Data from the CDC shows the average dermatology provider wrote 669 antibiotic prescriptions in 2014. That is, by far, the highest average of any provider specialty.

When he was approached by a colleague about writing for a magazine with the theme “unspeakables and ineffables,” Lary Campbell had one idea for a personal essay that kept coming to mind. He had doubts about sharing it, though. The colleague, Lisa Jacobs, knew Campbell was an accomplished playwright and filmmaker who would be a talented contributor to the second issue of the magazine she had founded, Penndulum. She didn’t know that Campbell was HIV positive.

On Friday, June 2, an unlikely group of local medical professionals assembled Avengers-style at the Philadelphia Zoo to bring its newest addition into the world: a five pound baby western lowland gorilla. On the scene with the multidisciplinary group was Sean P. Harbison, MD, chief of General Surgery at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

Imagine if health care costs could be dramatically reduced, and outcomes improved without any heavy lifting – no bills would need to be passed, no policies approved, and no major restructuring required. What if we could simply will people to make decisions that resulted in better care and a healthier population?

“Are you unhappy with your environment?” asked the flyer for a Town Hall meeting at the Faith Temple Holy Church in Chester, PA held earlier this month.

Last year, Helen Koenig, MD, an infectious disease expert at Penn Medicine, met a married couple faced with an uncommon fertility challenge they wanted to safely overcome: The husband is HIV positive and the wife is not. Every day, 400 babies are born HIV positive around the world, but with newer technologies and discoveries, having healthy, HIV-free children has become a reality for more and more couples.

Many clinical rotations abroad only go one way: residents from the United States travel to a foreign country for a few weeks and then they leave, unsure of what, if any, lasting impact their time will have on the community or their medical careers. But four years ago, Jules Lipoff, MD, an assistant professor of Clinical Dermatology and his colleague, Rudolf Roth, MD, a professor of Dermatology, sought to change that dynamic.

In the fall of 2015, as the Perelman School of Medicine celebrated its 250th year, Penn Medicine magazine profiled nine entering medical students who each had an interesting path to medical school. We checked in with a few of these students recently as they approached the halfway point of their four years in medical school.

The first two-part episode of Perelman School of Medicine graduate Lauren Kelly, MD’s podcast, “When I Die, Let Me Live,” is not always an easy listen — but that’s kind of the point. Kelly aims to present the listener with firsthand stories from patients, families, and caretakers dealing with the myriad physical, mental, emotional, and moral complexities of end-of-life care.

After a bike accident left me with a broken jaw wired shut, one of my biggest concerns was figuring out how and what to eat when I could only sip it through a straw. After discovering meal replacement shakes weren't going to cut it, I decided to talk with a pro to see what I was lacking and how I could get it.