Discoveries Full of Heart
There's No Pumpkin Spice, Just Innovative Science in the Fall Issue of Cedars-Sinai's Award-Winning Research Magazine, Featuring the Smidt Heart Institute
The fall issue of Discoveries, Cedars-Sinai's magazine dedicated to healing, life-changing scientific breakthroughs—and the people behind them—is now available online and in print. The publication is sent out twice a year to 120,000 patients, medical leaders and others throughout the community.
The magazine's cover story this fall is about congenital heart disease and the lifelong relationships physicians establish to help keep these patients healthy. The article profiles two patients in the Guerin Family Congenital Heart Program, a 51-year-old elevator mechanic and an 8-month-old boy, who had lifesaving open-heart surgeries in the spring to correct congenital heart defects and are now facing bright, healthy futures.
"From babies still in the womb to octogenarians, the Congenital Heart Program is improving lives by repairing defective hearts and blood vessels," writes Shlomo Melmed, MB, ChB, executive vice president of Academic Affairs, distinguished professor of Medicine and dean of the medical faculty, in his letter to Discoveries readers.
Also featured is an article about cancer patients who faced a personal health crisis in the middle of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Their perspectives about personal priorities, confronting challenges, and the importance of connecting with others offer lessons for everyone.
The issue also tackles three big questions about long COVID-19, which leads to chronic symptoms, such as fatigue, shortness of breath, "brain fog," anxiety, depression and other health effects, in as many as 10% of those who recover from a COVID-19 infection. Investigators working with the Cedars-Sinai COVID-19 Recovery Program offer their take on why different patients have different experiences with long COVID-19, whether long-term impairments can be treated or prevented, and whether inflammation or autoimmunity might be behind the condition.
These scientists and their peers at Cedars-Sinai adopt an adventurous and creative mindset as they pursue their discoveries, and another article in the current Discoveries offers a crash course in how to think like a scientist. A dozen experts share their views on everything from how they form the questions they explore to how they get the word out about the breakthroughs they make.
To receive a print copy of the next issue of Discoveries, email groupeditorial@cshs.org.
Read more in Discoveries: A Double-Edged Sword: Inflammation and Your Health