Amid makeshift exam rooms and rows of dental chairs, the L.A. Sports Arena has been transformed into an enormous health fair. While waiting for treatment, patients watch videos about how to brush their teeth and learn about the amount of sugar in soda. They receive vaccinations and read fliers about healthy eating and exercise. The event, organized by the L.A.-based nonprofit CareNow, will run through Sunday and expects to treat 5,000 patients for high blood pressure, tooth decay and diabetes. President Don Manelli said his goal was to meet the immediate needs of the patients but also to have an "enduring impact" on their health to keep them from returning next year. Much of that, he said, is done through education. "A lot of what we see out here is preventable," Manelli said. In addition to adding counselors and exhibits on prevention, CareNow is also working to connect patients with local providers for follow-up treatment. As patients left, representatives of local clinics took down their contact information.
Eye surgeons in Tennessee have begun a pre-emptive offensive against legislation to allow optometrists the right to do laser surgeries—even though optometrists say they aren't seeking any law change. Lasers are replacing scalpels in eye surgery with procedures that range from saving a patient's sight to freeing them from eyeglasses. Computer programs make some of those procedures seem as easy as pushing a button, but a laser is just as dangerous as a knife, said Rebecca J. Taylor, MD, a Nashville ophthalmologist. "You laser the wrong area and in an instant you render someone blind and it's not retrievable," said Taylor, a medical doctor who completed a surgical residency at Vanderbilt University to become an ophthalmologist. She and other leaders with the Tennessee Academy of Ophthalmology—the organization that represents the surgeons—worry legislators here will follow Kentucky's example. That state passed a law this year allowing optometrists to do surgical procedures, including some using lasers, that were previously limited to ophthalmologists. Optometrists already have an ally in the legislature. Rep. Gary Odom, D-Nashville, is the executive director of their organization.
Proving even a recession is no match for its fund-raising abilities, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center announced Thursday that its just-completed philanthropic campaign took in $1.2 billion. The campaign, aimed mostly at research, continued even after reaching its original target of $1 billion in August 2010. It still finished more than two months ahead of the planned finish date. "This money will have a substantial impact in the fight against cancer," said Dr. Ronald DePinho, who took over as M.D. Anderson's new president Sept. 1. "It will allow us to establish world-leading capabilities in areas of tremendous unmet needs, areas that ordinarily are very difficult to secure funding for." DePinho specifically mentioned M.D. Anderson's program to molecularly profile the tumor of every patient, an important step toward personalizing cancer treatment; search for signs that indicate whether a tumor is likely to be lethal; and efforts to improve the early detection of cancer. Some 200 donors accounted for 70% of the campaign total.
A senior state judicial officer has created new pressure to settle dozens of child sexual abuse claims against St. Francis Hospital by taking the unusual step of authorizing mediators working separately in the state and federal courts to consolidate their efforts. Chief Court Administrator Barbara Quinn's order is likely to direct some of that pressure at The Travelers Companies, which is involved in abuse-related lawsuits in both courts and has most of the hospital's insurance coverage, lawyers familiar with the case said. The victims of hospital endocrinologist Dr. George Reardon and some hospital representatives have questioned Travelers' commitment to resolving cases before they reach trial. In the short term, Quinn's mediation appears to derail plans by the St. Francis insurers to block the Reardon victims from joining a federal lawsuit that could determine the terms of the hospital's coverage—and the amount of money available for future settlements. Reardon abused as many as 500 children in his hospital office after St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center appointed him its chief of endocrinology in 1963. He held the position for about 30 years, until two of his earliest victims, then adults, complained to state medical regulators. The victims claim their abuse was the result of hospital negligence.
In another controversy involving all-metal hips, an influential group has found that there is insufficient evidence to show that an alternative technique known as hip resurfacing is as safe and effective as a traditional replacement. The group, the California Technology Assessment Forum, reversed a position it took just last year, citing recent findings by orthopedic registries overseas that some resurfacing devices are failing prematurely and health concerns about metallic debris released as the devices wear. The findings of the forum, which is financed by the Blue Shield of California Foundation, are not binding. Still, the group's report is likely to be disputed by advocates of resurfacing and patients who say they have benefited from the procedure. Hip resurfacing differs from a traditional joint replacement in that more of a patient's thigh bone is preserved than in a standard operation. Doing so, device makers and orthopedic experts say, allows patients to remain active and preserves bone for future procedures.
At a time when enthusiasm for vaccination is waning among parents in the United States, a new study shows younger doctors are less likely than their older peers to be staunch believers in the effectiveness and safety of vaccines. The study, presented Thursday at the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America in Boston, was comprised of survey data from 551 doctors. Recent graduates from medical school were 15% less likely to believe vaccines are effective compared to older doctors. The research suggests that younger doctors have a different view of the risk-versus-benefit profile of vaccines. The doctors were surveyed at about childhood vaccines such as polio, measles, mumps, rubella and varicella. It could be that some younger doctors are less enthusiastic about vaccination because they belong to a generation of people who grew up with vaccinations and never experienced diseases like measles and chicken pox, much less polio, the researchers suggested. In another vaccine study presented at the meeting, 909 pediatricians from the Midwest were polled on how parents feel about childhood vaccine recommendations. The study found that parents are most likely to refuse or postpone the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, the HPV vaccine (which protects against some strains of the virus that causes cervical cancer) and the flu vaccine.