Beagles are known as good hunters. So why not send them in search of deadly bacteria?
hospital
Family MattersBreast-Feeding
Bloomberg’s Breast-Feeding Plan: Will Locking Up Formula Help New Moms?
New York City is calling on hospitals to lock up infant formula like medication and lecture new mothers about the benefits of the breast. Is that going too far? Maybe not
Family MattersParenting
What’s a Bris? L.A. Hospital Launches Workshop for Jewish Parents-to-Be
With fewer Jewish families affiliating with synagogues, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles is reaching out to would-be parents in the hospital.
Bacteria Show Up in Hospital Rooms, Again
We get it — hospitals are crawling with germs. If it’s not your cell phone, the doctor’s coat or even the hands-free water faucet, then it’s the privacy curtain around the bed that’s tainted with unwanted bacteria.
Married Men Seek Heart Help Faster Than Single Men, Married Women
When it comes to seeking care for a heart attack, speed is everything. The faster you get to the hospital, the likelier you are to stay alive and minimize lasting heart damage. Not everyone, however, acts on that wisdom the same …
Watch Out for the Cows. They Might Be Carrying a New Strain of MRSA
The medical news this week has been dominated by the possible carcinogenicity of cell phones and the virulent E. coli outbreak in Europe. But I hope your closet of fear isn’t full yet — I’ve got one more bit of medical worry to …
Family MattersPregnancy
Blizzard Babies: Snow Can’t Stop ‘Em
The cycle of life pays little heed to Mother Nature. Snowdrifts and icy roads? Babies don’t care. Across the country, they defied the massive snowstorm and kept coming, with the help of firetrucks, ambulances, Humvees and, in …
Psychology vs. Psychiatry: What’s the Difference, and Which Is Better?
Psychologists and psychiatrists tend to hate each other. The reasons are historical: beginning even before Freud, psychologists held enormous power over the cultural imagination. The whole idea of psychiatry — an explicitly …
More evidence that hospital checklists may save lives
Earlier this year, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, that included more than 7,000 patients from eight hospitals around the world, found that implementing the use of surgical checklists reduced patient mortality rates by half, and patient injuries by nearly a third. Now, a new study published online in the British
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Communication breakdown in hospital hand-offs
Transferring the care of a patient from one physician to another is a standard—and necessary—part of hospital care. Yet, among trainee doctors, important information often gets overlooked during these hand-offs, according to a new study published in the March issue of the journal Pediatrics. Researchers at the University of Chicago
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After brain surgery, bedside exam as critical as CT scan
For brain surgery patients, a doctor’s bedside exam is still superior to a routine CT scan for identifying potential post-surgical complications, according to a study published in the Journal of Neurosurgery. Researchers from the Department of Neurological Surgery at Loyola University in Chicago examined the records of 251 patients who
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In hospitals, can disinfectant create super bugs?
In hospital settings, disinfectants are regularly used to prevent the spread of bacteria and prevent infection, but a new study published in the January issue of the journal Microbiology, suggests that too much exposure to a disinfectant may actually cause harm by creating bacteria that can not only resist the cleaning product, but some
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Banning flowers in the hospital?
In the last decade or so, there has been a steadily growing trend in U.K. hospitals of banning bedside flowers. Citing the inconvenience of caring for the blooms, the potential hazard of water dripping onto electronic equipment, and the potential “risk of infection” posed by the stagnant water in vases, medical facilities from Dorset in
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