Read article – Quotes Benjamin Keeney, instructor in orthopaedics, about a study he coauthored that found that for morbidly obese patients having knee replacement surgery, losing at least 20 pounds beforehand leads to shorter hospital stays and lower odds of being discharged to a facility. “Many people are told to lose five or 10 pounds before the surgery but we don’t actually know how much weight you have to lose for it to lead to a meaningful improvement,” says Keeney. (Picked up by KFGO, WHBL, KDAL 610, WHTC, MDAlert, WNMT, and ChannelNews Asia. Similar coverage in DevDiscourse.)

Read article – An opinion piece co-written by Alison Volpe Holmes, associate professor of pediatrics, medical education, and of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, about the growing pains of Match Day, when fourth-year medical students across the country learn their hospital assignments for the next three to seven years.

Read article – An article about how some teenagers of anti-vaccine parents are taking matters into their own hands, mentions that researchers at Dartmouth have a theory that anti-vax sentiments persist because of hysteresis, a phenomenon that describes how the impacts of a force can remain after the initial force has been altered or removed.

Read article – An article about how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it would go ahead with efforts to restrict sales of some types of flavored vaping products to minors, quotes a recent study by Dartmouth researchers that seemed to back up the FDA’s concerns. “We found that adolescent and young adult vapers were not only more likely than older adult vapers to use fruit- and candy-flavored e-cigarettes, but were more likely to concurrently use multiple flavor types,” says lead researcher Samir Soneji, associate professor of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. (Picked up by WebMD. Similar coverage in The Verge and U.S. News & World Report).

Read article – Quotes Samir Soneji, associate professor of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, in an article about how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently announced it would go ahead with efforts to restrict sales of some types of flavored vaping products to minors. Research coauthored by Soneji seems to back up the FDA’s concerns. “We found that adolescent and young adult vapers were not only more likely than older adult vapers to use fruit- and candy-flavored e-cigarettes, but were more likely to concurrently use multiple flavor types,” says Soneji.

Read article – Quotes Samir Soneji, associate professor of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, in a feature story about a study he led that found that even though e-cigarettes may help people kick the habit of smoking, they’re also attracting new, younger people. “Teens in record numbers are vaping, and we wanted to know what they’re vaping,” says Soneji. “Youth prefer candy and fruit-flavored e-cigarettes, and the adults—many of whom are smokers—differentially prefer tobacco flavored e-cigarettes. Youth preference really is different.” (Similar coverage in Med India and UPI.)

Read article – An opinion piece by Laura Ronan, associate professor of neurology and of medicine, in which she discusses how House Democrats’ “Medicare for All” proposal doesn’t incentivize doctors to listen to their patients.

Read article – Quotes Benjamin Keeney, instructor in orthopaedics, and David Jevsevar, chair and professor of orthopaedics, in a feature story about research they coauthored that found that morbidly obese patients undergoing knee replacement surgery have better outcomes if they lose at least 20 pounds prior to surgery.

Read article – A series of news briefs which mention that Ilana Cass has been appointed the chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and that Michael Whitfield has been named the chair of the Department of Biomedical Data Science. (Similar coverage in New Hampshire Union Leader.)

Read article – Quotes Steven Woloshin, professor of medicine, community and family medicine, and of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, in an article about how U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen criticized the pharmaceutical industry for putting profits above people and called for increased competition to lower drug prices on Friday during a roundtable discussion at Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital. Woloshin noted that a major problem with the drug market is that prices often are arbitrary. “A lot of the drugs (on the market) don’t do all that much,” said Woloshin. “We need a day of objectively looking at the drug to discern what the value is.”