CU Anschutz In The News

Dr. Joseph Simonetti, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, also emphasized that the study’s methodology was rigorous. And the findings from the study overall, he said, were straightforward: The easier it is to get to a gun, the higher the risk that a soldier may die by suicide. “The reality is that removing a firearm from a home is likely to be the safest thing someone can do to prevent suicide,” Simonetti said, “but [the study] provides some support that for those only willing to make safety changes within the home, such as locking their guns and leaving them unloaded, that can also reduce their suicide risk.”

“From a physician’s standpoint, this study shows the need to talk to patients in a non-judgmental way about cannabis,” Hillary Lum, a co-author of the Colorado study and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, said in a statement. “Doctors should also educate themselves about the risks and benefits of cannabis and be able to communicate that effectively to patients.”

The hospital room, on the eighth floor of the old Fitzsimons Army Medical Center on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora has been restored to look just as it did in 1955, when then-President Eisenhower was being treated there for seven weeks after a heart attack. Everything from his presidential dinnerware to the hospital's old medical equipment has been meticulously restored.

Four scientists from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora were selected as Boettcher Investigators class of 2019, giving them the distinction of the 10th class to be named. Each recipient will be guaranteed through the Boettcher Foundation’s Webb-Waring Biomedical Research Awards program a $235,000 grant to continue their research for up to three years. The four were among a total of seven investigators to become part of the class.

Colorado State University is joining forces with the University of Colorado School of Medicine to establish a medical school branch at the CSU Health and Medical Center in Fort Collins. The $59 million, 113,000-square-foot facility opened at the corner of College Avenue and Prospect Road in 2017, consolidating student medical, counseling and health education and prevention services in one building. The center offers services to faculty, staff, students and community members on its first through third floors.

“We were encouraging copycats. Now aren’t we encouraging heroic behavior?” said Dr. Steven Berkowitz, a psychologist at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora. Castillo and Howell at UNC Charlotte were young adults, but Berkowitz is concerned about the message received by young kids growing up in the lockdown generation. “These individuals were heroic, and there is nothing to take away from that,” he said. “That is not the question at hand. The question at hand is the unintentional message we are giving to kids that if they don’t rush a shooter and put their lives on the line, they are not doing what they are supposed to do. They won’t get the attention. They won’t get acknowledged. They won’t get the accolades.”

While the best prevention is to stay out of the sun, Coloradans love for the outdoors makes that impractical. Dr. Neil Box, a skin cancer researcher at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and one of the founders of the Colorado Melanoma Foundation, says the key is to cover up your exposed skin when you’re outside either with clothing or sunscreen.

To put it another way: “You’re slowly dying above 18,000 feet,” says Peter Hackett, a clinical professor in the University of Colorado School of Medicine’s Department of Pulmonary Sciences. “But when you get above 26,000 feet, you start dying much more quickly.”