NEWS
By Monae Johnson | May 10, 2012
The Supreme Court's ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, expected in June, will determine the future for countless Americans. Health care reform debates have elevated the plight of millions of uninsured Americans to the national consciousness. However, the physician workforce that would be needed to care for millions of newly insured people deserves equal attention. There is a growing shortage of primary care physicians in the U.S., and it has been forecasted for decades.
HEALTH
By Andrea K. Walker and Scott Calvert, The Baltimore Sun | April 29, 2012
At the ding of a cowbell Sunday, staffers in a command center at the Johns Hopkins Hospital began clapping and yelling out victory cheers. Another department had begun to transfer patients as part of a massive move from Hopkins' aging hospital building to a towering $1.1 billion facility next door. The complicated process, which centered on the delicate task of relocating sick patients, was running according to plan. The official opening Tuesday of the two 12-story towers will mark the final step in the largest hospital project in Maryland history.
HEALTH
By Meredith Cohn | April 25, 2012
Patients may be getting blood transfusion too often during surgery, according to a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers. The study shows wide variation in the use of transfusions, and those who receive blood fare no better, and sometimes do worse. The problem may be that doctors don't have clear guidelines about when to use the expensive and scarce resource. “Over the past five years, studies have supported giving less blood than we used to, and our research shows that practitioners have not caught up,” said Dr. Steven M. Frank, leader of the study published in the journal Anesthesiology . “Blood conservation is one of the few areas in medicine where outcomes can be improved, risk reduced and costs saved all at the same time,” he said in a statement.
NEWS
By Dean Tippett | April 18, 2012
One day in June 2009, I was seeing patients at my neurology practice in Catonsville when I felt a sudden headache and noted my words seemed to be slurred. I called my wife, a speech-language pathologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and asked if she detected a change in my speech. She urged me to go to the hospital, which turned out to be a very good idea. I had suffered a brain hemorrhage and nearly died that day — on my 24th wedding anniversary. One of my secretaries drove me to the emergency room at St. Agnes Hospital, where I had been chief of neurology for about 10 years.
HEALTH
By Meredith Cohn, The Baltimore Sun | April 18, 2012
Sometimes men are the ones to take care of birth control through a surgical procedure. But when those men and their partners have a change of heart about children for any number of reasons, they seek to reverse their vasectomies. And that's usually possible, even long after the original procedure, says Dr. Brad Lerner, co-director of the Vasectomy Reversal Center of America a division of Chesapeake Urology. Lerner answers questions about getting and reversing a vasectomy. How common are vasectomies?
HEALTH
Andrea K. Walker, The Baltimore Sun | April 17, 2012
Severely injured patients are more likely to survive if transported by helicopter rather than ambulance, according to new research by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine that adds fuel to the debate over flying patients to receive care. The study, unveiled Tuesday, is the latest in a body of often conflicting research into whether medevac helicopters get patients to hospitals faster, provide better care and increase the chances of saving lives. The use of helicopters has been scrutinized because of the risk of crashes that could kill the very people paramedics are helping.