The five most-read stories this week on Scope were:
Living with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome: “Sometimes I just don’t have it in me to be inspirational”: In this Inspire column, a patient shares his thoughts about living with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a rare connective tissue disorder. "Every EDS patient knows that one of the hardest parts of our day is the moment we open our eyes and waken into the reality of our bodies," Michael Bihovsky writes.
Stanford bioengineer develops a 50-cent paper microscope: Manu Prakash, PhD, assistant professor of bioengineering, has developed an ultra-low-cost paper microscope to aid disease diagnosis in developing regions. The device is further described in a technical paper.
From NICU to nursing home: In the latest installment of SMS Unplugged, first-year medical student Hamsika Chandrasekar writes about the "exciting and humbling" experiences of visiting patients in the NICU and a local nursing home.
Study: Doctors would choose less aggressive end-of-life care for themselves: Most physicians would choose a "no-code" status for themselves if they were terminally ill, a new Stanford study shows. And though other studies have shown that most other Americans would choose to die gently and naturally at home, that’s not what’s happening.
Rising to the challenge of harnessing big data to benefit patients: Thought leaders and innovators from academia, information technology companies, venture capital firms and public health institutions gathered on the Stanford campus last week for the annual Big Data in Biomedicine conference.
And still going strong – the most popular post from the past:
The mystery surrounding lung-transplant survival rates: A 2012 article in the San Francisco Chronicle offered a look at the challenges facing lung transplant patients and explored why a significant number don’t live beyond the five-year mark, despite improvements in survival rates.