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In This Issue:
Nearly 80 engaged members of the BWH Women’s Health Board of Advocates and the Women’s Health Leadership Council (WHLC) gathered Nov. 3 to learn about emerging research and issues in women’s health.
The second annual event, sponsored by the WHLC, was led by Paula A. Johnson, MD, MPH, chief of the Division of Women’s Health and executive director of the Connors Center. It featured a panel discussion with Jill M. Goldstein, PhD, director of Research at the Connors Center, and professor of Psychiatry and Medicine at HMS, and Janet Simpson Benvenuti, MBA, president and CEO of Circle of Life Partners LLC and a member of the Women’s Health Board of Advocates.
Goldstein discussed the latest research on sex differences and the impact of aging on the brain, memory circuitry, stress response and depression, as well as their connection to risk of cardiovascular disease. The panel also covered the effect on caregivers, the majority of whom are women, of caring for their elderly loved ones in the last decade of life.
The featured honored guests were Ellen Goodman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, who spoke about ways to foster meaningful discussions within families and with care providers of end-of-life issues, and Jeanne Lambrew, the deputy assistant to President Obama for Health Policy, who phoned in to discuss the importance of focusing on women’s health research and the provision of services as part of national health care reform. Johnson also spoke about her experience as a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee charged with recommending preventive services for women to be covered under the new federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Amy Warner, chair of the WHLC, and Jackie O’Neill, chair of the Board of Advocates, noted the important leadership of the Connors Center and BWH in women’s health research and clinical care, and thanked members for their “gifts of time and treasure to the field of women’s health.”