Medicine

Orb's path to the finish line in the second leg of the Triple Crown remains uncrowded. Normandy Invasion, the fourth-place finisher in the Kentucky Derby, dropped from contention for Saturday's 138th running of the Preakness on Sunday. Trainer Chad Brown and owner Rick Porter decided to stick with their original plan and point the horse toward prestigous races for 3-year-olds later in the summer. That leaves Orb, the colt co-owned by Baltimore County resident Stuart Janney III and Ogden Mills "Dinny" Pipps' stable, with only seven confirmed challengers at this point.

Dr. Frederick L. Brancati, an internationally known expert on the epidemiology and prevention of type 2 diabetes who was director of the Division of General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, died Tuesday of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, at his Lutherville home. He was 53. "He was a delightful human being — smart, witty and fun to be around," said Dr. Michael J. Klag, dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whom Dr. Brancati succeeded as division chief.

Hernias are a common ailment among Americans; more than 4 million people develop the painful condition. And although both men and women develop hernias, female patients may be harder to diagnose. Doctors and patients may not realize the abdominal pain a woman is feeling is because of a hernia. Dr. Hien Nguyen, assistant professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said the pain can be mistaken for other conditions with similar symptoms, such as adhesions from prior surgery, endometriosis, fibroids and ovarian cysts.

Kaci DeWitt-Rickards remembers being a chunky kid with a steady diet of Burger King chicken tenders, vanilla milkshakes and Papa John's pizza. By her sophomore year in college at the University of Miami, her adolescent pudge had ballooned into a weight problem. The 5-foot-4 exercise physiology major hit her heaviest weight ever that fall in 2010, weighing in at 167 pounds. She felt bad about herself and didn't have a lot of energy. But most of all, she felt like a hypocrite as she studied for a career to help people stay fit. "If you're going to go out and teach a healthy lifestyle, you have to live it," DeWitt-Rickards remembers a professor saying that fall semester.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently received a gag gift of protective headgear after she suffered a concussion and blood clot near her brain after a fall. While Clinton can now make light of the injuries, a blood clot can be a serious health risk that can lead to death. Dr. James L. Frazier, III, a neurosurgeon at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, talks about the dangers. What causes a blood clot to form in the brain? A blood clot or thrombus can form in the arteries that supply blood to the brain.

In the mid-1980s when I was a graduate student in England, my parents came to visit and my mother ended up getting a first-hand look at socialized medicine. It was dad and mom's one-and-only trip to Europe -- a very big deal -- and I wanted to show them as much as I could. We crossed the English Channel to France and drove to see the cathedral at Chartres. The first night there, mom slipped and sprained her ankle. By morning, she couldn't walk and was in need of a doctor. We ended up at a hospital where, with no wait at all, she got X-rays and a friendly, highly competent female doctor checked her out and wrapped her leg. As we were leaving, my mother asked where she should pay the bill.

A s the century's sleazy first decade coasted to a finish, medicine was perhaps the only profession to emerge unslimed. Wall Street and bond raters caused 10 percent unemployment. Businesses cooked books. Journalists fabricated. Priests abused. Intelligence analysts found fantasy nukes. But doctors, again near the top of last year's Gallup "honesty and ethics" poll, may be prepping for their own Enron moment. Allegations that hundreds of patients at St. Joseph Medical Center received what might have been unneeded heart stents would, if true, combine Bernard Madoff-style fraud with Toyota-style injury.

The U.S. New & World Report graduate school rankings  are out and Johns Hopkins University has moved up from 3rd to a tie for 2nd with the University of Pennsylvania. They were behind top-ranked Harvard University. But they beat out Stanford University and the University of California-San Francisco. The University of Maryland was tied for 37th with Oregon Health and Science University, moving up one slot from 38th. There were 126 accredited medical schools and 23 accredited osteopathic medicine schools included in the rankings.

The BWI Business Partnership's Signature Breakfast will be held Wednesday, Oct. 17, from 7:45 to 9:15 a.m., at the Westin BWI Airport Hotel, 1110 Old Elkridge Landing Road, in Linthicum Heights. Featured speaker at the breakfast will be E. Albert Reece, dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, which has close ties to the area's business community. Reece is also the vice president for medical affairs at the university and a professor in the departments of obstetrics and gynecology, medicine and biochemistry, and molecular biology.

The Supreme Court's decision in the Westboro Baptist case follows our constitutional protections for free speech. Why don't people exercise that right by picketing there? Go to Westboro! Same-sex couples and veterans should join in a show of support for slain soldiers and denounce this bigotry with many rallies right on Westboro's doorsteps. Aren't there VFW's in Kansas? Where are they? Freedom of speech goes both ways. Ron Kuhns, Nottingham

Nearly 1,800 pounds of unused and expired medication was turned in Harford County by more than 500 people during the Nationwide Prescription Drug Take Back Day Saturday, April 27. The 1,782 pounds of medicine turned in was properly disposed of and destroyed. This effort will significantly help in addressing the alarming rate of drug overdoses relating to prescription and over-the-counter medicines, county officials said. Nationally, an estimated 6.2 million Americans over the age of 12 years old reported misusing prescription drugs.

I have followed Dr. Ben Carson's accomplishments over the years and watched as he has saved lives. In the quiet of an operating room, he saved children's lives with no regard of race, creed or gender. If it was any one of these people's children he saved, would they be barking about him right now ("Dr. Ben Carson steps down as speaker at Hopkins graduation," April 11)? Or would they stand up for him because he believes in something they don't? Dr. Carson says what he believes in. I never heard him say everyone else must believe in it also.

Many Americans would be surprised to learn that chimpanzees are still being used in biomedical research and that millions of other animals are utilized in consumer product and toxicity testing. Others may find a sense of security in knowing that this practice continues to provide information on which chemicals and products are deemed safe. The fact is that it doesn't have to be this way, and there are a number of public health, economic and animal welfare reasons to change our ways. The evolving process by which the U.S. regulates chemicals is important to every American household.

A new report by the National Patient Safety Foundation published in the AMA News found that health care workers are toiling in hazardous environments where they are subjected to physical and verbal abuse from colleagues and exposed to relentless stress generated by administrative greed. The push to see more patients in less time has placed doctors and nurses at breaking point. Many are burning out and losing the joy inherent in practicing a humane profession. The patient-doctor relationship has been decimated with insurers and the government playing doctor in lieu of health-care providers.

I was mildly distressed to read that the renowned Johns Hopkins Hospital neurosurgeon, Dr. Benjamin Carson, is considering a post-retirement career in politics ("Ben Carson says he will retire, hints at politics," March 17). I fully understand his desire to retire from what must be a physically, mentally and emotionally demanding profession. Nonetheless, consider how much good he has done and could continue to do if he decided to pursue a direction that enables him to pass on his skills and to advise on medical matters.

Low libido can not only ruin a women's sex life but could also cause her to miss out on some key health benefits. Dr. Valerie Omicioli, a certified menopause practitioner and clinical assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said that low sexual desire is something that women should not ignore. What are some of the common causes of low libido in women? The word libido refers not only to the desire for sex, but also sexual thoughts, fantasies, responsiveness and willingness to engage in sexual activity.

Thank you for writing the article shining a light on anti-choice people who harass and humiliate people and their families who are not breaking any laws ("Abortion fight widens," May 11). To think that these people would go to a man's middle-school aged daughter's school to defame the girl and her family because the girl's dad rents space to abortion providers is deplorable. These anti-choice fanatics should get a taste of their own medicine by receiving calls and visits to their neighborhoods and schools.

A simple automated telephone call may be enough to convice people to take their medicine, a study by Kasier Permanente has found. As part of the study, an automated telephone call was made to patients on cholesteral-reducing drugs who hadn't picked up their medicine two weeks after it was prescribed. A letter was sent a week later if patients still hadn't filled their prescriptions. The calls and letters informed people about the importance of taking the medication and encouraged them to have prescription filled or to call their doctor.

Scientists at the nation's leading research institutions are warning that continued uncertainty over federal funding could lead to a brain drain that will undermine the country's global status in medicine. With funding at the National Institutes of Health stagnant since 2003 and other countries increasing research spending, some scientists have chosen to work overseas rather than endure what they expect will be a years-long wait for the grants they need to launch their careers in the United States.

A surgeon enters the operating room, offers his hands to a nurse and watches as she helps him into his rubber gloves with a snap. He glances at the patient on the table. A cloth covers the man's torso but for one area. Three trocars - tubes into which the doctor will slide high-tech cables - protrude from the abdomen. The procedure is nothing new for Dr. Adrian Park, a surgeon at Anne Arundel Medical Center who has fixed thousands of abdominal walls, watching his handiwork on a video screen as he replaces herniated tissue with state-of-the-art mesh.