More than 30 million families are shouldering the significant health care demands of an ill loved one. Some families are fortunate enough to live in one of the handful of states that have paid family leave or earned sick time laws that allow workers to earn a portion of their pay while taking time off to address the health needs of a family member. Most families, however, must rely on the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, a law that guarantees 12 weeks of parental or sick leave but covers little more than half of all workers and does not include pay. Mark Schuster, William Berenberg Professor of Pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, is quoted.
Harvard genomics researchers could see increased funding for their work should Congress approve a White House proposal to allocate millions more dollars to the research of medical treatments personalized to a patient’s genetic information. Heidi Rehm, associate professor of pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Patrick Ellinor, associate professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, are quoted.
Dhruv Khullar, clinical fellow in medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, authored this blog post about the powerful effects early childhood experiences, as well as by the struggles and triumphs of our parents and grandparents may have on our health.
Harvard Medical School will launch a new Department of Biomedical Informatics on July 1, according to Jeffrey S. Flier, dean of the faculty of medicine at Harvard University. The new department will build on a center in biomedical informatics, which was established in 2005. HMS professor Isaac S. Kohane, Lawrence J. Henderson Professor of Pediatrics and co-director of the current Center for Biomedical Informatics, will serve as the inaugural chair of the new department.
About 20 patients who would have had to cancel their appointments Tuesday as Boston was getting pummeled with snow instead had “virtual visits” with their doctors, which are like a video chat. Jason Wasfy, instructor in medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Lee Schwamm, professor of neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, are quoted.
Parkinson’s Disease patients secretly treated with a placebo instead of their regular medication performed better when told they were receiving a more expensive version of the “drug,” researchers reported Wednesday in an unprecedented study that involved real patients. Ted Kaptchuk, professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, is quoted.
One of the greatest promises of the Affordable Care Act is that if you are sick or get sick, health insurers can no longer charge you more or avoid covering you altogether. Patient groups say they’ve spotted an alarming trend of some health insurance plans designing drug benefits to purposefully keep out sicker, costlier patients. It’s currently the subject of a federal complaint, and a new study offers evidence this is happening across the country. Benjamin Sommers, assistant professor of medicine, is a coauthor of the study.
A new study has found that drinking them is associated with lowered age of menarche. Karin B. Michels, associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is the study’s lead author.
For all the focus on campus sexual assault in recent years, male victims have been frequently absent from the news coverage. James Hopper, clinical instructor in psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge Health Alliance, is quoted.
