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National data shows that Black Medicare patients and their families are not making the move to comfort care as often as white patients are. Experts speculate it's related to spiritual beliefs and widespread mistrust in the medical system due to decades of discrimination.
If a judge decides someone cannot make their own decisions, the person can be placed under a court-appointed guardianship, also known as a conservatorship. Some states are beginning to allow less-restrictive alternatives.
After the National Cancer Act became law 50 years ago, cancer went from shameful taboo to one of the best-funded areas of medicine. Much of the credit for this transformation goes to one woman, Mary Lasker.
Even in states where abortion rights are likely to be preserved, Planned Parenthood turns to “deep canvassing” to fortify support.
Patients with other ailments are frustrated, and nurses and doctors are stressed and burned out, as unvaccinated covid-19 patients fill ICU and acute care beds.
Last week, on the same day the Supreme Court heard a case that could overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling on abortion rights, Texas enacted a law that creates criminal penalties for anyone who prescribes medication abortions via telehealth or mail.
After her son's death by suicide, a mother promotes mental health for environmentalists. It's part of a larger push to address the burnout and psychological stress that can affect activists.
With few options for health care in their rural community, a Tennessee couple’s experience with one outrageous bill could have led to a deadly decision the next time they needed help.
While anti-abortion activists say abortion exceptions are a “punishment” to “innocent human life,” social workers say Texas’ new abortion law rigidly curtails options for rape and incest survivors at a moment when they need the “power and control” of choice to begin healing.
Hospitals and doctors are facing more demands for ivermectin as a covid-19 treatment, despite a lack of proof it works. In some Republican-dominated states, pushing for ivermectin interventions has become a conservative rallying cry.
Certain patients who couldn't get in to see a doctor earlier in the pandemic, or were avoiding the covid risks inside hospitals, have become too sick to stay away. Many ERs now struggle to cope with an onslaught of demand.
The covid vaccination rate for first responders in the state is more than 95%. But it's lower in more rural areas, where ambulance crews can't function if even just a few people quit.
Managers are trapped in a pricey hiring cycle, competing for critical care nurses who can monitor covid patients on life support. Some hospitals are looking abroad to replace staffers who quit to become travel nurses or leave the profession.
As the pandemic has raged so has the country’s drug epidemic. California is looking to a controversial solution for certain drug users, but despite its effectiveness, critics have scoffed at the idea calling it unethical or a bribe.
Efforts to give 2.2 million Americans health insurance hang in the balance as Congress debates a massive spending bill. The so-called Medicaid gap is felt most acutely in Texas, where about half of those who stand to gain coverage live.
Coronavirus outbreaks have shuttered K-12 classrooms across the U.S., affecting tens of thousands of K-12 students. To avoid the same fate, some school districts are tapping federal dollars to set up testing programs and step up their vigilance against the virus.
Patients with advanced cancer and heart disease are among those who have had to have surgeries and other treatments delayed and rescheduled as a high number of critically ill, unvaccinated covid patients strain the medical system.
After their brother died, two sisters faced a barrage of misinformation, pandemic denialism and blaming questions. Grief experts say that makes covid-19 the newest kind of "disenfranchising death."
Unvaccinated people are filling intensive care beds and dying of covid in record numbers in Tennessee and other Southern states. Many tell their nurses and doctors they regret the decision not to get the vaccine when they could.
Zoom in on states with overall good vaccination rates and you see a checkerboard effect, with rural areas far lagging urban zones. That’s allowed the pandemic to rage in places like Jackson County, Oregon, overwhelming hospitals.
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