Health & Wellness

Hospital Workers Dance for a Cause in Viral Video

batch — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 04:05:08 -0600

The entire staff of the Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Oregon, got together and choreographed a dance video wearing pink surgical gloves as a way to promote breast cancer awareness and support those living with cancer.

The Very Good Doctor

jbloustein — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:25:26 -0500

The woman had been my patient for years, a happy, married mother of two.

But something about her seemed different when she came in for an annual exam at the ob-gyn clinic where I practice.

I expected her usual sunny hello. Instead she looked nervous.

“How’re you doing?” I asked. Her story poured out. Both she and her husband had lost their jobs. They had no insurance. She’d talked her way past the receptionist, too embarrassed to admit her situation in the waiting room.

Love Drives Cancer Patient to Raise Funds for Research

batch — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:49:17 -0500

When gastroenterologist Ken Youner speaks about fighting cancer, his reference point is personal as well as professional.

Not only did he lose his wife to the disease, but he is currently battling stage 4 kidney cancer.

Ken's wife Cecile spent years living with breast cancer, and her life was eventually claimed by leukemia in November 2008. Ken was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 and continues to receive treatment.

An Easter Miracle

admin — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:48:53 -0600

The young couple watched anxiously as I examined their three-month-old baby at Yale-New Haven Hospital, where I specialize in pediatric hematology-oncology. It was difficult to answer the question in the eyes of Susan and Barry Krumm, for I knew that statistics said their tiny Katherine was destined to die.

Healing the Homeless

admin — Mon, 01 May 2006 12:45:00 -0500

A sidewalk might be a strange setting for an epiphany, but that's exactly where Roseanna Means, M.D., had hers. Every morning on her way to work as an internist at Massachusetts General Hospital, she walked by homeless people huddled on the concrete. One cold day the irony of the situation struck her—there in front of one of the country's most renowned hospitals were people not getting any medical attention. Here I am doing my job, she thought, but I'm not helping the people who need it the most.

How Could God Allow This?

admin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:22:34 -0600

I hadn't been on speaking terms with God for three years before that fateful spring day in 1995. My anger didn't happen overnight. It was a process that started when I first began my residency in emergency medicine and trauma. It's not as though God had ever done anything to hurt me. I had had a good life, loving parents, a caring, supportive wife and three great kids. It was what I saw in the emergency room that fueled my fury. Like the 18-month-old girl who had been raped then beaten to death. How could God allow this to happen? I wondered time and time again.

Decision

admin — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:01:47 -0600

It's odd, but I hadn't thought about him in years: the soldier whose life I'd saved in Vietnam when my colleagues said he would have been better off dead. Then in spring 1989 I was being interviewed by a writer from American Medical News for an article on trauma care. I'm a trauma surgeon, and I told the writer about my experiences in triage—the process of treating first the wounded most likely to survive. That's when I mentioned my decision to save the life of the horribly wounded soldier.

Have a Long and Happy Life!

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2004 10:27:00 -0500

A lot has happened in medicine in the 30 years I've been covering health issues for ABC News. Incredible new drugs, amazing machines that can see deeper into the human body than ever, the mapping of the human genome—as important a journey of discovery as we humans have ever undertaken. Treatments have turned many cancer sufferers into cancer survivors. Revolutionary surgical procedures prolong our lives.

My Spiritual Journey

admin — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 11:50:00 -0600

Visit our headquarters at CURE International, a nonprofit organization I founded to build hospitals in developing countries, and you might think you're in any small American office. We've got computers, a postage meter, a conference room with a map of the world. Faxes fly and donations of medical equipment arrive by the truckload. But at the very center of our operation, there's one room with nothing more than a pew and walls lined with pictures of doctors and pastors to remind us to pray for those who minister day in and day out. I want to tell you about that room.

Vim and Vigor

admin — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:47:45 -0600

The rain showed no sign of letting up. I'll just work on my swing tomorrow, I thought, tossing my golf clubs into the trunk. Or the next day. Or the day after that. No rush. After all, retirement was supposed to be about relaxing. Golfing, fishing and going out to eat—that's what my wife, Mary Ellen, and I had been doing since we retired to Hilton Head in 1989.

So why did I feel something was missing? Every day was the same. No real challenge, besides making par. So different from my days as a physician and medical researcher.