It’s been all over the news this week–the US Preventative Services Task Force came out with a new set of recommendations for breast cancer screening, including recommending against yearly mammograms for women ages 40-49. Their recommendations say that there is only a small benefit from starting testing at 40, and that this benefit isn’t enough [...]
Category Archives: Women's Health
IWHR Monthly Forum: Dr. Celeste Watkins-Hayes
November 18, 2009 – 4:01 pm
The Institute for Women’s Health Research held its monthly forum on Tuesday with speaker Dr. Celeste Watkins-Hayes giving her talk entitled, “‘Dying from’ to ‘living with’ HIV/AIDS: Framing Institutions and the coping process of infected black women.”
Dr. Watkins-Hayes began her talk by highlighting the huge discrepancies in HIV/AIDS occurrence by race: through 2007, 60% of [...]
The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything
November 13, 2009 – 5:53 pm
Women now comprise half of all American workers, and women are either the primary or co-breadwinners for two thirds of all American families. Maria Shiver, in conjunction with the Center for American Progress, published a fascinating new report last month that outlines the ways that having a large female workforce is changing the landscape of [...]
Why Apply to the Oncofertility Saturday Academy?
November 9, 2009 – 6:20 pm
Recruitment for Oncofertility Saturday Academy (OSA) 2010 applicants officially began on Monday, November 9, 2009. This is the fourth consecutive year of OSA and we are expecting a very competitive pool of applicants from Young Women’s Leadership Charter School. OSA was initiated in 2007 by the Northwestern University and Young Women’s Leadership Charter School (YWLCS) [...]
Inequalities in Global Women’s Health
November 6, 2009 – 11:08 am
Guest blog by Dr. Jennifer Hirshfeld-Cytron, Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Fellow, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Northwestern Memorial Hospital
The Obstetrics and Gynecology Grand Rounds this morning was given by past FIGO (International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics) and previous chairman of the department, Dr. John Sciarra. He provided an incredibly informative and moving description [...]
Do women need such big flu shots?
November 4, 2009 – 11:34 am
Dr. Sabra L. Klein, an assistant professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Phyllis Greenberger, the president and chief executive of the nonprofit Society for Women’s Health Research, recently wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times called, “Do Women Need Such Big Flu Shots?“.
The [...]
November is American Diabetes Month!
November 2, 2009 – 10:42 am
Diabetes mellitus is an endocrine disease affecting approximately 7% of the US population. Diabetes is categorized into two classes: Type 1, or insulin dependent diabetes, and Type 2, or adult onset diabetes.
Type 1 Diabetes is a condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin, a hormone necessary for the metabolism of glucose. Type [...]
High School Girls Pursuing Science and Health Careers Attend a Professional Meeting: 2009 Illinois Women’s Health Conference
October 29, 2009 – 2:35 pm
On Wednesday, October 28, 2009, five high school senior girls, who are participants of the Women’s Health Science Program for High School Girls and Beyond (WHSP), whsp.northwestern.edu, attended the 2009 Illinois Women’s Health Conference, http://www.idph.state.il.us/about/womenshealth/events.htm, in Oak Brook, Illinois. To be selected, the high school girls had to write essays to explain why they wanted [...]
Is there a good way to recieve bad news?
October 29, 2009 – 9:36 am
Medscape Today recently wrote an article detailing the physician’s dilemma regarding delivering test results, and how this may differ based whether the results are normal or identify a potentially dangerous problem. Much of the discussion uses PAP smear results as way to discuss the issue: it something women are supposed to do fairly regularly, and [...]
The complexities of estrogen signaling
October 23, 2009 – 2:22 pm
Did you know that males require estrogen for many key biological processes, including spermatogenesis? Actually, many of the actions thought to be caused by testosterone in males is actually caused by estrogen signaling instead. These are some of the cool facts about estrogen signaling that were covered in the most recent Institute for Women’s Health [...]
