Stanford Report, June 3, 2009

Media monitor

"We've seen people in the ER, suicidal or depressed or both, because they've lost their jobs."

—David Spiegel, MD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and director of the Stanford Center on Stress and Health, commenting on how the economic downturn is harming the nation's mental health. San Francisco Chronicle, June 1.

"You've got a fine line between marketing and education, and where you get into trouble is when people think what they're doing is being educated when really all they've been given is an infomercial. An infomercial is not education."

—David Magnus, PhD, director of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, on the increasing number of medical centers using tech-savvy methods, such as Twitter feeds and patient blogs, to attract patients and donors. KCBS-AM, May 25.

"We don't know for sure whether cutting shifts will make things better…. We suspect that it will."

—Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine, on work limits for medical residents. He recently co-authored a New England Journal of Medicine paper on the issue. Wall Street Journal, May 21.

"I have worried about [stem-cell-related medical tourism] for a long time. Every reputable doctor or scientist worries about it."

—Irving Weissman, MD, director of Stanford's Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Institute, on the growing number of patients traveling to foreign countries to try stem-cell remedies unavailable in the United States. Forbes.com, May 21.