GyanSys Selected by AgReliant Genetics as the Primary Partner for Their Implementation of SAP S/4HANA as Part of Their Digital Transformation -…

January 25, 2020 medical

CARMEL, Ind., Jan. 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --AgReliant Genetics, a leader in seed research, production and provider of seed solutions, signed a contract with GyanSys Inc. ("GyanSys"), a leading IT services provider headquartered in Indiana, to implementSAP S/4HANA on HANA Enterprise Cloud (HEC) as part of their digital transformation journey to replace their legacy ERP systems.

Steve Thompson, CIO of AgReliant Genetics "GyanSys led our team to conduct S/4HANA Best Practice workshops, gap analysis, and recommended the right SAP software bill-of-materials. AgReliant is excited to start our digital transformation journey partnering with GyanSys to build a scalable digital core for our Finance, Purchasing, Planning, Sales, Manufacturing, and Warehouse Management systems."

Rajkishore Una, President & CEO of GyanSys "GyanSys is committed to successfully deliver AgReliant Genetics' new SAP environment with our global delivery approach and our best practice-led implementation methodology. We are bringing our expertise in SAP S/4HANA digital core, alongside BPC, EWM, aATP, Manufacturing for Planning & Scheduling, and Analytics Cloud, for AgReliant to derive the most value from this strategic investment."

About AgReliant Genetics:

AgReliant Genetics offers corn, soybean, sorghum, and alfalfa seed solutions to farmers through their product brands. Contact your local AgriGold, LG Seeds, or PRIDE Seeds representative for more information.

Learn more about AgReliant Geneticsat http://www.agreliantgenetics.com.

About GyanSys Inc.:

GyanSys is a mid-tier global systems integrator specializing in SAP, Salesforce, Microsoft, and ServiceNow Platforms to improve the Sales, Finance, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Operations, and HR business processes to support digital transformation.

Headquartered in Indiana, GyanSys was founded in 2005 and has approximately 1,000+ professionals globally serving 125+ customers across various industries, including the manufacturing, automotive, high-tech, CPG, and life sciences industries.

For more information about GyanSys, visit http://www.gyansys.com.

For press inquiries and more information, contact:Cliff SaitoDigital Marketing ManagerE-mail: cliff.saito@gyansys.com

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STANTON: The Pro-Abortion Democrats And Their Unscientific Roe-volution – The Daily Wire

January 25, 2020 medical

Roe v. Wade is the essence of science denial, and it has been for nearly 50 years. Yet the 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidates share a vision of America that centers around Roe and its long-debunked scientific notions about human biology.

Ever since the first Democratic presidential debates, the candidates have increasingly asserted their ferventbeliefin Roe v. Wade a fallacious decision that is based upon and perpetuates erroneous and obsolete ideas that contradict the fundamental, objective scientific facts of the biological science of human embryology. The most egregious, blatant, and disingenuous of all Roes distortionsisits central tenet that it remains a mystery when human life begins.

More, in order to completely obscure the biological truth and redefine human reproduction to satisfy their political point of view, the politicians have announced numerous policies to augment Roe, including the promise to codify this toxic source of misinformation about human development.

Roe v. Wade declares: We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines ofmedicine, philosophy, and theologyareunable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of mans knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.

Since when should those in medicine, philosophy, and theology be consulted for such a specificallybiologicalissue when they have no such academic expertise? Most philosophers and theologians have never had a graduate course in biology, much less in human embryology, and most physicians briefly learn about human embryology as part of a broader anatomy course and are not properly considered scientists. Human embryology is the study of development of the new individual from beginning to end and is the only science that specializes in when a human life starts; solely the testimonies of those biologists with doctoral degrees in human embryology should, in theory, be consulted. Yet not one human embryologist was allowed to testify during theRoelitigation.

In addition, to help rationalize the decision to reject the concept of personhood of the human embryo and fetus until viability, cited at the time to be between 24 and 28 weeks, Roe refers to ancient scientific ideas about human reproduction when it claims: There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live birth. This was the belief of the Stoics.

The Stoics were a group of Greek philosophers, existing around 300 B.C.E. Are the Democratic presidential candidates endorsing the suggestion that human biology has not advanced for more than 2000 years and that it will never do so?

Among the scientific experts, there is and has long been an international consensus regarding the beginning of a human life. When a human being an individual, living member of the human species begins to exist has been known and documented for more than 100 years and was instituted in 1942 in the Carnegie Stages of Human Embryonic Development. The Carnegie Stages continue to be refined and advanced as the global standard of human embryological research, and Carnegie Stage 1 still documents human sexual reproduction.

Carnegie Stage 1 states that all sexually reproduced human beings begin to exist at the start of the process of fertilization (Carnegie Stage 1a). Human embryologists know that fertilization also initiates the continuum of human life in other words, after fertilization, the new human being does not become a different kind of thing. He or she continues to grow and develop as the same human organism throughout the rest of the embryonic period, the fetal period, and then after birth, during the subsequent stages of life.

Thus, the term human embryo or human fetus is simply the scientific name for an already-existing human being during the embryonic or fetal period of human development. Thus, for sexually reproduced human beings, personhood begins at fertilization, not at viability, first breath, or some later point that conveniently fits a popular political, social, or economic narrative.

Under the Supreme Courts current abortion jurisprudence precedent, as established in Roe v. Wade and modified/upheld in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, states are still prohibited from applying the objective scientific facts and banning abortion prior to viability. However, as medical technology has improved, Roes fetal viability threshold has moved back from 28 weeks not forward to 40 weeks as imagined by the Democratic presidential hopefuls. In the U.S., infants born at 22 weeks gestation have a nearly 25% survival rate and in Japan, the survival rate is over 30%. In Sweden, for infants younger than 22 weeks gestation, the survival rate has improved from 3.6% to 20% over the last decade.

Rather than pledging allegiance to, expanding upon, and imposing their misconceptions and Roe v. Wades absurd scientific myths on the American people, the Democratic presidential candidates should acknowledge that the immediate product of human sexual reproduction is both a human being and a human person and renounce public policies and laws that do not reflect this scientific reality.

Brooke Stanton is the CEO of Contend Projects, a registered 501(c)(3) education organization spreading the basic, accurate scientific facts about when a human life starts and the biological science of human embryology.

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STANTON: The Pro-Abortion Democrats And Their Unscientific Roe-volution - The Daily Wire

Embryology

Letters to the Editor – Sherwood Park News

January 25, 2020 medical

I am a health professional and have chaired medical research and related initiatives. My training included spending hundreds of hours in anatomy, neuroanatomy and embryology labs. Here are some observations and questions.

Science is Important. Activist Greta Thunberg has said; Listen to the scientists. Science in 2020 says the fetus is a human being. When dealing with horses or hummingbirds, biologists accept that the new being begins at fertilization. From that moment on, the organism merely unfolds the capacities that belong intrinsically to the kind of creature that it is. These same scientific facts apply to human babies. Virtually no credible professional scientist denies that life begins at conception. The embryo is biologically human. A human being.

Questions:Why are we not willing to follow the science?Why are we not listening to the science of embryology?

Doesnt Everyone Begin as an Unborn Child?At some point, every human being currently living on the planet was a living unborn child. This should be obvious and self-evident. This is not a feeling and not an opinion. Its another scientific fact.

Questions: If we were afforded to human right to live by our parent(s), why wouldnt we extend the same basic human rights and opportunity to other unborn children?

What makes you or me, or qualifies either of us, or any other person, to be the arbiter of life and death, the yes or no to the existence of another human being?

What If We Dont Like Science?If you or I dont like or care for science and believe that feelings are more important than facts, then at the very least we might consider the voice of Grammy Award-winning black hip-hop artist, Lecrae Moore. Moore publicly admitted the role he played in persuading his girlfriend to abort their child and admitted that he selfishly choose his life over hers. In his song,Good, Bad, Ugly,he says;I was too selfish with my time/Scared my dreams were not gonna survive/So I dropped her off at the clinic/That day, a part of us died.

What Kind of Culture and Community Do You Want? Lecrae is correct. The consequence of an abortion procedure is death. Another scientific fact. That is the cold forceps and needle to the brain and the suction tube reality. That ewww, gross science stuff that arts majors and journalism students studiously seem to avoid. Just like anatomy, biochemistry, physics and embryology labs. To abort the baby is not to save it. It is to kill the tiny person and to perhaps later auction off its vacuumed parts to the highest bidders.

Questions:What kind of culture and community do you want? A life culture? A death culture?What community evil is greater than taking a human life? Losing a job? Dropping out of university? A tight financial budget? Social stigma? Losing a boyfriend?

As you are aware, Canada currently has no federal law governing the abortion procedure. As we are the only civilized country without any legislation, and embryological science has confirmed the humanity of the unborn baby, MP Garnett Genuis is correct in soliciting feedback from his constituents and Canadians. He should be commended and not condemned. And for the sake of the 3.3 per cent late-term abortion figure that you quoted, our community and country desperately needs debate, legislation and regulation.

Listen to Greta. Just follow the science.

Brent Kassian

A big thanks to editor Lindsay Morey for standing up for womens rights in her editorial regarding the recent survey put out by MP Garnett Genuis. This is issue should have been put to bed yearsago and yet a few reps in the House of Commons, Geniusincluded seem hell-bent on making this a talking point. Looking at some recent polls I see that 77 per cent of Canadians support abortion rights. If thats the case then how can this be in Genuis top issues in his survey? Ive used the word survey here in quotes as I find the definition of the term to not be accurate with what came in the mail from our MP. Heavily biased answers and limited choices, along with zero chance for a respondent to add comments is hardly data gathering.

I consider the question on Genuis survey to be an attack on womens rights. The idea of controlling what a woman can do with her body is flat out, just another attempt at rolling back the clock and locking women in the mold that conservative men seem the need to have them in.

Genuis has said that people keep bringing the issue up to him. Really? When Genuis was campaigning this year and his people came to my door I asked what his main goals for his term would be if elected. Jobs. They were adamant that jobs were the number one issue. Nothing else. We spoke for about 15-20 minutes and I listened to the whole spiel. I clearly recall nothing about abortion in the conversation. The fact that Genuis has endeared himself to hardcore pro-life groups is extremely disturbing to me. Antiquated beliefs and archaic viewpoints such as those do not belong in the HoC and I certainly hope they are not what the folks of Sherwood Park believe. Having lived here almost my entire life I can say that while being, for the most part, conservative the people of this hamlet have a fairly solid streak of progressiveness on social issues.

So why does Genuis continue to beat this drum? Look at his past. Genuis was a founder of the Parents for Choice group that sought to move public education dollars to private religious schools. This was also the group that recently campaigned hard against GSAs in schools and pushed for a change of sex-ed curriculum. Put that together with the Coalition for Life group that heartily endorses him and you have a large and influential base. I would be very curious to know just how much influence these groups and their agenda have over our MP. These groups are well known to financially support, sometimes directly and sometimes by way of individual contributions, MPs who fit their ideals.

Plainly, Genuis has trouble with a separation of church and state. His constituents would be far better served if he lead with a real mandate from them in his hand than with a cross.

Joe Belohorec, Sherwood Park resident

(In the column) editor Lindsay Morey argued that Canadians in general, and the people of Sherwood Park in particular, favored legal abortion. Furthermore, she held that the government had no right to criminalize abortion after the R v Mortgentaler Supreme Court decision in 1988. Because of these two factors, she believed that her Member of Parliament, Garnett Genuis, should not be asking his constituents for input on the issue.However, she is factually wrong on both points. The latest polling indicates that Canadians are overwhelmingly uncomfortable on the current state of abortion law in Canada. Over 90 per cent of Canadians believe that sex-selective abortion should be made illegal. Approximately 60 per cent of Canadians dont support third-trimester abortions, with similarly overwhelming opposition to abortion once the pre-born child can feel the pain of being killed.Canada has no abortion law to ban any of this. Clearly Canadians do not want their politicians to shirk their duty to discuss uncomfortable moral issues. They were elected to lead, not to hide. Genuis could have ran from these issues, instead, he chose to be a leader and to get feedback from his constituents. That is what a good MP does.Finally, there is the issue of the Mortgentaler Supreme Court decision. Far from making it possible for no criminal laws to regulate abortion in the country, the court actually found that while the tangle of abortion laws that existed in 1988 was not constitutional because of technicalities, that the government had both the authority to draft criminal abortion laws. No right to abortion has ever been found to exist by our Supreme Court.All of this leads me to one last point: abortion should not be a right because it is actually a human rights violation. It is the direct and intentional killing of a pre-born human being. Biology tells us that at fertilization new organism of the species homo-sapiens comes into existence, and because all human beings have human rights, the direct and intentional killing of the pre-born must be a human rights violation. Ultimately, we should be ashamed that pre-born children can be legally tortured to death in this country, and we should have more MPs who demonstrate the leadership necessary to start regulating this trade in human blood. Stephanie Fennelly, The Wilberforce Project executive director

Kudos to The News for setting out the issues raised by MP Garnett Genuis recent survey of constituents, and highlighting the underlying bias in the survey. Just as an MP has the right to ask for input, he has a right to his personal opinion on all matters. He does not have the right, however, to hide or obscure his position from constituents, nor impose it on constituents. Conservatives did not do well in the federal election not so much because of Andrew Scheers views on abortion and civil rights, but because he was less than upfront about them and the effect his personal views would have on government policy. He could not answer a simple question honestly, because he knew that in most of the country, there would be considerable political fallout.

In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada invited Parliament to draft new laws concerning access to abortion, as they saw fit, but without violating the Constitution. To date, Parliament has been unable or unwilling to fulfill that mandate. Access to abortion is a human right. It is seen by Alberta Health Services as being a component of any womans access to a complete slate of reproductive and health services. Getting an abortion or not continues to be a decision that must be made by the woman herself, taking her own circumstances into consideration. Simply put, it is no one elses business.

It is especially not the business of a group of men who use abortion as a political crutch. #keepyourpoliticsoutofmyuterus indeed!

Genuis needs to turn his attention to matters that confront Albertans today climate action, jobs, childcare, healthcare. As the editorial said fighting lawful access to abortion will not put food on your constituents kitchen tables.

Maureen Towns, Sherwood Park resident

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Letters to the Editor - Sherwood Park News

Embryology

Study suggests sperm donation, like organs, should be allowed post-mortem – Big Think

January 25, 2020 medical

Can, and should, dead men procreate? Yes and yes, says a recent article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

The UK is facing a sperm donor crisis. According to the article, UK sperm banks only take on a few hundred new donors per year, forcing them to import thousands of sperm samples from the U.S. and Denmark, which dominate the global market for sperm donations due to their high supply.

These countries have a high supply of sperm primarily because of laws and regulations protecting the donor's anonymity in the UK, for instance, babies born from sperm donations are permitted to contact their biological father after they turn 18, an emotional confrontation that dissuades many from donating. In fact, in a 2016 study based in the U.S., 29 percent of current donors said they would have refused to donate if they could not be anonymous.

How can we increase the supply of sperm donors while simultaneously shielding donors from a potentially life-upending confrontation and providing children with the right to know their own ancestry? Allow for post-mortem sperm donations. Men could opt-in to become sperm donors after their death, just like they do as organ donors. So long as they were collected no longer than 48 hours after death, sperm could be collected via surgery or electrical stimulation of the prostate and be frozen for later use.

"If it is morally acceptable that individuals can donate their tissues to relieve the suffering of others in 'life-enhancing transplants' for diseases," wrote the article authors, "we see no reason this cannot be extended to other forms of suffering like infertility."

As it turns out, this idea isn't all that new. The first posthumous sperm retrieval occurred in 1980 after a 30-year-old man suffered a fatal brain injury in a car accident. His family requested that his sperm be preserved, which was done through surgery soon after he had been declared dead.

There have been numerous postmortem sperm retrievals since then, but they've always existed in a legal grey area. For instance, in 1997, a UK man named Stephen Blood caught meningitis, collapsed into a coma, and died soon after. His wife, Diane Blood, had requested that doctors extract two samples of semen from Mr. Blood.

However, the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority had forbidden Mrs. Blood from using those samples to become pregnant, as Mr. Blood had passed away prior to giving written consent to the procedure. In the UK posthumous sperm donation is illegal without written consent. After an appeal, Mrs. Blood was permitted to seek fertility treatment outside of the UK and later gave birth to a son.

Other countries, such as France, Germany, and Taiwan, have a full ban on posthumous fertilization. At the same time, countries like the U.S. and Belgium have no legislation on the subject whatsoever. Given the complex legal, ethical, and medical nature of posthumous fertilization, this range of legislative response is not unexpected. For example, is it ethical to collect sperm from an individual who never wanted to procreate in a country where the young population is dwindling and sperm donors are in short supply? Such is the case in many parts of the UK Is it reasonable to collect sperm from donors who have died and who are, by extension, more likely to be older and with less healthy sperm? Is the offspring of a deceased sperm donor considered to be the donor's legal heir?

These and other issues muddy the waters for countries when crafting policies around posthumous sperm donation. However, the authors of the recent Journal of Medical Ethics article argue that allowing for this procedure is at the very least ethically permissible and likely beneficial for society at large.

"The ability to reproduce matters to people and donated sperm enables many people to fulfill their reproductive desires," write the authors. "It is both feasible and morally permissible for men to volunteer their sperm to be donated to strangers after death in order to ensure sufficient quantities of sperm with desired qualities."

Im in love with my wifes sister and Ive agreed to be her sperm donor – The Sun

January 25, 2020 medical

DEAR DEIDRE: MY wife has agreed I should be her sisters sperm donor so she can have the baby she longs for, but she has no idea that I am in love with her sister and have been for years.

I am 45. My wife is 41. We have two boys. My wife got pregnant both times right away, without any problems.

We have been careful to use contraception since then, as we feel our family is complete.

My sister-in-law is 37. I told her a while back how I feel about her. She said she was flattered but would never hurt her sister.

Now my wife has come up with this plan for me fathering a child with her sister, I worry where it would all lead.

Get in touch with Deidre today

Got a problem?

Send an email to problems@deardeidre.org. Every problem gets a personal reply, usually within 24 hours weekdays.

You can also send a private message on the DearDeidreOfficial Facebook page.

Follow me on Twitter @deardeidre.

DEIDRE SAYS: You are right to worry.

There are all sorts of drawbacks to being a sperm donor without proper checks, let alone all the tangled feelings you would inevitably have here.

Be firm that this is not a sensible way for your sister-in-law to find a father for a child.

Suggest she check out the information available on sperm donation, through the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (hfea.gov.uk). Meanwhile, focus on strength-ening your marriage.

Neuroscience

New University of Iowa Brain Sciences Building a long time coming – The Gazette

January 25, 2020 medical

IOWA CITY Five years after the Board of Regents rejected a University of Iowa request to renovate its antiquated Seashore Hall which housed one of its largest undergraduate departments the campus on Friday finally realized its dream of a modern home for the Psychological and Brain Sciences.

In dedicating the new $33.5 million Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences Building, the university introduced its first centralized home for the popular department, which boasts 1,200 psychology majors, 500 minors and 200-plus undergraduates conducting research in its labs.

Before now, the largest department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences was dispersed among three buildings Spence Laboratories of Psychology, Stuit Hall and Seashore, built in 1899 as the campus first hospital.

The psychology department was assigned space in Seashore in 1930, with administrators long appealing for a more adequate environment.

After breaking ground on the six-story, 66,470-square-foot building east of Spence Labs, UI President Bruce Harreld in 2018 didnt mince words.

I say this with humor, but I actually at times do worry about where the cockroaches and other rodents are going to go, Harreld said, referencing the dilapidated Seashore. This is how bad we have let things get.

With the university pushing a renewed emphasis on neuroscience creating the Iowa Neuroscience Institute in 2016 and introducing an undergraduate major in neuroscience in 2017 the departments first centralized home is expected to transform teaching and research.

It will, according to UI officials, position the university to better prepare students for learning modern psychology, and finding jobs in the field.

The building is a long time coming, with the university in September 2014 pitching a $27 million project that would have modernized portions of Seashore Hall and eliminated outdated components.

Regents Milt Dakovich and Larry McKibben criticized that proposal as fixing something broken and old, prompting the university to return years later with an amended pitch.

Crews broke ground on the new Psychological and Brain Sciences Building in October 2017, and some administrators began using it this month, according to spokesman Richard Lewis.

In conjunction with the project, the university is razing Seashore Hall, work that started in 2000 with the structurally deficient southwest wing. The Board of Regents in 2016 approved razing the southeast section.

Then in September 2019, regents approved the third and final razing of Seashore, allowing crews to take down the remaining 128,000 square feet deemed inadequate to serve the teaching and research missions of current occupants.

By razing the space, UI officials projected saving $27.8 million in deferred maintenance costs. The $2.8 million to demolish Seashore is coming from Treasurers Temporary Investment Income.

The university is tapping that source and a combination of others, including gifts and earnings, to cover the cost of the new building.

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The UI Center for Advancement reported the university set no public fundraising goal for the project and has raised about $500,000 to date.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com

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New University of Iowa Brain Sciences Building a long time coming - The Gazette

Neuroscience

The ‘Place’ Of Emotions in the Brain – Technology Networks

January 25, 2020 medical

The entire set of our emotions is topographically represented in a small region of the brain, a 3 centimeters area of the cortex, report scientists in a study conducted at the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, Italy. The discovery of this "map" of emotions comes from a work conducted by the Molecular Mind Laboratory (MoMiLab) directed by Professor Pietro Pietrini, and recently published in Nature Communications.

To investigate how the brain processes the distinct basic component of emotional states, the IMT School researchers asked a group of 15 volunteers enrolled in the study to express, define and rate their emotions while watching the iconic 1994 American movie Forrest Gump. For the entire length of the film, in fact, the 15 volunteers reported scene by scene their feelings and their respective strength on a scale from 1 to 100. Their answers were then compared to those of 15 other persons who had watched the same movie during a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study conducted in Germany. The imaging data were obtained through "open science", a platform where scientists from different laboratories can share their data, so that anyone can replicate their findings or use the data for novel experiments, as in this case.

To unveil cortical regions involved in emotion processing, the "emotional ratings" were used by scientists for predicting the fMRI response of the brain. The correspondence between functional characteristics and the relative spatial arrangement of distinct patches of cortex was then used to test the topography of affective states. As researchers found out, the activation of temporo-parietal brain regions was associated to the affective states we feel in an exact moment, providing us with the map of our emotional experience.

The analysis of the data by Giada Lettieri, first author of the study along with Giacomo Handjaras, both PhD students at the IMT School, and their collaborators shows that the polarity, complexity and intensity of emotional experiences are represented by smooth transitions in right temporo-parietal territories. The spatial arrangement allows the brain to map a variety of affective states within a single patch of cortex.

To summarize, the right temporo-parietal junction can topographically represent the variety of the affective states that we experience: which emotions we feel in a specific moment, and how much we perceive them. The process resembles the way senses, like sight or hearing, are represented in the brain. For this reason, the researchers proposed the definition emotionotopy as a principle of emotion coding.

Historically, emotions have often been considered a "separate" human faculty, well distinct from cognition. As a matter of fact, this point of view has been recently challenged by various studies showing how much affective responses can influence cognitive processes, such as decision-making and memory. The IMT School study adds new details to this more recent view that the principles responsible for the representation of sensory stimuli are also responsible for the mapping of emotions.

"This study is also an interesting example of open science and sharing data initiatives in neuroscience", said Luca Cecchetti, senior author of the paper and Assistant Professor at the IMT School. "The fMRI data were collected by Michael Hanke and colleagues at Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg and publicly released at studyforrest.org. This allowed us to exploit high-quality neuroimaging data, at the same time saving resources and time. Following the same principle, we released data and code at https://osf.io/tzpdf/".

"Dissecting the brain correlates of elementary factors that modulate intensity and quality of our emotions has major implications to understand what happens when emotions get sick, as in case of depression and phobia. These studies are getting psychiatry closer to other fields of medicine in finding objective biological correlates of feelings, which are subjective states", commented Professor Pietro Pietrini, psychiatrist and co-author of the research, director of MoMiLab at the IMT School.

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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The 'Place' Of Emotions in the Brain - Technology Networks

Neuroscience

Romania’s orphans early neglect, brain size and behaviour – ABC News

January 25, 2020 medical

After the overthrow of a dictatorship in 1989, Romania was opened to the world for the first time in decades.

With it, around 170,000 orphans were discovered languishing in the harsh conditions of hundreds of institutions.

This left a generation of children who'd been brought up without care, stimulation or comfort.

And it prompted a comprehensive scientific effort to study the effects of institutionalisation on these children's wellbeing.

Many of these children were adopted by foreigners in the 1990s and some went to the United Kingdom.

Edmund Sonuga-Barke is Professor of Developmental Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Kings College London.

He's the senior author of a recent paper looking at brain development and function in a cohort of Romanian orphans whove been followed for decades since they came to the UK.

Guests:

Professor Edmund Sonuga-Barke

Professor of Developmental Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Kings College London

Host:

Dr Norman Swan

Producer:

James Bullen

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Romania's orphans early neglect, brain size and behaviour - ABC News

Neuroscience

Bill Kirby Jr.: Nagowski to share health care vision for community – The Fayetteville Observer

January 25, 2020 medical

An emotional evening is likely as the 14th annual Cape Fear Valley Health Foundation welcomes the return of the chief executive officer of Cape Fear Valley Health System, Mike Nagowski, who suffered a cranial cerebral hemorrhage aneurysm in October.

Mike Nagowski will take the words of his family physician to heart Saturday evening when the chief executive officer of Cape Fear Valley Health System delivers what has become his annual state-of-health care address in this and surrounding communities.

Mike, you have a second chance in life, and God must have a calling on your life, Dr. John Moultrie would tell Nagowski at the end of an annual health exam in December 10 weeks after Nagowski's surgery and recovery from an Oct. 12 cranial cerebral hemorrhage aneurysm. You have something more to do, and make the most of God's plan.

Moultries words resonated with Nagowski.

I'm going to tell a bit of my story, Nagowski, 54, says about the 14th annual Cape Fear Valley Health Foundation Gala scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Saturday at Highland Country Club, and where the CEO will address an estimated audience of 500 to include physicians, nurses and about 40 members of the fledgling resident program at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center.

The evening will not be lost on Sabrina Brooks.

We are so thankful to have Mr. Nagowski back as our leader, says Brooks, the foundation's executive director. His vision for health care in this community and dedication to Cape Fear Valley Health is unparalleled, and we are grateful for his leadership. With the importance of expanding the graduate medical education program and establishing the neuroscience center at the forefront of the foundations efforts, Mr. Nagowskis presence will help share the impact these programs will have on enhancing health care for our community and the southeast region of North Carolina.

It will be emotional for many in the room.

This event will be his 'coming out' after his absence, Brooks says, and I believe his remarks will talk about the quality of health care Cape Fear Valley provides to the community and the ways we continue to expand care, something he now has a new perspective on due to his personal experience.

The evening will not be lost on Emily Schaefer.

It definitely will be a moment, says Schaefer, president of the foundation that has raised $1,664,000 through the gala since 2007. Two months ago, we didn't think this would be happening.

The evening will not be lost on Michael Hodges.

I am thankful my friend Mike Nagowski has returned to work, says Hodges, a Fayetteville cardiologist.I believe his return to work, and his survival, is a miracle that causes me to pause and give thanks.During his years of leadership, the health system has enjoyed unprecedented growth.

Mike Nagowski is not a physician.

He cannot operate on your ailing heart or reroute your blocked arteries. He cannot remove a cancerous tumor. Or your gall bladder. He cannot nurse you in an intensive care unit or deliver a newborn in the neonatal unit.

But he is the vision for Cape Fear Valley Health, which consists of 850 physicians, 1,779 licensed nurses to include certified registered nurse anesthetists and licensed nurse practitioners in the health system's six-county region that serves Bladen, Harnett, Hoke, Robeson, Sampson and Cumberland counties.

The health system proper, Nagowski says, cares for 44,000 inpatients, approximately 260,000 emergency department visits and 450,000 physician office visits, with 36,000 inpatient and, 140,000 emergency department visits at the medical center alone on Owen Drive.

Nagowski gets down to the business Saturday of his second chance.

We need the neuroscience institute, Nagowski says of what he envisions for the fifth floor of the Center for Medical Education and Research building, a $28.3 million structure to be built on what once was a nurses dormitory when the hospital opened in 1956. The nation is not producing enough neurosurgeons. Neurosurgeons are the hardest to recruit. Recruiting and convincing them is the difficult part.

There are two neurosurgeons at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, Nagowski says, about Dr. Charles Haworth and Dr. Melissa Stamates.

Our neurosurgeons are board-certified and qualified to do all types of neurosurgery, both heads and backs, Nagowski says. The bulk of Charles practice is complicated spine, and while Dr. Stamates does both back and head, she has additional training and interest in brain.

The hospital, Nagowski says, could use three more neurosurgeons to cover the region and complement the residency program in its third year with 100 resident physicians specializing in general surgery, pediatrics, OB-GYN, psychiatry and other medical fields. The goal is 300 residents, and the Cape Fear Health Foundation is working to raise $3 million toward the effort, of which most of the funding has been secured.

That's vision Mike Nagowski's vision.

Our medical community is on the verge of becoming a significant regional academic medical center with far-reaching implications for the improvement of healthcare to all those we see, says Hodges, the cardiologist. I believe the journey would have looked far different without Mike leading the effort. I believe he is living for a reason, and he will transform his future efforts into fulfilling that purpose.

A final word, if you will, from Nagowski.

This happens to people every day, Nagowski says about brain aneurysms. This illustrates the need for a neuroscience center here. Health care is best when it is delivered locally. If I had waited another 24 hours, we would not be talking. What we say and do always has been important to me. This has deepened my belief that what we do here is all about the patient, and we have more work to do here for health care. And with a medical school on this campus, it will be our faculty.

Columnist Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at bkirby@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3571.

Originally posted here:
Bill Kirby Jr.: Nagowski to share health care vision for community - The Fayetteville Observer

Anatomy

How Greys Anatomy and Station 19 Approached Its Crossover Death Count – Variety

January 25, 2020 medical

SPOILER ALERT: Do not read if you have not yet watched the Station 19/Greys Anatomy crossover that aired Jan. 23.

Station 19 and Greys Anatomy kicked off the start of their official combined universe with a two-hour block that began with the third season premiere of the former Shondaland series. In the episode entitled I Know This Bar, there was fallout from a car crash as well as flashbacks to what what going on with the firefighters while the series was off the air.

Then, in the second hour, Greys Anatomys 10th episode of Season 16 (Help Me Through The Night) was rooted in the present as a number of doctors successfully fought to survive after that car crash; Bailey (Chandra Wilson) grieved the loss of her unborn child and Teddy (Kim Raver) and Owen (Kevin McKidd) took a big step forward in their relationship.

Here, showrunner Krista Vernoff breaks down the big moves on both shows.

Greys Anatomy hasnt featured a major character death in a number of seasons. At this point in the shows run, what is the debate amongst the writers and producers about when that device is best used?

That question makes me laugh because, for sure, it was a signature of Greys Anatomy for many years to kill off characters. When I came [back] in Season 14, youre looking at how do you surprise people anymore? And it continues to feel like the more surprising thing to not kill them. I often say to the writers, Then, when we do one day, it will be genuinely shocking. With this big crossover event, I will say that there was, in initial discussions, the intention to have someone die. But what happened is that we realized, as we were breaking [the season of] Greys Anatomy, that Bailey was going to lose her baby. And we realized as we were breaking the midseason finale, that we werent going to have time to properly process that loss. So as we were writing the [midseason] premiere of Greys Anatomy, the loss of Baileys baby felt so potent as a loss, that it felt if we were going to kill someone else, it almost felt like a hat on a hat. It felt like, lets grieve this baby. That scene [where she grieves the miscarriage] I weep when I watch that scene. I went up and watched the editors cutting it, and they were cutting it through tears. Chandra is so extraordinary in that scene, and every person I ever know whos lost a baby needs that scene. And that loss needs to be felt as deeply as any other character we might have killed. For us, Bailey losing a baby 16 seasons into the show, that feels like a death. And I wanted to give it its due. I didnt want to step on it with, Oh, and that intern died, too. So it felt like the better storytelling.

Can you reveal who you were planning to kill off in the early discussions?

Everybody in that episode, at some point, was on the chopping block. The amount of times that weve decided were killing characters, and then were like, No, lets change it it would drop your jaw. And youd be amazed at how many people have been on the board for weeks; we come up with different codes that mean that character is dying. And then were like, No. So theres no one person. There were a lot of conversations about who might die in that bar, from both casts. At the end of the day, Baileys baby felt right.

Owen and Teddy are now engaged, but it came after they got a fair amount of external pressure about the status of their relationship. And theres also the fact that his ex-wife, Amelia (Caterina Scorsone), is no longer sure about the paternity of her unborn child, while Teddys ex, Tom (Greg Germann), seemed upset at the reveal. Whats next?

What Tom is feeling there is primarily is terrible pain. There is nothing clean or easy about this particular engagement at this moment, because now Amelia is keeping a secret. Shes not just keeping it from Owen and shes not just keeping it from Link shes keeping it from herself. We dont know who the father of that baby is. And that is a big messy story moving forward with the season. For sure, Toms feelings for Teddy, which I think are not entirely unmutual, are a factor moving forward. We talk about Tom and Teddy and Owen and Amelia as a quadrangle, and that story is certainly not complete.

Jo (Camilla Luddington) seemed attached to the idea of being a Safe Haven volunteer and made a comment about not being a mother yet. How much will the show be pursuing Jos maternal instincts, especially now that Justin Chambers, who played her husband Alex, has left the show?

For us, Jo taking that baby felt less about becoming a mother than about trying to mother her own inner child. It felt like she was holding a baby In her arms who represented her as a baby, and she was trying to find some healing through being a safe haven volunteer and holding that baby and beautifully, just didnt want to let that baby go. For me, that story was just another step on Jos healing journey.

So it was just a couple of episode arc versus being a significant part of her immediate future?

I dont know for sure about the future. But in this moment, yes, that isnt the story that shes pursuing.

Maggie (Kelly McCreary) was blindsided by the reveal shes being sued by her uncle for the wrongful death of her cousin. How will she be coping?

Maggie is going through a really difficult thing that most surgeons go through in their intern year. The writers room, we talked a lot about how Maggie is a genius. Shes incredibly good at what she does. Has she ever been through the death of a patient that may be in some way due to her error? And we realized we hadnt really seen it onscreen, which meant it probably hasnt happened. Which speaks to her seeming, sometimes, like almost like an immaturity. Kelly McCreary has often asked, When does Maggie grow up a little bit? And for us, this answered that question of, Oh, she hasnt been through the kinds of losses and failures that people who are less good go through. So that was an exciting thing for us to give the character and to give the actress.

Weve seen Bailey grieve her miscarriage, but her husband Ben (Jason George) was mostly concerned about his wife. How much will Station 19 be exploring his loss?

What I love about the way weve handled this miscarriage is that weve kept that loss alive on both shows throughout much of the season. So the people I know whove had late stage miscarriages and some of the people I know whove had early stage miscarriages, its not a thing that just is felt briefly and then gone. Its an ongoing loss. And theres an ongoing grief. And I think that sometimes thats misrepresented in television. Its done in one episode and never mentioned again. We came at it differently for both of those characters. Theyre both feeling it in different ways and discussing it and having various reactions to it throughout the season.

Pruitt (Miguel Sandoval) is keeping his cancer quiet for now, and given the tenuous relationship with his daughter, Andy (Jaina Lee Ortiz), it feels like a ticking bomb. Whats ahead there?

Pruitt is a big story this season on Station 19. We tried to tell it differently than the cancer story had been told in the past, and I think we succeeded. It allows the characters to go deeper. Andy has to grow up more and Pruitt has to face his mortality in a very real way.

There were also two different kinds of break-ups: Andy and Sullivan (Boris Kodjoe) imploded over career aspirations, while Maya (Danielle Savre) bluntly dumped Jack (Grey Damon). Is there hope for either couple? And would Andy and Sullivans relationship even be appropriate at this point?

Its not appropriate, but appropriate doesnt always make great TV. [Laughs.] For sure, were exploring the dynamics between Andy and Sullivan, which are really complicated. Thats exciting as a storyteller. Maya and Jack the way that Maya breaks up with him is so brutal, were exploring that as a character trait. Were really looking at Maya as a character this season and what makes her tick. [Its the same for] Jack and all of the characters.

We are leaning into a flashback motif this season where were looking sometimes at just a couple of years ago for the characters and sometimes at their childhoods to understand how they became the people that they are, why they became firefighters. So were doing some really exciting character work and and two of the characters that I think weve done a beautiful job illuminating in the early episodes are Maya and Jack.

Vic (Barrett Doss) seemed to move on from Ripleys (Brett Tucker) death fairly fast, especially in light of her relationship with Greys Anatomys Jackson (Jesse Williams), but the premiere had a poignant scene where she expressed how deeply she had been grieving. Was that a turning point in this recovery for her or is this the start of her being more open about the impact of the loss?

Were letting both of those things coexist. We are seeing a lighter version of her and were acknowledging how much shes been through. That is a joy for me. [Doss] is incredible, and she brings great emotional depth; she [also] brings lightness and joy and laughter. It all coexists. Were telling a story about grief that shows what I have experienced to be true: that ongoing grief intermingles with all the joy of life in a way where, often on television, grief is depicted as a dark, dark journey and then you come out of it and you can have joy again and then the grief isnt really touched on a lot. And Vic is having both: shes having grief for Ripley and shes having a new relationship. Shes having her feelings, her sadness, her tears, which allows her to also have a lot of laughter and joy and light and sex and fun. Its all happening simultaneously. Its really one of my favorite things were doing.

Is there anything else that can be teased about whats ahead on Station 19 or Greys Anatomy?

The first few episodes of Station 19 are kind of dark and intense, because thats how we designed them. And then when you get to Episodes 4 and 5, more joy and more light is coming in. These characters, were going deeper and deeper and deeper. I really just want to invite everyone to come on that journey. I think fans of of the first few seasons of the show, it may shake them up a little because it feels a little bit like a different show stylistically. But these characters are the characters youve fallen in love with. And were going even deeper. I encourage fans of Greys Anatomy, whove maybe never come to Station 19, to come check it out because Bailey is recurring on that show. And Jackson is recurring on that show. And its an exciting fun show unto itself. I dont want anyone to feel like they have to watch both hours, but that they get to.

Station 19 airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. and Greys Anatomy airs Thursdays at 9 p.m., both on ABC.

Continued here:
How Greys Anatomy and Station 19 Approached Its Crossover Death Count - Variety