News and Highlights
August 2012
Publications
Dr. Art Sedrakyan Is Senior Author of Perspective in New England Journal of Medicine and Presents Evidence at FDA Meeting
Art Sedrakyan, MD, PhD, Associate Professor and Director of the Patient-Centered Comparative Effectiveness Research Program in the Department of Public Health, is the senior author of a Perspective article published online June 20, 2012 in The New England Journal of Medicine titled “Delays and Difficulties in Assessing Metal-on-Metal Hip Implants.” The first author, Joshua P. Rising, MD, MPH, and the other author, Ian S. Reynolds, MPH, are from the Medical Device Initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts. In the article, the authors propose structural improvements to device approval and surveillance processes to improve the accuracy and utility of pre- and post-marketing studies of devices.
The Perspective was published shortly before a two-day advisory panel meeting June 27-28 at the FDA meant to help doctors find ways to better monitor the risks posed by metal-on-metal hip replacements. At this meeting, the International Consortium of Orthopedic Registries (ICOR), which is being coordinated by Weill Cornell Medical College and Kaiser Permanente, was allotted a substantial amount of time to present an overview of current evidence. Dr. Sedrakyan presented, along with Dr. Stephen Graves, Director of the National Australian Registry and head of ICOR’s steering committee. Dr. Sedrakyan discussed worldwide registry evidence related to metal on metal implants. The FDA hearings were publicized by The New York Times, Reuters, the Associated Press, Healthday, The Gray Sheet (a newsletter of the medical device and diagnostic industries), and FDA Week. The Reuters,Healthday, and AP articles were published in numerous newspapers and news websites.
Podcast Published to Accompany Article by Medical Ethics Faculty
Dr. Ellen Meltzer
Ellen C. Meltzer, MD, FACP, Assistant Professor of Public Health and Medicine in the Division of Medical Ethics, discussed the article
"Lip-Reading and the Ventilated Patient" in a Society of Critical Care Medicine iCritical Care Podcast. Dr. Meltzer is the article's lead author and
Joseph J. Fins, MD, MACP, Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics, the E. William Davis, Jr., MD Professor of Medical Ethics, and Professor of Medicine, Public Health and Medicine in Psychiatry, is the senior author.
Alexandra Suppes, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Division of Medical Ethics, and James J. Gallagher, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College, are the other authors. The article, based on an ethics case from NYP, appeared in the May 2012 issue of
Critical Care Medicine. It illustrates the benefits lip-reading interpretation can provide to improve communication with patients capable of mouthing words.
Listen to the podcast (#181 dated May 31, 2012).
Drs. Hassan Ghomrawi, Alvin Mushlin, and Others Author Article in Clinical Orthopedics and Related Research
Dr. Hassan Ghomrawi
Hassan Ghomrawi, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Division of Health Policy and Outcomes Research Scientist at the Hospital for Special Surgery, is the lead author of “
Discordance in TKA Expectations between Patients and Surgeons,” e-published July 21, 2012, in
Clinical Orthopedics and Related Research Journal.
Alvin I. Mushlin, MD, ScM, the Nanette Laitman Professor and Chairman of the Department of Public Health, is the senior author. Co-authors include Carol A. Mancuso MD, Geoffrey H. Westrich MD, and
Robert G. Marx MD, MSc, of the Hospital for Special Surgery and Weill Cornell Medical College, as well as additional members of the Expectations Discordance Study Group. The researchers found that 37% of the patients they studied had discordantly high expectations (in comparison with their surgeons) for their upcoming total knee replacement surgeries. Patients were less likely to have discordantly high expectations if they were female and if their pain level was high. They were more likely to have discordantly high expectations if they filled out the expectations survey before rather than after a preoperative educational class. The authors suggest that the preoperative educational class can be used to target patients more likely to have discordantly high expectations. The study was funded by Dr. Ghomrawi’s career development grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development as well as by the Weill Cornell Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics (CERT) grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Dr. Nobuaki Nakaya Publishes Article in Kokutai
Nobuaki (Noble) Nakaya, MD, Visiting Fellow in the Division of Community and Public Health Programs, is the author of an article in Kokutai titled “Symptoms and Diagnosis in Recent Pediatrics (2012; 8: 13-17).
