Cambridge Health Alliance Physician Wins Harvard Teaching Award
5/16/2013
Cambridge , Mass. – Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) physician Marie-Louise Jean-Baptiste, MD, has been awarded the Harvard Medical School (HMS) 2013 Charles McCabe Faculty Prize for Excellence in Teaching. Since 1982, this honor has been bestowed on HMS’s most outstanding teachers, a highly select group of the School's leading medical educators. Dr. Jean-Baptiste received the prize in recognition of her outstanding teaching, both in CHA’s primary care clerkship and its HMS-Cambridge Integrated Clerkship...
New Study Finds Black and Hispanic Patients Less Likely to Complete Substance Abuse Treatment
1/7/2013
Somerville , Mass. — Roughly half of all black and Hispanic patients who enter publicly funded alcohol treatment programs complete treatment compared to 62 percent of white patients, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance. Comparable disparities were also identified for drug treatment program completion rates. The study, published in the latest issue of Health Affairs , shows that completion disparities among racia...
Three Cambridge Health Alliance Physicians Appointed to Harvard Medical School's Center for Primary Care Faculty
10/22/2012
Cambridge, MA… Three physicians from Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), a leading provider of primary care in the Boston area, have been appointed to the Center for Primary Care, created in 2010 by Harvard Medical School (HMS) to address the current crisis in primary care with innovative solutions. “We are growing in leaps and bounds, underscoring the urgency of the Center’s work and the need for innovation and change in primary care,” said Russell Phillips, MD, Director of the Center for P...
Programs for Treating Addiction in Doctors Pose Ethical Issues According to Harvard Researchers
10/15/2012
Cambridge , MA … State physician health programs (PHPs) play a key role in helping doctors with substance abuse problems. But the current PHP system is inconsistent and prone to potential conflicts of interest and ethical issues according to an article which will be published in the December issue of the Journal of Addiction Medicine and has just been released online. The article points out "substantial variability in states' PHP policies and practices, often raising serious ethical and managerial...
New Study Finds Common Hospital Noises Disrupt Patient Sleep, Affect Cardiovascular Function
6/11/2012
Cambridge , MA … In the hospital it is not only direct patient care, but also the environment that contributes to recovery. A critical component of a healing environment is a peaceful space for a patient to get enough sleep. However, according to a new study by researchers at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), and Massachusetts General Hospital, there are certain noises in a common hospital setting that can disrupt sleep. Such disruption can negatively affect brain acti...
CHA Researcher Finds Scientific Evidence Does Not Support Sale of DMAA in Supplements
5/7/2012
Cambridge , MA … The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued warning letters to 10 supplement companies for selling the amphetamine-like drug dimethylamylamine (DMAA). According to a new report by a Harvard Medical School researcher, there is no scientific evidence that DMAA is safe or effective to support its sale as a supplement. The report, published online today by the Archives of Internal Medicine , comes as companies have less than 10 days to provide the FDA with evidence of DMAA’s...
Cambridge Health Alliance Psychiatrist Provides Tools to Decode Challenging Student Behavior in New Book
4/13/2012
Cambridge , MA … Children with behavioral challenges often fail in school, wasting too much time in detention and suspensions and falling behind in academics, never mastering the skills they need to make adequate progress. Classroom teachers encounter these challenging students on a daily basis, and they can be highly disruptive to a classroom, interfering with other students’ learning as well as draining a teacher’s energy and time. In The Behavior Code (Harvard Education Press, publication date: April...
Landmark Study Finds Harvard Clerkship Improves Students’ Learning and Commitment to Patients
3/29/2012
Cambridge , MA … New research released today upends prevailing notions of medical education and points to a better way to teach and learn. Published online today by Academic Medicine , the study marks one of the most significant developments in medical education in over 100 years, since the Flexner Report of 1910 instituted fundamental standards and principles across U.S. and Canadian universities. The study, the most comprehensive of its kind, reported data from the Harvard Medical School-Cambridge Int...
Cambridge Health Alliance Researcher Margarita Alegria, PhD, Elected to the Institute of Medicine
10/21/2011
Somerville, MA...Margarita Alegria, PhD, director of Cambridge Health Alliance's Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research and a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, was named this week to the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Election to the IOM is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine. Dr. Alegria was one of 65 new members and five foreign associates appointed at the IOM's annual meeting. Dr. Alegria is a leading expert on disparities...