3
NEWS

Thursday, May 24, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
“Training for surgery”

Michigan Medicine 
works with patients to 
prepare for surgery

By SAYALI AMIN

Daily Staff Reporter 

For the past five years, the 

Michigan Surgical and Health 

Optimization Program at Mich-

igan Medicine has been work-

ing with patients undergoing 

large operations, such as can-

cer surgeries or transplants, to 

help them better prepare for 

their procedures during the 

waiting period. MSHOP has 

led to reduced costs of care and 

improvements in recovery.

Dr. 
Michael 
Englesbe, 
a 

transplant 
surgeon 
running 

MSHOP, said there could be up 

to a two-month gap between 

when a patient schedules a sur-

gery and when they undergo the 

procedure.

“It can be a really scary time 

for patients, they’re just waiting 

for the big operation,” Engles-

be said. “So during that time, 

instead of waiting and worrying 

we’ve started training patients.”

Englesbe uses the analogy 

of a 5K race, pointing out most 

people train for a race. Trans-

lating that into surgery, patients 

work toward meeting health 

and wellness goals in time for 

their surgery to optimize their 

recovery. These goals include 

focusing on nutrition, walking, 

exercising, stopping smoking 

and other wellness activities.

The feedback for the pro-

gram has been overall posi-

tive, Englesbe said. The patient 

compliance for the study is 80 

percent, which is much higher 

than most other lifestyle-inter-

vention and wellness studies or 

programs.

“Patients 
appreciate 
the 

opportunity to be empowered 

and actively engaged in their 

care,” Englesbe said. “It helps 

them reduce stress and gives 

them something to focus on.”

Dr. Stewart Wang, a profes-

sor of surgery at the Medical 

School, helped create some of 

the technology for the program. 

In an email interview, Wang 

wrote the program has been 

made to be more customizable 

for the patient.

“We have markedly improved 

our technology based moni-

toring of patient progress so 

that we can intervene (or just 

provide 
encouragement) 
as 

needed to optimize progress,” 

Wang wrote. “We make patient 

progress over the course of the 

program easier for the patient 

themselves to monitor and also 

allow them to recruit friends 

and family to help them achieve 

their goals.”

Wang wrote he has been 

working with patient-better-

ment technologies and software 

algorithms in conjunction with 

the U-M Department of Surgery 

to make MSHOP a more stream-

lined program.

“My group is also adapting 

the original MSHOP technology 

I developed so that it can work 

in settings other than an aca-

demic medical center, which is 

where the vast majority of clini-

cal care in the US takes place,” 

Wang wrote. “We are translat-

ing the program out into the 

real-world healthcare market-

place.”

According 
to 
a 
previous 

Michigan Medicine newsletter, 

“Program facilitators worked to 

craft notes with positive, natu-

ral-sounding language to make 

the exchanges personal and 

more effective.”

Currently, MSHOP is pri-

marily available at Michigan 

Medicine and certain practices 

across the state of Michigan. 

Applying the program on a 

larger scale is a slow process, 

Englesbe said.

“The program takes time for 

nurses and doctors, and most 

nurses and doctors are already 

working full time,” Englesbe 

said. “Any additional kind of 

work is difficult to implement; 

you need to pay them.”

Englesbe said they’ve begun 

working with Blue Cross and 

Blue Shield to discuss a way 

to compensate those spending 

time training patients.

A MSHOP study of the pro-

gram wrapped up a few months 

ago and Englesbe hopes the new 

data will help prove the benefits 

and even accelerate the adop-

tion of the program.

“I think it’ll become stan-

dard of care slowly, but it’s just 

going to take a long, long time,” 

Englesbe 
said. 
“Hopefully 

patients will start to expect it, 

to demand it.”

University approves $19M dance building

By ELIZABETH
LAWRENCE

Daily Staff Reporter 

Last Thursday, the University 
of Michigan Board of Regents 
approved plans for a new $19 
million dance building for the 
School of Music, Theatre & 
Dance to be built on North Cam-
pus. The building will have state-
of-the-art facilities, including 
a 100-seat performance space, 
larger studios, smart classrooms, 
faculty offices and more. It will 
further expand upon the Earl V. 
Moore Building, which is home 
to the music department of the 
Music, Theatre & Dance School.
Presently, the dance build-
ing is connected to the Central 
Campus Recreational Building, 
while the other departments 
of the Music, Theatre & Dance 
School are located on North. The 
current dance building, which 
opened in 1977, fit the needs of 
the department at the time but 
was outgrown, according to Jes-
sica Fogel, professor and chair 
of dance. Fogel said the plan for 
a new dance building has been 
brewing for some time.
“This current project rests 
on the shoulders of many dance 
faculty teams over many long 
years,” Fogel said. “We’ve been 
envisioning a new dance build-
ing for decades actually.”
University 
Regent 
Andrea 
Fischer Newman (R) explained 
it was finally approved because 
funding 
had 
been 
secured 
through philanthropy, invest-
ment proceeds and other sourc-
es. She expressed her excitement 
to support the dance program in 
this way.
“This is an opportunity to 
really move the last piece of the 
School of Music, Theatre and 
Dance to North Campus, and 
do it in a way that it deserves,” 
Newman said.
Fogel said she was looking 
forward to the new building’s 
upgraded spaces, such as a studio 
with media allowing for projects 
tying dance with technology. 
With these improvements, as 

well as having more space in 
general, Fogel said the dance 
program will be able to meet the 
needs of more students.
“There will be a much better 
integration of technology; this 
integration has become stan-
dard in teaching dance,” Fogel 
said. “We will be better able to 
accommodate our very popu-
lar dance courses. We’ll also be 
able to accommodate more com-
munity groups and conferences 
because the new building will 
have more ample facilities.”
Further, Fogel noted the relo-
cation to North Campus will 
allow for more collaboration 
between dance, the other Music, 
Theatre & Dance branches and 
the Schools of Engineering, 

Architecture and Art & Design.
“The new building promises 
to be an exciting collaborative 
hub,” Fogel said. “We’ll have 
proximity to our peers in the 
SMTD and to facilities in the 
Duderstadt as well as to the 
School of Art & Design, Archi-
tecture, 
Engineering. 
We’ve 
done amazing projects with 
these units over the years, but 
it will be much easier and more 
organic to collaborate with them 
on North Campus.”
Music, Theatre & Dance soph-

omore Victoria Briones echoed 
this sentiment. She said the cur-
rent dance building location is 
less than ideal and expressed 
her eagerness to move to North 
Campus in order to easily work 
with the other programs.
“I’m excited to be close to 
the rest of SMTD because we’re 
the only school in SMTD is on 
Central Campus,” Briones said. 
“Even though (we) work with 
other departments a lot, we col-
laborate a lot with music stu-
dents especially, there’s always 
been that kind of separation. 
So we’re excited to be on North 
Campus with them.”
The plans for the building are 
only just beginning, but already 
Briones and other dance stu-
dents were able to give sugges-
tions for the design at a forum 
with the architectural team. 
Briones said she expressed her 
desire for the building design to 
embrace accessibility and inclu-
sion, making all who enter feel 
welcome.
“One thing that came up in the 
forum that’s really important to 
me and I hope comes to fruition 
with this building is we’re trying 
to make it more accessible,” Brio-
nes said. “We’re going to make it 
more handicap-accessible, and 
we’re also pushing for gender-
inclusive bathrooms. We’re try-
ing to make it a more welcoming 
space.”
Newman noted the dance pro-
gram has often been left behind 
in terms of improving facilities 
and resources within the Music, 
Theatre & Dance School. Now 
that all three divisions of the 
school will be on North Campus, 
Newman said, the arts program 
will be even stronger — some-
thing she believes is deeply 
important.
“I’m a huge advocate for the 
arts,” Newman said. “Person-
ally, my husband and I have 
supported SMTD and believe 
in order to be a great Uni-
versity, you have to be great 
in the arts, and we basically 
have 
a 
conservatory-style 
school at a big university, 
which is very, very unusual. 
I think the arts bring some-
thing to campus that every 
student benefits from.”

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

“This is an 
opportunity to 
really move the 
last piece of the 
School of Music, 
Theater and 
Dance to North 
Campus, and do 
it in a way that it 
deserves.”

New building for 
School, of Music 
Theater and Dance on 
North Campus