Leaders from several Boston hospitals met with Boston police to review safety procedures following last month’s fatal shooting of a cardiovascular surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
For doctors, there are rarely easy decisions to be made when it comes to the care of someone who is critically ill. In some cases, a bleak prognosis may require them to advise a patient against continuing their treatment. Other times, they may see cause for optimism, however remote it may seem. Knowing how or when to make that determination is the tricky part. Michael Belkin, professor of surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Nicholas Sadovnikoff, assistant professor of anaesthesia at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, participated in a discussion about treating patients who are nearing the end of life. Atul Gawande, Samuel O. Thier Professor of Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is mentioned.
We’ve all heard stories of injured athletes taking the field, wounded soldiers completing missions, or panicked parents exhibiting superhuman endurance to rescue their children. Such dramatic stress pumps up dopamine and adrenaline, improving focus and distracting from pain. But everyday stress acts differently, new research shows. It can push dopamine levels down, making pain feel worse and harder to ignore, according to a new study. Randall Paulsen, assistant professor of psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is quoted.
Want to reduce cases of doctors desperately trying to save the lives of people on the verge of dying despite them not wanting such aggressive treatment? Stop paying for it. Angelo Volandes, assistant professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, is quoted.
A mysterious group of humans from the east stormed western Europe 4,500 years ago — bringing with them technologies such as the wheel, as well as a language that is the forebear of many modern tongues, suggests one of the largest studies of ancient DNA yet conducted. David Reich, professor of genetics, led the research.
Scientists are looking to change how doctors diagnose cancer, and the key might lie in crowdsourcing. Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess are using crowdsourcing, through the website CrowdFlower, to develop labeled images of tumor tissues. Andrew Beck, assistant professor of pathology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, is quoted.
Atul Gawande, Samuel O. Thier Professor of Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, brought his-best selling book on end-of-life care, “Being Mortal,” to the small screen Tuesday night in an hour-long documentary providing a deeply intimate look at patients in their final days, their families, and the doctors wrestling with patients’ expectations — as well as their own.
In the future of hospital care, doctors will dress wounds with smart bandages that are able to tell doctors how the wound is healing and distribute medicine. Ali Khademhosseini, professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is spearheading the project.
Dozens of cardiologists in communities outside major metro areas are performing catheterization procedures – such as diagnostic angiograms and artery-clearing angioplasties – at higher rates than doctors working at big city hospitals that serve as major cardiac referral centers. News data say it raises a critical question: How many of these catheterization procedures are medically advisable and how many put patients at unnecessary risk and add billions of dollars to the nation’s medical bill? David Jones, A. Bernard Ackerman Professor of the Culture of Medicine, is quoted.
