September 20, 2013

Mayo Clinic in the News Weekly Highlights

By Karl Oestreich

 

 

September 20, 2013

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

NBC News
Mayo Clinic celebrates 1,000th cochlear implant

The Mayo Clinic celebrated the placement of its 1,000th cochlear implant over a 30 year span on Monday. Ritchie Hanson, 44, is the Minnesota man who received that landmark implant. He has neurofibromatosis type 2, a genetic disease that causes growth of noncancerous tumors in the nervous system.In his case, the tumors developed on the brain and nerves, which affected his hearing and balance. Eventually he lost total hearing when brain tumors had to be surgically removed from his auditory nerves.

Reach: NBC News Digital reaches an audience of more than 58 million unique visitors.

Additional Coverage:
KARE11, Mayo Clinic celebrates 1,000th cochlear implant
TWC Central

Context: For more than 30 years, cochlear implants have been making a profound impact in the lives of deaf or severely hard of hearing children and adults by restoring their ability to hear. The program at Mayo Clinic was one of the earliest in the country to offer cochlear implants to patients when they were first approved. This month, Mayo Clinic surgeons performed surgery on their 1,000th cochlear implant patient. The patient, a 44-year-old man from northern Minnesota, lost his hearing more than three months ago due to a medical condition; this week, he was able to hear sounds again.

"I think it might be impossible to overstate the profound impact that these devices have on people," says Colin Driscoll, M.D., an otolaryngologist at Mayo Clinic. "The first day you turn it on everyone is emotional. It's a scary time sometimes, but it's also an exciting time."

News Release: Mayo Clinic Celebrates 1,000th Patient to Get Cochlear Implant

Public Affairs Contact: Kelley Luckstein

NY Times
Medicine’s Search for Meaning
by David Bornstein

Today, almost 50 percent of doctors report symptoms of burnout — emotional exhaustion, low sense of accomplishment, detachment...“These high levels of distress, depression, loss of satisfaction, fatigue, and burnout have big repercussions for quality of care,” explains Dr. Tait Shanafelt, director of the Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine’s program on physician well-being. It leads to medical errors, substance abuse, and doctors quitting — something that a country with an aging population and a shortage of doctors can ill afford.

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: Dr. Shanafelt is the director of the Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine Program on Physician Well-being, a clinical laboratory evaluating personal and organizational factors that contribute to physician satisfaction. His research in this area has involved physicians at all stages of their career from medical school to practice had has include several multi-center and national studies. This research is intended to identify personal and organizational factors that can be modified in order to promote physician well-being and enhance the quality of care physicians deliver.

Public Affairs Contacts: Bob Nellis, Traci Klein

FOX11 Wis.
ThedaCare partners with Mayo Clinic

A major announcement today by one of the Fox Valley's largest healthcare providers. ThedaCare now has formal access to the Mayo Clinic which is part of the largest integrated medical center in the world in Rochester, Minnesota. The agreement will allow ThedaCare doctors and patients access to Mayo's two thousand doctors and scientists at the academic medical center. Dr. Robert Wilson has seen his fair share of difficult cardiology cases in his 22 years with ThedaCare. Wilson says having the resources of the doctors at the Mayo Clinic will benefit him and his patients.

Reach: WLUK-11 is the Fox affiliate which serves Green Bay-Appleton, Wisc.

Additional Coverage: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Oshkosh Northwestern, Appleton Post-Crescent, KOKH FOX25 Okla., WBAY Wis., WTAQ Wis., Fond du Lac Reporter, WeAreGreenBay.com, Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter, Post-Bulletin, Green Bay Press Gazette, Wisconsin Outdoor Fun, WBOC Md., Door County Advocate

Context: ThedaCare announced Sept. 17 that it is the newest member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network, giving ThedaCare specialist physicians direct access to Mayo Clinic experts and clinical resources, including eConsults and AskMayoExpert. These tools, among others, will enhance the support available to manage complex patient care. ThedaCare is the first member located in the state of Wisconsin.

Bill Fletcher, M.D., ThedaCare cardiologist and physician champion for the collaboration, sees many benefits to membership in the network.

"My colleagues and I provide excellent care here in the Fox Valley, but sometimes we are challenged with complex cases that could benefit from additional expertise," he says. "This network puts us in direct contact with peers, specialists and researchers at Mayo Clinic. They can review our diagnosis and offer us advice. Our patients can stay at home and receive care locally with even greater peace of mind, knowing that our physicians are working together on their behalf. Of course, they will also save the added cost and inconvenience of traveling out of the area unless that is really needed."

News Release: ThedaCare, Mayo Clinic Announce Collaboration

Public Affairs Contact: Bryan Anderson

Arizona Republic
Researchers, drug makers work to fight Alzheimer’s
by Ken Alltucker

For years, scientists and drug companies zeroed in on clumps of brain plaques as a trigger for Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists theorize that these clumps, known as beta amyloid plaques, crowd the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, killing nerve cells and scuttling memory and thinking… Some scientists now question whether amyloid is the correct target. “There really hasn’t been any clinical benefit,” said Dr. Richard Caselli, a professor of neurology at Mayo Clinic in Arizona. Tests showed that some drugs could clear amyloid plaques, “but lo and behold, the dementia continues to progress and people continue to die.”

Circulation: The Arizona Republic reaches 1.1 million readers every Sunday. The newspaper’s website Arizona Central, averages 83 million pages views each month.

Additional Coverage: USA TodayThe Town Talk, Baxter Bulletin, Cincinnati Inquirer, Fort Collins Coloradoan, Green Bay Press Gazette, Tucson Citizen

Context: Dr. Richard Caselli is a neurologist at Mayo Clinic in Arizona. His research focuses on cognitive aging and the changes that can be detected before the symptomatic onset of memory loss and related symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

Public Affairs Contact: Jim McVeigh

Star Tribune
Boomers' embrace of devices gives rise to new med-tech age
by James Walsch

…Hundreds of thousands of Americans are receiving medical devices that were once considered nearly exclusive to the elderly. The shift is profoundly changing patient care and expanding the fortunes of the medical-technology industry while amplifying concerns over the safety and oversight of some products.…To get active again — and quickly — patients are more willing to consider joint replacement at a younger age than they were a decade ago, said Dr. Daniel Berry, chairman of orthopedic surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

Circulation: The Star Tribune Sunday circulation is 518,745 copies and weekday circulation is 300,277. The Star Tribune is the state’s largest newspaper and ranks 16th nationally in circulation.

Context: Daniel Berry, M.D. chairs the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Specialists in orthopedic surgery at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota diagnose and treat disorders of bones, joints, ligaments, tendons, muscles and nerves (the musculoskeletal system) in children and adults. The Department of Orthopedic Surgery comprises a multispecialty group of surgical, research and clinical doctors and scientists who care for more than 80,000 people annually. Subspecialties within the department include adult reconstruction, pediatrics, sports, trauma, spine, foot, hand, shoulder, elbow, oncology and impairment evaluation.

Public Affairs Contact: Traci Klein

MedCity News
How can the human genome map help you right now? Mayo Clinic lists 10 ways

I don’t think I’ve ever (in 20+ years of writing) reprinted a press release verbatim. Often I don’t even get to the end of them because of all the PR speak. However, today the Mayo Clinic sent out this list. It is concise, compelling and I can’t think of any way to improve it.

Reach: MedCity News is a news syndicate that provides coverage of the medical industry and economic issues. The target audience of MedCity News is the Cleveland-area medical industry. This includes health care investors, medical students, researchers, medical businesses and entrepreneurs, hospital executives and physicians. Its website has more than 58,000 unique visitors each month.

Context: Better diagnoses, earlier interventions, more-efficient drug therapies, customized treatment plans. These are the promises of personalized medicine. Individualized or personalized medicine provides a genomic blueprint to determine each person's unique disease susceptibility, define preventive measures and enable targeted therapies to promote wellness. Mayo Clinic has provided personalized medicine to every one of its patients for nearly 150 years. But in recent years, advances in genomic and clinical science have created innovative opportunities to further tailor health care to each patient. The Center for Individualized Medicine at Mayo Clinic is taking the practice of personalized medicine and applying it to the entire spectrum of health care using sophisticated methods of genomic sequencing and molecular analysis.

News Release: Mayo Clinic: 10 Ways the Human Genome Can Affect Diagnosis and Treatment in Health

Public Affairs Contact: Bob Nellis

Post-Bulletin
Federal dollars support emerging science at Mayo Clinic
by Jeff Hansel

Mayo Clinic has been awarded $8.8 million in a grant from the National Institutes of Health for a new Rochester campus metabolomics center. Trip up on the pronunciation of metabolomics?...Mayo Clinic Dr. K. Sreekumaran Nair said Mayo is one of six metabolomics centers nationally to receive NIH grant funding to push the relatively new field of study forward. It's not like you can give a blood sample and get a clear answer with metabolomics — yet.

Circulation: The Post-Bulletin has a weekend readership of nearly 45,000 people and daily readership of more than 41,000 people. The newspaper serves Rochester, Minn., and southeast Minnesota.

Context: Mayo Clinic is one of six new federally-funded Comprehensive Metabolomics (met-ah-bol-OH-mics) Centers to support medical research on metabolomics — the study, at the cellular level, of how molecules are metabolized in the body. The award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is for $8.8 million over five years. "It is certainly an honor to be selected as one of the six national centers which will serve as resources for universities and other research institutions. This offers a tremendous opportunity for Mayo Clinic to be a national leader in this emerging research area," says K. Sreekumaran Nair, M.D., Ph.D., Mayo Clinic endocrinologist and principal investigator on the grant, as well as head of Mayo's Comprehensive Metabolomics Core facility.

News Release: Mayo Clinic Receives $8.8 Million Federal Grant for Metabolomics Center

Public Affairs Contact: Bob Nellis

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Tags: alzheimer's disease, Appleton, Appleton Post-Crescent, Arizona Republic, baby boom, baby boomers, Baxter Bulletin, Bob Nellis, Bryan Anderson, Cincinnati Inquirer, cochlear implants, Door County Advocate, Dr. Bill Fletcher, Dr. Colin Driscoll, Dr. Daniel Berry, Dr. K. Sreekumaran Nair, Dr. Richard Caselli, Dr. Tait Shanafelt, Eagan, ENT, ENT, Fond du Lac Reporter, Fort Collins Coloradoan, Fox Valley, FOX11, Genome, Genomics, Green Bay, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Jay Alva, Jim McVeigh, Kelley Luckstein, KOKH FOX25 Okla., Manitowoc Herald Times Reporter, Mayo Clinic, Mayo Clinic Arizona, Mayo Clinic Care Network, Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine Program on Physician Well-Being, Mayo Clinic in Arizona, Mayo Clinic in the News, Mayo Clinic Rochester, Mayo's Comprehensive Metabolomics Core facility, Medical devices, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Minneapolis-St. Paul, National institutes of Health, NBC, nbcnews.com. KARE11, Neurology, New York Times, NIH, orthopedic surgery, Orthopedics, Oshkosh Northwestern, otolaryngologist, physician burn out, physician fatigue, Post Bulletin, Ritchie Hanson, Star Tribune, The Center for Individualized Medicine at Mayo Clinic, The Town Talk, ThedaCare, Traci Klein, Tucson Citizen, TWC Central, Twin Cities, USA Today, WBAY Wis., WBOC Md., WeAreGreenBay.com, Wisconsin Outdoor Fun, WLUK-11, WTAQ Wis.

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