Doctors

Health & Safety

A Doctor Wrestles With Whether To Keep Wearing His White Coat

8:11pm November 21, 2015

by John Henning Schumann

Putting on the white coat for the first time has become a rite of passage for medical students. Now some doctors want to retire white coats, despite their symbolism, because they might spread germs.

Kate Teague, a registered nurse at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, in Palo Alto, Calif., holds a premature baby's hand.

In Caring For Sickest Babies, Doctors Now Tap Parents For Tough Calls

3:43pm November 16, 2015

by Jenny Gold

Doctors were once unquestioned authorities on how aggressively to treat the sickest and most premature babies. Then parents started pushing back for more say. The responsibility can be excruciating.

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Dr. Miller checks medical records of Patricia Gillihan, 71.

House Calls For The Homebound Make A Comeback

5:11pm November 11, 2015

by Misha Friedman

"You can evaluate the person as a whole," says Dr. Roberta Miller, who has been a home care physician for more than 20 years. The traditional house call may be the future of medicine.

(Left to right) NYU medical students Brian Chao, Michael Lui, Hye Min Choi, and Varun Vijay take the team approach to learning about the anatomy of cells, and how disease can disrupt them. Analyzing big data sets is now a routine part of their studies, to

Medical Students Crunch Big Data To Spot Health Trends

6:13pm October 30, 2015

by Julie Rovner

It's not enough anymore to learn how to size up the symptoms of a particular patient, say specialists in bioinformatics. Modern doctors need to learn to see patterns in huge data sets, too.

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Dr. Janina Morrison, right, speaks with patient Jorge Colorado and his daughter Margarita Lopez about Colorado's diabetes at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

Community Health Workers Reach Some Patients That Doctors Can't

2:51pm October 29, 2015

by Anna Gorman

Los Angeles is finding that community health workers — problem solvers who are untrained in medicine, but fluent in compassion — can be key to helping the county's sickest and neediest get better.

Jeffrey Okonye (left) and Oviea Akpotaire are fourth-year medical students at the University of Texas Southwestern.

There Were Fewer Black Men In Medical School In 2014 Than In 1978

8:24pm October 24, 2015

by Lauren Silverman

Medical school applications have gone way up in the past few decades. But one group of applicants has not grown: black men.

Don't presume the doctor's going to bring up the HPV vaccine at a well-teen visit.

Doctors, Not Parents, Are The Biggest Obstacle To The HPV Vaccine

4:13pm October 22, 2015

by Tara Haelle

Though the HPV vaccine prevents cancer, doctors hesitate to suggest that preteens get vaccinated at routine visits, a study finds. Or they're offering it for teens they think are sexually active.

Health & Safety

Pruning Back Prescriptions For Better Health

11:27am September 30, 2015

by John Henning Schumann

There comes a time when a drug that once helped a patient may be unnecessary or even harmful. Figuring out when to cut back is difficult, but the potential benefits are substantial.

Argelia Zarate, a Mixteco interpreter at the Oxnard School District, encourages students to practice their native languages.

Hospitals Struggle To Help Farmworkers Who Speak Triqui Or Mixteco

4:00pm September 29, 2015

by Jeremy Raff

One-third of farmworkers in California speak indigenous languages from southern Mexico. Many don't speak Spanish or English, a situation that poses challenges for health care providers.

Errors in diagnosis, such as inaccuracies or delays in making the information available, account for an estimated 10 percent of patient deaths, a blue-ribbon report says.

Health & Safety

Report: Errors In Diagnosis Are Common And Will Take Teamwork To Fix

8:03pm September 22, 2015

by Julie Appleby

Mistakes in diagnosis are a factor in 10 percent of patient deaths, the Institute of Medicine says. Better training, computer systems and coordination of care are needed to curb the problem.