L O O S E CONNECTIONS

Your Magazine About Living With EDS Spring 2013

EDNF 2013 Learning Conference Information..................................................................................... 2

Welcome from New Chair of the Professional Advisory Network Heidi A Collins, MD......................... 3

Maryland and D.C. EDS Support Groups Event Laura Grimes-Hartley ............................................... 4

Unpredictable (Extended Metaphor Poem) Isabel Libby ....................................................................... 6

A Moment in Time Joanne Ryshpan-Harris ....................................................................................... 7

Poem Mary-Kate Wells & Stephanie Spitz ........................................................................................ 8

Art (“Since I Have EDS...”) Locklyn Eschauzier ................................................................................. 9

My Simple Lesson from This Ehlers-Danlos & Chiari Life Alyson Salzedo-Benison .......................... 10

What Is It about Gluten, Anyway? Amy Bianco ............................................................................... 11

The Happy Secret to Better Work Shawn Achor ................................................................................ 13

Sorghum Is a New Safe Grain For People with Celiac Disease ............................................................ 17

Publisher's Index ............................................................................................................................ 18

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2013 Learning ConferenceRhode Island Convention Center/�e Omni ProvidenceProvidence, Rhode Island § August 1-3

Early registration is open!To register, visit the registration site.2013 Conference General Information

Things to Do in Providence

Providence Travel Information: information about the airports, airlines, train service, and mass transit options

2013 Conference Sponsors

Speaker Biographies

Speaker List

Session Handouts

Frequently Asked Questions

Physician Consults

Scholarship Donation

Donation of Items to Auction or Store

Scholarship Application

SPRING 2013PAGE 3

EDNF is happy to announce the new chair of our Professional Advisory Network, Dr. Heidi Collins.

I AM truly honored to serve as chair of the Ehlers-Danlos National Foundation’s

Professional Advisory Network.

I am a physician specializing in Physical Med-icine and Rehabilitation. In addition to serving the broad population typically encountered in my specialty who most often suffer from disabling musculoskeletal, neurologic, or rheumatologic conditions, I care directly for EDS patients, and I take particular interest in the extra-articular manifestations of EDS-related conditions.

However, my motivation to make a difference for persons with EDS arises only in part from my professional side. I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. I live it. I am a daughter, a sister, a mother, and more to others with EDS. I truly understand and empathize with the EDS Journey. I am one of the tribe.

How simple for those who do not know EDS to assume that our defining trait is hypermobility.

WELCOME FROM NEW CHAIR OF THE PROFESSIONAL ADVISORY NETWORK

As the EDNF web site states on one of its pages, “The defining trait of those affected by EDS is the search for information.” This rather innocent sentence really strikes me, as it underscores my own quest. I understand firsthand the frustration EDS patients encounter with things like years of misdiagnosis, unwarranted physician skepticism of an established EDS diagnosis, and many physicians’ general lack of awareness or initiative to become familiar with standards of care.

I am eager to work with my colleagues to effect positive changes for those who struggle with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. The EDNF PAN seeks to support EDNF’s Mission by volunteering medical expertise to ensure the valuable resources we make available to patients, family, and healthcare providers are accurate, informative, and useful. Our role is expanding, and our opportunity to make significant impact will be even greater when our Center for Clinical Care & Research is established. Together we can make a difference.

Heidi A Collins, MD

The members, sta�, and Board � Directors �ank

Dr. Brad TinkleFOR HIS SERVICE AS CHAIRMAN AND AS A CONTINUING MEMBER OF THE PROFESSIONAL ADVISORY NETWORK

The full listing of Professional Advisory Network members can be found here.

SPRING 2013PAGE 4

MARYLAND AND D.C. EDS SUPPORT GROUPS EVENT

ON Sunday, March 10, 2013, members of the Maryland and D.C. EDS support

groups gathered at Champps in Columbia, Maryland for their first “Social Zebra” event. The evening included a dietary-restriction friendly buffet, appetizers, and cake. The gathering also honored Shani Weber for her unwavering dedication and leadership, as well as the knowledge she has shared with the local support group and with Team Inspire. Heather Pierce was not able to be in attendance, but the group intends to honor her for her similar dedication.

“Social Zebra” events create an opportunity for us to get to know each other aside from all the  medical hardships. Sometimes it is

important to take our minds off of what can be very depressive and overwhelming. Some medical issues still creep into conversation  which cannot be helped, but for the evening it was minimized and all who attended had a wonderful time. 

We look forward to our next outing in June or July, which we are planning as a potluck picnic.

Two of the pictures following are of the whole group. Shani Weber is sitting in the front on the left. One other is of Jill Greenspan and me with the cake, and one shows our themed décor. 

Laura Grimes-Hartley

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UNPREDICTABLE EXTENDED METAPHOR POEM

Spreading out a puzzleWith no pieces fittingThere is space between themAir rushing throughBut this puzzle can never be finishedThe pieces changingEver so slightlyThis never ending puzzle,Getting harder and harderNever endingTwists and turnsCrackles and pops while struggling to fit the pieces togetherChanging,ChangingUnpredictable.

Isabel LibbyIsabel is 16 years old and lives in Massachusetts.

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A MOMENT IN TIME

A simple moment in time that’sall it took to change a life’s look.

The pain, the shame, when charity came.Lost and distraught, I fought.A Shameless passion.

Distant love, a new dove,into a feathered flight.What trite? May I might?

Courageous faith, the earth awaitsits leader.

Joanne Ryshpan-Harris

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POEMEveryone should love a zebraWe can be found all around the world.Some might call us invisible becausewe are hidden in the crowd.Yet, if you have ever loved one Zebra,You know how your life has changed and will be changed forever

Each zebra is differentBut if you look a little closer, you will see we are similar and unstoppableAnd most importantly we are NOT INVISIBLE.

If you ever feel alone remember:In our zebra family, we will always understandand you will be loved.There are other Zebras out there.So listen close and you might hear a zebra around the cornerYet, don’t mistake that zebra for a horse.

The strongest cure we have right now is the stripes we share.So if we let our stripes shine through and help each otherAnd be the strongest hope we havebecause we need that hope to heal

Mary-Kate Wells & Stephanie Spitz

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MY daughter Locklyn Eschauzier, age seven,  goes by “Lucky.” She was diagnosed with HEDS two years ago when she was five. It has

been a difficult two years, but she has a really good attitude. Her cursive says, “Since I have Ehlers-Danlos I need to get stronger so I go to horseback riding.” She is referring to the hippotherapy that we do with her. She is also in physical therapy, water therapy, an adaptive martial arts program, and other programs. (Deirdre Eschauzier)

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TO those I love: I’ve been asked many times how I make it through the days.

You know, the hard ones when the pain and exhaustion just become a little much. Well, I write. It is just after those moments pass that my head becomes clear and I journal all my little “ah-ha” moments. While going through my old passages I came across the best lesson of all — the answers to life.

From me to all of you:

I’ll start today off with a secret. One I’ll share only with you. Are you paying attention? Here it is, the meaning of life.

Life is all about moments, single events in time. It’s about the time spent laughing, sharing a glance, a meal, a conversation. It’s that time you walked alone on the beach, in the woods, on the sidewalk in front of your house. It’s when you shared a family event, welcomed in a new friend or buried a loved one. It’s the time you scratched your knee, kissed another, watched a movie, read a book, saw the sun set. It’s the time you cried until your eyes ran dry. It’s happening when you hugged a stranger, talked on the phone, danced in the rain, made something with your own hands. It’s that time when you were all alone and you sang like you were performing on stage. It’s when you sat quietly and listened. It’s when you did nothing at all. Are you paying attention? In this very moment, this is it, this is life.

MY SIMPLE LESSON FROM THIS EHLERS-DANLOS & CHIARI LIFE

So listen and learn: When you hear music, dance. When you smell great food, eat. When someone is in need, help. Every once in a while wake up just to watch the sun rise and listen to the silence. Realize that you are not alone; we are all connected. Approach everyone with understanding. When you meet the one, and all of a sudden everything makes sense, fall madly in love. Kiss and hug passionately; your soul will shine. Stop worrying about everything. It’s a perpetual battle that will only exhaust you. When you lose someone you love, get angry, cry hard, and then let them go; it was just their time. Change someone’s life. Make someone laugh. Be kind. Swim naked in the ocean, walk barefoot in the grass, dance in the rain. Believe in yourself; I do. Speak to someone who is sick. Have them tell you their story. You’ll be better for it. Stop talking so much. Listen, learn, and pass it along.

This is my gift to those who give me so much. Lessons learned from me, a girl sick but fighting on. Please feel free to share with those you love, as I try to raise awareness for Chiari Malformation and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

All my love,

Alyson Salzedo-Benison

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RATES of celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity have risen steadily in

the U.S. in the past three or four decades, and it has been speculated that increases in protein content bred into wheat since its domestication may be the culprit. In a new study1 analyzing historical trends in wheat breeding Donald D. Kasarda, a leading cereal chemist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has found that, while the protein content of wheat has not changed appreciably, what has changed is the growing use of a food additive called vital gluten in commercially baked products.

Early farmers domesticated wheat from wild grasses 10,000 years ago by breeding it to have larger kernels that would separate from the plant by threshing. This process actually reduced the overall protein content of wheat; and the trend probably continued until the advent 2000 to 5000 years ago of leavened bread, which requires a protein content of at least 11%. Today we have hard wheats with a protein content of about 12 to 14% for breadmaking and starchier, soft wheats with a protein content of 7 to 11% for making pastry. Taking a look at wheat growing trends in the U.S. during the 20th Century, Dr. Kasarda found that protein content varied year to year with weather conditions (dry years driving the percentage up), but that the overall content remained

WHAT IS IT ABOUT GLUTEN, ANYWAY?

steady, especially since grain producers tend to blend flours from different years to make their product more consistent.

So what might be causing our soaring rates of gluten intolerance? The per person consumption of wheat products by Americans increased from about 1970 to 2000; but it has trended down since then, and even in 2000 it was nowhere near its highest point, which came back in the late 1880s. What has changed is the use of vital gluten as a food additive. Vital gluten is gluten protein that has been fractionated from wheat flour by washing starch out of it. Gluten protein normally makes up about 70 to 75% of the overall protein

content of wheat, no matter the variety. With the addition of vital gluten this percentage would increase considerably. The practice seems to have begun in the 1970s, and Dr. Kasarda calculates that in the intervening decades

consumption of vital gluten has tripled. Thus it is trending closely with rising rates of celiac disease and non-celiac gluten sensitivity. Ironically, the “doping” of commercially baked goods with vital gluten may have been prompted by consumer demand for “healthier” bread — high fiber, whole grain bread — since it improves the texture and elasticity of dough and enhances the loaf volume of heavy bread. It is also widely used in fast food.

Since the minimum allowable daily intake of gluten for an individual with celiac disease is well below what is found in a slice of bread of

1Kasarda DD: Can an Increase in Celiac Disease Be At-tributed to an Increase in the Gluten Content of Wheat as a Consequence of Wheat Breeding?, Journal of Agricul-tural and Food Chemistry 61:1155-1159, 2013.

“It could be that the immune system reaches a tipping

point with increased exposure to gluten.”

SPRING 2013PAGE 12

any type, doped or not, it is difficult to say how a trend toward increased gluten consumption in the population overall would be driving celiac rates to their current epidemic levels. Dr. Kasarda speculates that it could be that the immune system reaches a tipping point with increased exposure to gluten, at which it switches abruptly from tolerance to intolerance. Or there may something about vital gluten that is different. There are no genetically modified

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wheats in commercial use in the U.S., but 80% of our vital gluten is imported from such places as Australia, Europe, Canada, and even China. So, while reports about engineered wheat may be erroneous, it does appear that there is good reason why many of us are finding that gluten-free is the way to go.

Amy BiancoMedical Section Editor

SPRING 2013PAGE 13

one week before…heroically pushing her out of the way of an oncoming imaginary sniper bullet, for which I have yet to be thanked, I was trying as hard as I could — she didn’t even see it coming — I was trying as hard as I could to be on my best behavior.

And I saw my sister’s face, this wail of pain and suffering and surprise threatening to erupt from her mouth and threatening to wake my parents from the long winter’s nap for which they had settled. So I did the only thing my little frantic seven year-old brain could think to do to avert this tragedy. And if you have children, you’ve seen this hundreds of times before. I said, “Amy, Amy, wait. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Did you see how you landed? No human lands on all fours like that. Amy, I think this means you’re a unicorn.”

Now that was cheating, because there was nothing in the world my sister would want more than not to be Amy the hurt five year-old little sister, but Amy the special unicorn. Of course, this was an option that was open to her brain at no point in the past. And you could see how my poor, manipulated sister faced conflict, as her little brain attempted to devote resources to feeling the pain and suffering and surprise she just experienced, or contemplating her new-found identity as a unicorn. And the latter won out. Instead of crying, instead of ceasing our play, instead of waking my parents, with all the negative consequences that would have ensued for me, instead a smile spread across her face and she scrambled right back up onto the bunk bed with all the grace of a baby unicorn…with one broken leg.

What we stumbled across at this tender age of just five and seven — we had no idea at the

TED TALK: SHAWN ACHOR THE HAPPY SECRET TO BETTER WORK

WHEN I was seven years old and my sister was just five years old, we were playing

on top of a bunk bed. I was two years older than my sister at the time — I mean, I’m two years older than her now — but at the time it meant she had to do everything that I wanted to do, and I wanted to play war. So we were up on top of our bunk beds. And on one side of the bunk bed, I had put out all of my G.I. Joe soldiers and weaponry. And on the other side were all my sister’s My Little Ponies ready for a cavalry charge.

There are differing accounts of what actually happened that afternoon, but since my sister is not here with us today, let me tell you the true story — which is my sister’s a little bit on the clumsy side. Somehow, without any help or push from her older brother at all, suddenly Amy disappeared off of the top of the bunk bed and landed with this crash on the floor. Now I nervously peered over the side of the bed to see what had befallen my fallen sister and saw that she had landed painfully on her hands and knees on all fours on the ground.

I was nervous because my parents had charged me with making sure that my sister and I played as safely and as quietly as possible. And seeing as how I had accidentally broken Amy’s arm just

CLICK HERE TO VIEW TALK

SPRING 2013PAGE 14

time — was something that was going be at the vanguard of a scientific revolution occurring two decades later in the way that we look at the human brain. What we had stumbled across is something called positive psychology, which is the reason that I’m here today and the reason that I wake up every morning.

When I first started talking about this research outside of academia, out with companies and schools, the very first thing they said to never do is to start your talk with a graph. The very first thing I want to do is start my talk with a graph. This graph looks boring, but this graph is the reason I get excited and wake up every morning. And this graph doesn’t even mean anything; it’s fake data. What we found is —

If I got this data back [from] studying you here in the room, I would be thrilled, because there’s very clearly a trend that’s going on there, and that means that I can get published, which is all that really matters. The fact that there’s one weird red dot that’s up above the curve, there’s one weirdo in the room — I know who you are, I saw you earlier — that’s no problem. That’s no problem, as most of you know, because I can just delete that dot. I can delete that dot because that’s clearly a measurement error. And we know that’s a measurement error because it’s messing up my data.

So one of the very first things we teach people

in economics and statistics and business and psychology courses is how, in a statistically valid way, do we eliminate the weirdos. How do we eliminate the outliers so we can find the line of best fit? Which is fantastic if I’m trying to find out how many Advil the average person should be taking — two. But if I’m interested in potential, if I’m interested in your potential, or for happiness or productivity or energy or creativity, what we’re doing is we’re creating the cult of the average with science.

If I asked a question like, “How fast can a child learn how to read in a classroom?” scientists change the answer to, “How fast does the average child learn how to read in that classroom?” and then we tailor the class right towards the average. Now if you fall below the average on this curve, then psychologists get thrilled, because that means you’re either depressed or you have a disorder, or hopefully both. We’re hoping for both because our business model is, if you come into a therapy session with one problem, we want to make sure you leave knowing you have ten, so you keep coming back over and over again. We’ll go back into your childhood if necessary, but eventually what we want to do is make you normal again. But normal is merely average.

And what I posit and what positive psychology posits is that if we study what is merely average, we will remain merely average. Then instead of deleting those positive outliers, what I intentionally do is come into a population like this one and say, why? Why is it that some of you are so high above the curve in terms of your intellectual ability, athletic ability, musical ability, creativity, energy levels, your resiliency in the face of challenge, your sense of humor? Whatever it is, instead of deleting you, what I want to do is study you. Because maybe we can glean information — not just how to move people up to the average, but how we can move the entire average up in our companies and schools worldwide.

SPRING 2013PAGE 15

The reason this graph is important to me is, when I turn on the news, it seems like the majority of the information is not positive, in fact it’s negative. Most of it’s about murder, corruption, diseases, natural disasters. And very quickly, my brain starts to think that’s the accurate ratio of negative to positive in the world. What that’s doing is creating something called the medical school syndrome — which, if you know people who’ve been to medical school, during the first year of medical training, as you read through a list of all the symptoms and diseases that could happen, suddenly you realize you have all of them.

I have a brother in-law named Bobo — which is a whole other story. Bobo married Amy the unicorn. Bobo called me on the phone from Yale Medical School, and Bobo said, “Shawn, I have leprosy.” Which, even at Yale, is extraordinarily rare. But I had no idea how to console poor Bobo because he had just gotten over an entire week of menopause.

See what we’re finding is it’s not necessarily the reality that shapes us, but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality. And if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness, we can change every single educational and business outcome at the same time.

When I applied to Harvard, I applied on a dare. I didn’t expect to get in, and my family had no money for college. When I got a military scholarship two weeks later, they allowed me to go. Suddenly, something that wasn’t even a possibility became a reality. When I went there, I assumed everyone else would see it as a privilege as well, that they’d be excited to be there. Even if you’re in a classroom full of people smarter than you, you’d be happy just to be in that classroom, which is what I felt. But what I found there is, while some people experience that, when I graduated after my four years and then spent the next eight years living in the

dorms with the students — Harvard asked me to; I wasn’t that guy. I was an officer of Harvard to counsel students through the difficult four years. And what I found in my research and my teaching is that these students, no matter how happy they were with their original success of getting into the school, two weeks later their brains were focused, not on the privilege of being there, nor on their philosophy or their physics. Their brain was focused on the competition, the workload, the hassles, the stresses, the complaints.

When I first went in there, I walked into the freshmen dining hall, which is where my friends from Waco, Texas, which is where I grew up — I know some of you have heard of it. When they’d come to visit me, they’d look around, they’d say, “This freshman dining hall looks like something out of Hogwart’s from the movie Harry Potter,” which it does. This is Hogwart’s from the movie Harry Potter and that’s Harvard. And when they see this, they say, “Shawn, why do you waste your time studying happiness at Harvard? Seriously, what does a Harvard student possibly have to be unhappy about?”

Embedded within that question is the key to understanding the science of happiness. Because what that question assumes is that our external world is predictive of our happiness levels, when in reality, if I know everything about your external world, I can only predict ten percent of your long-term happiness. Ninety percent of your long-term happiness is predicted not by the external world, but by the way your brain processes the world. And if we change it, if we change our formula for happiness and success, what we can do is change the way that we can then affect reality. What we found is that only 25 percent of job successes are predicted by I.Q. Seventy-five percent of job successes are predicted by your optimism levels, your social support and your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of as a threat.

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I talked to a boarding school up in New England, probably the most prestigious boarding school, and they said, “We already know that. So every year, instead of just teaching our students, we also have a wellness week. And we’re so excited. Monday night we have the world’s leading expert coming in to speak about adolescent depression. Tuesday night it’s school violence and bullying. Wednesday night is eating disorders. Thursday night is elicit drug use. And Friday night we’re trying to decide between risky sex or happiness.” I said, “That’s most people’s Friday nights.” Which I’m glad you liked, but they did not like that at all. Silence on the phone. And into the silence, I said, “I’d be happy to speak at your school, but just so you know, that’s not a wellness week, that’s a sickness week. What you’ve done is you’ve outlined all the negative things that can happen, but not talked about the positive.”

The absence of disease is not health. Here’s how we get to health: We need to reverse the formula for happiness and success. In the last three years, I’ve traveled to 45 different countries, working with schools and companies in the midst of an economic downturn. And what I found is that most companies and schools follow a formula for success, which is this: If I work harder, I’ll be more successful. And if I’m more successful, then I’ll be happier. That undergirds most of our parenting styles, our managing styles, the way that we motivate our behavior.

And the problem is it’s scientifically broken and backwards for two reasons. First, every time your brain has a success, you just changed the goalpost of what success looked like. You got good grades, now you have to get better grades, you got into a good school and after

you get into a better school, you got a good job, now you have to get a better job, you hit your sales target, we’re going to change your sales target. And if happiness is on the opposite side of success, your brain never gets there. What we’ve done is we’ve pushed happiness over the cognitive horizon as a society. And that’s because we think we have to be successful, then we’ll be happier.

But the real problem is our brains work in the opposite order. If you can raise somebody’s level of positivity in the present, then their brain experiences what we now call a happiness advantage, which is your brain at positive performs significantly better than it does at negative, neutral or stressed. Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise. In fact, what we’ve found is that every single business outcome improves. Your brain

at positive is 31 percent more productive than your brain at negative, neutral or stressed. You’re 37 percent better at sales. Doctors are 19 percent faster, more accurate at coming up with the correct diagnosis when positive instead of negative, neutral

or stressed. Which means we can reverse the formula. If we can find a way of becoming positive in the present, then our brains work even more successfully as we’re able to work harder, faster and more intelligently.

What we need to be able to do is to reverse this formula so we can start to see what our brains are actually capable of. Because dopamine, which floods into your system when you’re positive, has two functions. Not only does it make you happier, it turns on all of the learning centers in your brain allowing you to adapt to the world in a different way.

“Your brain at positive performs significantly

better than it does at negative, neutral

or stressed.”

SPRING 2013PAGE 17

We’ve found that there are ways that you can train your brain to be able to become more positive. In just a two-minute span of time done for 21 days in a row, we can actually rewire your brain, allowing your brain to actually work more optimistically and more successfully. We’ve done these things in research now in every single company that I’ve worked with, getting them to write down three new things that they’re grateful for 21 days in a row, three new things each day. And at the end of that, their brain starts to retain a pattern of scanning the world, not for the negative, but for the positive first.

Journaling about one positive experience you’ve had over the past 24 hours allows your brain to relive it. Exercise teaches your brain that your behavior matters. We find that meditation allows your brain to get over the cultural ADHD that we’ve been creating by

trying to do multiple tasks at once and allows our brains to focus on the task at hand. And finally, random acts of kindness are conscious acts of kindness. We get people, when they open up their inbox, to write one positive email praising or thanking somebody in their social support network.

And by doing these activities and by training your brain just like we train our bodies, what we’ve found is we can reverse the formula for happiness and success, and in doing so, not only create ripples of positivity, but create a real revolution.

Thank you very much.

Shawn AchorTED.com Presented under Creative Commons (CC) license.

STRONG new biochemical evidence exists showing that the cereal grain sorghum is a

safe food for people with celiac disease, who must avoid wheat and certain other grains, scientists are reporting. Their study, which includes molecular evidence that sorghum lacks the proteins toxic to people with celiac disease, appears in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Paola Pontieri and colleagues explain that those gluten proteins, present in wheat and barley, trigger an immune reaction in people with celiac disease that can cause abdominal pain and discomfort, constipation, diarrhea, and other symptoms. The only treatment is lifelong avoidance of gluten. Sorghum, they note, has emerged as an alternative grain for people with celiac disease. In Western countries, sorghum traditionally has been an animal feed. But in Africa and India, it long has been a food for people. Recently, U.S. farmers have begun

producing sorghum hybrids that are a white grain, known as “food-grade” sorghum. The researchers set out to make a detailed molecular determination of whether sorghum contains those toxic gluten proteins.

They describe evidence from an analysis of the recently published sorghum genome (the complete set of genes in the plant) and other sources that verify the absence of gluten proteins. The authors also report that sorghum has high nutritional value. “Food-grade sorghums should be considered as an important option for all people, especially celiac patients,” the report concludes.

The authors acknowledge funding from the Regione Campania, the Istituto Banco di Napoli-Fondazione and the Compagnia di San Paolo.

Medical News Today

Sorghum Is A New Safe Grain For People With Celiac Disease

SPRING 2013PAGE 18

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Professional Advisory NetworkPatrick Agnew, DPMPeter Byers, MDEdith Cheng, MDHeidi Collins, MDJoseph Coselli, MD, FACCJoseph Ernest III, MDClair Francomano, MDTamison Jewett, MDMark Lavallee, MDHoward Levy, MD, PhDNazli McDonnell, MD, PhDDianna Milewicz, MD, PhDAnna Mitchell, MD, PhDJohn Mitakides, DDS, FAACPRaman Mitra, MD, PhDLinda Neumann-Potash, RN, MNTerry Olson, PTMary F. Otterson, MD, MSMelanie Pepin, MS, CSGAlan Pocinki, MD, FACPElizabeth Russell, MDUlrike Schwarze, MDKaren Sparrow, PhDBrad Tinkle, MD, PhDMike Yergler, MD

L O O S E CONNECTIONS

SPRING 2013PAGE 19

Editor/Graphics & TypeMark C. Martino

Editor, Medical SectionAmy Bianco

Front Cover “Providence, RI skyline at sunset” © Djhockman74 | Dreamstime.com

Page Headers and Details “Fresh young hedge” © 2006 Mayang Adnin “Flowers” © 2004 Mayang Adnin “Small purple flowers” © 2005 Mayang Adnin

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