doctors and nurses

In late 2019, the patient's choice to move to an assisted living facility seemed like a good idea — a chance for more social interaction and help with meals and medical care.

Health & Safety

Choices, Chance And Living While You Can: Bookends To The Year Of COVID-19

7:58pm December 31, 2020

by John Henning Schumann

One of my patients in this devastating year stands out — a veteran who'd survived PTSD, cancer and family estrangement. Assisted living raised his COVID-19 risk, but also brought him community.

Nerissa Black works as a telemetry nurse at the Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital in Valencia, Calif. Since early December, she's been tasked with caring for six critically ill patients per shift instead of four.

Health & Safety

California Is Overriding Its Limits On Nurse Workloads As COVID-19 Surges

12:32pm December 30, 2020

by April Dembosky

The state has a law strictly regulating nurse-to-patient staffing ratios in hospitals. But the governor recently said hospitals could lift those limits in pandemic times, and nurses are crying foul.

Lisa Taylor got a COVID-19 vaccination in August as part of a vaccine study at Research Centers of America in Hollywood, Fla.

Health & Safety

When Might You Expect Your 1st COVID-19 Shot?

6:54pm December 10, 2020

by Pien Huang

In the U.S., front-line health care workers are likely first in line to get immunized with a COVID-19 vaccine, once the FDA says yes. But what about the rest of us? Here's what we know so far.

A proposed rule could cause headaches and extra work for the successor of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, seen with President Trump in November.

Trump HHS Proposal Criticized As Burden For Biden Administration

11:28am December 09, 2020

by Phil Galewitz

The rule would require health officials to review about 2,400 regulations on everything from Medicare benefits to prescription drugs approvals. Those not analyzed within two years would become void.

Gen. Gustave Perna tells NPR that if a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration in December, "10 to 30 million doses of vaccine will be available that we can start distributing" in the United States.

Operation Warp Speed's Logistics Chief Weighs In On Vaccine Progress

9:35pm November 09, 2020

by Pien Huang

Gen. Gustave Perna says as soon as the FDA deems a vaccine safe and effective, his team is ready to coordinate deployment of tens of millions of doses as early as next month.

Medical staff members treat a patient with COVID-19 last week in the intensive care unit of United Memorial Medical Center in Houston. Once a COVID-19 vaccine is available, experts say immunizing health workers first is the best way to curb deaths and sto

First COVID-19 Vaccine Doses To Go To Health Workers, Say CDC Advisers

8:26pm November 05, 2020

by Pien Huang

A team of independent advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a science-based outline for deploying a vaccine when it's ready. The goal is to stop deaths and viral spread fast.

Worried registered nurses held a vigil in July at Sutter Health's Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland, Calif., to remember their colleague Janine Paiste-Ponder, who caught the coronavirus, likely from a patient, and died from complications.

Some Hospitals Fail To Separate COVID-19 Patients, Putting Others At Risk

12:30pm September 10, 2020

by Christina Jewett

Nurses say COVID-19 patients have sometimes been housed in the same units as uninfected patients. While officials have penalized nursing homes for such failures, hospitals have seen less scrutiny.

When the pandemic hit this spring, U.S. rural hospitals lost an estimated 70% of their income as patients avoided the emergency room, doctor's appointments and elective surgeries. "It was devastating," says Maggie Elehwany of the National Rural Health Ass

Health & Safety

Rural Hospitals Are Sinking Under COVID-19 Financial Pressures

7:00am August 22, 2020

by Sarah Jane Tribble

America's rural hospitals were struggling even before the pandemic. Now, the loss of revenue from months of deferred treatments and surgeries have pulled more to the brink, as federal relief fades.

Dr. Danielle Hairston, a psychiatry residency director at Howard University in Washington, D.C., trains and mentors young black doctors.

To Be Young, A Doctor And Black: Overcoming Racial Barriers In Medical Training

7:00am July 01, 2020

by Yuki Noguchi

Young African American doctors say they hope to change the lack of access to medicine in underserved communities. But many say the system that trains them also alienates them.

Dr. Danielle Ofri, author of When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error, says medical mistakes are likely to increase as resource-strapped hospitals treat a rapid influx of COVID-19 patients.

A Doctor Confronts Medical Errors — And Flaws In The System That Create Mistakes

3:11pm June 30, 2020

by Dave Davies

Dr. Danielle Ofri says medical errors are more common than most people realize: "If we don't talk about the emotions that keep doctors and nurses from speaking up, we'll never solve this problem."

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