It was terrific to see so many of you at our Think Pink for Women's Wellness event held at the Upper Bel Air Bay Club on May 10th.

We thank Saint John's Health Center Foundation and Irene Dunne Guild President Stephanie Weston for their leadership and support, our Co-Chairs Susie DeWeese and Lorena Craven and their organizing Committee for their dedication, the event’s speakers for their engaging and valuable insights and information, the boutique vendors and the wonderful attendees for their support and participation in making Think Pink a huge success.
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​To learn more about Think Pink, click here.

We are especially grateful for all the speakers at this year's event for generously sharing their valuable and informative insights and information with us. 

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Meena Said, Endocrine surgeon & Founder Wellness Worldwide

Dr. Banafsheh Bayati, Obstetrics and Gynecology Co-Founder of Perelel, a pre/post natal focused vitamin company

Dr. Amir Vokshoor, Neurosurgery and Spine Specialist minimally invasive surgical treatment of adult cranial and spinal disorders

Dr. Manali Shendrikar, Primary Care Medicine, Santa Monica Family Physicians

Megan Webber, Co-Founder, Know the Glow

Please reach out to them directly to learn more about their projects and services. 

By Sue Pascoe of Circling the News
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“Think Pink for Women’s Wellness” is an Irene Dunne Guild annual event, that focuses on health education and awareness for women and their families.  This year’s event will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Wednesday, May 10, at the Upper Bel Air Bay Club.

The event features break-through lectures with notable physicians and speakers. Over the years, topics have included healthy brain aging, addiction, urology, dermatology and breast health. The event culminates with a luncheon held in the dining room of the Upper Bel Air Bay Club overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Boutique shopping is available throughout the event with net proceeds benefitting programs, equipment and services at Providence Saint John’s Health Center.
Co-chairs Lorena Craven and Susie DeWeese said this year’s featured speaker is Dr. Meena Said, an endocrine surgeon, who will speak on “Wellness Worldwide: Treating Children with Cancer 8,000 Miles Away.”
Said’s family fled Afghanistan as refugees when she was a baby and lived in Germany for 18 months before moving to the U.S.

The doctor graduated summa cum laude from UCLA and then attended the UCLA School of Medicine, receiving the highest honor bestowed upon a medical student, The Deans Merit Scholarship. After graduating in 2006, Said completed an internal medicine internship at UCLA before pursuing her general surgery residency at the Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center. She completed an Endocrine Surgery Fellowship at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

Said has founded a humanitarian nonprofit called Wellness Worldwide to  provide healthcare as well as educational and social support to vulnerable populations, first in Afghanistan, but then, she envisions, in the neediest communities around the world. In a 2021 interview “She Saved My Life. And so Many Others,” the doctor said, “Every human life has equal value. Every man, woman and child deserve a chance to live — irrespective of gender, religion, political beliefs, ethnicity or race.”

Through Wellness Worldwide, she and a network of volunteer doctors deliver medical care and run a family clinic in a refugee camp in Nangarhar. “As a surgeon who operates on cancer patients, I know how desperate and vulnerable cancer patients can be,” she said. “In Afghanistan, there are no cancer facilities for adults or for children. There’s not a single radiation facility in the entire country.” A statistic Said quotes is that 75 percent of the world’s operations are performed on 25 percent of the world’s population.

In America, survival for all cancer children is 80 percent. In the low- and middle-income countries — Afghanistan is one of the five poorest countries on earth — that statistic is flipped: a 20 percent survival rate for children with all cancers.

The Irene Dunne Guild is celebrating its thirty-sixth year as a major support group of Saint John’s Health Center Foundation in Santa Monica. The guild has more than 100 members committed to finding innovative ways to fundraise, comfort patients, educate the community and nurture the mission of providing compassionate care click here.
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The public is invited to attend this event. Tickets are $175 per person. For more information, call (310) 829-8424. Co-chairs Craven and DeWeese said, “We would be thrilled to welcome you to Think Pink 2023.”

Please click here to view original post in Circling the News 

“Think Pink for Women’s Wellness” Event to Take Place in May “Think Pink for Women’s Wellness”, an Irene Dunne Guild annual event that focuses on health education and awareness for women and their families, will take place Wednesday, May 10th, from 8:30am-3:00 pm at the Upper Bel Air Bay Club. The Irene Dunne Guild, a support group of Saint John’s Health Center Foundation, created Think Pink over 18 years ago as a gathering meant to educate women on important health issues. The event features breakthrough lectures with notable physicians and speakers. Over the years, topics have included healthy brain aging, addiction, urology, dermatology, and breast health. The event culminates with a luncheon held in the dining room of the Upper Bel Air Bay Club. Boutique shopping is available throughout the event with net proceeds benefiting programs, equipment, and services at Providence Saint John’s Health Center. Think Pink Co-Chairs are Lorena Craven and Susie DeWeese. Tickets are $175.00 per person. Visit www.irenedunneguild.org for more information. 
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Click here for original article on page 6 of the Beverly Hills Weekly

​By the Malibu Times
Think Pink for Women’s Wellness, an Irene Dunne Guild annual event, focuses on health education and awareness for women and their families. The Irene Dunne Guild, a support group of Saint John’s Health Center Foundation, created Think Pink over 18 years ago as a gathering meant to educate women on important health issues. 

The Irene Dunne Guild is celebrating its 36th year as a major support group of Saint John’s Health Center Foundation in Santa Monica. The guild is comprised of over 100 members committed to putting their hearts forward to find innovative ways to fundraise, comfort patients, educate their community, and nurture the mission of providing compassionate care. 

The event features breakthrough lectures with notable physicians and speakers. Over the years, topics have included healthy brain aging, addiction, urology, dermatology, and breast health. The event culminates with a wonderful luncheon held in the beautiful dining room of the Upper Bel Air Bay Club overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Boutique shopping is available throughout the event with net proceeds benefitting programs, equipment and services at Providence Saint John’s Health Center.

This year’s event is Wednesday, May 10, from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Upper Bel Air Bay Club. Tickets are $175 per person. Think Pink co-chairs are Lorena Craven and Susie DeWeese. For more information, contact Saint John’s Foundation at (310) 829-8424. For more information visit, www.irenedunneguild.org.

“Think Pink for Women’s Wellness”, an Irene Dunne Guild annual event, focuses on health education and awareness for women and their families.  The Irene Dunne Guild, a support group of Saint John’s Health Center Foundation, created Think Pink over 17 years ago as a gathering meant to educate women on important health issues. 2022 brings together mothers, sisters, daughters, and dear friends in a new re-imagined and socially distanced setting with safety at the forefront. We will safely enjoy a series of lectures focusing on women’s health. This year’s event is Wednesday, May 4th, 2022, 8:30am-3:00 pm at the Upper Bel Air Bay Club.  This popular event will ensure open areas and distance to move around safely, masks will be available for those who need one. 

Featuring morning break-out sessions with notable physicians and speakers. Over the years, topics have included healthy brain aging, addiction, urology, dermatology, and breast health. The event culminates with a wonderful luncheon held outside on the lawn of the Upper Bel Air Bay Club overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  Boutique shopping with open areas to prevent crowding is available throughout the event with net proceeds benefiting programs, equipment and services at Providence Saint John’s Health Center. Tickets are $150.00 per person.  Think Pink Co-Chairs are Susie DeWeese and Lorena Craven.

​For more information, contact Esther Espinoza at Esther.Espinoza@stjohns.org or 310.829.8262.The Irene Dunne Guild is celebrating its thirty-fifth year as a major support group of Saint John’s Health Center Foundation in Santa Monica, California. The guild is comprised of over 100 members committed to putting their hearts forward to find innovative ways to fundraise, comfort patients, educate their community and nurture the mission of providing compassionate care. www.irenedunneguild.org

See original post at the Palisades Post

Last year’s Think Pink fundraiser may have saved Brooke Crane’s life.
The 39-year-old mother of two heard the main speaker, Dr. Chloe Bird, repeatedly urge the mostly female audience to pay attention if they felt tightness above their bellybuttons and below their chins. Crane, a lifelong Palisadian, took note, but didn’t think it would happen to her.
That night it did.
“It sort of felt like a fat man was sitting on my chest,” Crane said. “So what did I do? Initially, I just ignored it.”
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The timing wasn’t good. Her husband, Bryan, was out of town, it was raining, and she had chores to do like putting her two daughters to bed. In order to go to the emergency room, she’d have to get assistance, including someone to stay with her kids, Carly, 8, and Caroline, 6.
However, Bird had insisted that women in particular need to put their health first, and when Crane paused and listened to her body, she felt an “uh-oh feeling.”
She had some other issues that had seemed minor: a persistent cough and fatigue plus a small bump on her right clavicle that her doctor had thought was just a swollen lymph node due to a cold. However, when Crane checked in with herself, she felt concerned.
“Something wasn’t quite right, and I just couldn’t stop thinking about Dr. Bird’s advice: I matter. I deserve to slow down, listen to my body and take action if necessary,” Crane said.
It was lucky that she listened. When she and her mother-in-law Janie Crane got to St. John’s Hospital, she learned after a battery of tests that she had fluid around her heart and a mass in her chest. Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a rare blood cancer that accounts for .5 percent of cancers, had struck her.
However, Crane caught it in time, beat it with 12 rounds of chemotherapy in a six-month treatment plan, and this year on May 11, was the main speaker at the Irene Dunne Guild’s Think Pink event at the Bel-Air Bay Club.
Instead of a doctor offering advice, Crane was able to provide information from the patient’s point of view to the almost 250 attendees who came to learn more about women’s health care.
Her top ten “take-aways” from this life-changing experience were:
1.) Make the first 48 hours after the diagnosis count. In her case, she and her loved ones channeled their intense emotions into research and calls that created a manageable path for her treatment.
2.) Talk to people who have been through something similar.
3.) Get multiple opinions. Crane resisted this at first as she immediately liked the hospital’s oncologist. But then she got a second opinion and a third. The third time was a charm. Dr. Lawrence Piro’s treatment plan, which included an ABVD chemo regime that he helped invent, was the perfect match for her and created a less intense path that didn’t require radiation.
4.) Be willing to say yes when people offer advice and help, and don’t be afraid to ask for what you need. For Crane, this meant she accepted private yoga lessons from a mom she’d never met and made new friends who aided her.
5.) Give people specific tasks/jobs—they want to help so let them. A friend took over her emails, and another coordinated meals for her. Others regularly accompanied her to chemo treatments.
6.) Write a blog or journal—or find some other way to communicate simply with people, so that the task of notifying people of treatment progress is easier.
7.) Take control in your own way, and don’t let the disease control you. For Crane, this meant she chose to shave her head whether she would end up needing it or not.
8.) Have an open mind—Crane chose to try jin shin jytsu, a helpful acupressure treatment for the pain and nausea of chemo.
9.) Have faith in a higher power. Crane said she “chose faith over fear.”
And finally, “number 10,” Crane said, “which I learned last year, right here in this room from Dr. Bird, and it probably saved my life: ‘Listen to your body.’”
By LAUREL BUSBY
Staff Writer
Brooke Crane Photo: Glenn Marzano

Click here to link to original article in Palisades News

Visit www.palisadesnews.com to view entire issue with the article.

Please click here for direct access to the article 'Think Pink Luncheon Focused on Women's Health' reported by Jacqueline Primo of the Palisades Post.

PACIFIC PALISADES, CA - The Irene Dunne Guild hosted their 10th Anniversary Think Pink for Women's Wellness event at the Bel Air Bay Club with a sold out crowd.  The event featured morning educational sessions on various health topics and a keynote address presented by notable speakers:

(Keynote) Assessing and Addressing the Gender Gap in Women's Health Care - Chloe Bird, PhD
Legacy of Great Parenting - Robin Berman, MD
Happy Heart, Healthy Heart - Nicole Weinberg, MD, FACC
Skin & The Immune System - Delphine Lee, MD, PhD, FAAD
Bone & Joint Health - Timothy Davis, MD

There was also an extensive shopping boutique with a large selection offered. A portion of all boutique proceeds benefits the Guild's Patron Drive Fund, used to support programs and equipment in departments throughout Saint John's Health Center. To date, the Guild has raised over $900,000 with their annual Patron Drive Fund for the benefit of Saint John's.