University Of Maryland

That chronic groin pain sometimes felt by athletes may be called a sports hernia, but it's not really a hernia at all, according to Dr. Katherine G. Lamond, assistant professor of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and a surgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center. She said they are different from what's normally thought of as a hernia and sometimes tough to diagnose. But once doctors determine that this is the cause, there is effective treatment. What is the difference between a sports hernia and other types of hernias?

Days after undergoing gastric bypass surgery, Brenda Maker's diabetes was gone — her body producing enough of the hormone insulin to turn sugar into fuel. It's a phenomenon seen in recent years by doctors who increasingly are using the operation not only to help patients lose weight and improve their health generally but specifically to address the national epidemic of Type 2 diabetes. Now some researchers at the University of Maryland believe their work may explain why the surgery succeeds, and how a common drug may be used to induce similar effects.

Drive west on Mile Lane in Allegany County, then crest the ridge in the road, and all of a sudden, the big barn on Leaning Pine Farm bursts out of the surrounding countryside like a display of fireworks. Eight-sided stars wheel exuberantly against the weathered boards in hues reflecting the natural surroundings: water blue and grass green, sunset orange and the brown of turned furrows. Passing motorists honk or slow down. A few get out to chat with artist Bill Dunlap, who is about a third of the way through a project to paint a large-scale mural on at least one barn in each of the state's 23 counties.

A federal court has dismissed a case against a rehabilitation hospital owned by the University of Maryland Medical System that was accused of diagnosing patients with a rare malnutrition-related disorder to collect bigger Medicare and Medicaid payments. The federal government filed a $8.1 million lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Kernan Hospital last year, saying the West Baltimore facility manipulated its computer system to show that patients suffered from kwashiorkor, a disease most typically found in impoverished regions.

Rachel Tova Minkove, a University of Maryland School of Social Work student who wanted to assist young adults as they fought cancer, died of Hodgkin's lymphoma complications July 29 at her Cheswolde home. She was 28. Born in Baltimore, she was the daughter of Dr. Judah Minkove, an internist, and Judith Fruchter Minkove, a Johns Hopkins Medicine writer and editor. She was raised in Northwest Baltimore and was a 2001 graduate of Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School. She then studied a year in Israel at a Jerusalem seminary school.

An average of twice a day, a patient at the University of Maryland Medical Center has a heart attack, dangerous allergic reaction or other emergency that requires supplies from a crash cart. The carts are the wheeled emergency stations that contain equipment including trays of life-saving drugs. And at Maryland, the trays are now also filled with radio-frequency identification tags that ensure all the medications are there and have not expired. "We rely on these [carts] day in and day out," said Dr. John W. Blenko, an anesthesiologist at Maryland's Shock Trauma Center and an associate professor in Maryland's School of Medicine.

John J. Condon, a former insurance executive and sports fan, died Sunday of pneumonia at his Columbia home. He was 87. The son of an accountant and a homemaker, John Joseph Condon was born in Canandaigua, N.Y., and moved in 1929 to Forest Park with his family. He was raised on Garrison Boulevard and Euclid Avenue. He was a 1943 graduate of Mount St. Joseph High School in Irvington, where he was a quarterback on the football team and starting catcher on the baseball team. Mr. Condon was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 1987.

When he gets talking about his lab, Gary Hack sounds like he's composing science fiction — a mix of technological wonder and unsettling questions about machines rendering humanity useless. Even the name of the space, the Dream Room, suggests epic horizons. Here's the funny thing: Gary Hack is a dentist. Actually, he's a professor of dentistry at the University of Maryland. Yes, this futurist works in the realm of childhood nightmares, of medieval-looking metal devices and goopy gels that never actually taste like cherry or bubble gum. But it's Hack's charge at the School of Dentistry to find the frontier.

Anne Arundel County police officers are looking for a hit-and-run driver who struck a 64-year-old bicyclist in Hanover on Sunday morning, sending him to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center. According to the Anne Arundel County Police Department and Shock Trauma Center spokesperson Cindy Rivers, the bicyclist, Stephen Eugene Shenefiel of the 1500 block of Conifer Ridge Lane in Prescott, Arizona, was listed in critical but stable condition as of Sunday night. Officers responded at 7:36 a.m. Sunday to the report of a bicyclist who was struck on Ridge Road near Furnace Avenue.

Mary Ann Rankin, a former longtime administrator at the University of Texas at Austin known for creating the innovative UTeach program to produce math and science teachers, was named provost at the University of Maryland, College Park. Rankin, who will start as College Park's No. 2 academic administrator in October, is currently the CEO of the Dallas-based National Math and Science Initiative. Like UTeach, the public-private partnership was designed to produce more graduates and teachers in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)