Joy Hindle cried when she found out she couldn't give one of her kidneys to her twin brother. Then doctors gave the Bel Air, MD, woman another option: a kidney exchange, in which she would donate her kidney to a patient who needed one, and her diabetic brother would get one from another willing donor. Hindle and brother Paul McSorley were two of six participants in a triple kidney transplant performed last month by doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center. She gave her kidney to a stranger; he got a kidney from a stranger. Multipatient swaps made up a small percentage of the more than 13,000 kidney transplants performed in the United States last year. But with the creation of a national database to link the 90,000 patients waiting for kidneys with compatible donors, some health care officials expect the number to increase dramatically.
For many urban dwellers, the country conjures up images of clean air, fresh food and physical activities. But these days, Americans residing in major cities live longer, healthier lives overall than their country cousins -- a reversal from decades past. Many cities that were once notorious for pollution, crime, crowding and infectious diseases have generally cleaned up, calmed down and spread out in recent years, while rural problems have festered. Rural residents are now more likely than other Americans to be obese, sedentary and smoke cigarettes. They also face higher rates of related health problems including diabetes, stroke, heart attacks and high blood pressure, according to County Health Rankings, a research project that recently issued its second annual report of state-by-state comparisons of health measures in every U.S. county.
The All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi recently installed a new entry system. However, local monkeys soon worked out how to use the motion-censor doors and have since been running amok in the wards. They have terrorised patients, stealing food, playing with medical equipment, and attacking staff. Authorities have taken steps to scare off the monkeys. They have hired two larger monkeys to chase them away.
Patients who receive frequent intravenous injections to treat chronic illness typically endure arduous hospital visits. A new device could change that. SpringLeaf Therapeutics is developing a drug-filled patch patients can attach to their skin to dispense such medications. "You just put it on and do your daily activities," said Frank Bobe, CEO of SpringLeaf. "You're in control because you don't give control of your life to a nurse or physician, which, psychologically, brings a huge positive impact to patients." On Friday the company announced the completion of its second major round of funding after receiving a $4 million boost from Excel Venture Management, a venture capital firm, bringing its total funding to $19 million. That second round comes mainly from SR One, the venture capital arm of GlaxoSmithKline.
David Sellers, MD, ends his shifts when most physicians have their morning coffee. A nocturnist at Middle Tennessee Medical Center in Murfreesboro, he's on the hospital floor all night, ready to handle patient problems that go beyond the expertise of a nurse. Nights and weekends can be dangerous times for patients, according to multiple studies. The most recent—one that tracked the outcomes of 30 million patients over a five-year period—showed that patients admitted to hospitals on weekends have a 10% higher death rate. Sellers works every night of the week, including weekends. "This has been the most exciting thing I've done in medicine just because I'm able to focus on very sick patients, and I feel like I get them better and get them on their way out of the hospital, which is fulfilling," he said. Hospitals are increasingly counting on nocturnists to help them improve patient safety and response times. John Nelson, MD, a partner with Nelson Flores Hospital Medicine Consultants, coined the term nocturnist. By his estimate, there are probably 1,000 to 1,500 nocturnists working now compared with more than 100 a decade ago.
Ontario hospitals are bracing for an influx of a highly contagious superbug that has already claimed the lives of at least 18 elderly patients in the province. One in 14 hospitals in Ontario were dealing with an outbreak of Clostridium difficile. commonly known as C. difficile, according to statistics collected by the Ministry of Health for the month of May. While some have since been taken off the list, several others have been hit with their own outbreaks in recent weeks. Health-care practitioners say it is not just the spike in cases that is a concern. They are also worried about the virulence of the strain, the same one that killed 2,000 people in Quebec a few years ago and that Australia is now struggling to contain. While officials scramble to contain the outbreaks in Ontario, an infectious-bacteria expert is warning that hospitals are going about tackling the problem the wrong way.