When Bay Area high-school students arrived on Stanford campus last Friday for Med School 101, little did they know they were about to spend the …
Month: April 2013
Speed it up: Two programs help reduce length of stay for emergency-room visitors
Those of you who have ever waited for hours (or what feels like hours) in an emergency room might appreciate this statistic: In the last eight months, the …
A conversation about the end of life
My sister, Cathleen, recently passed away. She had been in a coma for nearly a year from an accidental fall while visiting her daughter in …
Visible symptoms: Muscular-dystrophy mouse model's muscles glow like fireflies as they break down
A luminescent lab mouse, genetically engineered to produce the same protein that makes fireflies' tails light up, may accelerate progress in coming up with treatments for …
Ask Stanford Med: Surgeon taking questions on breast cancer diagnostics and therapies
This month, a new California law went into effect requiring doctors statewide to notify women if their breast tissue is dense. Dense breast tissue has …
Whole-genome fetal sequencing recognized as one of the year's "10 Breakthrough Technologies"
A million years ago (all the way back in 2006!) I wrote an article for Stanford Medicine magazine about genetic technologies and the eugenics movement …
When the "golden" years are less than golden
Did you see yesterday's Well blog entry on the growing number of older adults seeking therapy? Abby Ellin reported: “We’ve been seeing more people in …
Quitting smoking for the baby you plan to have together
My best friend finally succeeded in his efforts to stop smoking when he experienced a highly motivating life change: Fatherhood. Likewise, many women discover that wanting …
How states will benefit from Medicaid expansion
Medicaid, the federal health-insurance program for low-income individuals, is set to undergo a big expansion in 2014 as part of the implementation of the Affordable …
Heart bypass or angioplasty? There’s an app for that
A new online tool can help seniors with advanced heart disease decide between two possible medical interventions - Coronary Artery Bypass Graft surgery or Percutaneous Coronary …
Stanford and Oxford team up for conference on "big data's" role in biomedicine
The number of gene-expression data sets available in public databases has climbed rapidly over the past decade, allowing researchers to spot disease trends without doing time-intensive …
Researchers call for "democratization" of clinical trials data
In response to recent questioning of the integrity of the dissemination of results in biomedical literature, three medical researchers from Stanford and Duke University are pointing …
Finding hope on the Rosebud Indian Reservation
Statistics often don’t tell the whole story. In the case of the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where I traveled last month to write …
To meet weight loss goals, start exercise and healthy eating programs at the same time
With bathing suit season just around the corner, many of us are thinking more and more about how to shed a few extra pounds before …
Image of the Week: Studying brains at Stanford's Med School 101
Every year on a Friday in spring, Stanford Medicine opens its doors to area high-schoolers, who take courses at the medical school on a wide range of medical and scientific topics. …
Grand Roundup: Top posts for the week of April 14
The five most-read stories on Scope this week were: When you say nothing at all: Living with an invisible illness: Inspire contributor Dawn Nellor explores …