AASM advances sleep care and enhances sleep health to improve lives.

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Read the article here.

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Thousands of years ago, Homer wrote in The Odyssey, “There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”

Therein lies the challenge for millions of people: When it comes time for sleep, they can do anything but sleep.

Since the dawn of civilization, humans have fretted over the importance of sleep – and all too often, their inability to enjoy a good, uninterrupted night of it. Today, discussions about sleep, along with research into its mysterious biomechanics and health benefits, continue unabated. Hundreds of books have been written about the importance of sleep to our physical and emotional well-being; meanwhile, thousands of sleep studies have been conducted. The Google search, “the importance of sleep,” returns millions of hits faster than you can count a single proverbial sheep.

“Sleep is so important. I can’t overstate how vital it is to our lives,” says Ahmed El-Bershawi, M.D., board certified sleep specialist, who recently expanded his … READ MORE »

Source:
Hoag

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“The American Academy of Sleep Medicine congratulates Pacific Pulmonary Medical Group Sleep Center on meeting the high standards required for receiving accreditation as a sleep disorders center,” said Dr. Ronald D. Chervin, AASM president. “Pacific Pulmonary Medical Group Sleep Center is an important resource to the local medical community and will provide academic and scientific value in addition to the highest quality care for patients suffering from sleep disorders.”

To receive accreditation for a five-year period, a sleep center must meet or exceed all standards for professional health care as designated by the AASM. These standards address core areas such as personnel, facility and equipment, policies and procedures, data acquisition, patient care, and quality assurance. Additionally, the sleep center’s goals must be clearly stated and include plans for positively affecting the quality of medical care in the community it serves.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine accredited a sleep disorders center for the first time in 1977. Today there are more than 2,500 AASM-accredited sleep centers across the country.

Pacific Pulmonary Medical Group Sleep Center is directed by Ahmed El-Bershawi, MD, and is located at 4234 Riverwalk Parkway, 250.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine is a professional medical society for clinicians, researchers, and other health care providers in the field of sleep medicine. As the national accrediting body for sleep disorders centers, the AASM is dedicated to setting standards and promoting excellence in sleep medicine health care, education and research.

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Our facility is now amongst the ranks of the few AASM accredited facilities which provide the highest quality of patient care. EarningAASM accreditation exhibits that our center is commited to quality diagnostic services.

Since 1977, AASM accreditation has been the gold standard by which the medical community and the public evaluate sleep medicine services. It is the only professional society dedicated exclusively to sleep medicine and sets standards that promote excellence in healthcare, education, and research in the specialty.

A sleep center must meet or exceed all standards for professional health care as designated by the AASM to receive accreditation for a five-year period. These standards address core areas such as personnel, facility and equipment, policies and procedures, data acquisition, patient care, and quality assurance. Additionally, the sleep center’s goals must be clearly stated and include plans for positively affecting the quality of medical care in the community it serves.

We are truly indebted to the efforts and dedication that were made by our sleep center team, led by Angela Tejeda, our lead sleep technologist and Dr. El-Bershawi, our medical director. Receiving this honorable accreditation is an attestation to their commitment to quality patient care and affirmation of what our patients already experience, that we provide high quality, comprehensive care.

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A new study offers fresh incentive to kick the nicotine habit: quitting smoking can improve your sleep, researchers say.

Researchers from the University of Florida and Research Triangle Park looked at the association between sleep and smoking in a sample of nearly 5,000 U.S. adults. They found that nearly 12 percent of current smokers have trouble falling asleep, almost 11 percent wake in the night and 9.5 percent wake too early in the morning. The figures for nonsmokers were much lower, and researchers saw that for those who gave up smoking, their sleep improved significantly.

Findings, announced last week, appeared online in the journal Psychology, Health & Medicine.

Prior research has also found that smokers may get fewer hours of sleep and have less restful slumber than nonsmokers, according to a German study published last year in the journal Addiction Biology. In the survey of nearly 1,100 smokers, 17 percent said that they slept fewer than six hours a night, while 28 percent reported “disturbed” sleep quality.

http://m.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/quitting-smoking-improve-sleep-study-article-1.1464753#bmb=1

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In fact, at one institution, the incidence of never-smokers diagnosed with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) jumped from 13% to 28% during a 6-year period, Eric Lim, MD, from the Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust in London, United Kingdom, and colleagues report in their study. And many of these patients initially presented with advanced-stage disease.

The second study demonstrated that the incidence of lung cancer in never-smokers is increasing in the United States. This was observed in three facilities, most significantly for NSCLC. At one institution, for example, the rate of never-smokers climbed from 8.9% in 1990–1995 to 19.5% in 2011–2013.

“When we think of lung cancer, we think of smoking,” Dr Lim noted. But antismoking strategies implemented in the early 1980s have led to a decrease in smoking-related lung cancer.

Instead, “what we are seeing is an increase in the incidence of nonsmoking-related lung cancer,” he explained during a press briefing. “We have seen more than double the amount of patients coming to us.”

Annual Incidence Doubles

For their study, Dr Lim and his colleagues retrospectively analyzed data from a prospectively collected database of patients treated at their institution.

Of the 2170 patients who underwent lung cancer surgery from March 2008 to November 2014, 436 (20%) patients were never-smokers. The median age at presentation was 60 years, and 67% of the patients were women.

The annual increase in the incidence of never-smokers developing lung cancer rose from 13% in 2008 to 15%, 18%, 19%, 20%, and 28% in the subsequent years of the study, respectively. This was attributable to an absolute increase in number, not to a change in the ratio of never-smokers to current and exsmokers.

The most common histologic types of disease were adenocarcinoma (54%) and carcinoid (27%).

Early detection is important but challenging in this population, Dr Lim noted.

In this study, 52% of patients had no clear symptoms. Specific symptoms, such as hemoptysis, were experienced by only 11% of patients, and nonspecific symptoms, such as chest infection, were experienced by 18%. Cough was a presenting symptom in 34% of patients, and incidental imaging detected lung cancer in 36%.

“Clearly, it is not going to be cost-effective to screen the entire population of nonsmokers for lung cancer,” Dr Lim pointed out. Instead, because this group of patients does not have established risk factors, research on early detection — ideally by noninvasive or molecular screening — is urgently needed to identify early lung cancer in nonsmokers, he added.

Lung Cancer Rates Surging in Never-Smokers. Medscape. Sep 09, 2015.

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• Endobronchial Ultrasound (EBUS)
• Inpatient and Outpatient visits for evaluation and treatment of various lung conditions
• Sleep disorders evaluation and treatment
• Bronchoscopic diagnosis and treatment
• Pulmonary Function Laboratory

Our goal is to offer services that set community standards, exceed patients’ expectations and provide the best quality care to those we serve with a commitment to excellence in all that we do.

If you want to learn more about us, please call 951-781-3672. Or visit our Contact Us page to schedule an appointment.

Please join us in welcoming Cedric “Jamie” Rutland, M.D. to PPMG!

We are very excited that he has chosen to become a part of the Pacific Pulmonary Medical Group family.

Dr. Rutland recently completed his specialty training at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Pulmonary and Critical Care with an emphasis in Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) and Lung Cancer.

Dr. Rutland is specially trained in Endobronchial ultrasound “EBUS” in addition to bronchoscopy. Yesterday was his first official day in the clinic and he is excited to start rotating in all 3 hospitals soon.

Dr. Rutland, his wife and two daughters are happy to be returning to California where Jamie grew up.

In his spare time, Dr. Rutland enjoys playing basketball, mentoring medical students and residents, weight lifting and spending time with his family.

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