With Mass. Flu Season In Full Swing, Emergency Department Reports Crowding
Specialists say a fever alone, worrisome as it is, is not enough to go to the ER, and most younger, otherwise healthy patients with flu should call their doctor or go to urgent care.
View ArticleCan Emergency Rooms Hold Psychiatric Patients Longer Than 3 Days? The Mass....
Although state law says a psychiatric patient can be involuntarily hospitalized for up to three days, many stay in the ER much longer. A lower court ruled that a hospital must adhere to the same...
View ArticleMouse Meals Laced With A Vaccine Might Be Key To Slowing Lyme Disease
“The idea here is to vaccinate the mice,” Stafford says. “What we’ve done is incorporate a Lyme disease vaccine in an oral bait that would immunize them. That would prevent ticks feeding on those...
View ArticleNortheastern Student Diagnosed With Measles
Boston public health officials say the student may have exposed others to the disease around campus, at nearby businesses and at Logan International Airport.
View ArticleStudy Offers A Mixed Bag For Opioid Users Taking Benzos
Patients prescribed benzodiazepines -- or "benzos" -- were less likely to stop taking their buprenorphine, an addiction medication that eases opioid cravings.
View ArticleMass. Court Rules Patients Don't Have A Right To Physician-Assisted Suicide,...
The court ruled in a case brought by a Cape Cod physician with advanced prostate cancer who wanted the option to choose death with his physician's help if his suffering grew too great.
View ArticleEx-Drug Company Execs Face Reckoning In Opioid Bribery Case
The founder and former top employees of a pharmaceutical company are being sentenced in a bribery scheme that prosecutors say helped fuel the national opioid epidemic.
View ArticleJustina Pelletier's Family And Boston Children's Hospital Are Heading To Court
Pelletier had been diagnosed at Tufts Medical Center with mitochondrial disease, but Boston Children's diagnosed her problems as psychiatric. When her parents rejected that diagnosis and tried to take...
View ArticleBoston Hospital Leader: U.S. Health Care Has A Bureaucracy Problem
Tufts Medical Center CEO Dr. Mike Apkon says he used to think the U.S. health care system was the best in the world. After working at a hospital in Toronto where the financial functions were a fraction...
View Article'I See This Story A Lot, But It's Hidden': A Dermatologist On Ayanna...
“My dermatologist spoke to me with hushed tones as if someone died. [The video] reduces the shame of it," said Alba Anthony, a woman from New York who posted about her own diagnosis of alopecia after...
View ArticleResearchers Estimate 2 Million American Heart Patients Use Cannabis, Urge...
The evidence is limited, but the researchers say it suggests patients at the highest risk -- including after a recent heart attack or abnormal heart rhythm -- should limit or avoid marijuana.
View Article'This Will Stay With Her': Family, Boston Children's Hospital Offer Differing...
Attorneys accused doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital of ignoring Justina Pelletier’s earlier diagnosis of mitochondrial disease and disregarded the treatment plan put in place by her doctors at...
View ArticleHow Stress Turns Hair White: Harvard Study Points To 'Fight-Or-Flight' Response
Harvard stem cell researchers find that when stress over-activates the sympathetic nervous system, it leads to depletion of the stem cells that generate hair pigment cells.
View ArticleMass. Teen Dies In State's First Fatal Pediatric Flu Case Of Season, DPH Says
A Worcester County teenager has died of the flu in the state's first fatal pediatric case this season, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
View ArticleWhere N.H. Democrats And The 2020 Candidates Stand On Drug Crisis Policies
A new WBUR poll finds that 66% of likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire agree, for example, with the idea of decriminalizing possession of small amounts of drugs.
View ArticleThe Real Epidemic: Not Burnout But 'Moral Injury' Of Doctors Unable To Do...
A harrowing personal experience opens a physician's eyes to how many medical staffers feel "shackled, straitjacketed and hamstrung" by the health care system, knowing what patients need but unable to...
View ArticleIn N.H., 2 People Are Being Tested For Suspected Coronavirus, State Health...
The two people had recently visited Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the infectious disease outbreak where travel restrictions are now in place to contain the virus.
View Article"I Wanted To Go Home": Sobbing, Justina Pelletier Describes Commitment At...
Pelletier says she was in severe pain due to a rare condition when she was locked in a psychiatric ward against her will and doctors limited contact with her family. But her former psychiatrist says...
View ArticleCoronavirus Outbreak Resembles SARS, But Virus Experts Say Science Moves Far...
Compared to the SARS outbreak in 2003, medical information is flowing more quickly and science advancing far more rapidly in the outbreak of the new coronavirus centered in Wuhan, China.
View ArticleOfficials: N.H. Residents Previously Suspected Of Having Coronavirus Have...
Two patients, who had recently traveled to Wuhan, China -- the epicenter of the infectious disease outbreak -- tested negative for the disease and have recovered, state health officials said in a...
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