Newsmakers

Steven C. Bonawitz, MD, FACS, head of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Cooper University Health Care, was among the team of nine plastic surgeons and two urological surgeons that performed the world’s first total penis and scrotum transplant. The 14-hour surgery took place at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on March 26.

The transplant recipient, an Afghanistan war veteran who was severely injured by a roadside bomb, was the recipient of a donated penis and scrotum and partial abdominal wall from a deceased donor. Read more.

Shenelle Alexander, an undergraduate nursing student at Rutgers University-Camden, was named as the first winner of the $1,000 Cooper Civic Leadership Award at the Seventh Annual Chancellor’s Awards for Civic Engagement held April 26, 2018.

Cooper University Health Care established the Civic Leadership Award earlier this year to honor a Rutgers University-Camden student who exemplifies outstanding service to the Camden community. Read more.

Warren R. Heymann, MD, head of the Division of Dermatology at Cooper University Health Care and professor of Dermatology and Pediatrics at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, was recently awarded the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award by the Medical Dermatology Society.

The honor is given in recognition of a lifetime of inspired patient care as a medical dermatologist, mentoring of future medical dermatologists, and research to advance medical dermatology. Read more.

To meet the growth in the number of patients seeking surgery, today Cooper University Health Care opened eight new operating rooms including a special suite for vascular procedures, increasing its total number of operating rooms system-wide to 38.

As a leading academic, tertiary care health system with the region’s only Level 1 Trauma Center, demand for services at Cooper have grown over the past six years, particularly in the area of surgical services.  Read more.

The opioid epidemic has created a national public health crisis throughout the nation. One of the critical tools that first responders and front-line police officers are now carrying is called naloxone. This medication is an opioid antagonist and can in most instances make someone overdosing start breathing again by dislodging the opioid from the receptors in the brain.

The effects of opioids like heroin, fentanyl and OxyContin have proven deadly in Camden County and the country. Read more.