The sounds of a choir could be heard for blocks as Cooper Medical School of Rowan University marked its official groundbreaking of the first four-year allopathic medical school in South Jersey. Honored guests including New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, US Senator Robert Menendez, US Congressman Rob Andrews, NJ State Senate President Steve Sweeney, and Camden City Mayor Dana Redd helped mark the occasion with more than 200 civic, business and community leaders from throughout the state today.

This week, the Courier-Post published an article about a series of Medical School Research Seminars presented by Cooper and Rowan University that are open to students, faculty and the community. Cooper Medical School’s Research Committee is sponsoring the seminars on topics of interest to both communities; alternating speakers and locations to accommodate staffs of each institution.

This week, the Burlington County Times published an article about Cooper’s Planetree initiative to have members of Symphony in C perform in several of Cooper’s offices every Monday during the month of October. This is part of several activities offered for Patient & Family Centered Awareness Month.

This week’s edition of Modern Healthcare included an article about the rise of enrollment in medical schools around the country, and steps being taken to accommodate and meet the needs of students.

South Jersey residents have voted, and for the sixth straight year Cooper University Hospital has received a Consumer Choice Award from the National Research Corporation (NRC). The 2010/2011 award identifies hospitals which consumers have chosen as having the highest quality of care.

The Ripa Center for Women’s Health & Wellness, a program of Cooper University Hospital, will hold its bi-annual “Mother-Daughter Day”, on Saturday, October 30, from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., at aloft in Mount Laurel, NJ.

On Thursday, October 7, 2010, representatives from TD Bank, America’s Most Convenient Bank ®, presented Children’s Regional Hospital at Cooper with a grant from the TD Charitable Foundation, the charitable giving arm of TD Bank, for $100,000 to be used for Cooper’s Neonatal Follow-Up Clinic.

Vijay K. Rajput, MD, Director, Internal Medicine Residency Program at Cooper University Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School has won the prestigious Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s (ACGME) Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award.

Over the past decade, testing for mutations to the genes known as BRCA1 and BRCA2 has become a highly-regarded tool in the fight against breast cancer and ovarian cancer. And it's given people with the genes - both those with cancer and those who don't have it - information they can use to detect cancer early, prevent a recurrence or keep from getting it at all.

The Burlington County Times published an article this week about why many women delay or avoid mammograms. "Many women are too busy working or taking care of family, so getting a mammogram takes a backseat," said Karen J. Hendershott, MD, a breast surgeon at Cooper Cancer Institute. Then there's the myth that radiation from the digital mammography will cause cancer.