Doctors

Sometimes it's easy for Vincent Vono to feel down about having to live with Parkinson's disease. The disease has snatched his independence and sense of a normal life. The 76-year-old stopped driving last year as his motor skills slowed. He doesn't cook much because it is too exhausting to clean up afterward. Even a short walk across his tiny apartment is a task some days. But for all the disease has taken away from Vono, it has fostered and strengthened a love for art that first developed when he was a boy. Painting is the one thing that still comes easily to Vono.

Linda Teixeira, of Laurel, is no stranger to emergency rooms. Her daughter is on dialysis and has other related health issues that require emergency care on a regular basis. What is new for Teixeira is that on this particular evening, she's waiting for her daughter in Laurel Regional Hospital's waiting room. "We live up the street and could walk here, but she was here a couple of times in the past and the service wasn't good, so we had been going to Howard General," Teixeira said.

Dr. Rondalyn Whitney, of Towson, was recently named assistant professor of occupational therapy at the University of the Sciences, in Philadelphia. Previously, she served as the senior research coordinator at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. At Kennedy Krieger, Whitney's work focused on social skills intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders, and she innovated projects related to the use of artificial intelligence and scenario-based education to optimize learning for students with social deficits.

Dr. Christy Anna Hipsley, of Berlin, Germany, daughter of Bruce and Shelly Hipsley of Bel Air, and granddaughter of Stephen and Helen Saradin, received her doctorate degree in biology on Aug. 16 from the University of California and has accepted a post-doctorate position with the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany. Hipsley received her master's degree from Lund University in Sweden, her bachelor's degree from N.C. State and is a 1995 graduate of Bel Air High School.

I cherish my Roman Catholic faith, which supports authentic marriage between one man and one woman. The church's teachings are often misinterpreted to be difficult and countercultural, however they are always grounded in truth. The truth is that marriage is not a right but recognition of the only relationship capable of producing children. Authentic marriage is critical to the health and well being of children. As a physician, I can tell you that the best available published scientific evidence indicates that marriage between one man and one woman in a stable relationship is the optimal situation for healthy development of children.

The rapid decline in health and ultimate death of a woman from fungal meningitis at Johns Hopkins Hospital after she'd received a tainted steroid injection was outlined by a team of Hopkins doctors in a medical journal article released online Thursday. The article, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, says a 51-year-old woman arrived at a local emergency room at the end of August with a headache "radiating" from the back of her head to her face. She'd received the steroid injection a week earlier.

A Towson law firm has accused eight more doctors of playing a role in implanting unnecessary heart stents in patients at St. Joseph Medical Center, where cardiologist Dr. Mark Midei was accused of performing the procedure in hundreds of patients who didn't need them. The law firm of Kenny & Vettori filed claims on behalf of 39 patients this month with Maryland's Health Care Alternative Dispute Resolution Office, which arbitrates malpractice cases. The claims are the latest in a string of legal actions against the embattled cardiologist and hospital.

That chronic groin pain sometimes felt by athletes may be called a sports hernia, but it's not really a hernia at all, according to Dr. Katherine G. Lamond, assistant professor of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and a surgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center. She said they are different from what's normally thought of as a hernia and sometimes tough to diagnose. But once doctors determine that this is the cause, there is effective treatment. What is the difference between a sports hernia and other types of hernias?

Americans are making fewer visits to the doctor even if they are in poor health, new U.S. Census data has found. Working age adults visited the doctor about 3.9 times in 2010, down from 4.8 visits in 2001. Older people were more likely to visit a doctor than younger people, as were women compared to men. For those who defined their health as fair or poor, the average number of annual visits dropped from 12.9 to 11.6 during the period. Americans were even less likely to visit a dentist.

Sherrie Walter will never wear earrings again, but recently started styling her hair in a ponytail the way she used to before she was diagnosed with skin cancer nearly four years ago. It's a big step for Walter, whose life was turned upside down when doctors finally figured out the persistent sore in her ear was actually basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of cancer. By then it had spread so much that the Bel Air mother of two had to have part of her skull and most of her left ear removed.