Volume 26
Number 3
February 6, 2015
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
`` Reverend Charles Howard was guest speaker at this year’s MLK Day celebration at HUP.
Courage to
Conviction
`` The music of LeMont Mears got the audience on their feet and clapping.
In the early 1980s, Jim Browning, director of Pastoral Care, was assigned to a Memphis church that was located just five blocks from the Lorraine Motel, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated more than 15 years before. A museum stands on the motel site today but back then “there were broken windows, a chain-link fence … and a shattered neighborhood,” he said at this year’s MLK celebration. “Still, I found a hope there, that things would change.” Things have changed in this country. Today, thousands of Americans honor King’s tremendous legacy by reaching out to help those less fortunate, not only on MLK Day but year-round. But what started as a day of giving back “has evolved into reflection and, this year, an advocacy for justice,” said Al Black, the hospital’s COO.
What you’re doing here is life changing. Outside of these
Inside How We Helped on MLK Day...2 Taking OutAll tothe Talk...........2 HelpingTime People Time.....2 Roundtable. ................................3 You Do What?............................3 Free Skin Don’t Wait Until March 6 Cancer Screening......................3 to Switch!. ..................................4 Partners in Rehab. .....................4 All Employee Meetings............4 Shortakes...................................4 Where to Find Kosher Food.....4
walls, it could also be world changing. “This year we honor Dr. King’s second legacy,” agreed the Reverend Charles Howard, University chaplain and guest speaker, “speaking the truth.” Three lessons, when incorporated into daily life, will help make this a better world, Howard said. The first: reverent acknowledgement, a lesson he learned from Ralph Ciampa, former director of Pastoral Care, while Howard was a chaplain resident. “This is not seeing only the surface but paying attention to what’s beneath the surface,” he said. “It’s easy to go through life with blinders, but Dr. King beckons us to wake up. Acknowledge that there is pain in the world.” (Continued on page 3)
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We
How
Helped on
Many Penn Medicine employees were out and about on MLK Day, volunteering their time and talents to help out in the surrounding communities. All told, our volunteers put in approximately 185 hours in multiple community service projects. Monique Lloyd, a CPUP patient service representative, Tanya McKinney, an OR nurse, and others volunteered to help clean up and do minor repairs for the National Temple Church of the Living God. “I had a great experience helping out,” McKinney said. “Pastor Jones is
M L K D AY
trying to expand her congregation and offer multiple services to the community. It was a true honor to provide a helping hand to a church in need on Martin Luther King Day.” Others, such as members of Government and Community Relations, spent time outdoors doing a cleanup for the West Philadelphia Achievement Charter School. Volunteers raked and bagged more than 30 bags of leaves and trash from the playground and surrounding yard!
It was a true honor to provide a helping hand to a church in need on Martin Luther King Day. Johanne Louis of Geriatric Medicine — and her four children — along with Cynthia Toussaint of Orthopaedics and others served lunch to seniors at the Living Water Baptist Church. Volunteers also served lunch to Philadelphia seniors at the Marian Anderson Museum and Historical Society operatic tribute. Several members of Communications worked with the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children (WePAC) to help set up a library at the Andrew Hamilton Elementary School. According to WePAC’s website, more than 80% of Philadelphia public schools lack a functioning library and only seven percent have a librarian on staff. The newly created school library opened its doors to students last week. “I think this is a great reminder of how small efforts can make a big difference,” said Holly Auer, director of Communications.
`` Johanne Louis and her four children helped out at the Living Water Baptist Church on MLK Day.
Helping People All the Time
Thank you to all of September’s winners in the Helping People All the Time raffle who went above and beyond to help provide a better experience for our patients and their families. Emily Hall. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social Work
Katie Whalen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ER
Joanne Nasife. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rhoads 7
Steven Beldeman. . . . . . . . . Materials Management
Ayana Smith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Radiology
Theresa Gorman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rhoads 7
William Doyle . . . . . . . . . . . . Materials Management
Andrea Mockus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Radiology
Ashley Stallworth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rhoads 7
Silla Mues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MICU
Ayanna Shaw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Radiology
Mosetta Harris. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rhoads 7
Jillian Ruffenach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MICU
Katrina Sawicki. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Radiology
Ann Coyle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rhoads 7
Megan Lucas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MICU
Van Doan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Radiology
Katie Lindenbaum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Silverstein 12
Jill Cruz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Respiratory Care
Louise Robinson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rhoads 6
Jeff Baldwin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Silverstein 12
Michael Hudson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Security
Colleen Dorsey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rhoads 6
Kate Greenbaum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Silverstein 7
Sarah Smyth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rhoads 6
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You Do
What?
Unique Jobs at HUP
Most health-care jobs have a clear connection to medicine but others are not quite so obvious. Read below to see how a tattoo artist uses her skills to help cancer patients. When Mandy Sauler starting doing tattoos in her mother’s shop nearly 20 years ago, she never thought this skill would lead her to helping women recovering from breast cancer…. But that’s exactly what happened. As HUP’s micropigmentation specialist, she provides the final step for many women who underwent mastectomy and reconstructive surgeries, tattooing areolas to create a realistic three-dimensional appearance. Many factors combine to make a natural-looking areola, Sauler explained. If the patient has a unilateral reconstruction, Sauler matches the tattooed areola with that of the remaining breast. But, with a dual reconstruction, she discusses with patients the best size and coloring for them now. For all tattoos, “I draw it on first to see how it looks in the mirror,” she said. “Then I mix up colors based on their skin tone and see how it looks on the patient’s skin.” Once she and the patient are satisfied, she begins the tattoo process, using different-sized needles and multiple colors to create the desired effect. Although most women don’t feel any pain, “I can use topical anesthetic,” she said. Most tell her, “It wasn’t as bad as I thought.” Some patients have a nipple created surgically but, for others, Sauler can create the illusion of a 3-dimensional nipple, which looks extremely lifelike. One woman wrote her a letter about when she went for a mammogram for her “new” breast: “The clinician, who does 20 to 30 mammograms a day, pulls a ‘marker’ off a strip and plants it right on the tattoo you gave me (my new nipple)…. The woman thought it was a genuine nipple at first glance.… I said, ‘That’s a tattoo’ and she was floored! She said that she’d never been fooled before. A heartfelt thanks for a job well done!” When the process is completed, “I stand behind the patient as she looks in the mirror. Looking at their faces — it makes me feel so good. No one has a better job than I do.”
Courage to
Conviction
(Continued from Cover)
Critical refusals, the second lesson, is “naming what’s wrong and refusing to turn a blind eye.” During his residency, “I worked the overnight shift in the ER. HUP never turns anyone away. I saw many come in who slept on streets but were never refused care,” he said. “You don’t give up on the units. You work for change, to heal.”
`` Mandy Sauler carefully creates an areola tattoo on breast cancer patient Ginka Nikolov.
Sauler began her early training working on oranges. “I was eager to learn so my mom would have me practice on oranges or grapefruits. At the time, they were perfect because of the thickness of the skin and they’re round, like the curvature on most body parts,” she said. When she was 14, “I started saving the tattoos — in the freezer — to show friends!” Today, she said, tattoo artists can learn on fake skin or mannequins, which were not available back then. To become skilled in medical tattoos, Sauler trained “with a medical tattoo artist who is also a painter,” she said. Medical tattooing has become a little more common, but early on, medical offices were given a machine to create the areola “which had some basic skin colors but they received no training. It looked like a flat circle,” she said “Now people realize it’s an art. I think it takes a least three years before a person can be comfortable working on skin — and be good at it.” Sauler uses her skill to help other types of patients as well. For example, she can create eyebrows to frame the eye for patients with alopecia (which causes hair loss on some or all of the body). She can also camouflage scars. She recalled one person whose leg was seriously burned when she was a toddler and had always worn slacks to hide the scar. “Over time scars hypopigmate, which means they turn lighter,” she explained. Using multiple colors, Sauler camouflaged the scar. “She told me that she can now wear skirt and stockings.”
Do You Have A Unique Job? Do you — or someone you know at HUP — have a job that seems unique in a health-care setting? If so, please let me know! Email sally.sapega@uphs.upenn.edu.
The third, he said, is patience to stay the course. “Stay with people long enough to change the world. It’s tempting to give up. It’s exhausting work,” he said. “It takes a lot of strength to take a few steps, but stay engaged and you can go amazing places.” What you do here is revolutionary, he continued. “You take in strangers, you intimately care for them as if they were family, every day. If only the world could be like you … loving in a way that doesn’t make sense. “What you’re doing here is life changing,” he said. “Outside of these walls, it could also be world changing.”
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Don’t Wait Until March
6 to Switch!
The Penn Tower Parking Garage will close to employees on Friday, March 6. (It will stay open for patients until Wednesday, March 11). Employees who currently park in that garage are strongly encouraged to transfer to the University Avenue Garage (Lot #51) immediately to ensure a smooth transition and avoid long delays in obtaining the new parking pass card. Staff who have a Penn Tower parking swipe card must return it before they will be issued an access card for Lot #51. The Penn Tower Garage parking swipe card will be invalid as of 11:59 pm on Friday, March 6. Parking pass cards for Lot 51 are available at one of the following locations: • Parking Office on the Penn Tower Bridge Level (to the left of the Nursing Renewal
Center), on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (7:30 am to 4 pm) and Tuesday and Thursday (6 am to 4 pm) • Penn Tower Garage office (7 am to 11 pm), 7 days a week. (Glass office to the left of the main garage exit.) To learn more about the closing of the Penn Tower parking garage, go to www.uphs. upenn.edu/employeeselfservice/transportation.html. If you have additional questions or concerns, please speak with your supervisor or email Denise.Mariotti@uphs.upenn.edu.
Where to find kosher food Patients, family members or visitors who request kosher food, which is prepared in accordance with Jewish Dietary Laws, can find it both in HUP’s cafeteria and on the Penn campus. The cafeteria offers frozen kosher meals, prepared under a rabbi’s supervision and double wrapped, which can be heated in the cafeteria. To learn more, contact Michael Filan, assistant director of Food and Nutrition, at Michael.Filan@uphs.upenn.edu. On the Penn campus, kosher food is available at • Falk Dining, located in the Hillel
Ebola Preparedness at Penn Medicine Preparations for the possibility of caring for a patient with Ebola have been underway for several months at HUP, and we must maintain competency in our ability to care for these patients. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) recently announced that HUP is part of an elite group of 35 hospitals nationwide – and the only adult hospital in Pennsylvania – capable of safely caring for patients with Ebola.
Building on 215 S. 39th Street and Locust Walk (Open during the academic year) • Houston Market: Lower level of Houston Hall. (Weekdays only) Learn more at http://cms.businessservices.upenn.edu/dining.
As always, we encourage all staff to continue to check for updates at http://pennpoint.uphs. upenn.edu/sites/ebola/default.aspx. As a reminder, two phone lines are available to assist clinicians and staff around the clock:
• Clinicians with patient-related questions should call 215.614.0524. A physician will
answer and handle calls about screening, isolation and, if necessary, lead arrangements for patient transport to HUP from another entity.
• General questions not pertaining to direct patient care can be directed to 215.615.2929.
HUPdate Editorial Staff Sally Sapega Editor and Photographer
Trissy Harding & Lisa Paxson Designer
Administration
Susan E. Phillips Senior Vice President, Public Affairs
Come to learn more… Do you want to learn more about HUP and the Health System? Be sure to attend
one of the upcoming All Employee Meetings. HUP leaders will provide updates and answer questions.
All Employee Meetings are held in Medical Alumni Hall, on 1 Maloney.
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The next three will be held: Tues day, February 17 Noon to 1:00 p.m. Tues day, March 3 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. t hursday, April 9 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.
Holly Auer Director of Communications Contact HUPdate at: 3535 Market Street, Mezzanine Philadelphia, PA 19104 phone: 215.662.4488 fax: 215.349.8312 email: sally.sapega@uphs.upenn.edu HUPdate is published biweekly for HUP employees. Access HUPdate online at http://news.pennmedicine.org/inside/hupdate.