• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
  • Columns
  • Editorial
  • Op-Ed
  • Letters
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
  • Simchas
  • Obituaries
• 
  • Audio
  • Video
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

advanced search

12 Feb 2012 | 19 Shevat 5772

• Home
• About Us
• Advertise
• Real Estate
• Classifieds
• Subscribe
• FAQ
• Contact Us

 

Miryam Z. Wahrman

 

Page 3 of 5 pages  <  1 2 3 4 5 >

 

Kidney donor

A Jewish action hero

Cover StoryPublished: 28 August 2009

With so many Jewish villains in the news lately, including convicted financial scoundrel Bernard Madoff, corrupt politicians, and Jewish community leaders allegedly laundering money, it is refreshing to discover and applaud a true Jewish hero.

A grassroots e-mail campaign is promoting Rabbi Ephraim Simon for recognition as a Jewish Hero in United Jewish Communities’ online contest. If he receives enough votes on the UJC Website (www.jewishcommunityheroes.org/nominees/profile/rabbi-ephraim-simon), then his altruistic act may be recognized by UJC, the Jewish federation’s umbrella organization, with a $25,000 donation to Teaneck Chabad House.

 

read more

 

Israel Bonds unit embraces doctors

Retired ophthalmologist tells of treating poor in Kenya

LocalPublished: 19 June 2009

Most people associate retirement with increased leisure time, golf, and Florida. But for Dr. Robert Bergen, who retired after 32 years as an ophthalmologist, retirement provided the opportunity to study intensively about malaria, HIV, tuberculosis, and typhoid fever. He did that in preparation for a four-month stint from December to March as a volunteer physician in the largest slum in Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya. He shared his experiences at a recent Israel Bonds event in Alpine.

“Dr. Bergen took the initiative to find a clinic on the Internet,” said Dr. Deane Penn who ran the event as part of an initiative to establish a Health Professionals Division of Israel Bonds in Bergen County. Penn, who is the Bergen County chairman of Israel Bonds, said that his colleague spent his time in the clinic caring for patients with serious infectious diseases.

 

read more

 

A new world of emergency medicine

Israeli doctor shares his experiences at Western Galilee Hospital

Cover StoryPublished: 08 May 2009

At Western Galilee Hospital, six miles from the Lebanese border, emergency drills are commonly conducted to ensure that physicians, nurses, and emergency service personnel are ready to respond when disaster strikes. “On 16 July, 2006, it was no longer an exercise,” recalled Dr. Arie Eisenman, head of the Medical Emergency Room at that hospital, located in Nahariya, Israel. “Hostilities broke out with Hezbollah, due to the abduction of two Israeli soldiers.”

Last Monday, at Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, Eisenman recreated the scene. During the Lebanon war in 2006, cities in the north of Israel were subjected to frequent rocket attacks. There were hundreds of soldier and civilian victims who needed medical attention. “All the patients were evacuated to the underground facility in less than an hour,” said Eisenman.

 

read more

 

A new world of emergency medicine

Western Galilee’s emergency preparedness and underground hospital

Cover StoryPublished: 08 May 2009

Western Galilee Hospital has more than 700 beds and a staff of 330 physicians and 850 nurses, organized into 61 departments and units. “We are busier than Holy Name, with the same size staff,” said Dr. Arie Eisenman, head of the Medical Emergency Room at Western Galilee. Each year there are approximately 120,000 ER visits (compared with 44,000 at Holy Name), 60,000 hospitalizations (vs. 26,000 at Holy Name), 15,000 surgical procedures, 28,000 dialysis treatments, and 6,500 births per year (compared with about 1,200 per year at Holy Name).

Since it is a teaching hospital affiliated with Technion Medical School in Haifa, Western Galilee also trains medical students and residents. Eisenman reported that the hospital has an award-winning Continuous Quality Management program, which is involved with maintaining high standards in patient care and maintenance of facilities.

 

read more

 

A new world of emergency medicine

Holy Name Hospital’s new ER facility

Cover StoryPublished: 08 May 2009

Holy Name Hospital’s George P. Pitkin M.D. Emergency Care Center, which opened in August 2008, was the focal point of Dr. Arie Eisenman’s April 27 visit to the hospital.

The $22 million facility has more than doubled the emergency-treatment capacity to 41 beds (compared with 18 in the old ER). In times of very high demand, rooms can be further expanded to accommodate 82 patients at once.

Jonathan Hirsch, director of guest services at Holy Name, explained that there are several pods with individual nursing stations, and as each pod fills up, personnel can open a new area. “The pods break up the size, and each [medical] team has a certain section,” he said. “Personnel have cell phones and internal phones to get assistance. In addition, we can page all the doctors in the ER at once.”

 

read more

 

Author sifts through the shifting sands of memory

LocalPublished: 13 March 2009

I was to some degree interested in memory because memory is such an important part of the Jewish faith,” said Cathryn Jakobson Ramin, author of “Carved In Sand: When Attention Fails and Memory Fades in Midlife.” “On the high holy days and at the Passover seder we experience the broader type of memory,” she said.

Ramin, who will speak at the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades on Wednesday, writes in her book that her concern about her own memory was a major incentive to pursuing the project.

 

read more

Schizophrenia research and the Jews

In the late 1990s the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University placed an advertisement in a number of newspapers, including this one, recruiting Jewish research subjects. The ad read: “Ashkenazi Jewish families are needed to help scientists understand the biological basis for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.” Now a new study recruiting schizophrenia patients in northern New Jersey is seeking volunteers. Although that study is recruiting from the Jewish community as well as the general population, past studies have targeted Jewish populations, in particular Ashkenazi Jews. Has this occurred because Jews are more likely to suffer from mental illness than other groups? Scientific research has not supported this notion; experts estimate the incidence of schizophrenia in the Ashkenazi Jewish population to be no higher than that of the general population (about one percent).

Schizophrenia research and the Jews

New clinical research study on schizophrenia

Sanofi-Aventis, a Malverne, Pa.-based pharmaceutical company, is enrolling subjects in a study of a new treatment to help schizophrenia patients improve cognitive functioning. Although a press release was sent to Jewish newspapers in this area, according to Brian Gaines, trial manager at Sanofi-Aventis, Jewish subjects are not specifically being recruited; the company is looking for any schizophrenia patients who are stable and relatively healthy. The drug, which is a new compound developed by his company, is thought to work by suppressing certain responses in the brain. It is designed to help patients who have cognitive impairment, that is, according to the press release, “people with schizophrenia [who] struggle to concentrate, remember, and learn.”

Jewish perspectives on sex education

Responding to a secular world and its values

Pregnant teenagers Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears and the popular movie “Juno” have brought the issue of teen sexuality and pregnancy to the forefront. But it’s not just celebrity children who are sexually active and get pregnant. According to a recent report by the federal Centers for Disease Control, teen pregnancy rates in the United States are the second highest in the developed world, behind only Russia. (The CDC reports the teen pregnancy rate in Israel as less than one-third the U.S. rate.) These statistics support the conclusion that many American teenagers are sexually active, and many engage in unprotected sex.

Jewish genetic diseases: ‘Traditions you don’t want to pass on’

Some traditions you don’t want to pass on,” read the advertisement for the Jewish genetic diseases symposium. The ad continued, “One in five Ashkenazi Jews is a carrier of one or more genetic conditions and may not know it.” The goals of last Sunday’s event at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center were to educate the Jewish community and encourage screening for Ashkenazi Jewish genetic diseases. The symposium attracted more than 150 people for sessions that included genetic screening and diagnosis as well as discussions of the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act and hereditary breast cancer.