Patients

Nearly 250 of the patients who accused cardiologist Dr. Mark Midei of performing unnecessary stent procedures at St. Joseph Medical Center settled their lawsuits against him Thursday, a major step forward in one of the largest medical malpractice cases in state history. The agreement was announced in Baltimore County Circuit Court, where lawyers for Midei, the Towson hospital, its former owner and 21 of the patients have been making arguments for several weeks in the cardiologist's first civil trial.

A Linthicum firm is among several orthotics and prosthetics companies that will offer victims of the Boston Marathon bombing artificial limbs at no charge if their insurance doesn't cover all or some of the costs of the devices. Dankmeyer Inc., founded by an amputee who lost a leg in a childhood skating accident, joined with other firms Tuesday in announcing the Coalition to Walk and Run Again. The companies have agreed not to charge victims who provide a doctor's note proving they don't have insurance to cover the devices, which cost $8,000 to $60,000.

What does it require to get members of Congress to take action quickly and decisively on an issue of federal spending? Now we know. The possibility that they will be delayed in an airport terminal somewhere waiting for a flight out of town is apparently so abhorrent that the usual gridlock and party politics just don't apply. That's the take-away from last week's lightning-fast, lopsided bipartisan votes that transferred more than a quarter-billion dollars to the Federal Aviation Administration budget so that the agency would no longer have to furlough air traffic controllers.

John Jenkins knows the heartache of losing a child. But he and six other families have learned firsthand that such tragic deaths needn't be in vain. Jenkins, 56, lost his 20-year-old son 18 years ago to a motorcycle accident. But when 21-year old Joshua L. Aversano died after being struck by a car last year, Jenkins was one of six people whose lives were dramatically changed by the tragedy. Jenkins had been waiting more than two years for a new heart. Doctors were able to harvest not just Aversano's heart, but his liver, kidneys, pancreas and a lung, which also went to waiting patients.

A Sinai Hospital cardiologist is launching a clinical trial of a type of coronary artery disease drug not yet tested in humans, building on a history at the Baltimore hospital of research to develop more effective treatments to prevent blood clotting. Dr. Paul Gurbel is studying an intravenous drug for patients undergoing cardiac stenting, when mesh tubes are implanted to widen blocked arteries. The drug, known for now as PZ-128, would be given to patients after stent implantation to prevent platelets from sticking together around the device, potentially leading to heart attack.

Linda Fletcher lives in fear of reliving a nightmare: a son dying from a heroin overdose. Her son Kris Klipner succumbed to the drug in 2007. He was 28. Klipner's half-brother battles the same kind of depression as Kris. He suffers the same heroin addiction Kris did. Kirk Fletcher, 29, is in a methadone program to help him avoid the drug. He says he has his addiction under control. But he understands his mother's fear that it will return - just as his brother's did. Linda Fletcher is hopeful that some relief is on the way. New legislation, pushed by Fletcher and other parents, backed by the state health department and passed unanimously this year by both chambers of the Maryland General Assembly, creates a statewide program allowing family members of addicts to be prescribed and trained in administering Naloxone.

At one point Saturday, City Hospital in Martinsburg, W.Va., was so overwhelmed with patients injured on the Tough Mudder obstacle course that it had to turn people away from its emergency room. Two people who participated in the race in nearby Gerrardstown, W.Va., suffered heart attacks, according to Teresa McCabe of West Virginia University Hospitals-East, which runs City Hospital. Ten people had hypothermia, orthopedic injuries or head injuries. And two people were treated for drowning, including Avishek Sengupta, a 28-year-old Ellicott City man who died Sunday.

Although a brilliant surgeon, Dr. Ben Carson must have realized he would also be judged by his views on gay marriage ("Hopkins chides Carson for gay-marriage remarks," April 6). If he had kept them to himself, his thoughts would have remained his personal opinion, which everyone has a right to. But when someone famous for his medical skills publicly shares an opinion as vicious as his, he has crossed a line. As someone who works with physicians and nurses whom Dr. Carson puts into the same category as criminals, I find his attitude cruel and unbecoming.

A Towson cardiologist and his former employer disputed claims during a civil trial Tuesday made by 21 plaintiffs who allege that the doctor performed unnecessary stent procedures to treat heart patients. Dr. Mark Midei, St. Joseph Medical Center and Catholic Health Initiatives are being sued in Baltimore County Circuit Court by former patients of Midei, who claim that the doctor completed an excessive number of the procedures and that the hospital failed to provide any oversight, leaving the patients with lasting medical complications.

Dr. Richard R. Rubin, a Johns Hopkins psychologist who counseled children and adults on how to cope with the emotional effects of diabetes, died of complications from prostate cancer March 25 at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Monkton resident was 69. Born in Lima, Peru, he was the son of Goldie Rubin and Morton Rubin, a scientist who worked in meteorology in South America, Antarctica and South Africa. He lived with his parents in Pretoria, South Africa, and was a 1961 graduate of Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda.