Eric Leuthardt, MD, and Albert Kim, MD, PhD, frequently engage in long talks together about the brain and the yet-to-be-solved mysteries of this complicated organ. Because both men are Washington University neurosurgeons treating patients at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Siteman Cancer Center, it could be assumed these conversations are a natural consequence of their mutual profession.

When Jeannie Kelly, MD, MS, a Washington University maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, first arrived on the medical campus in St. Louis in 2016, she had already seen how opioid use can devastate a community. “I finished my training in Boston, where the opioid epidemic was exploding,” she says. While working there, Kelly saw addiction and overdoses. She was aware of the difficulties and dangers for pregnant women addicted to opioids, and the great risks to their babies. And she wanted to help.

BY JULIA EVANGELOU STRAIT

The current age of cancer care employs surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, in combination or alone, to eradicate tumors and offer the potential for remission. But the side effects of some of these therapies can introduce new complications requiring additional treatment. Oncologists and their patients work in tandem to fight the disease in ways that preserve life and protect health with as little risk as possible.

BY TAMARA BHANDARI

More than 1 million people in the United States have inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD. This condition, which includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, causes miserable episodes of abdominal pain, diarrhea and in severe cases, rectal bleeding, making life for those afflicted with the disease especially difficult.

Physicians at Barnes-Jewish Hospital have become the first in the St. Louis region and the first in Missouri to utilize a new aneurysm treatment device.