Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell postponed her plan to transfer low-income residents into the new Charter Oak health plan until February 2009. This will give members in the state-subsidized HUSKY plan more time to find doctors in Charter Oak and allow for a better transition, says the governor.
Getting a heart beating again is only the first step in saving a life after a sudden cardiac arrest, a new report shows. An advisory said that healthcare providers must move more quickly after resuscitation or risk the losing the patient to the original cause of the heart failure.
While it has long been understood that clinical practice influenced the youthful writing of doctor-authors like Chekhov and William Carlos Williams, there is now emerging evidence that exposure to literature and writing during residency training can influence how young doctors approach their clinical work. By bringing short stories, poems and essays into hospital wards and medical schools, educators hope to encourage fresh thinking and help break down the wall between doctors and patients.
The field of global health, once perhaps regarded as a noble humanitarian endeavor aimed at healing and helping the world's poorest people, is now becoming something of an "emerging industry" that the Seattle business community sees as a highly competitive enterprise. That was the gist of a three-day conference sponsored by the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. The meeting also launched a new organization called the Washington Global Health Alliance.
The president of Presbyterian Hospital of Plano, TX, said he must eliminate 17 positions because of the weak economy and tough competition among North Texas hospitals. Fewer people are coming to the hospital, said Philip Wentworth, the hospital's president, in an Oct. 20 letter to workers. "Reduced volumes reflect another national trend of consumers, due to the state of today's economy, opting to postpone elective procedures and diagnostic testing," Wentworth said.
A jury has awarded the parents of a brain-damaged Wisconsin boy $11.4 million in a medical malpractice case. Chad and Amy Jelinek claimed in a 2006 lawsuit that negligent care by a nurse and nurse midwife at Gunderson Lutheran Medical Center in La Crosse, WI, resulted in brain injuries to their son Laine during his birth in 2005. A Crawford County jury sided with the Jelineks after a three-week trial.