Medicine

The road to more hand transplants

Over the past 20 years, more than 85 amputees around the world have received a hand or bilateral hand transplant—including two adults and one child at Penn Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Penn Today Staff

Boots on the ground for the opioid task force

Opioid addiction is a “public health emergency,” according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Overdose deaths involving opioids—both prescription and illegal—have increased fivefold between 1999 and 2016.

Penn Today Staff

Injection improves vision in a form of childhood blindness

A new treatment for patients with a form of congenital retinal blindness has shown success in improving vision, according to results published today in Nature Medicine led by researchers at the Scheie Eye Institute in the Perelman School of Medicine

Penn Today Staff

Breaking through the medical fake news bubble

In a new perspective piece published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Raina Merchant and David A. Asch provide some guidance for medical professionals and scientists as they wade into online discussions.  

Penn Today Staff

Why we have hair here, but not there

A new study answers a fundamental question in human evolution about how and where hair grows on the body, and reveals the existence of a naturally-occurring inhibitor to hair growth.

Penn Today Staff

Staging the plague

Eighty-one students training in a diversity of health professions worked with regional and federal agencies to confront an imagined outbreak scenario centered around bubonic plague in Philadelphia.

Katherine Unger Baillie



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In the News


Philadelphia Inquirer

Inside Penn’s transfer center

Penn Medicine’s transfer command center gets patients from affiliated hospitals and hospitals outside Philadelphia to specialized care that can save lives, with comments from CEO Kevin Mahoney.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Operating rooms are major sources of greenhouse gasses. Penn is eliminating a form of anesthesia that hangs in the air for more than a decade after use

Penn Medicine is phasing out the anesthesia desflurane at four of its six hospitals to eliminate harmful greenhouse gases, with remarks from Greg Evans.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Broad Street runners from Penn are racing with gyroscopes to study the Achilles tendon

Casey Jo Humbyrd and Josh Baxter of the Perelman School of Medicine and colleagues will track data from running the Broad Street Run to understand how a healthy Achilles tendon functions.

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National Geographic

What is topical steroid withdrawal? If you have eczema, here’s what you should know

Bruce Brod of the Perelman School of Medicine says that prolonged or overuse of topical steroids can cause rosacea, skin thinning, stretch marks, and an extreme and debilitating withdrawal.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Mayor Parker’s plan to ‘remove the presence of drug users’ from Kensington raises new questions

Shoshana Aronowitz of the School of Nursing and Ashish Thakrar of the Perelman School of Medicine comment on the lack of specificity in Philadelphia’s plan to remove drug users from Kensington and on the current state of drug treatment in the city.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

How many patients would recommend their Philly-area hospital to family and friends? Check your local hospital

The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania has been named one of the most recommended acute-care facilities by patients in the Philadelphia area.

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