President's Perspective

By Thomas M. Priselac, President and CEO

Although it's customary in a year-end message to enumerate our many accomplishments during the previous 12 months—and in 2017 Cedars-Sinai had no shortage of notable accomplishments—I'd like to take a different approach and highlight a particular aspect of the institution that doesn't get discussed much. Adaptability.

Two Executives Start New Duties in January

An executive at Cedars-Sinai for ten years, Jennifer Blaha has been promoted to vice president of Operations, while Clare T. Lee will join later this month as vice president of Professional and Support Services.

Kick Off 2018 Learning About Wellness at Annual Fair

The Cedars-Sinai Employee Wellness Program is hosting its sixth annual Employee Wellbeing Fair on Friday, Jan. 12, from 7 a.m.-3 p.m. in Harvey Morse Auditorium. Join dozens of vendors and Cedars-Sinai departments to learn about various aspects of health.

Physician Is Hip to the Ways of Saber-Toothed Tigers

When the smilodon, or saber-toothed cat, roamed what is now Wilshire Boulevard more than 12,000 years ago, did the predator hunt alone or in packs? If hips don't lie, Robert Klapper, MD, co-director of the Joint Replacement Program at Cedars-Sinai, may have the answer to a long-debated question among paleontologists. Working with the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum, Klapper brought the best practices of medical diagnostics to bear on the saber-toothed cat in an effort to develop a clearer understanding of how the prehistoric animal lived.

Future Physician Aided, From Cradle to College

Shannon Sullivan, 26, a student at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C., has already co-authored a major study in a prominent neuroscience journal and earned a coveted fellowship. She traces her career ambitions to age 12, when she learned she had spent her first months of life in the Cedars-Sinai Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. "I want to save babies the way the doctors at Cedars-Sinai saved me," Sullivan remembers telling her parents.

Bergman Honored by Metabolic Institute

Richard Bergman, PhD, an internationally renowned diabetes and obesity researcher, has received the Distinguished Leader in Insulin Resistance Award for his groundbreaking efforts to predict, prevent, treat and ultimately cure diabetes. Bergman, director of the Sports Spectacular Diabetes and Obesity Wellness and Research Center at Cedars-Sinai and the Alfred Jay Firestein Chair in Diabetes Research, accepted the award Dec. 2.

Innovative Approach to Prosthetics on Display in Video

Some of the innovative work being done by Cedars-Sinai is on display in a video featuring Daniel C. Allison, MD, assistant professor of Surgery, whose use of a bone-anchored prosthetic dramatically improved the quality of life for patient Chris Rowles.

FDA Issues New Safety Measures for Gadolinium-Based Contrast Agents

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is requiring a new class warning and other safety measures for all gadolinium-based contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging because of concerns about gadolinium remaining in patients' bodies, including the brain, for months to years. The FDA also is removing its most prominent warning about asthma-related death from the drug labels of medicines that contain both an inhaled corticosteroids and long-acting beta agonists.

Core Labs Updating Test Methods

The Core laboratories in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine will update its Abbott chemistry test methods beginning Tuesday, Jan. 30. The new methods replace the former ones performed by Roche and Beckman. Please note new reference ranges (highlighted in yellow) and biases between methods.

Biotin Interference with Immunoassays Can Alter Results

Patients who recently have taken biotin can exhibit false low or high results to a host of common tests, including thyroid tests, hormones, cardiac markers and others. The Core laboratories in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, for the most part, do not use immunoassays that suffer from this potential interference. However, not all Cedars-Sinai patients have their samples run in our labs. As such, clinicians should be aware of the potential for biotin interference with immunoassays.

Medical Library Offers Classes to Learn New Skills

The Cedars-Sinai Medical Library is offering a variety of classes in January and February. Each 30-minute class begins at noon in the Medical Library – Plaza Level, South Tower, Room 2815.

CS-Link Tip: Using the Haiku App

Haiku is probably best known as a short form of Japanese poetry, but it's also the name of a handy phone app for physicians. The app can be used to document a telephone encounter, to e-prescribe, to look at your schedule, examine or take images, and review your InBasket.