MedStaff Update: June 2015

Cancer Center South Bay Brings Advanced Care to a Community Setting

As the incidence of cancer increases, Stanford will expand its cancer care footprint in the Bay Area this summer with the opening of the new Stanford Cancer Center South Bay. This center blends the best of advanced, academic medicine with the convenience and comfort of a community care setting.

New Program Targets Young Adults with Cancer

Although cancer survival rates for young children and adults continue to improve, there has been little improvement in the past 30 years in survival rates for adolescents and young adults with cancer. To address the issues affecting survivorship for this patient population, Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health have joined together to create the Stanford Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Program (SAYAC).

Bringing Primary Care to Patients, Where They Live and Work

For decades, patients often came to Stanford for treatment of rare disorders or life-threatening illness, but rarely for routine or preventive care. Today, that ratio has shifted—approximately 36,000 people receive primary care from Stanford School of Medicine faculty and well over 100,000 receive care at affiliated UHA practices throughout the Bay Area. How that care is delivered is also shifting, shaking up the traditional physician-patient office visit model.

Patient Safety: Lessons Learned

Alexis Reeves, RN, CPHRM, CLNC, Interim Director of Patient Safety Operations, discusses how wrong site surgeries and procedures still plague health care organizations across the country. Although relatively rare compared with retained foreign objects, wrong site procedures are still a problem. Not limited to just the wrong limb or wrong side organs, these mistakes can encompass removing the wrong lesion on a site with multiple lesions.

The Bond Between Us: Improving Communication with Our Patients and their Families
Featured Guest Contributor: Jonathan S. Berkek, MD, MMS

Jonathan S. Berek, MD, MMS, discusses how listening carefully and respectfully in emotionally difficult situations can enhance the therapeutic relationship doctors have with their patients.