This Week@WesternU, Jan. 21-24, 2020
Free glaucoma screenings
January is Glaucoma Awareness Month. The WesternU Eye Care Institute will hold free glaucoma screenings in the WesternU Health – Pomona first floor lobby 1-5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 28 and 8-11 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 30. Have your eye pressure taken, learn what glaucoma is and learn about glaucoma risk factors. No appointment necessary. Please help spread the word. Click here to view a flier.
Kudos on accomplishments
WesternU Associate Provost for Academic Development Elizabeth Rega, PhD, co-authored a paper released in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B as part of a special theme issue of vertebrate paleophysiology.
“Investigation of a bone lesion in a gorgonopsian (Synapsida) from the Permian of Zambia and periosteal reactions in fossil non-mammalian tetrapods” by Kyle M Kato, Elizabeth A Rega, Christian A Sidor and Adam K Hüttenlocker.
Click here to access the issue: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/2020/375/1793
From the College of Dental Medicine:
WesternU Dental Center provides free care to Navy veteran
Navy veteran Brian McKinley started losing his teeth in 2007 due to chemotherapy treatments for Stage 4 melanoma. He lost one every six months or so, and eventually wound up without enough teeth to eat.
“I had to change my diet. I started losing weight,” he said. “I was not going out to meet people or talk to people because I was embarrassed about my teeth. I became more or less a shut-in.”
Western University of Health Sciences’ Dental Center has given McKinley a new smile and a new outlook on life. The Dental Center provided him free dental care as part of the Dental Lifeline Network’s “Will You See One Vet” program, where dentists across the country volunteered to provide free care to veterans.
“We owe our veterans a lot. They have devoted years of their life keeping us safe. Often they will spend most of their time away from their families and loved ones. We ask them to make sacrifices up to and including loss of life sometimes,” said WesternU College of Dental Medicine Dean Steven Friedrichsen, DDS. “Under the current system, the VA (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) really only provides dental care for those who have essentially 100 percent disability as a result of their service, and so I think there are a lot of veterans who have marginal dental care. This is one way we can give back in a very small way to contribute to their health and well-being.”
Click here to read the full story and watch a video.
From the College of Health Sciences:
Kudos on accomplishments
College of Health Sciences student Christal Haynes participated in the Jan. 9, 2020 school visit from Crean Lutheran High School, hosted by the WesternU LMSA club. Forty-five juniors and seniors, all with interest in science professions, split into four groups to learn about different health professions. Haynes, an MSHS student, represented the Department of Health Sciences and facilitated sessions on public health. The visiting high schoolers worked in teams to draw out their vision of a healthy city.
“The students tended to come up with similar themes: homelessness, health care, fresh air and water, and access to fresh fruits and vegetables. These are the topics that are important to them as youth,” Haynes said.
“Programs like this not only expose young students to careers in health, but they allow our health science students to apply what they learn in the classroom. I get to watch both groups of students thrive!” said Department of Health Sciences Associate Professor Jeanine Borland Mann, MPH.
From the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific:
COMP-Northwest Donor Memorial Ceremony 2020
WesternU COMP-Northwest held its annual Donor-Patient Memorial Service on Friday, Jan. 9. The ceremony acknowledges the important role donor-patients play in teaching future physicians about the body.
Jerry Chen, COMP-Northwest SGA president for the Class of 2023, opened the ceremony and explained how privileged the class was to have the opportunity to learn from those in the Willed Body Program. Brion Benninger, MD, MSc, gave the commemorative address by sharing the humanistic aspects of donor-patients. Dr. Benninger also provided a historical account of how respect for donor-patients has elevated beyond anatomy, and revealed the responsibilities associated with the care and commitment of donor-patients. He stated that each medical student was the steward for their donor-patient and thanked them for their care. Dr. Benninger emphasized the acquired knowledge from donor-patients span several social and academic arenas including medical education, research, and dynamics of health care teams. Lastly, he thanked the donor0patients and their loved ones for enabling him, his colleagues and our students to answer the unanswerable.
An invocation was delivered by Wes Sedlacek, chaplain of Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital, and a military flag presentation was led by Mario Gaddini, Class of 2022, U.S. Air Force.
During the ceremony, members of the WesternU COMP-Northwest Class of 2023 lit candles in honor of their donor-patients, and several students shared emotional comments on how the donor-patients taught them and affected their lives, emphasizing how they will never forget their first patient. Closing remarks were given by Sierra Hawthorne, COMP-Northwest vice president for the class of 2023, who thanked everyone for participating.
Kudos on accomplishments
Dr. Brion Benninger’s work with West Linn High School students was featured in The West Linn Tidings. Click here to read the story.
