Procedure

Oh, no! Here we go again with another "awareness conversation" ("Breast cancer: Angelina Jolie starts the conversation," May 16). After the fortunes raised by Race for the Cure and the other breast cancer groups, must we consider having both our breasts removed? I'm beginning to think being a woman is a life-long death sentence. In "starting the conversation," why didn't Angelina Jolie mention how much her surgery, reconstruction and rehabilitation cost? If an initial exam is $3,000, what is the price of the entire procedure?

State health regulators suspended the licenses of several abortion clinics owned by Associates in OB/GYN Care for the second time after an employee with no health care license or certification gave a patient a drug to induce an abortion at the Baltimore facility. The same employee also performed an ultrasound on the woman, although the employee wasn't trained in the procedure, according to records released Friday by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. There also was no physician at the clinic, even though the woman had scheduled an appointment for a May 4 procedure.

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.

Oh, no! Here we go again with another "awareness conversation" ("Breast cancer: Angelina Jolie starts the conversation," May 16). After the fortunes raised by Race for the Cure and the other breast cancer groups, must we consider having both our breasts removed? I'm beginning to think being a woman is a life-long death sentence. In "starting the conversation," why didn't Angelina Jolie mention how much her surgery, reconstruction and rehabilitation cost? If an initial exam is $3,000, what is the price of the entire procedure?

Former president Bill Clinton was released Friday morning from a New York hospital, where he stayed overnight after doctors inserted two stents into a clogged coronary artery after he complained of chest pains. The one-hour procedure went smoothly, according to his cardiologist. Clinton, 63, was released from New York Presbyterian Hospital's campus at Columbia University early Friday morning "in excellent health" and will soon return to his work on Haiti's relief and long-term recovery, his office said.

Orioles catcher Taylor Teagarden, acquired in the offseason to be a veteran reserve to Matt Wieters, said Tuesday that he's about 85 percent healthy after having two procedures on his right knee. Teagarden had a Baker's cyst - a buildup of joint fluid - behind his right knee removed in November. Doctors had to perform another procedure in the knee to remove blood that was forming in the back of the knee and affecting his range of motion. “That's all behind me now, and now it's just a strengthening phase and getting into baseball shape,” Teagarden said.

Patricia Kowalczyk had been suffering with neck and shoulder pain for years when her doctor offered her a shot of Botox. The 60-year-old wasn't interested in smoothing her frown lines. But Johns Hopkins' Dr. Paul Christo wasn't offering the popular cosmetic procedure most often associated with the botulinum toxin that paralyzes nerves and muscles. He wanted to give her one small, carefully aimed dose to knock out the ache that made daily activity a chore. "Most of the public doesn't realize Botox is used for medical purposes," said Christo, an assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine in Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's division of pain medicine.

Harbor Hospital Center recently began performing an innovative gall bladder procedure, called the laparoscopic cholecystectomy, a procedure previously available only at large research institutions.The operation includes the use of video monitors and specialized surgical instruments to dissect and extract the gall bladder through a tiny incision in the patient's navel.In the recent past, most patients who had gall bladder surgery required a long and painful recovery process, since surgeons had to cut through stomach muscles to reach the gall bladder.

An evaluation of more than 6,000 children scheduled to have tubes placed in their ears to combat recurrent ear infections indicates that the procedure is inappropriate in about one-quarter of cases and of questionable benefit in another third.The children in the study ranged in age from 22 days to 16 years.The finding suggests that each year hundreds of thousands of children who undergo the tube procedure are unlikely to benefit from it and some may even be harmed.

For Liz Abate, choosing a new medical treatment without much of a track record was not as scary as the way she was living. Abate suffered from gastroesophageal reflux disease, better known as GERD. The Towson resident had to sleep sitting up because of severe heartburn. And not keeping food down was a common problem at all times of the day. She took medicine and followed a strict diet of eating little or no fried, spicy or acidic foods. And she made sure she ate early in the evening, well before she went to bed. But instead of medication and lifestyle changes helping, her problem worsened.

To those who support "choice" at all costs: Read the grand jury report on Kermit Gosnell. He is the Philadelphia abortion doctor awaiting a verdict in his trial, where he is accused of murdering four babies allegedly born alive and killing 41-year-old refugee Karnamaya Mongar. The charges represent only a fraction of the horrors that went on at the Women's Medical Society clinic, according to the report, where hundreds of children died by "snipping" - his term for sticking scissors into the back of a baby's neck and cutting its spinal cord - and where women were routinely butchered in late-term abortions by untrained medical staff and doped up according to how much they could pay. Here are some lowlights from the report: •"A nineteen-year-old girl was held for several hours after Gosnell punctured her uterus.

You do not have to look far to understand why U.S. health care is so expensive and uneven in quality. A recurrent offender advertises walk-in ultrasound testing of blood vessels and whatever other asymptomatic part you may choose to pay for. Worried older folks can feel lucky that it appears that Medicare would reimburse for the tests. But in fact, the whole course of tests and treatments encouraged by these ads will not improve your life expectancy - and could even have some chance of decreasing it. Shouldn't we read these solicitations as symptoms of a very readily eliminated illness that plagues our health care system?

State health officials have suspended surgical abortion procedures at three clinics, including one in Baltimore where a patient suffered cardiac arrest and later died at a hospital. The physician who performed the abortion at Associates in OB/GYN Care LLC on North Calvert Street wasn't certified in CPR and a defibrillator at the facility did not work, state officials said in a letter Friday to the General Assembly. Although the cardiac arrest was caused by underlying health conditions and not the abortion, investigators found that it raised questions whether doctors at the clinic can handle an abortion that goes wrong.

On Feb. 15, the Baltimore City Democratic State Central Committee-45th District convened at the Oliver Community Center to select a candidate to assume the seat once held by Del. Hattie Harrison, a longtime political stalwart in East Baltimore who died last month. Ten candidates interviewed for the position, three of whom were also members of the committee conducting the interviews, before Nina Harper, director of the Oliver Community Association, was chosen for the position. At no time did the chair or committee members appear to think it was inappropriate for them to participate as final arbiters of the decision as to who should succeed Delegate Harrison.

In a Maryland case that's garnered the attention of the other 49 states, the federal Department of Justice and the national science community, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday over whether to restrict police in collecting DNA to solve crimes. The justices will rule on a police practice common in Maryland: taking genetic information from individuals arrested — but not convicted — to link them to unsolved crimes. In the past, the court has acknowledged the power of DNA but has not allowed it to run afoul of fundamental American rights such as the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches.

Harvard's sophomore class took a big hit this past week, as seven players in that class are no longer on the team's roster. Defensemen Jack Breit and Stephen Jahelka ; midfielders Sean Mahon , Keegan Michel (McDonogh) and Grove Stewart ; and attackmen Matt Scalise and Will Walker are not on the team's roster for 2013. A Harvard spokesman confirmed the players are not on the roster for 2013 but would not speculate on whether they would be back on the roster in the future.

Ellen Carpenter delayed marriage until she found Mr. Right, but by that time she was 38 years old, making it much more difficult to have children. After getting pregnant with the help of hormone injections, the Frederick County resident lost the baby — a girl with severe body malformations — in the first trimester. She explored other options and chose to use frozen eggs from a donor. Today, Carpenter is the mother of a rambunctious 18-month-old named Zachary. A growing number of women are turning to frozen eggs to solve their fertility problems as the controversial procedure that long raised safety concerns slowly gains acceptance.

The Maryland Senate voted yesterday to ban a late-term abortion procedure, the first time either chamber of the General Assembly has approved a major abortion restriction since the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision.The 25-22 vote sends the measure to the House, where another close vote is expected if the issue reaches the floor.Gov. Parris N. Glendening has pledged to veto the legislation because it does not include an exception to allow the procedure -- termed "partial-birth abortion" by opponents -- to protect a mother's health.

A soldier who lost all of his limbs in the Iraq War received double arm transplants at Johns Hopkins Hospital last month in a rare procedure that has already begun to restore some normalcy to his life. Hopkins doctors are to speak in detail about the rare procedure performed on 26-year-old Brendan Marrocco in a press briefing today. The Army infantryman lost his arms and legs in a roadside bomb attack in 2009 becoming the first soldier of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to lose all four limbs in combat and survive.

Brendan Marrocco sometimes looks down at his arms and can't believe they really exist. Until six weeks ago, the 26-year-old didn't have arms. He lost both of his, as well as his legs, in the Iraq War when the armored vehicle he was driving ran over a bomb in 2009. He was the first soldier of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to lose all four limbs in combat and survive. But Marrocco has arms again because of a rare double transplant performed by a team of surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital on Dec. 18. Marrocco wheeled himself into a media briefing Tuesday using his new limbs.