In a story about updated boosters available for children 5 and under, Eliza Hayes Bakken, M.D., says vaccination is an important tool to prevent COVID-19. She says, “While children are proportionately less affected, they’re not unaffected (by COVID). There are deaths and long-term complications in children that make us concerned.”

A story about long COVID affecting Oregon’s economy features an OHSU patient who was unemployed for about a year and continues to struggle financially after initially becoming sick in 2021. Eric Herman, M.D., says long COVID patients “can experience a crushing sense of fatigue, not so much right afterward, but 12 to 72 hours” after performing regular activities.

60 scuba divers outside of Florence raised more than $15,000 at the 15th annual “Dive for Cure” fundraising event benefiting the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute.

Scientists at OHSU have revealed, for the first time and in near-atomic detail, the structure of the key part of the inner ear responsible for hearing. Eric Gouaux, Ph.D., says, “This is the last sensory system in which that fundamental molecular machinery has remained unknown.” Peter Barr-Gillespie, Ph.D., adds, “The auditory neuroscience field has been waiting for these results for decades, and now that they are right here, we are ecstatic.”

New research co-led by Pepper Schedin, Ph.D., suggests that breast cancers that emerge within five years of giving birth are more likely to spread and become deadly: “This has profound implications for prognosis. A postpartum diagnosis can move women who appear to have good prognosis into a high-risk category.”

The Portland Tribune features an indie-rock band comprising OHSU nurses Katie Dahlberg, RN, Dan Gicker, RN, Billy Volpone, RN, and Barb Whisler, RN. Gicker says, “We did what nurses do; just put your head into it, and try to plow through it without hurting yourself either physically or mentally.”

AMA story references OHSU initiative that aims to train physicians who are committed to working in rural areas and areas with limited access to health care.

KOIN reports on a new statewide service providing emergency medical responders with access to Oregon children’s medical history. Ben Hoffman, M.D., says, “Child health emergencies are stressful for everybody. So anything that we can do to make sure that the first responders have all the information, not just about the medical condition, but also the sort of individual needs of that child or young adult, the better off we’re all going to be.”

Scientists at OHSU have revealed, for the first time and in near-atomic detail, the structure of the key part of the inner ear responsible for hearing. Eric Gouaux, Ph.D., says, “This is the last sensory system in which that fundamental molecular machinery has remained unknown.” Peter Barr-Gillespie, Ph.D., adds, “The auditory neuroscience field has been waiting for these results for decades, and now that they are right here, we are ecstatic.”

Peter Graven, Ph.D., says protection against severe disease nonetheless remains strong because of durable immunity among most of the population: “There (are) very few people who haven’t had exposure yet.”