UConn Health Pulse

Addressing Alcohol Addiction

One of the founding fathers of the Alcohol Research Center at UConn Health — the longest-running NIH-funded center of its kind — is part of an international collaboration of addiction researchers out with updated findings on the social, cultural and environmental factors that influence alcoholism and harmful drinking. UConn School of Medicine Professor Emeritus Thomas Babor is a lead author of the third edition of Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity, which explains those factors and makes policy recommendations on how to address them. The book is scheduled to be available for hard copy purchase in the U.S. in late January. An open-access PDF is available for free download now.

(Thomas Babor, Chris DeFrancesco, January 2023)

Thomas Babor, professor emeritus, public health sciences, UConn School of Medicine
https://health.uconn.edu/public-health-sciences/faculty-profile-tom-babor/

Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity (open-access PDF)
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/alcohol-no-ordinary-commodity-9780192844484

UConn Health Alcohol Research Center
https://health.uconn.edu/psychiatry/research/alcohol-research-center/

UConn Today feature on Alcohol Research Center, June 2019
https://today.uconn.edu/2019/06/uconns-alcohol-research-center-continues-unprecedented-run/

Breaking Down Health Barriers With Urban Service

The Urban Service Track incorporates prevention and primary care in underserved communities into the training of future prepares health professionals. It's a program of the Connecticut Area Health Education Center, housed at UConn Health. This summer, Urban Service Track students worked with the Hartford Department of Health and Human Services to go door-to-door in city neighborhoods to have conversations about preventive medicine and offer COVID-19 vaccinations on the spot. Three students who took part in this effort, Brian Liang (fourth-year UConn medical student and master of public health candidate), Eddyson Altidor (second-year UConn dental student), and Julia Levin (first-year UConn medical student), share their experience and how it's shaping them as future clinicians.

(Julia Levin, Brian Liang, Eddyson Altidor, Chris DeFrancesco, December 2023)

Connecticut Area Health Education Center (CT AHEC)
https://health.uconn.edu/connecticut-area-health-education-center-network/

Urban Service Track/AHEC Scholars Program
https://health.uconn.edu/connecticut-area-health-education-center-network/urban-services-track-and-ahec-scholars/

TARGETing PTSD

Post-traumatic stress disorder is often associated with military combat and experiencing a traumatic situation, such as the Sandy Hook school shooting. A few weeks ahead of the 10-year anniversary of that tragedy, we discuss PTSD with UConn Health clinical psychologists Julian Ford and Rocio Chang. They explain what PTSD is and isn't, differentiate between PTSD and the somewhat newly diagnosed form known as "complex PTSD," what we've learned in the 10 years since Sandy Hook, and how to help those affected by PTSD — including a treatment approach known as TARGET, which our guests helped develop.

(Dr. Julian Ford, Dr. Rocio Chang, Carolyn Pennington, Chris DeFrancesco, November 2022)

UConn Health Department of Pyschiatry
https://health.uconn.edu/psychiatry/

 

Serving the Underserved; Primary Care Outlook

The American health care system is facing a shortage of primary care physicians. Preparing the next generation of providers is one of the missions of UConn Health, where the training includes hands-on experience delivering care to historically underserved populations. Dr. Bruce Gould, UConn School of Medicine professor emeritus, founding associate dean for primary care, and founding director of the Connecticut Area Health Education Center, discusses how students serve the needs of today while training to become the providers who serve the needs of tomorrow.

(Dr. Bruce Gould, Chris DeFrancesco, September 2022)

Connecticut Area Health Education Center (CT AHEC)
https://health.uconn.edu/connecticut-area-health-education-center-network/

Urban Service Track
https://health.uconn.edu/connecticut-area-health-education-center-network/urban-services-track-and-ahec-scholars/

'Knock, Knock: UConn Students Making Hartford House Calls with COVID Vaccines'
https://today.uconn.edu/?p=189476

Community-based experiential learning
https://health.uconn.edu/connecticut-area-health-education-center-network/community-based-experiential-training/

Migrant farm worker clinics
https://health.uconn.edu/connecticut-area-health-education-center-network/migrant-farm-worker-clinics/

Back to School ’22

It's likely the closest we've come to a "normal" back-to-school since 2019. So we checked back in with Dr. Erica Waddington, this time at her office in the UConn Health family medicine practice in Canton, to find out what she's telling families -- both the students and the parents who worry about them -- to help them get a healthy start to the 2022 school year.

(Dr. Erica Waddington, Chris DeFrancesco, August 2022)

UConn Health Family Medicine
https://health.uconn.edu/family-medicine/
866-328-8086

Dr. Erica Waddington
https://health.uconn.edu/find-a-provider/physician/Waddington-Erica

 

What if Your Surgeon Had X-Ray Vision?

Spine surgeons at UConn Health are using augmented reality technology that provides a 3D rendering of the anatomy, essentially enabling "see-through" surgery. UConn Health is the first in central Connecticut with this suite of tools, which as of July 2022 is the world's largest. Dr. Isaac Moss, UConn Health's orthopedic surgery chair and co-director of its Comprehensive Spine Center, describes how augmented reality spine surgery works and what its advantages are.

(Dr. Isaac Moss, Chris DeFrancesco, July 2022)

UConn Health Comprehensive Spine Center
https://health.uconn.edu/spine/

860-679-6662

Augmented reality spine surgery at UConn Health
https://health.uconn.edu/spine/services/minimally-invasive-spine-surgery/augmented-reality-spine-surgery/

UConn Today, May 13, 2022
https://today.uconn.edu/2022/05/tech-assisted-spine-surgery-likened-to-x-ray-vision/

 

Cycling X-Country to Help Kids

The UConn Health tradition of students spending their last free summer bicycling cross-country to raise money for a charitable cause continues for a 17th year. Rising second-year dental student Brian Legato and medical students Julia Neri and Dustin Moore make up the 2022 Coast to Coast for a Cause team. Hear what they had to say about their adventure the day before they started it.

(June 2022, Julia Neri, Dustin Moore, Brian Legato, Chris DeFrancesco)

Coast to Coast for a Cause 2022 blog
https://uconncoast2coast2022.blogspot.com/
(may not work on UConn Health network)

Coast to Coast for a Cause 2022 link tree
https://linktr.ee/C2C2022

Coast to Coast for a Cause 2022 / Hole in the Wall Gang camp
http://getinvolved.holeinthewallgang.org/site/TR/HWCGGlobal/General;jsessionid=00000000.app20114a?team_id=4042&pg=team&fr_id=1625&NONCE_TOKEN=F6AFFD4E833B5D2D193C17EB9F9EE1F6

 

Pandemic Challenges to Women’s Health

For some women, maintaining their own health can have its challenges, whether everyday things like putting family and career ahead of their own needs, or potential barriers to care related to socio-economic status. What kind of a multiplier effect has the pandemic had on those factors? Dr. Shontreal Cooper, a maternal-fetal medicine physician in UConn Health's Women's Center, shares her observations from the last two years, what she tells her patients, and a creative way she tries to break down barriers.

(Dr. Shontreal Cooper, Carolyn Pennington, Chris DeFrancesco, May 2022)

Dr. Shontreal Cooper
https://health.uconn.edu/find-a-provider/physician/Cooper-Shontreal

UConn Health Women's Center
https://health.uconn.edu/women/

 

Supplying CT’s Health Care Workforce

The No. 1 source of physicians and dentists who practice in Connecticut is UConn Health, whose schools have been graduating physicians, dentists, biomedical researchers, and masters of public health for five decades. This month we hear from Dr. Bruce T. Liang, dean of the UConn School of Medicine (and UConn Health's interim CEO and executive vice president for health affairs) and Dr. Steven Lepowsky, dean of the UConn School of Dental Medicine. The deans explain the role of the medical, dental, and graduate schools in preparing and producing generations of professionals to maintain Connecticut's health care workforce.

(Dr. Bruce T. Liang, Dr. Steven Lepowsky, Carolyn Pennington, Chris DeFrancesco, April 2022)

UConn and the Health Care Workforce
https://medicine.uconn.edu/healthcare-workforce/

UConn School of Medicine
https://medicine.uconn.edu/

UConn School of Dental Medicine
https://dentalmedicine.uconn.edu/

UConn Health Graduate School
https://health.uconn.edu/graduate-school/

Graduate Medical Education
https://health.uconn.edu/graduate-medical-education/

CT Area Health Education Center (AHEC)
https://health.uconn.edu/connecticut-area-health-education-center-network/

 

Colon Cancer, Nuts, and Early Onset

Dr. Daniel Rosenberg, professor of medicine, Health Net Inc. Chair in Cancer Biology, and investigator in UConn Health's Center for Molecular Oncology, is on the trail of the connection between our digestive system's microbiome and colon cancer. His research has shown how walnut consumption can impact gut bacteria in a way that seems to fight off inflammation in some people. He's also investigating why colon cancers are turning up more in younger people, in their 40s and even 30s.

(March 2022, Daniel Rosenberg, Carolyn Pennington, Chris DeFrancesco)

Daniel W. Rosenberg, Ph.D., faculty profile
https://facultydirectory.uchc.edu/profile?profileId=Rosenberg-Daniel

UConn Health Center for Molecular Oncology
https://health.uconn.edu/molecular-oncology/

Walnut study
https://starr.uchc.edu/Study/StudyDetails.aspx?ID=1796
gajewska@uchc.edu, pappleton@uchc.edu

Peanut study
https://starr.uchc.edu/Study/StudyDetails.aspx?ID=1704
nfan@uchc.edu

Masako Nakanishi, Ph.D., Center for Molecular Oncology
https://facultydirectory.uchc.edu/profile?profileId=Nakanishi-Masako

John Birk, MD, chief, UConn Health Division of Gastroenterology
https://facultydirectory.uchc.edu/profile?profileId=Birk-John

Haleh Vaziri, MD, UConn Health gastrotenterologist
https://facultydirectory.uchc.edu/profile?profileId=Vaziri-Haleh

George Weinstock, Ph.D., The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine
https://facultydirectory.uchc.edu/profile?profileId=Weinstock-George