BOSTON (PRWEB)
May 12, 2020

A viewpoint published in Annals of Internal Medicine urges clinicians to counsel patients about their sexual health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic and offers practical advice that can be shared in brief conversations and referrals to relevant resources.

“More than 200,000 people have died of COVID-19, which has led to widespread concern about the ease with which the coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, is transmitted from one person to another,” said Dr. Jack Turban, resident physician in psychiatry at The Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital and lead author of the viewpoint.

SARS-CoV-2, more popularly known as the coronavirus, is readily transmitted when someone either breathes in respiratory droplets containing SARS-CoV-2 that have been emitted when an infected person talks, coughs, or sneezes, or when someone touches a surface contaminated with such respiratory droplets and then touches their face.

“This has resulted in broad guidance recommending that people avoid coming within six feet of each other. There has been a great deal of advice on how to avoid transmitting the coronavirus by wearing a face mask, frequently washing hands, and practicing good hygiene,” Turban added. “But the sexual health implications of these recommendations have received little attention, even though it appears that all forms of in-person sexual contact carry risk for transmission of the virus.”

Infected individuals may potentially spread respiratory secretions onto their skin or their personal objects, including sex toys, from which the coronavirus can be transmitted to a sexual partner.

“Abstinence is the lowest-risk approach to sexual health during the pandemic,” said Dr. Alex Keuroghlian, a co-author of the viewpoint who directs the National LGBT Health Education Center at The Fenway Institute and the Massachusetts General Hospital Psychiatry Gender Identity Program. “But given the well-documented failures of abstinence-based public health interventions, this advice alone is unlikely to be successful for all patients. For some groups, including sexual and gender minority communities, a recommendation of abstinence may promote shame and sexualized stigma. It could also conjure traumatic memories of the AIDS crisis.”

Clinicians are advised to offer sex-positive advice across the spectrum of risk. These range from activities with a low risk of infection, such as masturbation, having sex with a partner with whom you are self-quarantining, or having sex via digital platforms such as video chat. Patients who use digital tools for sex should be counseled to use secure encrypted platforms and be warned about the risks for sexual partners taking screenshots and the relevant risk of sexual extortion. Those engaging in higher risk activities, such as having sex with people whom you are not self-quarantining, should be counseled on ways to reduce the risk of transmission by wearing a mask and showering both before and after having sex.

Going forward, clinicians will need to incorporate new technological advances regarding the coronavirus into how they think about sexual health and risk.

“As we learn more about the use of new technologies, like antibody tests, they may help us to develop best practices in advising people around safer sex, but for the time being, we need to assume all partners may be infectious,” said Kenneth Mayer, MD, a co-author of the viewpoint and Co-chair and Medical Research Director, The Fenway Institute and Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School. “Ultimately, it will be important for clinicians to discuss new knowledge about the coronavirus with their patients as this information will affect decisions about sexual health.”

The viewpoint, titled “Sexual Health in the SARS-CoV-2 Era” was published by the Annals of Internal Medicine. It is available free online at https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-2004

About Fenway Health & The Fenway Institute

Since 1971, Fenway Health has been working to make life healthier for the people in our neighborhoods, the LGBTQ community, people living with HIV/AIDS and the broader population. The Fenway Institute at Fenway Health is an interdisciplinary center for research, training, education and policy development focusing on national and international health issues.

About Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with an annual research budget of more than $925 million and comprises more than 8,500 researchers working across more than 30 institutes, centers and departments. In August 2019 the MGH was once again named #2 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report in its list of “America’s Best Hospitals.”

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (PRWEB)
May 12, 2020

MedVet has been awarded a Top Workplaces 2020 honor by Columbus CEO. Selection for this award is based solely on employee feedback gathered through a third-party survey administered by employee engagement technology partner Energage, LLC. The anonymous survey uniquely measures 15 drivers of engaged cultures that are critical to the success of any organization: including alignment, execution, and connection, just to name a few.

“For more than a decade, the Top Workplaces award has helped organizations stand out among their competitors to attract talent,” said Eric Rubino, CEO of Energage. “This differentiation is more important than ever in today’s tight labor market. Establishing a continuous conversation with employees so you have a deep understanding of your unique culture is proven to help achieve higher referral rates, lower employee turnover, and double the employee engagement levels. No longer is recognition simply a much-deserved cause for celebration, but it’s fast becoming mission-critical to establish a competitive advantage for recruitment and retention.”

“Delivering an exceptional Employee Experience is our top priority and we strive to be the best place for veterinary healthcare professionals to work. Taking care of our team by supporting their passion, voice, growth, wellbeing, and leadership also allows us to deliver an exceptional experience to the patients, clients and general practitioners we serve,” said Linda Lehmkuhl, DVM, MS, DACVIM (Cardiology) CEO of MedVet. “We are honored to be recognized as a Top Workplace, and grateful to our team for their commitment to each other, and for living our core values of teamwork, leadership and compassion.”

About MedVet

Veterinarian-led and owned, MedVet is a growing, nationwide network of emergency and specialty hospitals for pets committed to enhancing the lives of pets, their loving families, and the veterinary community. More than 2,300 employees working in 29 locations embrace core values of teamwork, leadership, and compassion as they pursue the best possible patient outcomes. For more information, please visit medvet.com. Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn @medvet.

About Energage

Energage offers a fully unified SaaS platform, plus support and professional services, to help organizations recruit and retain the right talent. As a B-Corporation founding member, Energage has committed itself to the purpose of making the world a better place to work together. Based on 14 years of culture research, the engine behind 51 Top Workplaces programs across the country, and data gathered from over 20 million employees at 60,000 organizations, Energage has isolated the 15 drivers of engaged cultures that are critical to the success of any business, and developed the tools and expertise to help organizations measure, shape and showcase their unique culture to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. For more information, please visit energage.com. Follow us on Twitter @teamenergage and Facebook and LinkedIn @energage.

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SKOKIE, Ill. (PRWEB)
May 12, 2020

Nominations are open for the 11th annual Hygiene Specialist® Excellence award, which acknowledges the invaluable contribution of environmental services (EVS) departments in healthcare facilities across the U.S. Sponsored by UMF Corporation, the award celebrates EVS staff, the essential healthcare workers who are serving on the frontlines of the battle against COVID-19. Due to the pandemic and volume of EVS staff stepping up to serve, the deadline for nominations has been extended to July 15, 2020.

“We created the Hygiene Specialist Excellence Award to increase awareness of the invaluable contributions of EVS staff in creating a safe patient environment,” said UMF CEO George Clarke. “The award is particularly significant this year, as EVS workers are risking their health and lives to deliver an essential service in helping stop COVID-19 from spreading throughout hospitals and long-term care centers. Environmental hygiene specialists, in particular, are a first line of defense in preventing the spread of hospital associated infections (HAIs) and viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.”

As COVID-19 sweeps across communities, essential workers – first responders, doctors, nurses, store clerks, delivery drivers and teachers – are resoundingly and deservedly heralded as heroes. EVS employees, too, are putting their lives on the line in hospitals and long-term care facilities every day in the midst of the global health crisis. One of the CDC’s top 5 recommendations for preventing COVID-19 is to clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces. EVS staff are the ones responsible for cleaning and disinfecting patient rooms, operating rooms and common areas before, during and after COVID-19 cases come through healthcare facilities.

“Often overlooked, EVS staff are more important than ever in the midst of the fight all nations are entrenched in against COVID-19,” added Clarke. “They are an integral part of enterprise-wide multimodal intervention programs to combat not only COVID-19, but also HAIs, which infect 1 in 31 hospital patients on any given day. It is time to shed light on their vital work to help ensure safe healthcare environments.”

EVS managers are encouraged to nominate dedicated staff members for the award. The award recipient will receive an all-expenses paid trip for two, including airfare, to South Beach, Fla. Nomination forms, available at https://bit.ly/2Af1CSx, should be submitted by July 15, 2020.

About UMF Corporation

UMF Corporation is the leader in the research and development of high-performance products for the infection prevention and commercial cleaning markets. Through extensive testing, exhaustive analysis and the commitment of significant human and financial resources, new antimicrobial technologies have been merged with innovative product designs that are redefining the future of clean®. http://www.perfectclean.com

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NEW YORK (PRWEB)
May 12, 2020

In a new multi-center study of U.S. women with newly diagnosed invasive breast cancer, Mount Sinai researchers have shown that insulin resistance is one factor mediating part of the association between race and poor prognosis in the disease. The findings were published in Breast Cancer Research on Tuesday, May 12.

Despite improvements in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, black women with breast cancer continue to have worse prognoses on average than white women. Breast cancer prognoses also tend to be worse in patients with insulin resistance, a common condition that occurs when metabolic cells in the body don’t respond adequately to insulin, causing the pancreas to make more insulin to maintain normal glucose levels. Insulin resistance is an important component of obesity, prediabetes, and type 2 diabetes. Patients with these conditions also tend to have more aggressive breast cancer subtypes and increased mortality.

“Given that obesity and diabetes epidemics disproportionately affect minority populations, it is important to understand the relationship of hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance, and increased insulin receptor (IR) signaling on the progression of breast cancer,” explained lead author Emily J. Gallagher, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Gallagher specializes in onco-endocrinology, the treatment of endocrine complications of oncology treatments. “Understanding these relationships could explain the different patterns of disease seen in different racial groups and help to identify patients who would benefit from targeted therapy,” she says.

This is the first cross-sectional study to examine in detail insulin resistance as a factor associated to the disparities in breast cancer prognosis between black women and white women. The study included 515 women with a newly diagnosed breast cancer; about 83 percent of the subjects were white and 17 percent black. The Mount Sinai team evaluated the women for insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome—a cluster of conditions that occur together and may include high blood pressure or high blood sugar—and obesity to investigate whether insulin is a key mechanistic link in the association between these metabolic conditions and breast cancer aggressiveness. Samples of breast cancer tissue were examined to assess the role of insulin receptor and insulin-like growth factor receptor expression in disparities in breast cancer prognoses between the racial groups.

The researchers found that insulin resistance was more prevalent in black women with invasive breast cancer than in white women and that insulin resistance mediated part of the effect of race on prognosis. Additionally, the team found that tumors from black women had a higher expression of the insulin receptor, which is what insulin binds to in the tumors. Tumors with a worse prognosis had higher expression of the insulin receptor.

“Our results raise a number of questions for future research and patient care. It will be important in future studies to explore whether lowering insulin levels or targeting IR signaling will improve breast cancer disparities,” said co-senior investigator Nina Bickell, MD, MPH, Associate Director of Community Engaged and Equity Research of The Tisch Cancer Institute and Co-Director of the Center for Health Equity and Community Engaged Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Derek LeRoith, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine (Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is also a senior investigator in this research.

The study was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health.

About the Mount Sinai Health System

The Mount Sinai Health System is New York City’s largest academic medical system, encompassing eight hospitals, a leading medical school, and a vast network of ambulatory practices throughout the greater New York region. Mount Sinai is a national and international source of unrivaled education, translational research and discovery, and collaborative clinical leadership ensuring that we deliver the highest quality care—from prevention to treatment of the most serious and complex human diseases. The Health System includes more than 7,200 physicians and features a robust and continually expanding network of multispecialty services, including more than 400 ambulatory practice locations throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, and Long Island. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 14 on U.S. News & World Report’s “Honor Roll” of the Top 20 Best Hospitals in the country and the Icahn School of Medicine as one of the Top 20 Best Medical Schools in the country. Mount Sinai Health System hospitals are consistently ranked regionally by specialty by U.S. News & World Report.

For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

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