Creating hospital teams devoted to treating pregnant women who have sickle cell disease reduced death rates for those women by almost 90 percent, a study at a major hospital in Ghana showed. Sickle cell disease is common in West Africa, and among black people in the Americas whose ancestors came from West Africa. It is…
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Another of the industry’s concerns is ensuring that enough young and healthy people sign up to stabilize the market. Republicans have discussed eliminating one of the law’s main tools, the so-called individual mandate, a tax levied on those who do not enroll. In talking with Congress, Ms. Tavenner said, her members are emphasizing the need…
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Video “Almost Sunrise” In a clip from “Almost Sunrise,” Katinka Hooyer, a medical anthropologist and postdoctoral research fellow in Family and Community Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, talks about the meaning of love and feeling moral pain. By THOUGHTFUL ROBOT PRODUCTIONS on Publish Date June 5, 2016. No doubt in the course of…
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Photo Credit Jon Krause Two years ago, Kristi Wood was tired and achy and could not think clearly, and she had no idea why. “I was in a fog and feeling awful,” said Ms. Wood, 49, who lives in Seattle and is an owner of a hiking supply company. Ms. Wood had her blood tested…
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Photo Credit James Yang Hard Cases Dr. Abigail Zuger on the everyday ethical issues doctors face. The minute I got on that bus, I knew I was in trouble. The driver sat at the stop just long enough to miss the green light. Then he inched along till he missed the next light and the…
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Another such review examined how the number of prenatal visits affected infant mortality. Seven studies involved more than 60,000 women in countries of varying income. There was no difference in high-income countries in the number of deaths of those who had more or fewer visits (although the number of deaths over all was low). In…
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Photo Credit Getty Images When girls come in for their physical exams, one of the questions I routinely ask is “Do you get your period?” I try to ask before I expect the answer to be yes, so that if a girl doesn’t seem to know about the changes of puberty that lie ahead, I…
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On Thursday, we challenged Well readers to solve the case of a previously healthy 67-year-old gardener who abandoned his garden one summer, alarming his wife and adult children. For weeks this vibrant and energetic man had been the last one out of bed — something his family had never seen before. And his days were…
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I don’t eat breakfast. It’s not that I dislike what’s offered. Given the choice of breakfast food or lunch food, I’d almost always choose eggs or waffles. It’s just that I’m not hungry at 7:30 a.m., when I leave for work. In fact, I’m rarely hungry until about lunchtime. So, other than a morning cup…
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Once Andrew’s illness was diagnosed, he needed a bone-marrow transplant as swiftly as possible. First the doctors had to kill the leukemic cells in Andrew’s bone marrow with chemotherapy, then replace them with a donor’s cells. Andrew’s 3-year-old sister, Lea, and his 5-year-old brother, Wills, were tested, and in the family’s first bit of luck…
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