In the News - News
HCV — which affects more than 3 million people in the United States and is the leading cause of cirrhosis and liver cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — last saw guidelines released in 2011. Michael Saag, MD, professor of medicine in the UAB School of Medicine, served as co-chair of a panel of more than two dozen liver and infectious diseases doctors that created HCVguidelines.org, a new online resource.
An unexpected winter storm paralyzed nearly all of Birmingham and much of central Alabama last week, but it didn't stop doctors at UAB Hospital from continuing the Southeast's largest kidney transplant chain. The chain, which has been coined by the hospital as the "Pair Share Program," continued the week of Jan. 27 as doctors performed 16 operations, including eight donor nephrectomies and eight kidney transplants.
A study showed that older people who smoked less than 32 “pack years” — 3.2 packs (20 cigarettes per pack) a day for no more than 10 years or less than one pack a day for 30 years — and gave up smoking 15 or fewer years ago lowered their risks of developing heart failure or dying from heart failure, heart attacks and strokes to the same level as those who had never smoked. “It’s good news,” said Ali Ahmed, M.D., M.P.H., senior researcher and professor of cardiovascular disease at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s School of Medicine. “Now there’s a chance for even less of a waiting period to get a cleaner bill of cardiovascular health.”
New opportunities exist through the National Dental Practice-Based Research Network for dentists to gather evidence that may have chairside significance. "This input has come enthusiastically at every step of the study development process—from idea generation, to study design, to design of the data collection forms, to study implementation, all to be done in busy clinical practices," said Dr. Gregg Gilbert, network director and chair of the department of clinical and community sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
'One glass of wine a day is better than six! Again, cook with butter - just use a little and most important, do not eat after 7 o'clock in the evening,' Does Raymond Blanc's advice match up to the research? The Michelin-starred chef says women should not eat bacon and eggs every morning, but a high-fat breakfast of bacon and eggs may be the healthiest start to the day, a study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham study. 'The first meal you have appears to program your metabolism for the rest of the day,'said study senior author Martin Young, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine in the UAB Division of Cardiovascular Disease.
A single bad year doesn't typically force a hospital to enter bankruptcy. A new study on the topic by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham found that most hospitals were done in by steadily declining admissions, revenues and relationships with their physicians, and were unable to reverse them.
For patients presenting to the emergency department with acute respiratory tract infections (ARTI), inappropriate utilization of antibiotics has decreased for children, but not for adults, according to a study published online Dec. 16 in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. John P. Donnelly, MSPH, from University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues conducted a retrospective study involving patients presenting to emergency departments with ARTIs from 2001 to 2010 identified from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey.
Cancer patients who are actively being treated for cancer can safely receive flu shots, Mollie deShazo, MD, told The ASCO Post. “It is not going to be dangerous for them. The question is how effective it will be.” Dr. deShazo is Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology and Medical Director of Inpatient Oncology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Like a real-life Indiana Jones, Dr. Jim Pittman had a flair for adventure, despite his bow-tie wearing academic appearance as dean of the UAB School of Medicine. Pittman, dean of the UAB School of Medicine from 1973-92, died on Jan. 12. He was 86. Anyone who attended the Bessemer Air Show in the early 1980s had a chance to ride with Pittman in his 1935 Stearman biplane. Pittman would offer rides all day long.
The UAB campus, like the rest of the Birmingham area, was hit hard and fast by the sudden winter storm on Tuesday. "We had hundreds of folks stranded in buildings," Harlan Sands, UAB vice provost for administration, said on Thursday. "We did two things," Sands said. "We opened up the rec center for warmth and shelter. And we cranked up our dining commons to serve the people who were stuck."
Amy and Duane Donner recently contributed $125,000 to the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Collat School of Business for its Healthcare Leadership Academy. Founded in 2009, the academy is a joint collaboration between the Collat School of Business and School of Medicine, and it has helped the university retain promising health-focused faculty and staff. The academy’s mission is to identify and develop future leaders of the UAB academic medical center.
University of Alabama at Birmingham Research Gary Warner was named one of the top 10 influencers in banking information security. The UAB National Alumni Society is accepting nominations for its Excellence in Business Awards through Feb. 10. They recognize UAB alumni-owned or operated companies.
Darshay Jones managed to avoid the icy mess on Tuesday by staying at home. Her baby wasn't due until Valentine's Day, so when contractions started around midnight, she thought it was false labor. But when they got stronger, she alerted her boyfriend and called 9-1-1. Thirty minutes later she was informed the ambulance had wrecked on the ice leaving her boyfriend to deliver the baby. Police were able to get Jones and her newborn daughter to UAB Hospital two hours after she gave birth. She decided to name her little girl after the season she was born into: Wynter Mariah Dobbins.
As people raced home from work and to pick up children stranded at school Tuesday and others experienced stress and problems associated with being stuck out in the cold weather in snarled traffic, Hoover's emergency medical personnel had to deal with a lot more calls than normal. Dr. Michael Kurz, who started this month at UAB Hospital, was directed to the emergency shelter at the Hoover Public Safety Center after finding his way home had been blocked. The Hoover Fire Department set Kurz up in a makeshift emergency room where he faced people with panic attacks related to the cold, fractures and serious head trauma from falls on the ice, diabetic issues and a pregnant woman with belly pain.
Frigid weather - Birmingham Alabama. Photo taken @ UAB Hospital. Travel difficult. Many food facilities are closed or closing early. 
Eleven people were charged in the U.S., India, China and Romania for their suspected involvement with websites offering email hacking services. "For India's CBI, China's MPS, Romania's DCCO [a division of DIICOT], and the FBI to cooperate together on a single case is without precedence," Gary Warner, the Director of Research in Computer Forensics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said Saturday in a blog post. "A great sign towards a bad future for cyber criminals."
In its ongoing efforts to address a critical doctor shortage, the University of Alabama at Birmingham on Tuesday launches its new Montgomery campus medical campus. Montgomery Regional Medical Campus will be housed at Baptist Medical Center South where UAB already operates an internal medicine residency program.
Eleven people were charged in the U.S., India, China and Romania for their suspected involvement with websites offering email hacking services. "For India's CBI, China's MPS, Romania's DCCO [a division of DIICOT], and the FBI to cooperate together on a single case is without precedence," Gary Warner, the Director of Research in Computer Forensics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said Saturday in a blog post. "A great sign towards a bad future for cyber criminals."
Newly insured consumers in Washington state who purchased health plans through the online exchange might find a surprise when they comb through the fine print in their policies: They’ll have to wait 90 days from when their insurance begins before coverage for transplants will kick in. “The whole idea of creating a waiting period for someone who is dying of organ failure is the antithesis of what the Affordable Care Act is supposed to be about,” said Roslyn B. Mannon, immediate past president of the American Society of Transplantation and a transplant nephrologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Robert Moore of Tuscaloosa was kept alive by machines in the intensive care unit for part of November and all of December — his diagnosis: severe pneumonia and the H1N1 flu. Despite being on a respirator on full force at DCH Regional Medical Center, Moore's organs weren't responding, and his oxygen levels wouldn't stay up. There was a last option, if Moore was going to survive, doctors told his wife Rhonda: He could be taken to UAB for a “last resort” treatment that could save his life.
The inappropriate use of antibiotics among adult patients at U.S. emergency departments is not falling, despite increasing concerns about antibiotic resistance, a new study reveals. Improper antibiotic use is a contributing factor to antibiotic resistance, the University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers noted.