Welcome to Benchmarks, a weekly collection of research news and notes featuring Mass General investigators. With a research community of over 9,500 people that spans more than 30 departments centers and institutes, there’s more news each week that we can get to. Here are a few highlights:

Podcast Highlights Research Into Shared Decision Making

Karen Sepucha, PhD, Director of the Health Decisions Sciences Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, was recently featured on the Catalyst for Payment Reform podcast to discuss her research into shared decision making.

Sepucha describes shared decision making as a process by which the patient and physician discuss the pros and cons of several reasonable medical options in order to select the one that best fits the patient’s preferences.

“When you engage and inform patients, they get treatments that are more aligned with their goals,” Sepucha says. “In my opinion, it is a great approach for a wide range of medical decisions.”

Iezonni Discusses Medical Care for Patients with Disabilities on Science Friday

Lisa Iezzoni, MD, an investigator in the Health Policy Research Center, is one of two guests interviewed in a segment of this week’s Science Friday Podcast from National Public Radio.

Iezzoni was the senior author of a recent study in Health Affairs, “I Am Not The Doctor For You’: Physicians’ Attitudes About Caring For People With Disabilities,” that was highlighted in a New York Times article this fall.

In that study, physicians identified a broad range of barriers to caring for people with disabilities. Many physicians also expressed explicit bias toward people with disabilities and described strategies for discharging them from their practices.

Iezonni and team found that improvements in medical education and training are needed to better prepare physicians to care for people with disabilities, and that more action is needed to address the stigmatizing attitudes towards disabled patients that were expressed in the study’s focus groups.

NEJM’s Notable Articles of 2022

Three articles featuring Mass General researchers were included in this year’s Notable Articles of 2022, a collection of articles from the New England Journal of Medicine selected by NEJM editors.

Steven Russell, MD, PhD, an investigator in Diabetes Research Center, was the lead author of Multicenter, Randomized Trial of a Bionic Pancreas in Type 1 Diabetes.

Michael Greene, MD and Winfred Williams, MD, were co-authors of an editorial, Treating Hypertension in Pregnancy, which discussed a new study led by researchers from the University of Alabama.

The study found that treating pregnant women with mild hypertension (high blood pressure) was associated with better pregnancy outcomes than a strategy of reserving treatment only for cases of severe hypertension.

In Stroke, When Is Outcome Good Enough?, an editorial by Lee Schwamm, MD, Director of the Stroke Service at Mass General, was also included in the NEJM collection.

Schwamm discusses the results of a trial conducted in Japan comparing mechanical thrombectomy (endovascular therapy) to medical care in patients with large-vessel occlusion and large cerebral infarctions.

Tweets of the Week

This Week in Mass General History

Athlete Analysis Gives New Light on Body Training

December 13, 1928—Testing by Harvard researchers conducted at the medical labs of Massachusetts General Hospital found that Clarence DeMary, a 40-year-old marathon runner, was able to maintain a state approaching normal rest even when doing severe physical work.

According to an article in the Daily Illini, the researchers compared DeMary, who runs 10 miles daily, to another man who never had much physical exercise and two men who were leading sedentary lives and the present but had been accustomed to periods of hard work on the past.

The subjects were examined after performing the exercises on a stationary bicycle.

“The superiority of the athlete, the physicians found, lies in his ability to meet the demand for oxygen, enabling him to maintain an internal environment varying within narrow limits only from the resting state.”

FDR’s Son Responds to New Treatment, May No Longer Need Sinus Operation

December 17, 1936—The United Press reported that Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., stricken son of the President who was undergoing treatment at Mass General, may no longer need to underego a sinus operation after being treated with a new chemotherapeutic agent introduced in the United States only six months prior.

“Young Roosevelt is one of the first sinus cases to be treated with the compound known as prontosll and prontylin and his resultant progress has been so rapid that he probably will leave Phillips House of Massachusetts General Hospital within 10 days.”

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Research at Massachusetts General Hospital is interwoven through more than 30 different departments, centers and institutes. Our research includes fundamental, lab-based science; clinical trials to test new drugs, devices and diagnostic tools; and community and population-based research to improve health outcomes across populations and eliminate disparities in care.
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