Clinic

Upper Chesapeake Health will hold flu clinics for ages 12 and older. A pediatric flu clinic and follow-up will be held for children ages 6 months to 11 years. FluMist, a nasal vaccine, also will be available. The cost is $20, payable by cash or check. Medicare will be accepted. Cards must be shown. Clinics will be held: Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at St. Ignatius Church, 533 E. Jarrettsville Road, Forest Hill. Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Nov. 15 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Upper Chesapeake Medical Center, Chesapeake Conference Center.

As Access Carroll celebrates its second-year anniversary, the demand for services at the free, nonprofit medical clinic in Westminster has sharply grown. Uninsured patients and those who can't afford expensive premiums and co-pays came to the clinic for nearly 4,000 appointments last year, Access Carroll's executive director Tammy Black said. "We're actually worried about how we're going to keep up with it," Black said of the demand for services. prospective patients can earn up to twice the federal poverty guidelines, or $20,410 for one person in 2007.

A Prince George's County man who was ordered released from a Maryland prison and sent to a private drug rehabilitation clinic in Denver has emerged as a suspect in a Denver killing that terrified residents and incensed politicians there last month.Authorities in Colorado are seeking the extradition from Maryland of Donta Terrorus Paige, 19, who was convicted in Maryland of armed robbery and burglary. He had been serving a 10-year sentence at Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown until October, when Judge James Casula of Prince George's County Circuit Court granted a public defender's request that Paige be released and sent for treatment to the Stout Street Foundation Clinic in Denver.

A RAY OF HOPE IS glimmering behind the clouds that unleashed icy rain on our neighborhood yesterday. Spring and summer sports sign-ups begin next weekend in Pasadena. Can sunshine and warm days be far behind?Organizations in the Greater Riviera Recreation Council are again providing one-stop registration sessions from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Jan. 23 and 30 and Feb. 6 and 13 at Sunset Elementary School, 8572 Fort Smallwood Road. The council also offers evening sessions at the school from 7 p.m. to 8: 30 p.m. Jan. 27 and Feb. 3.Organizations participating in the registration sign-up include:The Riviera Little League, open to boys 8 to 18. Information: Larry Johnson, 410-437-1249 or Rory Fracasse, 410-437-1482.

Mission of Mercy, a nonprofit traveling medical clinic that serves the needy in Carroll County and Western Maryland, is dispensing its signature "healing through love" from a sturdier, safer and roomier space.The mission, which offers free health care and medicine to the needy, has discarded its 11-year-old Pace Arrow van for a $90,000 Winnebago Adventurer, which has been refurbished as a mobile clinic. The Frederick County-based group purchased the recreational vehicle through fund-raising efforts.

WASHINGTON -- Every last detail had been carefully planned: the date, the time, the place.All that the United States Luge Association needed was a go-ahead from Congress -- permission to use Capitol Hill for a summer luge clinic designed to help the national team find its next generation of Olympic hopefuls.But earlier this week, a Senate committee put the brakes on the luge team's plans. The committee declined to take up a resolution that would have allowed the team to set up a dry-track luge course on the north side of Capitol Hill and on a quarter-mile stretch of Constitution Avenue.

Mission of Mercy, a nonprofit traveling medical clinic that serves the needy in Carroll County and Western Maryland, is dispensing its signature "healing through love" from a sturdier, safer and roomier space.The mission, which offers free health care and medicine to the needy, has discarded its 11-year-old Pace Arrow van for a $90,000 Winnebago Adventurer, which has been refurbished as a mobile clinic. The Frederick County-based group purchased the recreational vehicle through fund-raising efforts.

On a typical Saturday morning, cars wrap around the block in a leafy corner of Woodlawn as the achy and the stressed-out converge on the Baltimore School of Massage.They come from the neighborhood -- and from as far away as Virginia -- for an hour of bliss and relaxation at the hands of massage students, clients of a small community of holistic healers in the eye-catching building on Dogwood Road."We're pretty popular in the community," said Lee Bean, director of the therapeutic massage school's student clinic, which offers cut-rate student massages supervised by instructors.

Women's health-care providers and local law enforcement representatives came to Fort Meade yesterday for bomb-threat and security-awareness training from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms."

THE NEW YEAR CAN BE a time for making resolutions for self-improvements or starting fresh with things you enjoy.As I've written in this column in past years, I'm generally not one for resolutions, but the host of fit and fun programs being offered by area recreation councils might inspire me to charge into 1999 with a flurry of activity.Baseball timeGet out the bats, gloves and balls -- baseball is just around the corner. Registration for Sykesville Baseball will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Jan. 16, 23 and 30 in Center Court at Carrolltown Center.

Et cetera Jockey Garcia could reach 1,000 career victories today Journeyman rider Luis Garcia won three of his four mounts Thursday at Laurel Park and is two wins away from his 1,000th career victory. He'll be aboard five horses on today's nine-race card. "I am not trying to think about the number," Garcia said. "It would be amazing. Not many riders win that many races, and this is just my seventh year. I am getting excited, and hopefully it happens soon." Garcia, 25, has won 645 races at Laurel and Pimlico Race Course and has been a top 10 rider in the colony since arriving in 2003.

Pool owner clinic on safety rules 2 A clinic to familiarize swimming pool owners with new federal safety requirements, which took effect in December, is scheduled for Monday in Towson. Public pools and spas cannot open this season until owners have submitted an Aquatic Facility Review form and complied with regulations. The clinic will be open to pool owners in Baltimore, Harford and Cecil counties and will offer opportunities to meet with staff from the various regulatory agencies, who can discuss the permitting process.

Baltimore City health officials say a pilot program that allows people with sexually transmitted diseases to distribute antibiotics to their sexual partners appears to be working. Using three months of data, officials found that among patients with gonorrhea and chlamydia who visited two city health clinics and received extra antibiotics for their partners, the reinfection rate was 2.3 percent. That compares to a historical three-month reinfection rate of 3.9 percent, making the decrease 41 percent.

One of the oldest and best-known AIDS clinics in the state, Health Education Resource Organization, better known as HERO, will shut its doors within weeks. City Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein said the city and state health departments and Baltimore Homeless Services - the three agencies that oversee the bulk of HERO's federal grants - decided to "move those grants to other providers," by mid-December. "From my perspective, this is a decision to protect the patients," he said.

The Severna Park boys soccer team put a history lesson to good use in successfully defending its county championship last week. Despite playing a man down for nearly 60 minutes, the Falcons defeated Chesapeake, 1-0. First-year coach Roy Dunshee, a self-proclaimed history buff whose father taught the subject, recently talked to his team about the Seige of Bastogne during World War II. A smaller battle in and around the Belgian town during the larger Battle...

Gertrude Noel was homeless and bipolar, suffering from a complex set of health problems that helped keep her on the street. Seventeen years ago, she came to a new Baltimore clinic, Health Care for the Homeless, where she got counseling, treatment for mental illness and drug addiction, and regular checkups. Now her health is improved, her mental illness is under control and she has moved into a home in Charles Village. "I was worse without them," she said. Today, as many as 300 people - including Gov. Martin O'Malley, Mayor Sheila Dixon, U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings - are expected to celebrate the groundbreaking for a new, expanded clinic.

In a stark reversal of a long-term trend, more early-stage breast cancer patients are choosing mastectomy, despite evidence that the aggressive, disfiguring surgery has the same survival rate as removing the malignant lump, new research shows. The study by doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., suggests that a more detailed screening technique may have led additional women to have their breasts removed. But researchers also found a rise in mastectomies among women who weren't examined with the new magnetic resonance imaging technology.

Sure, fill out a living will because it might let you and your loved ones avoid heartache and agony at the end of your life. But here's another reason: It'll potentially save your heirs and society tens of thousands of dollars. Especially in Maryland, which is one of the most expensive places in the country to become terminally ill, according to newly published research. Only 34 percent of Marylanders have living wills, says Dan Morhaim, a physician and Baltimore County delegate. He and Johns Hopkins public health professor Keshia Pollack just did a survey that he says will be the first study of its kind when they publish.

Marian Brody, a retired psychologist who worked in a clinic for returning World War II servicemen, died of cancer Monday at her Village of Cross Keys home. She was 86. Born Marian Elizabeth Holen in Evanston, Ill., she earned an associate's degree from Stephens College in fine arts and later received a fellowship to continue her education in that field. As a young woman, she designed shop windows and a marquee for a movie theater. "Everything she did in her life was very beautiful," said her daughter, Julie Anne Brody of Boulder, Colo.

New SPCA spay-neuter clinic targets pit bulls, feral cats The Maryland SPCA announced the opening of its new, low-cost spay-neuter clinic yesterday and said the program will initially be directed at pit bulls and feral cats. The new clinic "targets the two most vulnerable pets that end up in shelters - pit bulls and cats - by providing services to reduce their numbers," said Mary-Ann Pinkard, president of the Maryland SPCA board of directors. The theme of yesterday's opening - keyed to Valentine's Day - was "Show your Pit the Love.