Health
New Jersey medical students offer haircuts and grooming services to patients: ‘Sense of humanity’
Basic grooming can be a challenge during an extended hospital stay, taking a toll on the patient’s mood and mental health.
A group of medical students is on a mission to change that, through a program called Bergen Barbers, named for the street in Newark, New Jersey, where University Hospital is located.
Launched in 2021 by Vaishali Ravikumar, a Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (NJMS) student, the program provides haircutting, shaving and detangling services for hospitalized patients.
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Ravikumar came up with the idea as a third-year student while taking care of a trauma surgery patient.
Rutgers New Jersey Medical students — aka the Bergen Barbers — Ivan Loncar, Shivani Srivastava, Hetal Lad and Sowntharya Ayyappan are pictured outside University Hospital in Newark. ( Keith Bratcher/Rutgers New Jersey Medical School)
“A patient who had been hospitalized for many days became so frustrated that he was on the verge of checking himself out against medical advice,” she said in a press release.
“His long, matted hair and unbrushed beard were making him very uncomfortable. My attending [physician] suggested I do something about it.”
After gathering some supplies from around the hospital, Ravikumar gave the patient an impromptu haircut.
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“He requested a ‘faux hawk,’ and I did my best to deliver,” she said.
“We laughed and talked through the whole process, and I learned a lot about him. When I finished, he was in much better spirits and trusted his health care team more than before.”
Motivated to extend the services to more patients, Ravikumar recruited several NJMS student volunteers, and Bergen Barbers was born.
Self-taught skills
The students, who had no haircutting or shaving experience, picked up some basic skills by watching YouTube videos.
“We learned how to use a clipper and how to give a basic haircut,” Ravikumar said.
“Using waterless shampoo with a small spray bottle of water, we dampen the hair, shampoo it and towel it dry. For women, we do a straight cut. For men, we ask how short they want it.”
“I learned by watching some videos and doing some Googling.”
Ivan Loncar, one of the current student volunteers, said he joined with “no experience” other than shaving.
“I learned by watching some videos and doing some Googling,” he told Fox News Digital during an interview.
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“As I did more services, watched other people do it and provided more haircuts, I got more comfortable.”
This year, Bergen Barbers added about 60 new medical student volunteers and implemented a more formal training process.
Selecting the ‘clients’
Many of the patients Bergen Barbers serves have been in the hospital for an extended period.
“They may be going through the toughest time of their lives,” Hetal Lad, one of the volunteers, told Fox News Digital in the same interview. “Maybe they’re done with surgery, but now they have new complications or … have been given rough news.”
“In that moment, seeing somebody who’s outside their health care team is really nice, as they can vent about things they don’t feel they can say to their providers.”
Rutgers New Jersey Medical students Ivan Loncar, Hetal Lad, Sowntharya Ayyappan and Shivani Srivastava outside University Hospital in Newark. Launched in 2021, the program provides haircutting, shaving and detangling services for hospitalized patients. ( Keith Bratcher/Rutgers New Jersey Medical School)
In many cases, the students help patients who are post- or pre-surgery and need a trim or a shave, according to Sowntharya Ayyappan, one of the students in the group.
“We also have a lot of patients who experience homelessness and have not been given a lot of the opportunities to maintain hair care,” she told Fox News Digital during the same interview.
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The nursing staff also assists with choosing patients.
“We make sure patients are able to provide consent and do not have a traumatic brain injury or any medical device in the head or face that might be an obstacle,” Ravikumar noted.
Patients with severe blood clotting disorders and those on psychiatric floors are also ruled out, she added.
Rave reviews
So far, Bergen Barbers has received only positive feedback from patients.
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“We haven’t had a single bad experience,” Shivani Srivastava, a current volunteer, told Fox News Digital.
“They’re always very appreciative that we came by and gave them whatever service they wanted.”
In a way, Ayyappan said, the Bergen Barbers are giving a sense of “humanity” back to their patients.
“We’re providing a service that’s very routine and part of human nature — it’s something we all have to do innately as humans,” a student volunteer said. (iStock)
“We’re providing a service that’s very routine and part of human nature — it’s something we all have to do innately as humans.”
The sessions also provide an opportunity to have conversations with the patients about their hobbies and lives outside the hospital walls, she added.
“We’re seeing them not only as patients, but as people.”
“We’re seeing them not only as patients, but as people.”
Some patients might not get outside visitors, Loncar noted.
“For them, those precious 10, 30 or 40 minutes are an amazing experience to just unwind — even if it’s just complaining or reminiscing about something, or telling us about their lives or giving advice as an older individual.”
The sessions enable the students to gain experience with patient interactions, they said. (iStock)
In one scenario, a patient asked the volunteers for a Bible, Ayyappan shared, which they provided for him.
In another example, Srivastava said, the team went in to give a patient a shave and haircut, only to realize that he couldn’t speak English, so he couldn’t communicate with the volunteers.
“But he put on jazz music, closed his eyes and kind of turned the vibe of a hospital room into his own barbershop,” she said.
An educational experience
While the patients enjoy the results of the grooming services, the medical students are also reaping the rewards, they told Fox News Digital.
The services allow the students to get early exposure to working with patients, Ayyappan pointed out.
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“You’re learning empathy, you’re having hard conversations with patients,” said Ayyappan.
“You get comfortable with them, learn about them and hear about their problems in the hospital.”
“Those precious 10, 30 or 40 minutes are an amazing experience for them to just unwind,” a volunteer said. (iStock)
Faculty mentor Amy Gore, an assistant professor of surgery at Rutgers, shared her excitement about the program.
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“I was so excited when Vaishali approached me with this idea, and felt it could be a fantastic way to connect with patients and greatly contribute to their psychological well-being,” Gore said in a press release.
“It has been truly inspirational watching her bring Bergen Barbers to fruition and recruit an incredible team to keep the project alive as she transitions into residency.”
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Journalist Katie Couric is sharing a scary medical episode that she experienced on June 27.
In a post on Substack titled “The Day I’ll Never Remember,” she detailed a sudden episode that left her unable to recall the current month, year and president.
“I thought it was 2024. And I believed Joe Biden was president,” she wrote.
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The event occurred while Couric was attending the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado, during which she participated in two public panels — one on AI and one on journalism — both of which she cannot remember at all.
“I have no idea what we talked about, or of what occurred when the panels ended,” she said.
Journalist Katie Couric is sharing a scary medical episode that she experienced on June 27. (Getty Images)
John Molner — Couric’s husband, who was in attendance at the festival and the two panels — also shared his account.
After the event, someone told Molner that Katie wasn’t feeling well. When he reached her, an EMT and a doctor were tending to her. “I could tell something was off,” he wrote. “It could have been altitude sickness, but Katie was definitely not all there.”
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At the hospital, when Couric struggled to recall the year, the president and her grandchildren’s names, doctors began checking for a stroke.
An MRI revealed no signs of stroke, which was a relief, but “Katie’s ‘fog’ became a lot more apparent,” Molner wrote.
John Molner, Couric’s husband, who was in attendance at the festival and the two panels, also shared his account. (Getty Images)
“She repeatedly asked me the same questions: ‘What was I doing before we got to the hospital?’ ‘Why am I at the hospital?’”
Couric was ultimately diagnosed with transient global amnesia, a sudden, temporary episode of memory loss that prevents a person from forming new memories and may also erase some recent memories, according to Mayo Clinic.
“The cause seems to be as mysterious as the brain itself.”
It is not caused by a stroke, seizure or head injury, and it usually resolves completely within 24 hours.
“[It’s] just a very weird neural episode that’s pretty uncommon and, at least in most cases, is a ‘one and done’ experience,” Molner said.
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Couric said she finally began feeling “like herself” again around 9 p.m. and went to sleep at 2 a.m.
As TGA leaves a “permanent gap in memory” for the duration of the episode and for hours beforehand, Couric said that from around noon on that day until at least 7 p.m. will remain a “big, black hole.”
As TGA leaves a “permanent gap in memory” for the duration of the episode and for hours beforehand, Couric said that from around noon on that day until at least 7 p.m. will remain a “big, black hole.” (Getty Images)
Data shows that approximately three to eight people per 100,000 will have an episode of transient global amnesia, with people 50 years of age and older at higher risk.
The specific cause of TGA is not known, but some experts believe it stems from a “temporary dysfunction in the brain’s hippocampus — the area responsible for creating new memories,” Couric shared.
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“Doctors believe this is driven by brief interruptions in blood or oxygen flow, or microscopic spasm in the blood vessels.”
Episodes could potentially be triggered by intense physical exertion, emotional distress, extreme temperature changes or migraines, experts say.
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Approximately 15% of patients will have a recurrence 10 years later.
“Why did this happen to me? Was the altitude an issue? Was I dehydrated? Tired? Stressed? The literature doesn’t seem to indicate that these are contributing factors, but the cause seems to be as mysterious as the brain itself,” Couric wrote.
Anyone who experiences sudden memory loss, confusion, difficulty speaking, weakness, numbness, vision changes, severe headache or other stroke-like symptoms should seek immediate medical attention or call 911, doctors advise. (iStock)
“All I know is that those hours will be forever lost. Someone described it as my brain failing to hit the ‘record button.’”
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“While this was a freaky occurrence, it could have been much more serious. So ultimately, I’m relieved — even though several hours of a Saturday in June will always be missing for me.”
Anyone who experiences sudden memory loss, confusion, difficulty speaking, weakness, numbness, vision changes, severe headache or other stroke-like symptoms should seek immediate medical attention or call 911, doctors advise.
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Older adults identified as “super movers” are about half as likely to develop cognitive impairment than their peers.
That’s according to a recent study led by Stony Brook Medicine in New York, which evaluated the cognitive function of 4,000 adults 80 and over who participated in multiple aging and longevity studies over several years.
Among this group, 6% to 10% were classified as super movers, which means they walk at a much faster pace than others of the same age and gender — at speeds comparable to people three decades younger.
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The super movers were found to have about half the risk of cognitive decline compared to seniors with typical gait speed.
The findings were published in the journal Neurology on June 16.
Older adults identified as “super movers” are about half as likely to develop cognitive impairment than their peers. (iStock)
“The study reinforces that mobility and brain health are closely connected,” lead study author Dr. Joe Verghese, MD, neurologist at Stony Brook Medicine, told Fox News Digital. “This suggests that preserving mobility may be an important marker of healthy brain aging and resilience.”
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The most intriguing finding, according to Verghese, was that super movers maintained cognitive function despite having similar dementia-related brain changes as their peers.
In postmortem brain analysis, there was no difference in dementia-related pathologies between the super movers and the slower walkers, the study stated.
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“This suggests they may possess resilience mechanisms that help preserve brain function even in the presence of age-related changes,” he said. “Understanding these resilience factors could lead to new strategies for promoting healthy brain aging.”
As the study was observational, there were some limitations, and it does not prove that walking faster prevents dementia, the researchers noted.
Super movers were found to have about half the risk of cognitive decline compared to seniors with typical gait speed. (iStock)
“Other factors, such as cardiovascular health, physical fitness or genetics, may also contribute to both faster walking and better cognitive outcomes,” Verghese said.
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This study adds to growing evidence that what’s good for the heart and muscles also benefits the brain, he noted, adding that “staying physically active remains one of the most effective, evidence-based ways to support healthy aging.”
“Walking speed is best viewed as a marker of overall health, not a treatment.”
“The broader message is that physical activity is important at any age,” Verghese said. “Walking is an easy step-up point because you don’t need any special equipment. You can do it inside or outdoors, and you can do it on a regular basis. You can walk with a dog, you can walk with a friend.”
Any activity is beneficial if it’s done regularly and with the right intensity, he added.
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Rather than just trying to walk faster, the neurologist recommends that seniors focus on maintaining mobility through regular physical activity, strength training, balance exercises and good cardiovascular health.
“Walking speed is best viewed as a marker of overall health, not a treatment,” Verghese noted.
Major public health guidelines from the CDC and U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity each week, such as brisk walking.
Major public health guidelines from the CDC and U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity each week, such as brisk walking. (iStock)
This can be achieved by walking 30 minutes a day, five days a week, or about 20 to 25 minutes most days. Another option is to engage in shorter sessions that add up over the day.
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“You have to do it within your health limitations and medical conditions,” Verghese advised. “So if there are any medical concerns, I would get your physician to clear you before starting exercise.” The good thing about walking, he added, is that you can start at a slow pace and then gradually build up to a brisker pace.
“And then adding on strength and balance training, whatever age you are, I think is also important.”
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