Syracuse, NY | May 2013
COMMUNITY CAMPUS TO FEATURE GERIATRIC EMERGENCY CARE enior citizens can be challenging patients. Often they have other medical conditions and/or multiple prescriptions that complicate their emergencies. They may agitate or confuse easily, and may have trouble expressing themselves. Often, it’s not long before they are back at the hospital because underlying issues weren’t addressed. Not only is this inconvenient and costly, it’s not the best medicine.
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With that in mind, Upstate is creating a new Geriatric Emergency Medicine Unit called GEM Care. The unit, led by emergency physician James Ciaccio, MD is expected to open this summer in a dedicated section of the emergency department at Upstate University Hospital, Community Campus. Proceeds from the 2012 Upstate Gala are helping to fund its development.
James Ciaccio, MD in the area that being transformed into GEM Care at Upstate’s Community Campus.
GEM Care will be characterized by a calm, measured approach to care in a quiet environment. Clocks will have larger, more visible numbers. Handrails will line the walls, floors will be nonskid, paint colors will be soothing, and mattresses will be thicker. Most important, staff working in the unit will be specially trained to treat patients 65+, address their unique sociological and psychological needs—and the concerns of their families—and ultimately make their emergency stays as stress-free as possible. ■
DRUG TRIAL LOOKS TO EXTEND LIVES OF PEOPLE WITH ADVANCED KIDNEY CANCER hemotherapy used to be the only option for people with advanced kidney cancer, the chemicals attacking the cancer cells along with the body’s healthy cells. A more targeted therapy was designed to zero in on the cancer cells, but its long-term results are not great.
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“The targeted therapy was an improvement over chemotherapy, but it certainly had its own limitations,” says Gennady Bratslavsky, MD, who chairs Upstate’s Urology Department and directs the Prostate Cancer Program. He leads a trial at Upstate that offers patients a vaccine made just for them, designed to enlist their bodies’ immune systems in the cancer fight. “The theory is that if we were to train the body’s own immune system to recognize the cancerous
cells, we could get a much more effective killing of the cancer cells,” he says. Bratslavsky’s trial is part of an international, multi-institutional study of patients with metastatic kidney cancer. Patients who join the trial will undergo surgery, have their tumors analyzed, and then be placed in one of two groups. Both groups of patients will receive state-of-the-art therapy, and one group will also receive this new vaccine. Upstate is one of the first sites in the United States to offer this trial, along with the hope it provides for the patients. Learn more by calling Upstate Urology at 315-464-1500. ■
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