO. Target audience is age 35-54. The station’s weekly listenership is 105,700 with 43% female and 57% male.

Context: Mark Beland is a Mayo Clinic chef in Rochester, Minn. He conducted a phone interview with the hosts of Jasper’s Kitchen Feb. 26.

Public Affairs Contacts: Theimer.sharon@mayo.edu, eisenman.rebecca@mayo.edu

MPR, Mayo's living lab learns real life lessons about aging

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have set up what they're calling a "living lab" to learn more about the effects of old age. The laboratory is part of the Healthy Aging and Independent Living Initiative, which tests strategies for extending the number of years that seniors live healthy, independent lives. U.S. Census data show that two-thirds of Minnesota counties have populations older than the national average. It is a trend that has broad implications for everything from the state's budget to health care. Molly McMahon, a designer for Mayo Clinic's Center for Innovation, wants to know how aging changes a person's life.

Reach: Minnesota Public Radio operates 43 stations and serves virtually all of Minnesota and parts of the surrounding states. MPR has more than 100,000 members and more than 900,000 listeners each week, which is the largest audience of any regional public radio network.

Context: Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation (CFI) announced a new “living lab” in 2011 within the Charter House, a continuing care retirement community in Rochester, Minn. Charter House has 400 residents and is physically located in Rochester and physically connected to Mayo Clinic. CFI is collaborating with the Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging and Charter House in creating the Healthy Aging & Independent Living (HAIL) Lab to support “aging in place” — helping seniors remain at home, healthy and independent. The HAIL Lab will be a place for focus groups, as well as for designing, prototyping and piloting new services and technologies with voluntary participation from residents of Charter House and other community agencies. The lab has a large common living area, nursing station, and four apartments — each with a bedroom, kitchen, den and bathroom.

Public Affairs Contact: westra.alaine@mayo.edu

Wall Street Journal Study Suggests a Link Between Sleeping Pills, Early Death
by Katherine Hobson

A new study suggests that people who take sleeping pills are more likely to die within a couple of years than those who don’t, though it doesn’t prove that the pills caused people to die before they otherwise would have. Outside experts say patients shouldn’t panic and toss their medications…But Virend Somers, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic who studies sleep and who wasn’t involved with the study, says that if there is a cause and effect relationship, it will likely take a randomized trial to convince doctors to change their prescribing habits. And such a study could be feasible, given the results seen in a short time frame in this study.

Circulation: The Wall Street Journal, a US-based newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company, is tops in newspaper circulation in America with an average circulation of 2 million copies on weekdays.

Additional coverage: MSN Health

Context: Virend Somers, M.D., Ph.D, is a Mayo Clinic cardiologist who is sought out regularly for his expert perspective.

Public Affairs Contact: klein.traci@mayo.edu

Wall Street Journal, Research Report: New Medical Findings
by Ann Lukits

ADHD Risk: Children who receive general anesthesia before age 2 may increase their chances of developing attention deficit disorder, according to research published in the Journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Circulation: The Wall Street Journal, a US-based newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company, is tops in newspaper circulation in America with an average circulation of 2 million copies on weekdays.

Context: This study was featured in the Wall Street Journal’s “The Research Report” column, which includes a round up of recently published research. Mayo Clinic researchers have found that multiple exposures to anesthesia at a young age are associated with higher rates of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Children exposed to two or more anesthetics before age 3 had more than double the incidence of ADHD than children who had no exposure, says David Warner, M.D., a Mayo Clinic pediatric anesthesiologist and investigator on the observational study. The findings were published in the Feb. 2 edition of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. A news release which features the research findings can be found here.

Public Affairs Contact: hanson.nicholas@mayo.edu

NY Times, Junior Hockey on Cusp of a Revolution: Trying to Stop Fighting
by John Branch

Viewing fighting as a safety issue in light of increasing concussion research and unwilling to wait for the National Hockey League to propose changes, USA Hockey and Hockey Canada are seriously considering rules that would effectively end fighting in nonprofessional leagues as soon as next season…USA Hockey’s chief medical director, Michael Stuart, has consistently argued that no serious move to minimize concussions in hockey can be made without reducing fighting. As if to demonstrate how complex and ingrained the issue is, one of Stuart’s sons, Mark, is a relatively frequent fighter for the N.H.L.’s Winnipeg Jets.

Circulation: The New York Times has the third highest circulation nationally, behind USA Today (2nd) and The Wall Street Journal (1st) with 1,150,589 weekday copies circulated and 1,645,152 circulated on Sundays.

Context: Michael Stuart,M.D., with an appointment in orthopedic surgery at Mayo Clinic, is a sports medicine expert.  He serves as Chief Medical Officer for USA Hockey, a consultant to the National Hockey League Players Association and is a member of the education committee of the International Ice Hockey Association. Dr. Stuart is routinely sought out by reporters for his expertise.

Public Affairs Contacts: anderson.bryan@mayo.edu, klein.traci@mayo.edu.

For more coverage of Mayo Clinic in the News, please link to our news clip blog here. 

Tags: Anesthesiology, Cardiology, Charter House, Dr. David Warner, Dr. Michael Stuart, Dr. Virend Somers, Facilities, Healthy Aging and Independent Living Initiative, Innovation (Center of), KCMO, Manoj K. Jain, Mark Beland, Mayo Clinic in the News, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Mayo Clinic Rochester, Mayo Clinic Transplant Center, Molly McMahon, MPR, Naveen L. Pereira, Pediatrics, Radiology, Research, Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging, Sleep Medicine, Sports Medicine, The New York Times, Transplant, USA Hockey, Wall Street Journal, WDIO, Wellness

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