Meet some of Houston’s most talented female physicians
By Carolyn L. Davis
Rakhi Chaudhuri Dimino Houston Women’s Care Associates (private practice)
A member of the board of directors for Susan G. Komen for the Cure Houston
Affiliate, Dr. Dimino participates in breast cancer screening education
efforts.
“Working with Komen has influenced my career choices because it made me
passionate about teaching women how to take care of their health.”
Dimino, whose parents are both physicians, ran her first marathon as an intern,
and has run three so far.
“My mom was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease when I was very young. I saw her go from a fully functioning and busy
physician to someone who cannot even feed or clothe herself now. When I run, I
think about how much my mother would just like to be able to walk.”
Rachelle S. Doody Baylor Neurology
A neurology professor who holds the Effie Marie Cain Chair in Alzheimer’s Disease research, Dr. Doody has a plethora of published research and
co-authored papers to her credit. She is now studying about 20 different
approaches to treating AD. She also is researching drugs that stabilize cells
under stress, such as the stressful biochemical changes associated with AD.
“My goal is for people to be able to age without the loss of memory and thinking
skills caused by Alzheimer’s Disease, and to minimize the effects of the disease in those for whom it
cannot be prevented.”
Carmel Bitondo Dyer Chief of Geriatrics/Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital
Dr. Dyer is an assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine and director of
the geriatrics program for the Harris County Hospital District. She established
the Texas Elder Abuse and Mistreatment Institute and has co-authored several
papers on geriatrics and elder abuse.
“I entered geriatric medicine because of the influence of my grandmother,
Josephine Carpreso. I just loved her and I wanted to stay at her house all the
time when I was a young girl. That was followed by a unique opportunity in
college. There was no room at the hospital for me to train, so they sent me to
a nursing home to observe. I became a student helper and thought it was the
most wonderful thing in the world to be around elderly people.”
Ana Malinow Ben Taub General Hospital
As an assistant professor in the pediatrics department at Baylor College of
Medicine, Dr. Malinow teaches future doctors about the healthcare system and is
a strong advocate for changing the system. She co-founded and chairs Healthcare
for All Texas, is president of Physicians for a National Health Program and is
co-founder of Doctors for Change.
Malinow says working at Ben Taub for the past five years, “triggered my activism in healthcare reform. I had been a proponent of universal
healthcare since medical school, but I’d never become active in the movement. It was my frustration at the ineptness of
the system, and my anger that my patients were not getting the care they
needed, that finally motivated me to become active.”
Cynthia Peacock Baylor College of Medicine
Dr. Peacock had been a successful public health nurse for 15 years before
completing Baylor College of Medicine’s Medicine-Pediatrics Residency (med-peds) program in 1999, which gave her dual
training to work with pediatric and adult patients.
“I was working in pediatrics at Texas Children’s Hospital with children with chronic illnesses, and I hated the fact that when
they turned 18, I couldn’t take care of them anymore.”
Peacock has become a lobbyist of sorts through her work to enact House Bill 1230
in the Texas Legislature. The bill would change the way state agencies, such as
the Texas Education Agency and the Texas Workforce Commission, support the
large population of chronically ill patients.
Joan Shook Texas Children’s Hospital
As the head of the Emergency Medicine Section in the Pediatrics Department, Dr.
Shook helps injured children and works to prevent childhood accidents. She was
instrumental in setting up the Houston Trauma LINK (Linking Information
Networking Knowledge) to reduce the rate of morbidity and mortality from
childhood injuries.
“When I was a teenager, my older brother died suddenly of congenital heart
disease, and I didn’t want another family to go through that. We have a magnificent healthcare
system available in the U.S., but it’s pretty fragmented and there are lots of issues. We need to dig more deeply,
start a revolution and redesign the way we deliver healthcare.”
Contributing editor Carolyn L. Davis is a Houston freelance writer. Her July ’07 article, “Stem Cell Frontier,” won an Award of Merit in the 2008 Francis C. Moore, MD Medical Journalism
Awards.
HWA calls on national health leaders to translate knowledge into action
The Houston Wellness Association (HWA) promises and information-packed lineup
when it hosts the 2008 Wellness Symposium November 13-14 at Minute Maid
Park/Union Station. This two-day event will encompass HWA's inaugural Obesity
Summit and its second annual Worksite Wellness Conference.
“The Wellness Symposium promises to be the most unique two-day healthcare event
of its kind in the country,” said Houston Mayor Bill White. “Solutions come from action, and we’re bringing together leaders from the private, public, not-for-profit, medical
and academic sectors to translate knowledge into collaborative action.”
The Obesity Summit, to be held Thursday, November 13, will focus on the impact
of obesity from personal, physiologic, economic and environmental perspectives.
It will feature world-renowned experts in obesity, including William Klish,
M.D., Lovell Jones, Ph.D., and Eduardo Sanchez, M.D., M.P.H. Richard H.
Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., FACS, 17th Surgeon General of the United States
(2002-2006) and president of the non-profit Canyon Ranch Institute, will
provide the keynote address at the HWA's reception. Carmona has labeled
America's weight problem as “the terror within.”
“Our nation is faced with a growing chronic disease burden that places a
tremendous toll on individuals, families and communities,” Carmona says. “We must transform our approach to health. We must move away from the current
system that is focused on treating disease to a system focused on embracing
wellness through prevention. If we focus our resources on prevention, we can
and will reduce healthcare costs and save millions of lives. At Canyon Ranch
Institute, we are working with our partners to help educate, inspire and
empower every person to prevent disease and embrace a life of wellness. I look
forward to being a part of the Wellness Symposium with Mayor White and many
friends and colleagues from the great city of Houston and beyond.”
The Obesity Summit is co-chaired by Molly Bray, Ph.D., associate professor of
pediatrics at the Children's Nutrition Research Center at the Baylor College of
Medicine and Dorcas Ukpe, associate professor at Texas Southern University and
CEO of Walk the Talk America.
The second day of the Wellness Symposium will include the second annual Worksite
Wellness Conference, created to cover the latest information on improving
employee health to increase productivity and profits. The conference will
feature a number of keynote speakers discussing the theme of “Worksite Wellness: Impact Your Bottom Line, Learn from Experts, Leave with
Solutions & Tools.”
Scheduled speakers include Houston business economist Barton Smith, Ph.D., noted
Houston sociologist Stephen Klineberg, Ph.D., Baker Institute Health Economist
Vivian Ho, Ph.D., and nationally acclaimed author and researcher on the ROI of
worksite wellness programs, Ron Goetzel, Ph.D. The day’s program will also include breakout sessions and panels lead by local and
national experts in the field of employee wellness. Laurie R. Lee, president of
InterFit Health & Fitness Management Company, serves as the conference chair, with program
co-chairs Sheila Sharemet, wellness manager at British Petroleum (BP) and Mark
Poindexter, wellness director at Shell Oil Company. CIGNA and KelseyCare are
the symposium’s title sponsors.
“In Houston, we’re both optimistic and realistic about change,” said Jonathan H. Lack, HWA executive director. “We have the expertise here to know what real change will involve. As one of the
country’s largest metropolitan areas that houses the largest medical center in the U.S.,
we’re in a unique position to start working together to effect change in our city.
We’re bringing together a variety of stakeholders in one place at one time to
collaborate on health and wellness solutions. Through this effort, we hope to
build on a movement in Houston that will improve on the quality of health and
wellness for all residents, here and across the nation.”
The Houston Wellness Association is a not-for-profit 501(C6) organization with a
mission to advance the health and well being of the Houston community and the
economic vitality of its wellness sector, with a vision to transform Houston
into a widely-modeled, innovative city for healthy living.
For information on the 2008 Wellness Symposium or Wellness Symposium sponsorship
opportunities, visit houstonwellness.org, call 713-357-9515, or contact
Jonathan H. Lack, HWA executive director (jlack@houstonwellness.org) or Bill
Krull, HWA membership director (bkrull@houstonwellness.org).
The Healthy Chef Houston’s top chefs offer tips on flavorful, low-fat cooking
Jon Buchanan
Trevisio
“Here are some tips that have helped me drop a few pounds. First, I gave up all
bleached flour products for whole-wheat flour and brown rice. I also opted for
eating several smaller meals versus the traditional three meals a day and I
prepare all of my own meals.
“Some of the preparations that I use are grilling and steaming as opposed to sautéing and frying. Steamed or raw vegetables like cabbage, zucchini, bell peppers,
broccolini and cauliflower cut thinly into bite sized pieces. Seasoned with a
small amount of extra virgin olive oil, lemon or lime juice and fresh herbs,
such as rosemary, parsley, chives and tarragon, they make an excellent side
dish for any grilled protein, including chicken breast, salmon or pork
tenderloin.
“If you don’t like to eat raw vegetables, grilling is a great alternative, while steaming
vegetables allows your body to use all of the nutrients offered. Be careful not
to over cook them, as the process will take away from their nutritional value.
“Grilling seems to be the best way for me to make a piece of meat or fish more
flavorful by imparting the flavors of wood and smoke without having to use a
sauce that is loaded with butter. Use different types of wood or charcoal as
your spice rack. When snacking, I have foregone chips for fruits like
watermelon, bananas and pineapple, which has increased my energy level and
taken away any hunger I might be feeling.”
Becoming Smart Media Consumers
With media messages more subtle and pervasive than ever before, simply turning off
the TV set is no longer a solution. How do we learn to analyze messages and
detect propaganda, censorship and bias in television? Dr. Garth Jowett, University of Houston communications professor and media
literacy expert, has been teaching about the role of media, propaganda and
popular culture for decades. He will discuss how to acquire critical thinking
skills for our media consumption when he appears as a guest this month on “Living Smart With Patricia Gras” on Houston PBS Channel 8.
Jowett says the revolution in technology has changed how we access information
and how much of it there is. “If you go back to the 13th or 14th century, people didn’t have pictures in their homes, so they had to go to the church to be stimulated
by the stained glass windows,” Jowett says. “It is now a different world entirely and it is interesting how the brain has
adjusted to these proliferations of images that we now have. I would say 99
percent of these images are designed in a way to create a kind of hypnosis and
not stimulation. If you over stimulate people, they will start to question
things, but if you hypnotize them so they simply accept everything, that’s a totally different situation.”
Today, fewer corporations own most media outlets. “It is not good because it removes the proliferation of voices that is required
for intelligent media consumption. If you end up with one source of
information, as in Nazi Germany, for instance, I don’t have to explain how that ended up.”
“Living Smart with Patricia Gras” airs on Sundays at 3 p.m. and repeats on Thursdays at 1 p.m. On HoustonPBS
Channel 8. For more information on the topic, visit www.Houstonpbs.org/livingsmart and www.Patriciagras.blogspot.com
—Patricia Gras