School Of Medicine

* Dr. Leonard N. Howard has joined the Department of Pathology at Mercy Medical Center. Board certified by the American Board of Pathology, Anatomic & Clinical Pathology, Howard has extensive professional experience at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in the Departments of Gynecologic and Breast Pathology, Orthopedic Pathology, and Hepatic and Gastrointestinal Pathology. He also served as chief of Anatomic Pathology and chief of the Department of Pathology at Dewitt Army Community Hospital in Fort Belvoir, Va. Howard earned his medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine.

As people live longer and suffer from more chronic diseases, the risk of inappropriately using drugs or overmedicating increases among the elderly, says Susan Zieman, geriatric cardiologist and assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Most elderly people are on multiple medications and frequently metabolize drugs differently from younger people, she says. The drugs may build up in their systems and interact with other drugs in unexpected ways.

Howard hospital names departmental chairmen Dr. William F. Atha has been appointed director of the emergency medicine department at Howard County General Hospital. He recently served as deputy director of the department; then, as interim director. Board certified in emergency medicine, Dr. Atha received his medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and completed his residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Michael G. Macon has been elected chairman of the hospital's surgery department.

The prognosis for people with knee osteoarthritis isn't so bleak as it might seem in the wake of a study finding that arthroscopic surgery, once hailed as promising, may not be the best option. That study, released in the Sept. 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, suggested that those who underwent the surgery didn't fare any better in the long run than their counterparts who received physical therapy. During the surgery, small incisions are made through which a small camera and surgical instruments are inserted.

The term "male pattern baldness" is familiar to most people. But many women, too, suffer from hair loss, says Lisa Earnest Ishii, assistant professor for facial plastic and reconstructive surgery in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine's department of otolaryngology and neck surgery. Everyone "sheds" or loses some hair; what do doctors consider "hair loss" that could lead to thinning of the hair or balding? In general, hair loss greater than 100 hairs a day is considered abnormal. Otherwise, it is based upon what you see: Obviously, if you start to see the scalp showing through the hair, that is abnormal.