A message from the Associate Dean for Diversity and Community Engagement

Diversity: the richness in human differences. Why is diversity important? A wide variety of experiences and points of view mean that we get to look at issues from all angles rather than just one. Inclusion: the active, intentional, and ongoing engagement with diversity. Why is inclusion important? It is not enough to have diversity - inclusion means that we value and cherish the wide variety of experiences and viewpoints. Creating and enhancing this environment is important as we set the stage to provide service to our most important customer - our patients. Since September 2013 when I was appointed as the Associate Dean for Diversity and Community Engagement, SKMC has greatly expanded our efforts in D & I. A wide range of activities have greatly enhanced the environment in which we educate our learners and care for our patients. SKMC has expanded its D & I successes

A Message from the Diversity Dean, Dr. Bernard Lopez

Welcome to the first newsletter from the Office of Diversity & Inclusion, intended to reach our students, residents, and faculty and spread awareness about diversity initiatives at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University

The Stress Factor: Exploring the Possibility of a Psychological Component to Cancer

As dwellers in the same house, it seems only logical that psyche and soma would be interdependent , that well-being in one would promote health in the other, and that illness in one would soon become manifest in its partner. Yet quantifying this intuitive relationship has long been a difficult task. Establishing a mechanism for disease-heart disease, infectious disease, neoplastic disease which can withstand the scrutiny of experimental rigor, is difficult enough. To introduce a seemingly not quantifiable entity such as psychology in the form of stress or anxiety presents such great complexity that for a long time it seemed that the relationship between mind and body would remain a purely speculative one

The karabus affair speaks to larger issues for american academic and medical centers.

Finally, on March 12, 2013, a major American newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, reported on the plight of Dr. Cyril Karabus (1,2). Dr. Karabus is the 78 year old pediatric oncologist from Claremont, Capetown, South Africa who is well known as the retired head of the Oncology and Hematology Unit of the Red Cross Children’s Hospital, University of Cape Town, as well as for his devoted service to poor children in the apartheid era. In 2002, he cared for a three-year old Yemeni girl with acute myelogenous leukemia during a locum tenens in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Outpatient Mineralocorticoid Receptor Antagonist Prescription Rate for Heart Failure

Aims for Improvement: Improve MRA prescription rate in the outpatient cardiology clinic by 25

Technology and Simulation to Improve Patient Safety.

Improving the quality and efficiency of surgical techniques, reducing technical errors in the operating suite, and ultimately improving patient safety and outcomes through education are common goals in all surgical specialties. Current surgical simulation programs represent an effort to enhance and optimize the training experience, to overcome the training limitations of a mandated 80-hour work week, and have the overall goal of providing a well-balanced resident education in a society with a decreasing level of tolerance for medical errors