The Schwartz Center Educational Rounds highlight the human side of clinical care by focusing on how providers can sustain their compassion. Sometimes, though, a clinician can find it difficult to muster compassion for a patient. In the rounds on February 19, 2014, two students and an alumna described situations where they had to confront the limits of their ability to care. Chris Carter, PsyD , Director of Behavior Medicine at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, moderated the discussion in which Leigh Pescatore (SON '13), Melissa Pedraza (DPT '15), and Peggy Lin (DPT '15) described cases from...

Admissions Spotlight: Master of Science in Physical Therapy for International Students Online application deadline: March 1, 2014 – Fall 2014 admission About the program: Designed for physical therapists who completed their physical therapy education in another country, our Master of Science in Physical Therapy program offers training that will prepare students for the next step in their careers. Offering an interprofessional mix of evidence-based academics and targeted clinical experience, the program enables foreign-trained therapists to hone core skills in critical inquiry, and basic,...

The dreaded finger stick. Every nursing student remembers performing their first one on a patient. It involves a spring-loaded sharp lancet which pricks a small hole in the patient’s finger, from which a drop of blood is drawn and tested for its blood sugar level with a handheld device. It’s a way of life for many diabetics, who may require testing their blood sugar several times a day. This means enduring thousands of finger sticks over the course of years, a cumbersome and painful reminder of this chronic disease. However, this invasive test may become a thing of the past. Yesterday, Google...

The five of us got to tour Kasturba Hospital in Manipal. The hospital is huge. It has 2250 beds (MGH is 950 to give you a comparison) and 24 ICUs. The hallways and registration areas are VERY crowded, dark, and dirty. Certain ramps had laundry hanging from the railings. Although they are technically not allowed to, many families sleep here. We toured several of the ICUs, an outpatient dialysis unit, and several of the general medical wards. About 80-90% of the dialysis patients are diabetics. This is a major medical problem in India. We were surprised to find the ICUs were in MUCH better...

Namaste! [a Hindi greeting]. While in India, we've done our best to explore the local temples, as religion is a major part of the culture and everyday life. The majority of people practice Hinduism but there are also Christians and Jains in Karnataka (the Indian state we're living in). Temple sign written in Kannada, the local language Hindu temple on campus You must remove shoes before entering Sri Krishna Temple in Udupi, a nearby town Bathing pools at Sri Krishna Temple These structures are pulled by elephants during festivals Chalk is applied to the upper forehead before worship We also...

I broke my first curfew the night I was born in Dakar, Sénégal. The year was 1989, and mounting civil unrest along the lush river border between Sénégal and Mauritania had resulted in a Senegalese man’s death. Subsequently, Mauritanians living in Sénégal became targets of revenge. Enraged Senegalese overturned Mauritanian-owned shops and threatened worse damage. In an effort to contain the attacks, Senegalese law enforcement issued a 10 P.M. curfew in Dakar, after which time anyone could be arrested for being caught outside without the proper paperwork. Enter my very pregnant mother and her...

On our third week in Manipal, we had the opportunity to attend a community health clinic design for second year BSc students. The professors assigned two different families to each student; within the next few weeks, the students have to interview patients, gather both subjective and objective data, and then create a plan of care. We tagged along with some of the students, and gathered some information for our scholarly projects. Leah Rubin RN-NP student '14 and Kristen Palleo RN-NP student 14' had the opportunity to interview a pregnant nurse and gather information about pre-natal care...

On Thursday, January 17, 2014, second-year students in the entry-level graduate programs gathered at Bunker Hill Community College for the Interprofessional Rounds. All year in the Schwartz Center Educational Rounds, students and faculty have been exploring the theme of healing trauma. As a capstone to this discussion, we invited Heather Abbott, a survivor of the Boston Marathon bombings, and her team of caregivers from Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital to discuss the role of interprofessional practice in her recovery. Heather, pictured here with physical therapist Dara Casparian DPT '13...

Introduction: A scenario Imagine being transported back in time, say, fifteen years ago. Pre-Facebook and Twitter. Before “google” was a verb. The era when the terms “information super highway” and “cyberspace” could be used without eliciting a nostalgic smirk. Back then, I would have never imagined a future where a thumb-sized device would reside on my belt, silently sending data about my daily physical activity and sleep habits to a mini-computer in my pocket (that also made phone calls), and compiling it into a personal graph, on the internet. I never thought that my bathroom scale in the...

As a health-care lawyer and son of a physician, Ken Schwartz thought he understood how care delivery worked. When he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer in 1994, however, he unexpectedly gained a new perspective--that of a patient. He underwent CT scans, a bronchoscopy, exploratory surgery, and chemotherapy. Ken quickly realized that effective health care goes beyond knowing which tests to order or which drugs to administer. As he wrote before his death, "What matters most is that they [the care givers] have empathized with me in a way that gives me hope and makes me feel like a human...