As new COVID-19 booster shots hit pharmacies and doctor offices this month, health care professionals say it’s as important as ever to keep up with the vaccine that can prevent serious illness, hospitalization, and death from the coronavirus.
Community Awareness Mental Health
As one of the leading causes of death in the United States, suicide has likely touched the lives of many people in some way. For nearly 50 years, National Suicide Prevention Week has served to raise awareness of this critical issue, increase empathy and knowledge, and break the stigma around mental health.
Research Community COVID-19 Vaccinations
As a longtime researcher of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), Eric Simões, MD, was gratified in August when clinical trials he led at the University of Colorado School of Medicine received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval for Pfizer’s new RSV vaccine for use during late pregnancy.
September is Healthy Aging Month, making it an opportune time to spotlight the latest recommendations on keeping your mind and body fit as you grow older.
Getting released from jail can be a lonely, isolating experience. With release dates often unknown until they happen, and virtually no formal support systems in place for those released from jail as they reenter the community, many must navigate their new world alone. It’s no wonder that the risk of death becomes dramatically higher in the two weeks after jail release — from causes including suicide, homicide, overdose, and cardiac events.
Community Health equity Advancement
Revised blood donation rules that do away with a rule that defers men who have sex with men (MSM) to abstain from sex for three months prior to donating blood are beginning to be implemented into blood banks throughout the country.
Has the number of people in the U.S. with anxiety disorders increased since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, or did the widespread awareness of mental health issues during the health crisis prompt more people to seek help for their anxiety problems?
Denver-area magazine 5280 released its list of top doctors for 2023, and CU School of Medicine faculty members continue to be ranked among the best. Congratulations to the more than 200 CU School of Medicine faculty members honored with the title "Top Doctor."
One-hundred and eighty-four aspiring physicians officially began their journey at the University of Colorado School of Medicine on July 28, gathering on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus for the annual Matriculation Ceremony where they officially received their white coats. The annual tradition at medical schools around the country welcomes new classes of medical students to the profession.
We are honored to introduce the University of Colorado School of Medicine Class of 2027 at our annual Matriculation Ceremony on Friday, July 28, at 9 a.m.
Not long ago he was an aspiring professional boxer. Now, as an incoming student at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Jack Drummond is taking on a new kind of fight — a fight against disease and for patients as he begins his medical education.
Brisa Avila, who officially begins her medical student journey later this month, envisions a career in medicine where she can fill gaps in care, especially for underserved patients. Avila, along with 183 classmates, will officially receive their white coats on Friday, July 28, during the University of Colorado School of Medicine annual Matriculation Ceremony.
It’s a concert that many will want to remember forever, but some Eras Tour attendees say that they can’t recall parts of the three-hour jam-packed show orchestrated by pop star Taylor Swift. Even though they were there, singing along at the top of their lungs and recording songs on their phones, some memories seem to have disappeared.
Children’s Hospital Colorado, which is affiliated with the University of Colorado School of Medicine, is once again ranked among the best children’s hospitals in the country by U.S. News & World Report.
Research Community Public Health Obesity
The diet a mother consumes while pregnant may increase the risk for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in the offspring, new research shows.
Research Community Pediatric Cancer
Some of the most profound insights into finding hope amid an advanced cancer diagnosis came at 1 a.m. in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) for Robert Bennett, PhD, a post-doctoral fellow in palliative care and aging research in the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
Research Community Equity Diversity and Inclusion
Olivia Rissland, PhD, is seeing her research through different eyes these days.
Former first lady Michelle Obama is the co-founder of PLEZi Nutrition, a new company developing a line of healthy foods and beverages aimed at children. The company recently rolled out its first product, a line of drinks with significantly less sugar and more fiber than soda or other juice drinks.
Education Community Students Graduation
After a medical school experience mostly shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Class of 2023 graduates from the University of Colorado School of Medicine are ready to take the next step into their profession.
Education Community Students Graduation
It is with great pleasure that we celebrate the University of Colorado School of Medicine Class of 2023 with a hooding and oath ceremony on Monday, May 22, at 10:15 a.m.
Education Community Students Cancer Graduation
Steve Haberkorn knows he’s not the first person to pursue a career in medicine out of a desire to help people. That’s why he did it, though – to help where he can and work to improve people’s lives.
Education Community Students Graduation
Not many love stories begin in the cadaver lab at 4 a.m., but this one does.
Marlie Fisher, PhD, and Matt Svalina, PhD, had just started their MD/PhD program in the University of Colorado School of Medicine and were learning, in those first several months, that something would have to give if they were going to balance graduate core courses with human anatomy lab.
Education Community Students Graduation
For Bianca Sanchez, the ideas of medicine and family are inextricably intertwined.
Community Awareness Mental Health
In many ways, the increased awareness that social media have brought to mental health is positive – people are more willing to name and discuss feelings and experiences that had long been locked away in silence and, sometimes, shame.
Education Community Students Graduation
There’s a soft spot in Brenda La’s heart for tight knit communities.
The soon-to-be graduate has found herself wrapped up in them from the remote reaches of rural Alaska to the groups of students she has met during her time at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
Sixty-five-year-old actor and comedian Ray Romano revealed recently that he had a heart stent placed after doctors discovered a blockage in one of the arteries that delivers blood to the heart. Stents are small tubes that open arteries to restore blood flow.
Mark Myerson, MD, was ready to get out of his comfort zone.
Myerson had built a successful foot and ankle surgery clinic on the East Coast, and he enjoyed his relationships with his patients, but it had all come to feel a little routine. The times he felt most inspired as a surgeon were when he traveled to other countries as part of humanitarian medical missions, providing treatments to patients with severe foot and ankle deformities who didn’t have the same immediate access to care as the patients Myerson saw in the U.S.
Community Advocacy Palliative care
One of life’s greatest certainties is its uncertainty – that the unexpected, unplanned, and unpredicted may happen and we do the best we can to handle it.
Imagine knowing of a technology that can improve surgical outcomes, but not having access to it or a way to implement it even if it was available. That was the unique challenge that Colby Simmons, DO, MBA, found himself in as an America Society of Anesthesiologists Global Humanitarian Outreach Scholar in Uganda during his third year of residency at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 2017.
Community Equity Diversity and Inclusion
As a medical student interested in a career in dermatology, Nneamaka Ezekwe, MD, quickly realized that the textbooks — particularly the collections of images of various skin conditions known as atlases — didn’t include photos of people with skin like hers.
Audrey Bergouignan, PhD, isn’t looking for people with obesity to start running marathons. She just wants them to walk across the room.
They are going to Pittsburgh and Providence, to Omaha and Oakland, to Santa Barbara and St. Louis. They will learn to be doctors at Travis Air Force Base, at Cedars Sinai Medical Center, at the Mayo Clinic.
When music and fashion superstar Rihanna took the stage at Sunday night’s Academy Awards to perform her Oscar-nominated song “Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” the moment was memorable for many reasons.
Research Community Data analysis
For many, a necessary but often frustrating step in accessing health care services is determining whether a provider is in their health plan network.
For medical students, Match Day is the culmination of many years of commitment, hard work, and sacrifice as they discover the next phase of their journey to becoming future physicians.
For fans of the hit HBO show “The Last of Us,” Sunday night’s season one finale may answer longstanding questions or leave them hanging with many more until season two.
One or two different answers on a middle school career quiz, and Nikolai Harroun might have become a dolphin trainer instead of a doctor.
Community Mental Health Medicine
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which held that the U.S. Constitution does not confer the right to an abortion, health care providers across the United States immediately began adapting to a continually shifting health care landscape.
It’s amazing the things you can learn on YouTube.
Because she was taking big steps on an unknown and sometimes difficult path – the first in her family to pursue a medical career – Brissa Mundo-Santacruz often turned to YouTube for guidance on things like preparing for the MCAT and applying to medical school.
As the first one in his family to go to college, Josue Estrella had to navigate his own way through his undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan, where he first developed his interest in medicine.
Students and leaders of the University of Colorado School of Medicine thanked scholarship benefactors at a reception Thursday evening in the Anschutz Health Sciences Building.
We know a game of soccer is good for your cardiovascular health but how about a game of MarioKart?
Community ColoradoSPH at CU Anschutz
U.S. Rep. Jason Crow came to the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus on Friday for presentations on two initiatives that received Community Project Funding in the federal budget approved by Congress in December.
Research Community Public Health
In May 2022, the Colorado Legislature passed, and Gov. Jared Polis signed into law, House Bill 1326 – the “fentanyl accountability” bill. Among other actions, the bill introduced stricter criminal penalties for possessing smaller amounts of fentanyl or other drugs laced with fentanyl.
When her PhD research project led to the discovery of a unique bacteria that might be responsible for triggering rheumatoid arthritis, Meagan Chriswell knew just what to call the newly discovered bacteria: subdoligranulumdidolesgii(Suhb-doe-lih-gran-you-luhm dee-doe-les-ghee-eye), named after the Cherokee word for arthritis and rheumatism.
Even when the temperature outside dips into single digits and we might forget our summer habits, one remains vital throughout the year: drinking enough water.
Jason Persoff, MD, listens to storms in much the same way he listens to patients: unhurriedly, questioningly, observing details that indicate background and environmental elements influencing and shaping the present moment.
With a new year just begun and the stress of the holiday season still a recent memory, many people have added getting better sleep to their list of resolutions for 2023.
2022 was a year that saw significant new hires, the opening of a state-of-the-art health and sciences building, and the launch of a new Department of Biomedical Informatics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, but it also was a year that offered plenty of challenges and new problems to solve.
Depending on the day and the publication, the ideal number of steps to take daily is 10,000. Or 3,000. Or maybe an in between 7,000.
Research Patient Care Education Community Students
We are closing out another newsworthy year for the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Our communications team in the Dean's Office has shared more than 100 stories spotlighting our incredible faculty, researchers, staff, trainees, and students.
Research Community Palliative care
A good death can take many forms. Because each person is unique, with different personal and cultural beliefs and expectations, there is not a single definition of a good death.
College students from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in medicine now have the opportunity to conduct research on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus as part of a $1.3 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant that was awarded to two researchers at the CU School of Medicine in fall 2022.
Research Patient Care Community
Canadian singer Celine Dion shocked the world Thursday when she revealed that she has been diagnosed with a rare neurological condition called stiff person syndrome (SPS), forcing her to postpone several upcoming tour dates in Europe.
Despite their reputation as the happiest season of all, filled with family, presents, and peaceful evenings by the fireplace, the holidays, for many, also are accompanied by stress, depression, and anxiety.
Community Child & Adolescent Pediatrics
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic began, anxiety disorders were one of the most common mental health concerns among children. Pre-pandemic, health care providers and caregivers could expect a third of children to meet the criteria for anxiety disorders by the time they were through adolescence.
As the number of hospitalizations related to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) continues to climb steeply throughout Colorado, with a reported 1,139 hospitalizations since Oct. 1, clinician and researcher Eric Simões, MD, is leading two studies that he hopes will help curtail future RSV surges.
Research Community COVID-19 COVID-19 Feature
The halting of funding for two federal programs that provided financial support during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic for underinsured or uninsured populations has created significant gaps in the health care safety net, according to a commentary published Monday in Health Affairs Forefront.
Earlier this month, voters made Colorado the second state — after Oregon — to decriminalize psilocybin and psilocin, the psychedelic compounds found in so-called “magic mushrooms.”
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) recent decision to ease cochlear implant candidacy criteria and expand hearing loss coverage was informed, in part, by University of Colorado School of Medicine research.
The third time was the charm for the University of Colorado School of Medicine’s Class of 2024.
After their first White Coat Ceremony was canceled in late summer 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the cancellation of a makeup ceremony in early 2021, students from the Class of 2024 finally got their official welcome to the medical profession on November 7 in a ceremony on campus.
Community Neuroscience Rehabilitation
The widely watched U.S. Senate race between Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz, MD, has stoked conversation and questions about strokes.
In May, on the way to a campaign event, Fetterman had a stroke that his wife has said she recognized when he began slurring words and the left side of his face began drooping. During his Oct. 25 televised debate with Oz, Fetterman began by addressing “the elephant in the room.”
Researchers and clinicians in the University of Colorado School of Medicine are partnering with members of Hispanic communities across Colorado to support children and families in cultivating healthy lifestyle habits and with an overall goal to reduce obesity-related health disparities.
Community Pediatrics Infectious disease
If it seems like many of your friends and family are sick right now, they’re not alone. Cold and flu season is off to a roaring start, and is on track to be especially fierce as respiratory viruses surge among children and older populations.
Last week, hearing aids were made available over the counter (OTC) for people with mild-to-moderate hearing loss. Though the new rule increases the ease of convenience and reduces the price of hearing aids, there are still some challenges with this new category of device. The price range of OTC hearing aid is between $200 and $1,000, although devices with self-fitting features that personalize the device to an individual’s hearing may be around $800 to $1,000 per pair, making them less accessible as they may someday become.
Much of the work of health care happens because of a strong support base – the childcare, household labor, and other jobs that allow health care providers to show up every day at the clinic or hospital.
Research Community Child & Adolescent Pediatrics
Care from an allergist is associated with a reduction in total health care costs for U.S. children with peanut allergy, new research finds.
Community Diversity Health equity
Representation matters.
On a recent day in her pediatric pulmonary clinic, the first patient Jennifer Taylor-Cousar, MD, saw was a 10-year-old girl who is Black and who asked if she could keep the disposable gloves and stethoscope used during her appointment. She wants to be a doctor, just like Taylor-Cousar.
Education Community Fellowship
A newly established fellowship program in the University of Colorado School of Medicine will help participants prepare for administrative leadership roles in academic medical centers, with a focus on providing guidance and understanding around health care leadership.
Research Patient Care Community
Doctors know that a patient’s social needs — whether they’re homeless, food insecure, or without transportation, for example — can affect not only their health outcomes, but the types of treatment their provider will recommend.
Research Patient Care Community
Among physicians who see at least one adult patient with significant intellectual disability (ID) in an average month, close to 75% of those surveyed report usually or always communicating with someone other than the patient during the visit, new research shows.
Community Public Health Monkeypox
As the monkeypox outbreak continues to spread around the globe, a rare but potentially serious complication of the virus has been discovered by Daniel Pastula, MD, MHS, associate professor of neurology and infectious diseases at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health.
A common scenario that female physicians sometimes experience after visiting with a patient in a hospital room is being asked, “When will I see the doctor?”
Education Community Students Diversity
Many college students enter their freshman year unsure of what they want to major in, let alone what they’ll do after they graduate. Then there are students like Hussna Yasini, who entered her first year of college at the University of Colorado Denver knowing she could earn a reserved spot at the CU School of Medicine after she completed her undergraduate studies.
Community Public Health Vaccinations
When a case of polio was discovered in an unvaccinated man in Rockland County, New York, last month, many people had a similar thought: “Didn’t we take care of polio?”
Patients treated by physicians who are faculty members at the University of Colorado School of Medicine were part of a multi-site clinical trial that may result in better prevention of severe forms of COVID-19.
Research Community Telemedicine
In urban areas like Colorado’s densely populated Front Range, it can be difficult to envision the distance between neighbors, businesses, and vital services in the state’s rural areas.
The Colorado Area Health Education Center (AHEC) on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus has received renewed funding from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) that will allow it to operate for the next five years. Funding is provided annually, with a requirement to match the federal award equally with institutional funds. For 2022–23, total available funds are $1.7 million.
Advance care planning — thinking about what kind of care you want and whom you want by your side at the end of your life — can be difficult under any circumstances. But for sexual and gender minority (SGM) patients — including individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer, or intersex — those conversations are often made even more difficult due to stigma, fear, and discrimination.
Education Community Students Advocacy CU Medicine Today
The impacts of climate change on human health are among the most profound and far-reaching issues in health care. Global ecosystems are under such stress that the effects of climate change on human health grow more widespread and damaging by the day.
In an effort to make it easier for those experiencing a mental health crisis to get help immediately, the federal government in July launched the 988 Suicide and Crisis Hotline. The simple three-digit phone number works like 911 to connect callers with trained mental health professionals in their area.
The worldwide outbreak of monkeypox that started in May 2022 has now grown to such a degree that on August 4, the Biden administration declared a public health emergency to raise awareness of the virus in the United States and to free up funding and resources for a more robust response. More than 6,600 probable or confirmed cases have now been detected in the U.S., including in Colorado, and there are more than 28,000 confirmed cases worldwide.
Denver-area magazine 5280 recently published its list of top doctors for 2022. On this year’s list, CU School of Medicine faculty members continue to be ranked among the best. We're proud to congratulate the 193 CU School of Medicine faculty members honored with the title "Top Doctor."
This week, members of the University of Colorado School of Medicine Class of 2026 became new medical students, entering medicine at a critical and often tumultuous time.
Research Education Community Students CU Medicine Today
Bacteriophages, also known as phages, are viruses that infect a host bacteria and share traits with all viruses: They require a host cell to reproduce and are specific to particular hosts.
Education Community Students CU Medicine Today
Space needs doctors, and a new joint MD-MS degree program between the University of Colorado School of Medicine and the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at CU Boulder is aimed at giving medical students the skills they need to advance human spaceflight.
Press Releases Community CU Medicine Today
Longtime Colorado innovation leader Lisa Neal-Graves has been named CEO of the Aurora Wellness Community (AWC), a partnership between the CU Anschutz Medical Campus and the Aurora community that aims to improve access to primary care for underserved populations in Aurora. The center also will offer services to promote physical, mental, and financial well-being within the community, with a particular focus on housing, food security, generational care, community building, and connection.
Research Patient Care Community
Can a simple phone call reduce the likelihood that a patient will have to return to the emergency room in the days just after being discharged?
Dave Young, MD, heard the call.
When Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 turned into a prolonged war between the two nations, Young was one of hundreds of medical professionals around the world looking for a way to help Ukrainian citizens displaced by the conflict.
Research Community Awareness Mental Health
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many health care professionals admit they felt tired. Despite doing work they love, the days could be long or frustrating or very, very disheartening.
Research Education Community Faculty
Fourteen undergraduate students interested in medicine from universities around the country got the chance Monday to sit down with University of Colorado School of Medicine Dean John J. Reilly Jr. to talk about the future of medicine.
Children’s Hospital Colorado is once again ranked among the top 10 children’s hospitals in the country by U.S. News and World Report. The magazine released its 2022–23 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings this week, and Children’s Colorado is ranked number 7 nationally and number 1 in the Rocky Mountain region and state of Colorado.
Pop singer Justin Bieber shocked fans last week when he posted a video on Instagram in which he explained he had been diagnosed with Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, a condition that causes paralysis on one side of the face.
Research Community Awareness Child & Adolescent
In 2020, firearm injuries were the leading cause of death in U.S. children 18 and younger, accounting for 3,230 children’s deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Much of medicine has been transformed by the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two and a half years, and medical school is no exception. The 181 students who graduated from the University of Colorado School of Medicine today have seen their learning and training profoundly altered by the health crisis, and they enter residency in a medical landscape still dealing with the pandemic and its aftermath.
For the University of Colorado School of Medicine Class of 2022, the past two years have been filled with many twists and turns as normal life was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The challenges these students have faced to balance school, clinical training, and personal life have demanded much of them.
It was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, aboard a Navy ship bound for the Middle East, that Josh Abolarin’s journey to medical school began.
Research Press Releases Community CU Medicine Today
In a recent survey of more than 6,500 physicians from across the United States representing a broad spectrum of racial and ethnic diversity, nearly 30% of respondents reported experiencing discrimination and mistreatment from patients or patients’ family members or visitors.
Dottie Stearns’ road to medical school curved across San Salvador Island in the Bahamas, where she learned through studying Cyclura rileyi iguanas that it’s possible to survive a mass extinction event by burrowing.
During his summers as an undergraduate student, Zaid Al Bahrani worked as a counselor at Camp Kesem in Ohio, a weeklong overnight camp for children impacted by a parent’s cancer diagnosis.
It was a few years before Kiyomi Daoud started college at Harvard University that her grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. As devastating as it was watching her grandmother’s struggle, Daoud found herself not only curious about the neurologic process her grandmother was going through, but also how her grandmother’s condition was affecting her grandfather, her parents, her sister, and herself.
Patient Care Education Community
Since 2015, uninsured adults living in Aurora, Colorado, have had a reliable place to go for medical care: DAWN (Dedicated to Aurora’s Wellness and Needs, a multidisciplinary, free clinic staffed by students and faculty from the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
Research Community Support Diabetes
For some people with type 2 diabetes, the E word can evoke dread: exercise.
Education Community Students Recognition
Eunice Spackman was born on her family’s high plains homestead near Akron, Colorado. She rode a horse two miles to and from school each day, a path so familiar that the horse wouldn’t deviate from it even when she wanted to go visit a friend.
Comedian Gilbert Gottfried, known for his brash standup act as well as providing the voice for the Aflac duck and the parrot Iago in Disney’s 1992 animated film “Aladdin,” died April 12 from complications of myotonic dystrophy type 2, an inherited muscular dystrophy that affects the muscles and other body systems. Gottfried was 67.
Newly released World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations on maternal and newborn care include a variety of crucial areas to be addressed in the first six weeks after birth, including vaccinations, breastfeeding, and screening for postnatal maternal depression and anxiety.
Community Sports Medicine Orthopedics
With session titles like “Commando and Military Injuries: Late Night Stories,” “Surfing in the Olympics,” and “Cave Diving: The Deadliest Extreme Sport on Earth, or Not?,” you can tell this isn’t your average medical conference.
Josina Romero O’Connell’s dream of being a doctor began when she was 3 years old, watching as her grandfather died in a small community clinic in a rural area of New Mexico halfway between Taos and Santa Fe.
Though irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common condition that affects around 10% of the population, there is a lot that patients and physicians still don’t know about it. What is known is that it is more common in women and people younger than 60, and it is often associated with mental health conditions like anxiety and depression. And it can cause life-impacting symptoms if not treated properly.
The University of Colorado School of Medicine continues to rank among the top 10 medical schools in the country for primary care, according to numbers released today by U.S. News and World Report.
After four often-grueling years of medical school, more than 150 fourth-year students from the University of Colorado School of Medicine took the next step in their medical journey Friday.
Match Day, when medical students are matched with the residency program they will begin after graduation, is the culmination of four years of hard work and sacrifice.
It's a time-honored tradition that many medical students dream about. You receive a message, you open it, and suddenly it seems like everything in your life changes. For medical students who are about to graduate, Match Day is a career-defining moment.
Patient Care Education Community Public Health
For many adolescents with access to a smartphone or tablet, the messages about appearance, image, and weight are almost inescapable. Frequently, they are intertwined with messages about nutrition.
For anyone who’s never done two-a-days in the August heat or faced down an opposing defensive lineman, the parallels between a football field and a health care clinic might not seem immediately obvious.
Education Community Awareness Climate Science
The very near future begins with a stark observation: “It was getting hotter.”
As assistant professor of orthopedics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, David Howell, PhD, understands the relationship between concussions and subsequent injury in athletes — namely, that after suffering a concussion, athletes at all levels are more likely to sustain another injury within the next year.
Even during her toughest days of medical school, when long nights of studying turned into long days on her feet in the hospital, one thing kept Stephanie Nwagwu going: her passion to care for underserved communities.
For members of medically underserved populations, dermatology has been a challenging specialty to access due to a lack of expertise among providers in treating specific conditions, the costs of care, and the uneven location of dermatology clinics.
Research Patient Care Community COVID-19
For health care workers, one of the most troubling aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic is people who get and recover from the virus, only to have additional — often more severe — symptoms arise weeks or even months later. Known in medical journals by names like “post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC)” or “long-haul COVID,” the condition can have debilitating effects even among the previously young and healthy.
When the L.A. Rams and Cincinnati Bengals face off Sunday evening in Super Bowl LVI, the tens of millions of fans expected to tune in may be thinking about a lot of things – the matchup, the coaching, the quality of the guacamole and the ads. It’s less likely that they’ll consider the players’ potential for concussion.
Asthma is a chronic condition that can cause airways in the lungs to become inflamed and narrowed. A common perception of obesity is that it involves low-grade systemic inflammation.
University of Colorado School of Medicine faculty members Michelle Leppert, MD, and Sharon Poisson, MD, had a hunch that younger people were having strokes at a higher rate than most health care professionals realized, but when they dug into the numbers, the findings even surprised them: In adults 35 and younger, women are 44% more likely than men to suffer ischemic strokes — strokes caused by blood clots that travel to the brain.
The American Red Cross recently made headlines when it announced that anyone who donates blood between January 1–31 will automatically be entered to win two tickets to Super Bowl LVI February 13 in Los Angeles.
As if medical school wasn’t challenging enough, Amira Otmane and her classmates in the University of Colorado School of Medicine Class of 2024 have also had to contend with beginning their medical education during a worldwide pandemic.
Research Community COVID-19 Child & Adolescent CU Medicine Today
Responding to concerns over increased screen time for teenagers during the pandemic and the potential negative effects of social media use, CU School of Medicine psychology faculty members Jenna Glover, PhD, Sandra Fritsch, MD, and Merlin Ariefdjohan, PhD, reviewed recent studies on children and digital technology, synthesizing their findings in a paper published this month in the journal Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America.
Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Colorado School of Medicine still had many accomplishments to celebrate in 2021.
Growing up and watching her dad dress in slightly mismatched suits and ties, Jasmin Torres smiled as she witnessed his fashion choices. While a fond memory of her childhood, she eventually learned her father’s fashion wasn’t a quirk, but rather a result of color blindness.
Education Community Students Medicine
Rebecca Henkind grew up seeing the example of her grandmother’s volunteer work with people experiencing homelessness – at the Flemington (New Jersey) Area Food Pantry and with Flemington Presbyterian Church’s shelter.
Even as a premed student at the University of Minnesota, Ava Swenson knew that to feel truly fulfilled in her medical career, she would need to find ways to indulge her loves of art and history along the way.
Research Patient Care Education Community
This was another exciting year for the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and we were able to share more than 70 stories spotlighting our incredible faculty, staff, trainees, and students.
Research Press Releases Community Diabetes
As a nurse, researcher, and educator at the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes at the University of Colorado School of Medicine for the past 17 years, Laurel Messer, PhD, has conducted clinical trials that brought devices to market to help diabetes patients monitor their blood sugar levels and administer insulin.
Community Faculty CU Medicine Today
Pam Wilson, MD, was your typical recreational athlete before the 1978 car accident that left her partially paralyzed and using a wheelchair for mobility, but after the accident, sports became a vital part of her recovery — a way to strive, compete, improve, and measure her progress as she went through physical therapy and rehabilitation.
A University of Colorado School of Medicine researcher is guiding Colorado’s participation in the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine trial for children ages 6 months to 5 years.
Research Community Faculty Diabetes
For people with type I diabetes, a build-up of blood acids called ketones can lead to a serious condition called diabetic ketoacidosis. This condition occurs when the body doesn’t have enough insulin to break down glucose, its usual energy source, and can lead to diabetic coma or even death.
A troubling new variant of the COVID-19 virus first observed by South African scientists has now been found in other parts of the world, including Portugal, Botswana, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It has been found in several U.S. states as well, including Colorado, New York, Hawaii, and Minnesota. Researchers are concerned, as the new variant — dubbed the Omicron variant by the World Health Organization — shows signs of being more contagious than previous variants. It may also be less susceptible to current COVID-19 vaccines.
Although early warning signs are often out of sight, patients with any type of diabetes are at risk of developing diabetic eye disease. Diabetic retinopathy is the most common cause of vision loss or blindness for people who have diabetes, but it’s not the only type of diabetic eye disease.
Movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease are complex conditions that often take a specialist — or even a team of specialists — to diagnose and treat. But to many people who live in rural areas or medically underserved communities, specialty care can be geographically or financially out of reach.
There’s a saying in U.S. Navy aviation: No fast hands in a cockpit. That means if a warning light comes on or anything else happens to indicate an emergency, the pilot doesn’t immediately start poking buttons or yanking levers. They pause, they take a breath, they assess the situation, and then they respond.
Research Patient Care Community
The gut microbiome is a relatively new area of study, especially as it relates to pregnancy and how maternal diet and weight can impact it across the three trimesters of a pregnancy.
Community Students CU Medicine Today
When Jay Lemery, MD, an associate professor of emergency medicine, launched the Climate & Health Science Policy Fellowship in 2017, he started with a recently graduated emergency medicine fellow working in the CU Department of Emergency Medicine.
When it comes to mental health, it is essential to be vulnerable, to speak out about your struggles, and to practice self-care.
Campus Life Community Students Advocacy
The wind kicked up as soon as everyone “died,” cold and fierce around the dozens of students, faculty members, and staff members lying on the concrete and browning grass.
If you think ghosts, goblins, and vampires are spooky, then beware of the terrors that can result from wearing costume contact lenses that have not been properly prescribed or fitted. Studies show people wearing cosmetic contacts have an increased risk for infections.
The old poem says that music soothes the savage beast, but Isabelle Buard, PhD, is conducting research to find out if music can also soothe the effects of Parkinson’s disease on fine motor skills.
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The death of a 16-year-old boy who was bullied for being gay inspired Michael A. Puente, MD, assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, to campaign to change a 27-year-old federal regulation restricting the ability of gay and bisexual men to donate their corneas in the United States.
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In the heart of a city, the distances in rural communities may be difficult to envision. The space between neighbors can sometimes be measured in miles rather than blocks; a drive to the nearest hospital may take dozens of minutes rather than a handful.
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From the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, communities of color have been hit hardest by the worst public health crisis in the past 100 years.
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A research-based training program for South African paramedics led by the University of Colorado School of Medicine is improving South African trauma care while also identifying innovations that U.S. military combat medics could use to treat battlefield wounds.
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Carey Candrian, PhD, knew the statistics.
“Nearly 50% of older LGBTQ adults say their doctor doesn’t know that they’re LGBTQ, and the stress of hiding takes up to 12 years off their life,” Candrian says. “Seventy-six percent of LGBTQ older adults fear having adequate support as they age. Thousands still experience discrimination, harassment, and abuse when seeking or living in senior housing. These are big numbers.”
When Dana Siegel, MD, was a teacher and mentor to 4th grade students in an under-resourced public school as a City Year AmeriCorps Member prior to medical school, her primary goal was to help bridge education gaps, support equal opportunity for all students, and keep them on track to graduation. What she observed, however, was not just education gaps, but also underlying health care disparities that directly and indirectly impacted her students’ success in the classroom. It was during this time as a teacher that she decided to study medicine.
On page 52, third-year medical student Hayley Specht explores the dual nature of doctoring in her poignant poem “Blackbeard, MD.”
Kathryn Mayer was sitting outside with friends one evening when she experienced a strange sensation that caused her right eye to feel very blurry. She went to bed that night thinking it must be an issue with her contact lenses and carried on normally the next day.
It began with a three-week plastic-free challenge that changed the course of Bhargavi Chekuri’s medical career path. The challenge was to go three weeks without the ease and convenience of plastic bags, plastic wrapping, and all the other plastics that make their way into daily life.
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Researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine have been awarded a $1.7 million National Institutes of Health grant for a national study designed to improve firearm safety for people with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
Between remote learning, ongoing updated health regulations, vaccines, and mask mandates, there’s no question that educators have been among the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. To support educators, the Department of Psychiatry in the University of Colorado School of Medicine developed a new program to help teachers cope with mental health concerns brought on by the pandemic.
Of all the unexpected consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, one that parents of children who are deaf or hard of hearing didn’t plan for was hearing aids getting tossed in the dog’s water dish.
Patient Care Community COVID-19
On Monday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave full approval to the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for individuals 16 and older. The approval provides the FDA’s strongest endorsement to the Pfizer vaccine, which previously had been approved under an emergency use authorization.
What started as a way to provide affordable medical care to Denver’s refugee population has grown into a home away from home for those who are far away from home.
Orthopedic surgeon Rachel Frank, MD, went straight to the source for her new textbook on treating female athletes: All of the book’s primary authors are women.
Each year, Denver-area magazine 5280 publishes its list of top doctors. On this year’s list, which came out last week, CU School of Medicine faculty members continue to be ranked among the best. We are proud to congratulate the 138 CU School of Medicine faculty members honored with the title Top Doctor.
The 184 members of the University of Colorado School of Medicine’s Class of 2025 were welcomed into the medical profession Friday at the traditional White Coat Ceremony on campus. The group of first-year medical students heard from several speakers before ascending the stage to receive the white coats and stethoscopes that mark the beginning of their new academic journey.
After a year of waiting, Christina Yannetsos, MD, is finally headed to the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
On June 28 the University of Colorado School of Medicine’s Center for Advancing Professional Excellence (CAPE) hosted the third installment in its virtual community event series “Being _____ On Anschutz Medical Campus.” The goal of the series is to connect with the Anschutz community and amplify diverse voices through candid conversations with members of underrepresented groups. Previous events centered on the Black and AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) communities.
In two recent articles published in Schizophrenia Bulletin, Sharon Hunter, PhD, an associate professor in the University of Colorado School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry, and M. Camille Hoffman, MD, MSc, an associate professor in the University of Colorado School of Medicine Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, along with their research group, have uncovered a potential link between choline deficiency in Black pregnant women in the United States and increased risk of developmental and behavioral issues that can evolve into mental illness later in their children’s lives.
U.S. News and World Report released its 2021–22 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings this week. Children’s Hospital Colorado ranked number 6 nationally and placed seven pediatric specialties in the top 10, including a number-one ranking for gastroenterology and gastrointestinal surgery. Children’s Colorado is affiliated with the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Together, the institutions are a national center for clinical care and medical research.
As a doctor on the front lines in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lilia Cervantes, MD, quickly saw the disproportionate toll the virus was taking on Denver’s Latino community.
The University of Colorado School of Medicine Hooding & Oath Ceremony took place Friday, May 28, 2021, at 9 a.m. Due to ongoing COVID-19 precautions, the in-person ceremony was limited to the 184 members of the class of 2021, their personal CU School of Medicine faculty hooders, and up to two vaccinated guests each. The event was also livestreamed for friends and family members unable to attend in person.
After a year of many celebrations being held virtually, the University of Colorado School of Medicine will celebrate this year's graduates with an intimate hooding and oath ceremony on Friday, May 28, 2021.
If she wanted to be hooded by her most important mentor, University of Colorado School of Medicine student Sara Delenn Graves knew she couldn’t wait until graduation.
After seeing the tragic COVID-19 crisis unfolding in India, Saketh Guntupalli, MD, associate professor of gynecologic oncology in the University of Colorado School of Medicine and member of the University of Colorado Cancer Center, decided to do something about it.
For Simon Feseha, attending the University of Colorado School of Medicine was a little bit like coming home.
With graduation approaching, Eliza Baird-Daniel is looking forward to returning to her hometown of Seattle, Washington, to begin her residency. Baird-Daniel came to the University of Colorado School of Medicine after earning her undergraduate degree in neurobiology from Cornell University. We sat down with her to find out why she went into medicine, what she hopes to accomplish in the future, and what advice she’d give to new medical students.
Gavi Roda’s journey to medicine was seeded at a young age but didn’t fully blossom until her teenage years. As a child, she traveled frequently with her parents, Veralex and Greg Roda. Her family crisscrossed the world and moved more than eight times, including living in Singapore for four years, before finding a home in Broomfield, Colorado.
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When children’s rights expert Warren Binford, JD, EdM, reported in 2019 that children in migration were held by the U.S. government in squalid conditions at the southern border, her description – based on interviews with the children and site inspections of the facilities – was denounced by White House officials and its allies as untrue.
The new University of Colorado School of Medicine at Colorado State University (CU SOM at CSU) branch campus will welcome its first four-year cohort of 12 medical students in Fort Collins this July. The branch will provide new avenues for clinical training for students as well as an opportunity to collaborate with another of Colorado’s top universities.
A lot has changed in the 20 years since University of Colorado School of Medicine researchers Meredith Mealer, PhD, RN, and Marc Moss, MD, started studying the effects of stress on critical-care nurses.
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The University of Colorado School of Medicine is listed No. 6 in primary care and No. 27 in research on the Best Medical School rankings released today by U.S. News and World Report.
As a scientist and medical researcher, Emily Bates, PhD, was relieved and grateful to be able to take a COVID-19 vaccine. But when she began talking to others who didn’t work in medicine, she was surprised to find skepticism and resistance to the vaccines that can end the pandemic.
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When COVID-19 struck during his first year of medical school in 2020, Michael Skaggs was still a few years away from being able to provide clinical care to patients. But he was right on time to put his skills as a former engineer and whitewater rafting company manager to work.
For the second year in a row, the University of Colorado School of Medicine Match Day celebration was hosted virtually for students, faculty, staff, family, and friends due to the pandemic. Instead of a mad dash to retrieve an envelope from a bulletin board, like the Match Day Jeff Druck, MD, assistant dean of student affairs, experienced, this year’s Match announcement was replaced by an email that promptly hit inboxes at 10 a.m. MDT on Friday, March 19.
It's a time-honored tradition that many medical students dream about. You receive a message, you open it, and suddenly it seems like everything in your life changes. For medical students who are about to graduate, Match Day is a career-defining moment.
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Kia Washington, MD, looks back on her undergraduate experience as four years that helped to shape who she is. One of those years in particular stands out as not just formative, but transformative.
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The University of Colorado School of Medicine on the Anschutz Medical Campus today announced the establishment of the Charles J. Blackwood, MD, Endowed Memorial Scholarship to support Black and other underrepresented medical students.
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Five years ago, the Section of Wilderness and Environmental Medicine (WEM) at the University of Colorado School of Medicine journeyed to Greenland to provide health care services for researchers at the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Summit Station.
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James Burton, MD, professor of medicine and medical director of liver transplantation at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, says he and his colleagues are already starting to see the effect pandemic drinking is having on patients.
Even amid an increase in medical school applications across the country, the University of Colorado School of Medicine stands out. Outpacing the rise at most other medical schools, the CU School of Medicine has seen its number of applications double in the past five years, jumping 35% in the past year alone, compared to an increase of 18% nationwide. More than 14,000 candidates from around the world applied for one of just 184 seats in the class of 2025.
Katherine Green, MD, MS, assistant professor of otolaryngology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and medical director of the UCHealth Sleep Medicine Clinic, knows how important sleep is to our overall well-being. She also knows that the stresses of the past year — the COVID-19 pandemic, social and political unrest — have had detrimental effects on our sleep.
Along with art and music, science classes are often among the first to go when a school is faced with budget cuts.
Dean John J. Reilly, Jr., MD, highlighted some of the CU School of Medicine’s accomplishments over the past five years and outlined key initiatives moving forward in his annual State of the School address on January 13. He also spoke to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In October, ACCORDS (Adult and Child Consortium for Health Outcomes Research and Delivery Science) and the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute invited a panel of several current and former students from the University of Colorado School of Medicine to share their experiences working on community-based projects with the Committed to Community program through 2040 Partners for Health, an Aurora, Colorado based nonprofit that works to eliminate health disparities and improve health in marginalized communities in the Denver metro area.
The world got to know Gitanjali Rao on December 3, 2020, the day Time magazine named her its first ever “Kid of the Year.”
The 15-year-old scientist and inventor from Lone Tree, Colorado, was recognized for her projects addressing prescription opioid addiction, contaminated water, cyberbullying and more, as well as her desire to bring together a community of young innovators from around the world to help solve global problems.
Immunologists from the University of Colorado School of Medicine this week expressed confidence in the COVID-19 vaccines and encouraged people to get vaccinations when they become available. They also addressed frequently asked questions about how the vaccines work, why they have confidence in the process that created the vaccines, and who should get the shots.
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With the FDA emergency approval of the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer last week and Moderna approval due any day, immunizations against the deadliest pandemic in the past 100 years will begin this week.
Doctors see it every day in clinics and emergency rooms around the world: the ever-worsening effects of climate change on human health.
Casey Greene, PhD, has been named director of the new Center for Health Artificial Intelligence at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, where he will lead the creation of a center building communities that use sophisticated data analysis methods to advance research and improve clinical practice on the Anschutz Medical Campus.
Sean O’Leary, MD, MPH, professor of pediatrics, has been on the School of Medicine faculty since 2010. He trained in the CU residency program at Children’s Hospital Colorado, practiced as a general pediatrician in Fort Collins for eight years, before returning to the Anschutz Medical Campus in 2007 to do his fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases.
This summer, many parents scrambled as summer camps for their children were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Desperate parents were searching for safe activities that could engage their children after a spring of remote learning and lockdown at home.
Each year, Denver-area magazine 5280 publishes its list of top doctors. The annual list was recently released, and year after year, our CU School of Medicine faculty members were ranked among the best. We're proud to congratulate the more than 160 CU School of Medicine faculty members honored with the title top doctor.
The University of Colorado School Medicine and Office of Student Life welcomed the class of 2024 with a virtual orientation last Friday, launching the new medical students on their studies while the world continues to deal with a global pandemic.
Newsweek
September 28, 2023
Knowing what to eat during pregnancy can be confusing at the best of times. Factor in morning sickness, cravings and everything else that comes with growing a tiny human inside you, it can be difficult to know what to eat to support yourself and your baby.
FOX News
September 27, 2023
Ginger could play a critical role in controlling inflammation for people living with autoimmune diseases, according to a new study.
The Denver Post
September 27, 2023
Together, for 56 years, she and her husband, John J. Sie, both immigrants to the U.S., built a family in Colorado during his successful career in cable television.
WebMD
September 26, 2023
On her flight to Atlanta, Robin Pollack nibbled gummy bears and sipped a cranberry juice cocktail.
Kara Mason
