Stanford Medicine magazine explores life after a health crisis
BY ROSANNE SPECTOR
In America today, one in 20 adults has survived cancer, one in 45 has survived a stroke and every year hundreds of thousands survive a heart attack. We’re becoming a nation of survivors.
This is great news, but it’s also a problem.
Because more often than not, a health crisis leaves survivors with lingering physical and psychological difficulties — yet our health-care system is set up to care for the sick, not those who’ve made it through.
“To date, most graduate medical education programs and medical centers have been deficient in considering the care and management of long-term survivors or developing the workforce to care for them,” writes Philip Pizzo, MD, dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine, in the summer issue of Stanford Medicine magazine.
The summer issue provides a special report examining the challenges presented by the survival boom and how to cope with life after the crisis.
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Inside the report:
- An account of a family’s recovery from childhood cancer.
- A feature on how the Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal could help heal the post-traumatic stress disorder rampant among those who lived through the regime.
- A story on life for a woman who fell thousands of feet to Earth.
- An article on the growing acceptance of exercise as a key to healing.
- A Q&A with neuroanatomy specialist Jill Bolte Taylor, who has inspired millions with her bestselling book and her TED talk on the insights she gained from her own stroke.
This issue’s “Plus” section, featuring stories unrelated to the special report, includes:
- A piece on a major push to develop a simple blood test that tells how well your immune system is working.
- A report on Stanford's test run of a new tool for anatomy education — a “virtual dissection table.”
The magazine, including Web-only features, is available online at http://stanmed.stanford.edu. To request a print copy, call (650) 736-0297 or e-mail medmag@stanford.edu. Stanford Medicine is published three times a year by the medical school’s Office of Communication & Public Affairs.
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