Newsletter Volume 7 Issue 4 October 21, 2020 |
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Within the county, state, and national context, Emory seems to be doing well so far in keeping a low caseload of student, staff, and faculty infections. The Emory COVID-19 Dashboard shows a modest number of infections. Because of privacy concerns it is not possible to know a lot about the reported cases, but it appears that some of the cases involve people who were last on campus months ago and that many of the infected students live off campus. The locations given for infected faculty don’t seem to involve any who would have been teaching in-person classes. At any rate, the numbers are good enough that the recent announcement for spring semester plans involves a modest increase in students being brought to campus. There is planning for “a socially distanced, limited attendance event” for Commencement. These plans of course are encouraging, but it is clear that even by mid-year, Emory will not be back to anything resembling normal operations.
The November election is almost upon us. I expect many of us will be extremely glad to get this behind us, but any joy may be conditional on the results. Many of us have worked at CDC or have colleagues who have. I have heard that the recent article on CDC in ProPublica, Inside the Fall of the CDC, is accurately reported. Most of us would agree that such a "fall" would represent a real tragedy for the U.S.
On a much happier note, we continue to have a wonderful series of Lunch Colloquiums. We will have a program on pandemic ethics next week and one on the connections between diet and heart health the following week. Thanks to Holly York and Angelika Pohl, we have articles on the recent colloquiums dealing with sleep issues and family stories. Both of those were fascinating and important, in very different ways. Not only can you read those reports, but thanks to Don O’Shea and Stacey Jones you can see the recordings on our website.
I am very grateful to Gretchen Schulz, Ann Hartle, and Marge Crouse for help with editing and proofing.
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Lunch Colloquium - Monday, October 26
Kathy Kinlaw
"Pandemic Ethics and Difficult Choices in the Time of COVID-19"
Please scroll to read more below
Lunch Colloquium - Monday, November 2
Laurence Sperling
"Heart Healthy Dietary Patterns: A Recipe for Life"
Please scroll to read more below
Report - Lunch Colloquium - Monday October 5
Nancy Collop
"Getting our ZZZZZZs: Understanding Sleep and Common Sleep Disorders"
Please scroll to read more below
Report - Lunch Colloquium - Monday, October 12
Robyn Fivush and Marshall Duke
"A Conversation About Family Storytelling"
Please scroll to read more below
Volunteer Request
Pediatric Infectious Diseases
Please scroll to read more below
Walking the Campus with Dianne
Please scroll to read more below
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Lunch Colloquium--Monday, October 26, 2020 |
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“Pandemic Ethics and Difficult Choices in the Time of COVID-19”
Kathy Kinlaw
Associate Director, Emory Center for Ethics; Assistant Professor, Pediatrics
Zoom Meeting
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Though there has been extensive planning in Pandemic Ethics through the years and around the world, no one was well prepared to deal with the ethical issues raised by COVID-19. U.S. healthcare systems moved dangerously close to implementing tragic choices about who would receive scarce medical resources as transmission of the novel virus continued and serious consequences (including ICU care, ventilation, and death) were realized. Kathy Kinlaw will discuss the challenge of making ethical decisions in the midst of this threatening situation. She will explore whether those in certain groups should be given priority when resources for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 are scarce. Healthcare workers are often viewed as reasonable recipients of limited supplies. But should “essential service workers,” too often forced by financial need to continue work that places them at high risk, also be given priority? And what’s to be done when people from any group do sicken and fill emergency rooms to overflowing? What if triage of some sort seems necessary? What criteria might come into play then? At least longstanding disparity and inequity in our society have become increasingly visible in these circumstances. And that may be reason for hope.
About Kathy Kinlaw:
Kathy Kinlaw is associate director of the Ethics Center where she directs the center’s program in Health, Science and Ethics and she is lead ethicist at Emory Healthcare. She serves as chair of Emory University Hospital Ethics Committee, assistant professor of pediatrics, Emory School of Medicine, and director of Healthcare Ethics Consortium, a network of healthcare systems in the Southeast. She directs the integration of clinical ethics into the School of Medicine’s curriculum and residency programs. She has served as a board member of the Georgia Composite Medical Board, as a member of the Committee of Ethics and Professionalism of the Federation of State Medical Boards, and as a member of the CDC Ethics Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee to the Director. Co-author of more than 20 articles, Kathy Kinlaw has provided bioethics guidance to legislators and working groups drafting the Georgia Advance Directive for Healthcare in 2007, a revision of the Georgia Informed Consent Law in 2010, and the Georgia POLST legislation in 2015.
Kathy Kinlaw received her MDiv with a focus in religious ethics and bioethics from the Candler School of Theology and completed a fellowship in perinatal ethics through the Emory School of Medicine and is a certified healthcare ethics consultant. In addition, she has served as a Deacon and Deacon Chair at First Baptist Church of Decatur and served for many years as a member of the Board of Directors of Clairmont Oaks Inc, a non-profit corporation that provides affordable housing to low income seniors.
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Lunch Colloquium--Monday, November 2, 2020 |
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“Heart Healthy Dietary Patterns: A Recipe for Life”
Laurence Sperling, MD, FACC, FAHA, FACP
Katz Professor in Preventive Cardiology, Professor of Global Health in the Rollins School of Public Health,
Founder of The Emory Heart Disease Prevention Center
Zoom Meeting
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
There may be no one anywhere who knows more about the connections between diet and heart health than Emory cardiologist Laurence Sperling—and who’s more determined to educate both his fellow doctors and the rest of us on just this subject. It’s no wonder he was elected to serve the former as President of The American Society for Preventive Cardiology. And it’s no wonder that US News & World Report long since recruited him to serve on the panel of dietary experts who analyze and rank popular diets each year. Both scholarly publications and those aimed at the general public have established that dietary habits can contribute to cardiovascular disease—and that diet modification can be the foundation of cardiovascular disease prevention. However, there remains considerable confusion related to diets and their impact upon health and risk for chronic conditions. In his presentation today, Dr. Sperling hopes to clear up such confusion, providing an overview of various dietary approaches, addressing the pros and cons of many of the popular or “fad” diets, and highlighting a scientific, evidence-based approach to the issues involved in making choices that will promote heart health. A “recipe for life,” indeed.
About Laurence Sperling:
Laurence S. Sperling, MD, FACC, FAHA, FACP, FASPC is the Founder and has been the Director of The Heart Disease Prevention Center at Emory since 1997. He is currently the Katz Professor in Preventive Cardiology at the Emory University School of Medicine, and Professor of Global Health in the Rollins School of Public Health. Dr. Sperling is the current Executive Director of Million Hearts for the Division of Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He served as the President of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology from 2014-2016, served on the writing committee of 2018 for the ACC/AHA Guideline on the Management of Blood Cholesterol, and serves as Chair of the World Heart Federation writing group on the Roadmap for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention among People Living with Diabetes.
Dr. Sperling is originally from New York. He received his undergraduate degree from Emory College where he was accepted into Emory University School of Medicine’s Early Acceptance Program as a college sophomore. He graduated with his MD in 1989, and subsequently completed eight additional years of training at Emory including a residency in internal medicine, chief resident year at Emory University Hospital, an NIH-supported research fellowship in molecular and vascular medicine, and a clinical fellowship in cardiovascular diseases.
Dr. Sperling was awarded The American College of Cardiology Harry B. Graf Career Development Award for Heart Disease Prevention and The American Heart Association Council on Clinical Cardiology Scholarship for Physical Activity and Public Health in 2001. He is the recipient of the 2017 Award of Honor from the Alumni Association of Emory University School of Medicine.
Dr. Sperling serves or has served as medical director for a number of unique programs at Emory including The HeartWise Risk Reduction Program, InterVent Atlanta, and Staying Aloft and has served as special consultant to The Centers for Disease Control. He founded (in 2004) and directs the first and only LDL apheresis program in the state of Georgia and is the PI for The National FH Registry site at Emory. He has been voted one of America’s and Atlanta’s Top Doctors and has appeared often on/in local and national TV, newspapers, radio, and magazines. In 2011 he was chosen as one of 20 national dietary experts by U.S. News and World Report to evaluate and rank America’s popular diets and has participated in this analysis annually since then. He has received awards for excellence in both teaching (including four Apple Awards and The Dean’s Teaching Award) and mentorship (Emory SOM 2018 Mentorship Award). He was chosen by the Dean of Emory University School of Medicine to be among the first faculty society advisors for the school’s new curriculum. He served as Associate Director of the Cardiovascular Fellowship Training program at Emory for over a decade. He has been an investigator in a number of important clinical trials including JUPITER, COURAGE, and BARI-2D and has authored over 300 manuscripts, abstracts, and book chapters. He was co-editor of the American College of Cardiology’s Diabetes Self Assessment Program, was a member of the American College of Cardiology Prevention Committee, and currently serves as Co-Chairman of the American College of Cardiology’s Diabetes and Cardiometabolic Working group. He also served on the ACC’s Population Health Policy and Health Promotions Committee. He currently sits on the Research and Publications Committee of the National Diabetes Collaborative Registry. He was a member of the steering committee and is moderator for the Inaugural U.S. Familial Hypercholesterolemia Summit in September 2013. Dr. Sperling is the Director of the ESCAPE CV Prevention meeting, now in its 18th year. He was a visiting Professor on the faculty of the Imperial College of London (National Heart & Lung Institute), working with current World Heart Federation President, David Wood, and has delivered invited presentations on every continent except for Antarctica.
Dr. Sperling has been a marathon runner, having completed the New York, Prague, and Atlanta marathons. In 2010 he ran the original course from Marathon to Athens, Greece, to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of this event. He lives in the Druid Hills neighborhood of Atlanta with his wife, Dr. Sidney Barr. His sons, Mathew and Daniel, are current undergraduate students at Emory.
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Lunch Colloquium Report -- Monday, October 5, 2020 |
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"Getting Our ZZZZZZs: Understanding Sleep and
Common Sleep Disorders"
Nancy Collop, MD
Professor of Medicine and Professor of Neurology,
Director, Emory Sleep Center
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Few are as qualified as Nancy Collop to discuss what happens when humans sleep: the mechanisms that determine how and when we sleep, the different levels of sleep, and the disorders that can lead to impediments to sleep. Professor of Medicine and Neurology as well as Director of the Emory Sleep Center, Dr. Collop is also past President of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and continuing Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. At the October 5 Zoom Lunch Colloquium, she spoke about “Getting Our ZZZZZZs: Understanding Sleep and Common Sleep Disorders.”
Of the three pillars of good health--exercise, nutrition, and sleep--the latter is where people most often fall short. The widespread nature of sleep as a health issue is pointed up by some astonishing statistics: Googling the term “sleep” results in nearly 2 billion hits, and an estimated 70 million Americans suffer from a chronic sleep disorder. Of those with sleep disorders, about 18 million have sleep apnea, with about 10% of the total population experiencing restless legs syndrome and another 10% having chronic insomnia. The current COVID pandemic adds to the challenge.
Sleepiness and fatigue can be deadly, with 10-20% of car crashes attributed to sleepiness. Other types of transportation and industrial accidents are often attributable to insufficient sleep, such as the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, the nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island, the Exxon Valdez accident, air crashes in 2009 by Continental Airlines and Air France, and train crashes in the U.K. and the U.S.
Over the past 100 years, the average number of hours Americans sleep has decreased by 20%, largely due to longer working hours and more time on screens of various sorts. To illustrate this, Dr. Collop took the audience through an exercise with the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, featuring questions assessing one’s likelihood of dozing off in a number of different activities. Calculating the result can help determine whether or not to consider adjusting one’s sleeping habits. Specific symptoms of insufficient sleep include yawning, moodiness, fatigue, irritability, forgetfulness, inability to concentrate, lack of motivation, clumsiness, increased appetite, and reduced sex drive. Markers of sleep deprivation include regular dependence on an alarm clock to wake up, a difference of more than one hour in weekend versus weekday sleep time, and excessive consumption of caffeine.
Dr. Collop cited historical studies of sleep deprivation, including the 1964 example of 17-year- old Randy Gardner who stayed awake for 11 days as a high school science fair project, thus entering the Guinness Book of World Records. His first recovery sleep lasted 14 hours and 40 minutes. In an animal study example, the laboratory rats deprived of sleep developed skin lesions, increased metabolism, weight loss, and reduced body temperature, and all subjects died.
Studies examining the effect of sleep deprivation on hormones have been conducted comparing the conditions of “normal” sleep (8 hours sleep), acute total sleep deprivation (0 hours sleep), sleep restriction (4 hours sleep), and sleep extension (12 hours sleep). These studies have shown that sleep deprivation can affect growth hormone, the appetite hormones leptin and ghrelin, thyroid stimulating hormone, insulin (and thus, glucose), and the stress hormone, cortisol. Studies examining the relationship between sleep and death have found that for both men and women, people who slept fewer or more hours than average had over 1.5 to 2 times the average mortality rate.
Studies of the effect of sleep deprivation on performance have found that the more sleep is restricted, the greater the deficits in performance and lapses in sustained attention. The importance of these deficits is intensified by the fact otherwise healthy, sleep-restricted adults become less and less able to judge their own fitness to perform as sleep restriction is increased.
A number of studies have confirmed the link between “short sleep” (fewer than 5 hours per night for adults, fewer than 10 hours per night for children) and obesity. There is an inverse relationship between slow wave sleep (deep sleep) duration and BMI or waist circumference. One study reported that obese adults (BMI 41) slept an average of 88 minutes less than lean subjects.
A study examining the effect of sleep deprivation on athletic performance conducted over a 4-day period found dramatic decreases in the ability of participants to perform weight-training tasks such as biceps curl, bench press, leg press, and dead lift. In all tasks, performance decreased dramatically each day, with a measured percentage decrease by day 4 ranging from 10% for biceps curl to 17% for dead lift. A study of tennis players showed a marked decrease in hitting accuracy for both men and women after just one night of sleep restricted to 4 hours. On the other hand, a study of basketball players showed that sleep extension can have a positive effect on activities such as sprinting, free throws, three-point field goals, and self-rating of performance.
In explaining what happens when we sleep, Dr. Collop pointed out that going to sleep is not like switching off a light. Sleep is an active process allowing for restoration and strengthening while helping to solidify and consolidate our memories. Furthermore, it assists in rejuvenation, muscle, nerve, and tissue growth, and hormone synthesis. We are subject to both the need for sleep, or the homeostatic drive, and the urge to sleep, or the circadian rhythm. The homeostatic drive in humans has a ratio of 1/3 sleep to 2/3 waking. Sleep deprivation increases this drive and thus produces sleepiness. Hypothetically, the sleep need could be satisfied by sleeping at any hour, but it can be complicated by the circadian rhythm, which is driven by biological clock genes. In addition, the circadian rhythm and metabolism interplay and modulate each other.
In the course of a typical night, one experiences several cycles of REM and non-REM sleep. Driven by homeostatic pressure, non-REM sleep provides for physical restoration, with the brain quiet and the body “active.” By contrast, REM sleep, driven by circadian pressure, provides for mental restoration and solidifies memory. It is the brain that is active, while the body is quiet. Sleep patterns typically change with aging. People often experience increased awakenings and arousals, decreased deep sleep, fewer “cycles,” reduced efficiency, shifts in schedule, and napping. While sleep complaints are twice as common in women as in men at all ages, 75% of sleep research has been conducted on men.
Most sleep organizations agree that adults should sleep at least 7 hours per night to promote optimal health. Sleeping fewer than 7 hours is associated with obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, depression, impaired immune function, increased pain, subpar performance, and more accidents.
Dr. Collop offered several tips for getting a good sleep:
· Don’t eat a large meal before bedtime.
· Exercise regularly and maintain a healthy diet.
· Avoid consuming caffeine in the late afternoon or evening.
· Avoid consuming alcohol before bedtime.
· Reduce fluid intake before bedtime.
· Try to keep a consistent sleep schedule, including on weekends.
Her additional suggestions include avoiding exposure to bright light in the evenings, turning off electronic devices, including TV, at least 30 minutes before bedtime, establishing a relaxing bedtime routine, with the bedroom quiet and cool, avoiding showers and baths immediately before bedtime, not going to bed unless you are sleepy, getting out of bed if you don’t fall asleep after 20 minutes, and using the bed only for sleep and sex.
Dr. Collop also offered some tips for falling asleep faster. In the 4-7-8 breathing method, you exhale through the mouth, then inhale through the nose for 4 counts, hold for 7 counts, then exhale through the mouth for 8 counts. Repeat this series as necessary. Another method is to rewind the day in your mind, beginning when you first got up, including as much detail as possible.
People who routinely don’t get enough sleep and suffer daytime effects from that lack are said to have insomnia. They may have difficulty falling or staying asleep, or they may wake up too early in the morning. While most insomniacs complain of fatigue, they generally don’t feel “sleepy.” Among the disorders associated with insomnia are stress, depression and anxiety, substance abuse, pain, circadian rhythm displacement, and obsessing about lack of sleep. Since sleep is composed of many processes in the brain, no one medication is effective in replicating the processes, so behavior management is preferable to drug therapy for dealing with insomnia. In some cases, professional behavioral therapy may be indicated.
Circadian rhythm sleep disorders, which are diagnosed by a history and sleep diary or by actigraphy, are caused by a misalignment between the desired sleep schedule and the circadian sleep-wake rhythm. They can be associated with insomnia and/or sleepiness. Two types of such disorders are Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome and Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. Those who experience the former are referred to as “larks” and are characterized by an early bedtime and early wake time. They may have excessive sleepiness in the late afternoon or early evening and morning awakening that is earlier than desired. This condition has been described as having a genetic basis. A possible treatment is exposure to bright light in the early evening.
At the other end of the spectrum are people who experience Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. Referred to as “night owls,” they have a late bedtime and delayed wake time. They typically have trouble falling asleep and feel sleepy in the morning. The onset of this condition often comes during adolescence. If allowed to sleep when they want, night owls can get enough rest. Therapies include timed early morning light, melatonin, and chronotherapy.
Other common sleep disorders include restless legs syndrome and obstructive sleep apnea. The characteristics of restless legs syndrome can be summarized with the mnemonic URGE: it involves the Urge to move, it is Rest induced, it Gets better with activity, and it is accentuated in the Evening.
Obstructive sleep apnea results from the repetitive obstruction of the upper airway tissues during sleep. Its signs and symptoms include snoring, gasping, choking, and irregular breathing during sleep, daytime sleepiness, insomnia and chronic fatigue, headaches, mood swings, depression, and short-term memory problems. It can often be diagnosed with a home analysis kit, avoiding the need to go to the sleep lab. CPAP machines are just one of the treatments available. Patients are usually unaware that they have sleep apnea, and it is usually a loved one who must convince them to be tested. The disorder is common in certain groups, such as those with diabetes, poorly controlled high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation, stroke, obesity, and Down Syndrome. The deadliest of sleep disorders, sleep apnea has many serious health consequences, both physical and psychological. Treatments include avoidance of alcohol, sedatives and narcotics, position therapy, weight loss, PAP devices, oral appliances, and surgery.
Because getting sufficient sleep is such a vital pillar of health both physical and mental, Dr. Collop added that if you think you have a sleep disorder, you should discuss it with your primary care physician, who may refer you to the Sleep Center. The Emory Sleep Center is also open to self-referrals at 404-712-7533.
--Holly York
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Lunch Colloquium Report -- Monday, October 12, 2020 |
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"A Conversation about Family Storytelling"
Robyn Fivush, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology and
Director of the Institute for the Liberal Arts
Marshall Duke, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Psychology
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Our speakers for the Lunch Colloquium, held, via Zoom, on Monday, October 12, Robyn Fivush, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology and Director of the Institute for the Liberal Arts, and Marshall Duke, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Psychology, were introduced by Patti Owen-Smith. Here are some highlights of their long and distinguished careers:
Dr. Robyn Fivush joined the Emory faculty in 1984 where she is also associated faculty with the Department of Women's Studies and a Senior Fellow in the Center for the Study of Law and Religion. She currently directs the Family Narratives Lab as well as the Institute for the Liberal Arts. Dr. Fivush's research focuses on early memory with an emphasis on the social construction of autobiographical memory and the relations among memory, narrative, identity, trauma, and coping. She has published over 150 books, book chapters, and articles including her most recent book, Family Narratives and the Development of an Autobiographical Self: Social and Cultural Perspectives on Autobiographical Memory.
Dr. Marshall Duke, who joined the Emory faculty in 1970, is the recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Award, Emory's most prestigious award recognizing exemplary service to the university. For the past decade he has been a member of the core faculty of Emory University's Center for Ethics and Emory's Center for the Study of Myth and Ritual in American Life. He is also affiliated faculty in the university's Psychoanalytic Studies Program. In Dr. Duke’s publications of more than 100 research articles and nine books, he has focused on social relationship deficits in children and adults, locus of control, and the importance of family stories and rituals in the nurturing of resilience in children. His work has been written about in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Parents magazine, and Time magazine.
Dr. Fivush began the Colloquium by reminding us that everyone loves a good story. We are natural-born storytellers and have been since earliest times because it is through stories that we make sense of the world. We naturally divide the uninterrupted flow of experience into meaningful units that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Not just that, but we integrate our accounts of external happenings with our internal consciousness, our feelings and thoughts, i.e., how it felt, why and how it happened, and why it matters. This is how we give our experience purpose and meaning. In fact, when we talk to others, we are almost always talking about the past, and that means telling stories—in every-day conversation we do this about every five minutes. The way we formulate our experience to others both reflects and shapes our core identity. “We are the stories that we tell.”
This process begins very early in life. Already as babies and toddlers we hear stories about our extended family and stories that are read to us, and out of that we begin to create our identity. By listening to our mother’s experience we develop social and emotional skills. In a wider dimension, our family’s intergenerational stories also help us become competent members of our culture. The next developmental goal is to be able to tell our own story. In her research, Dr. Fivush has looked at the factors that appear to enable children to effectively describe who they are. Parents—and more often, mothers—who tell rich and clear family stories tend to have children who are skilled at relating their experiences and articulating their identity. These children tend not only to have better social and emotional understanding and skills but also to do better at school.
When Dr. Fivush began to work with Dr. Duke, they expanded their focus and looked at older children and teens. They were interested to learn how the accumulated, more extensive family stories that youngsters had heard over time affected their psychological wellbeing. When our researchers analyzed tape recordings of dinner table conversations, they found strong associations between the kinds of stories told and various indices of young people’s wellbeing.
Stories about intergenerational relationships and stories about how family members dealt with hardship were particularly important for adolescents’ self-esteem and sense of agency. Teens who knew these stories showed less depression, less anger, less aggression, and less anxiety. Such stories teach how the world works and how to overcome obstacles in life. Adolescents who know more of these stories and who express identification with a parent or grandparent in the telling are usually doing much better than their peers.
When Dr. Duke joined the conversation, he explained his interest in the questions “What’s happening with American families?” and “What’s pulling families apart?” as coming from his association with Professor Bradd Shore’s work as director of the Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life. Contemporary family life clearly has changed, and many children do not regularly engage in conversation with older family members and thus may not learn the family history that can be so vital to their sense of identity.
Dr. Duke and Dr. Fivush are looking for answers to the question “What is holding families together?” Myth and ritual are as important as ever. While kids are often seen as uninterested in family lore, they still hear and absorb it despite their rolled eyes. Families that talk about significant ups and downs in their lives provide the youngest generation with models of coping and reasons for optimism.
Grandparents are particularly important in children’s lives: They are generally much better storytellers than parents, and the affectionate bond between children and grandparents can often be explained by their common “enemy,” the parents. Grandparents provide a healthy buffer so that difficult conversations can take place that would not work with parents. (This information was likely especially interesting to many members of the Zoom audience.)
Family narratives come in many different versions; accuracy doesn’t matter, so long as their deeper truth is maintained. Yet it is important that kids know some facts about their parents and grandparents. A survey that asked kids questions such as where their parents grew up or where they met showed significant positive correlations between how knowledgeable kids were about their family history and their social and emotional adjustment. The underlying question of how kids acquired their knowledge was more significant to the research than the fact that they know it.
Of course, not all children learn the stories of their parents and grandparents. Dr. Duke mentioned the dilemma of military families where the father or grandfather will not talk about his most dramatic experience, that of fighting in a war. Another unusual situation he addressed relates to the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, where almost nothing is known about grandparents who perished. Based on many interviews, the data show that these grandchildren are creative in generating stories that connect bits of known information with stories about the Holocaust they encountered in books and movies. In fact, these children tend to function surprisingly well.
Dr. Duke talked about the happy circumstance that his and Dr. Fivush’s research is very interesting to the general public and has generated not only widely discussed articles in The New York Times and Time magazine but even attention by the media queen, Oprah. The Zoom audience for this presentation also showed great interest as they spent more than 45 minutes after the formal presentation asking intriguing questions and contributing valuable comments.
--Angelika Pohl
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The Emory Vaccine Clinic is seeking children volunteers for basic science studies. If you have grandchildren or neighbors living with children in the metro Atlanta area, you might let them know of this opportunity.
If you have any questions, you can contact:
Julia Bartol
Clinical Research Interviewer
Emory Vaccine Clinic
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Walking the Campus with Dianne |
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The metal sculpture from our last walk can be found on Peavine Creek Drive, which is just off Eagle Row. The sculpture itself is located behind one of the frat houses, near the Water Hub and Chappell Park baseball field.
The sculpture is titled "The Worker" and was created by Sam Arbiser, given in honor of his family and as a testament to the value of hard work and perseverance in the face of overwhelming obstacles. (Perfect for the times we are living in!!) The piece of art was dedicated June 21, 2007.
It's an impressive and large piece of art. If you are ever in that area of campus, be sure to check it out. I've provided another view of the sculpture with the water hub and part of the Emory maintenance buildings in the background.
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This next spot is generally used by students, but I found it a great place to take a rest from a bike ride. I'll bet the fireplace is wonderfully cozy on a cool evening and those Dooley chairs are so cute! |
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Where will you find this on the Emory Campus? |
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Emory University Emeritus College
The Luce Center
825 Houston Mill Road NE #206
Atlanta, GA 30329
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