Category: Health

Ah, love….The star-crossed passion of young Romeo and Julietâ?¦The tedious on-and-off again saga of Angelina and Bradâ?¦The heroic Odysseus and faithful Penelopeâ?¦And the sturdy affection of Mary and Gary Dobbs, Madison grandparents about to celebrate their 38th Valentines Day Sunday as a married couple â?? and their 11th year together beating cancer.

The Dobbsâ?? romance may not be the stuff of Shakespeare, legends or tabloids. But the strength of bonds like theirs is celebrated around the world in medical journals, which find over and over again that married people are healthier and survive illness at significantly higher rates than those who are widowed, divorced, or, worse, going through a stressful separation.

Heart patients fitted with a new design of a heart pump are causing worry among dentists and other health care providers when no pulse or blood pressure can be found on the patients.

Not to worry. The HeartMate II, a pump the size of a C battery, operates like a propeller, pumping blood on an even flow, so there is no pulse or blood pressure from the patientâ??s heart.

The UW-Madison Hospital was one of 38 medical centers around the country taking part in a clinical study of the new heart pump, with the study showing patients fitted with the HeartMate II had a much higher rate of survival than patients using an older, larger model.

The Middleton Police Department is refusing to release a copy of a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report that improperly collected information about Wisconsin abortion protesters.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted a threat assessment of local pro- and anti-abortion rights activists before an expected rally last year, even though they did not pose a threat to national security.

Groups of both anti-abortion and abortion rights advocates rallied Saturday to voice their opinions about the proposed abortion clinic at the Madison Surgery Center, a UW Hospital and Clinics affiliate.

The battle lines were drawn as anti-abortion and abortion rights groups both held rallies at the University of Wisconsin Library Mall Saturday.

After Bernie Treichel had a heart attack in December, she received the standard treatment: angioplasty, in which doctors propped open her clogged arteries with stents. Then she tried something unusual. She signed up for a study in which stem cells are infused into the arm to potentially do what the body canâ??t do on its own: grow new heart muscle.

Itâ??s one of seven studies for cardiovascular disease at UW Hospital involving regenerative medicine: the use of stem cells, gene therapy or growth factors to repair damaged tissue.

The brain, under anesthesia, responds to stimuli as it does in the deepest part of sleep, U.S. researchers say.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison used transcranial magnetic stimulation, a non-invasive technique to stimulate the brain cortical neurons from the scalp, in combination with electroencephalography, which recorded the transcranial magnetic stimulation-evoked brain responses in patients receiving anesthetic midazolam used in “conscious sedation.”

When an urban neighborhood is battling a surge in crime and racial tensions the usual response is to send in more cops. Madison has done that in Meadowood, a community of middle-class white homeowners on the cityâ??s southwest side now transformed by an influx of mainly poor, minority renters. But the city has also dispatched a team of friendly public health nurses to the front lines.

Quoted: Susan Zahner, an associate professor of nursing at UW-Madison

UW Hospital is one of 38 hospitals in the U.S. that have completely implemented electronic medical records, according to the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. UW Hospital was the first academic medical center to reach the seventh, final stage of activating the electronic records, the society said.

For surgeon Craig Dopf, the high-tech operating rooms of Meriter Hospital are a world away from the makeshift ORs in Haiti. “It was just unbelievable,” he said. “In an area the size of a football field, you could have 5,000 to 10,000 people living. There was no sanitation.”

The first new disease added to the federal uniform panel for newborn screening in nine years has direct ties to Wisconsin.

The Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children, which recommends policy to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, voted unanimously Thursday to add screening for Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disease â?? commonly known as bubble boy disease â?? to the core panel for screening of newborns in the United States.

The protocols used to screen for the disease were a collaborative effort between the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Childrenâ??s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

As the days drag on since the Haitian earthquake, a lot of people are waiting anxiously to learn what happened to Frank M. Vaughters.

He graduated from Baylor Medical College in Houston in 1972 and did his pediatric residency at the University of Wisconsin before coming to Kansas City in 1979.

Below are the remarks made by Shiva Bidar-Sielaff on Jan. 18 as she accepted the Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award presented jointly by Madison and Dane County. Other 2010 honorees were retired UW-Madison music Professor James Latimer and Memorial High School student Jarrel Brannon Montgomery.

Shiva Bidar-Sielaff is director of community partnerships and interpreter services at the UW Hospital and Clinics.

A Texas familyâ??s life-saving gift highlights not only the ongoing need for organ donation, but the everlasting strength of family. The Blake family has become very familiar with University of Wisconsin Hospitalâ??s transplant clinic. Itâ??s where Bonnie Blake initially received her organ donation 16 years ago from a man who died in a motorcycle accident.

Noted: The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health has also seen a record number of applicants for the upcoming year. At about 3,500, their applicant pool has risen by about 400 people from last year.

It was six months ago that the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison notified some surgery patients they may have been exposed to contaminated instruments.The exposure left the patients with a low risk of contracting a deadly brain disorder. The hospital says as of mid-December, none of the 53 patients reported any symptoms of the disorder.

It was six months ago that the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison notified some surgery patients they might have been exposed to contaminated instruments.

A newly published study from the Waisman Center at UW-Madison shows that patients who receive two cochlear implants often hear better results.

Dear Editor: As an elementary education major at UW-Madison, much of what I study involves big-picture theories of education. What we do not learn about are the day-to-day dynamics of a class full of children — including supervising students with food allergies.