Stanford Report, May 11, 2005

Media monitor

"You wouldn't get on an airplane unless the pilot had been trained in a flight simulator and certified to use the new instruments on a jet," remarked David Gaba, MD, professor of anesthesia and associate dean for immersive and simulation-based learning. "Why would you place yourself in the hands of a doctor who hadn't proven his competency and been certified on a simulator?"

That was the gist of a story in the April 25 issue of the New Yorker that detailed Gaba's crusade to get more medical schools to use simulations to train their students. Twenty years ago, Gaba created one of the first patient simulators, and the story noted that Stanford has been at the forefront of incorporating such techniques into the curriculum. http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050502fa_fact

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People who are counting calories may feel good that they opt for the low-fat chocolate chip cookies instead of the double-chunk fudgie wafers, but they shouldn't rest too comfortably on their laurels. A number of media outlets carried that message from Christopher Gardner, PhD, assistant professor of medicine with the Stanford Prevention Research Center, whose latest research found that a low-fat diet rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains and beans has twice the cholesterol-lowering power of a conventional low-fat diet. "We're frustrated that people are going out and getting SnackWell's cookies," Gardner was quoted as saying in the May 4 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2005/05/04/FDGKGCIQNS1.DTL

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Rafael Pelayo, MD, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences who specializes in sleep disorders, was on the April 25 Jane Pauley Show on NBC, as part of a segment that followed three patients at Stanford's Sleep Disorders Center. That same day the Oakland Tribune published an interview with Pelayo about the National Sleep Foundation's annual survey on Americans' sleep habits. "One of the most important findings is that poor sleep is the biggest reason why people miss work or are late for work," he said. http://insidebayarea.com/searchresults/ci_2683428