Jean Blechman, co-founder of Twinlab Corporation, has made a significant financial commitment to Keeping the Promise … the Campaign for Boca Raton Regional Hospital to name the Jean and David Blechman Surgical Intensive Care Unit.

“Jean’s commitment throughout the years has been remarkable and enhances vital care for all. We are very appreciative of her generosity,” said Lincoln Mendez, CEO of Boca Raton Regional Hospital. The $250 million Keeping the Promise … The Campaign for Boca Raton Regional Hospital is the largest in the hospital’s history. The campaign is supporting plans to reimagine the hospital campus, shaping the future of unprecedented, world-class medical sophistication that Boca Regional envisions. The project includes construction of the Gloria Drummond Patient Tower, the Toby and Leon Cooperman Medical Arts Pavilion, an expansion of the critically acclaimed Marcus Neuroscience Institute and Christine E. Lynn Cardiovascular Institute, new operating rooms, renovation of the existing facility to create an all private patient room environment, and the recently opened Schmidt Family Parking Facility.
 


After much time and dedication, Global Advanced Botanicals (GAB) is elated to announce the release of their GAB Elite line and their new and innovative water-soluble CBD extract. There are two products that will be featured in the Elite line: 1000 mg CBD oil and 1500 mg CBD oil. The hemp used for the production of both products will be sourced from Oregon. The state of Oregon offers ideal weather and optimal soil conditions that provide some of the purest and strongest hemp plants.

The difference between the Premium line and the Elite line begins at the point of extraction. GAB Elite products are made from a proprietary blend of 4 different strains of hemp using ethanol extraction. This extraction method has proven to maintain more of the phytonutrients from the hemp plant, resulting in an impressive cannabinoid content and tepene profile. The additional terpenes allow for a more tasteful oil without any artificial additives.
 
GAB’s water soluble organic whole flower extract is obtained using vegetable glycerin and added cane alcohol. This extraction process allows the hemp flower to remain intact as the cannabinoids and terpenes are separated. This gentle but efficient process causes no destruction of the phytonutrients present in the hemp flower. The result is a pleasantly sweet CBD extract that easily dissolves in liquids. It is a great additive to your morning cup of coffee, tea or preferred beverage.
 
As always, GAB continues to work diligently in order to offer their patients and clients a natural, organic and medical-grade alternative. Additionally, to preserve the transparency of the company, all of their products will include a QR code on the label. When scanned, this code will pull up a third-party lab test result for each batch produced – these are also made available to consumers at www.gabcbd.com.


The most recent guidelines for primary prevention recommend aspirin use for individuals ages 40 to 70 years who are at higher risk of a first cardiovascular event, but not for those over 70. Yet, people over 70 are at increasingly higher risks of cardiovascular events than those under 70. There has been considerable confusion from recently reported results of three large-scale randomized trials of aspirin in high risk primary prevention subjects, one of which showed a significant result, but the other two, based possibly on poor adherence and follow up, did not. As a result, health care providers are understandably confused about whether or not to prescribe aspirin for primary prevention of heart attacks or strokes, and if so, to whom.

In a commentary published online ahead of print in the American Journal of Medicine, researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine and collaborators from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and the Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, provide guidance to health care providers and their patients. They urge that to do the most good for the most patients in primary care, health care providers should make individual clinical judgements about prescribing aspirin on a case-by-case basis.
 
“All patients suffering from an acute heart attack should receive 325 mg of regular aspirin promptly, and daily thereafter, to reduce their death rate as well as subsequent risks of heart attacks and strokes,” said Charles H. Hennekens, M.D., Dr.P.H., senior author, the first Sir Richard Doll Professor, and senior academic advisor in FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine. “In addition, among long-term survivors of prior heart attacks or occlusive strokes, aspirin should be prescribed long-term unless there is a specific contraindication. In primary prevention, however, the balance of absolute benefits, which are lower than in secondary prevention patients, and risks of aspirin, which are the same as in secondary prevention, is far less clear.”
 
The researchers emphasize that, based on the current totality of evidence, any judgments about prescribing long-term aspirin therapy for apparently healthy individuals should be based on individual clinical judgments between the health care provider and each of his or her patients that weighs the absolute benefit on clotting against the absolute risk of bleeding. 
 
The increasing burden of cardiovascular disease in developed and developing countries underscores the need for more widespread therapeutic lifestyle changes as well as the adjunctive use of drug therapies of proven net benefit in the primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes. The therapeutic lifestyle changes should include avoidance or cessation of smoking, weight loss and increased daily physical activity, and the drugs should include statins for lipid modification, and multiple classes of drugs likely to be necessary to achieve control of high blood pressure.


Maria E. Franco, M.D., pediatric pulmonologist at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, has been elected president of the hospital’s Medical Executive Committee (MEC) for a three-year term.

Elected vice president for a three-year term is Ziad Khatib, M.D., a pediatric hematologist/ oncologist on the hospital’s medical staff since 1993.  

Dr. Franco has been in private practice based at Nicklaus Children’s main campus since 1998. She is board certified in both pediatric pulmonology and general pediatrics. She received her medical degree from Nuestra Señora del Rosario, Bogotaand completed her residency at Crozer Chester Medical Center in Philadelphia and her fellowship in pulmonology at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia.
 
Dr. Khatib has been in private practice with offices at the hospital since 1993. He received his medical degree from American University of Beirut, Lebanon and completed his residency in Pediatrics at Jackson Memorial Hospital and a fellowship in hematology-oncology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN.
 
Joining the MEC for three-year terms are Julie Kantor, M.D., a pediatrician; and Christopher F. Tirotta, M.D., Chief of Anesthesiology at Nicklaus Children’s.


Therapies 4 Kids (T4K) is proud to announce and welcome Noel Christian Pace, Esq., FACHE, as Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) and General Counsel.

Pace joins the T4K team from a multi-state healthcare law firm. Board-Certified in Healthcare Management and a Licensed Attorney in Florida, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C., his practice focuses on compliance, regulatory, cyber, accreditation, and telemedicine issues. Pace’s experience also includes serving as a pediatric department administrator at an academic medical center and as executive director of various for-profit surgical centers. He also serves as a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, where he recently served as Commander (CEO) of Florida’s 345th Combat Support Hospital (248-Bed) and now serves as the Executive Officer to the Deputy Commander, U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military operations in Central American, South America, and the Caribbean, where he specializes in emergency management and health diplomacy. Colonel Pace has served in Chile, Honduras, Korea, Kuwait, and during Operation Willing Spirit in Colombia and in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is a recipient of the Bronze Star Medal and the Combat and Expert Field Medical Badges.
 
Pace holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Miami (UM) School of Law-Magna Cum Laude where he was President of the Health Law Association, a published member of the NSAC Law Review with his article on traumatic brain injury, and received the Innovation Award at UM Law’s Health Rights Clinic, which is a medical-legal partnership with the UM Miller School of Medicine. He is a Distinguished Military Graduate (DMG) of Tulane University and holds a Masters in Health Administration from Baylor University, a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Denver, and a Masters in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College.