Nearly six months to the day after her son Landon was born, a grateful Rita Tira returned to UCI Medical Center this week for a reunion with the caregivers who worked heroically to save her from a sudden and deadly complication during childbirth. An experienced mom of two, Tira, 34, wasn’t worried about her third pregnancy. But in early June 2023, after 22 hours in labor, she developed a rare condition called amniotic fluid embolism (AFE). AFE occurs when amniotic fluid — which surrounds the f

UCI Health researcher and gastroenterologist Dr. William E. Karnes is on a mission to raise awareness of Lynch syndrome, the most prevalent — and underdiagnosed — hereditary disorder that increases the risk for developing cancer. People with this inherited genetic disorder have a significantly higher lifetime risk of developing cancers of the colon, uterus, ovaries, stomach and urinary tract, among others. As director of high-risk colorectal cancer services at the UCI Health Digestive Health I

Lorin Jensen remembers the exact day his cancer battle began — July 1, 2007. He was country dancing and his arm kept going numb. “At first, I thought it was just a pinched nerve,” says Jensen, a seasoned physical therapist. “But I decided to get it checked out that night at my local emergency department, just in case.” The ED physicians initially performed a CT scan to check for a stroke. What they found was a brain tumor. After an MRI, Jensen’s doctor referred him to a community neuro-oncolog

By Valerie Elwell Jim Guerinot '85 (B.A. English) was incredulous when he got the call asking him to be this year’s commencement speaker for the University of California, Irvine’s School of Humanities. “I thought they made a mistake. It took me nine years to get out of college. I dropped out of high school at 16, got my G.E.D. and went to work. I was 26 when I got my degree!” he says. Guerinot’s plan for his commencement speech is simple—to speak authentically about his life and untr