All in the Family

Mothers, daughters and sisters have traditionally come together to A Woman's Journey. Some physician speakers have brought their wives and even their mothers. This year, the blockbuster health symposium held each fall promises to be more of a family affair than ever before: A few sessions will be led by husband and wife doctors, and the entire Hopkins "family" is invited as well.

The annual women's symposium, held this year on Nov. 8, draws a crowd of nearly 1,000 from more than 15 states. Hopkins employees are always on hand, either attending, earning continuing education units, or volunteering as moderators, docents and room hosts. Attendees can choose four of 32 seminars led by faculty and dealing with pertinent women's issues such as body image and breast cancer. A keynote speaker kicks off the sessions in the morning; an entertaining and yet compelling talk takes place at lunchtime.

"The seminars are fabulous," says Eden Stotsky, health educator with the Colon Center and a volunteer at last year's event. "The presenters speak at a level the participants can understand. They're informative and willing to answer questions."
According to Kelly Cavallio, an assistant administrator in the Department of Surgery who has volunteered for the event in the past and will do so again this year, "The keynote speaker often sets the tone for the rest of the conference." This year's keynoter, Julie Freischlag, will share the details of her journey from a modest upbringing in the Midwest to her position as Hopkins' first woman chief of surgery, discussing challenges she faces balancing family life with a demanding career.
It's the symposium's holistic approach to health and medicine, Cavallio says, that brings her back year after year. "Now my mom attends, too. A Woman's Journey has turned into a real family affair."

-Meghan Fox

Cast-Offs

Cast gallery.

The prospect of six to eight long weeks in a cast has turned numerous orthopedic patients at Bayview Medical Center into Van Gogh wannabes. Trading boredom for brushes, these cast-wearing artists tackle their "canvases" with gusto, creating ankle-to-knee fields of flowers or wrist-to-elbow flights of fancy.

When patients and their casts part company, Michael Keene and Rob Rawson, the orthotists who evaluate, fit and measure patients for assistive and support devices, hang the artistic results in Orthopedic's growing art gallery-one that started with a single decorated cast. "We hung it up so the patient could see it when he came back. It just blossomed from there," says Keene. While the "gallery" helps make his job interesting, what makes it satisfying, he adds, "is when the cast comes off and the patient says 'I'm healed.'"

-Sue Davis