Hospitals brace for snow -- again!
No, you're not imagining things. MORE snow is expected to pound the region, with estimates of about a foot or more.
The prospect of a double whammy has made hospitals shift their disaster teams into high gear for the second time in a week, making sleeping arrangements for clinical staff and in some cases canceling elective surgeries.
Howard Gwon, administrator for Johns Hopkins emergency management, said the needs are unprecedented.
"We’ve never had to activate our command center a second time in one winter -- this is record history for not only the state but Hopkins," said Gwon, Hopkins' incident commander for the last 20 years.
The hospital had some 2,000 staffers sleep at the hospital over last weekend's storm and is preparing for more tonight arranging empty hospital beds and air mattresses around the campus, he said. About 70 staffers are prepared to shuttle people to and from the hospital if the snow makes it impossible for them to travel on their own.
At Greater Baltimore Medical Center in Towson, the majority of physician practices affiliated with the hospital plan to close Wednesday, but patients should check first with their doctors, said Michael Schwartzberg, a GBMC spokesman.
The hospital, where some 4,500 births take place each year, has rescheduled some c-sections planned for tomorrow as well as some elective procedures, he said.
With this snowfall coming during a weekday -- typically busier for hospitals than weekends -- among the most important preparations is having enough staff and keeping roadways clear, he said.
Some clinicians have already put in marathon hours. Schwartzberg told me the story of a nurse who stayed in the emergency room last Friday through Sunday, catching a few hours of sleep here and there on a stretcher. She's back today, with an overnight bag, and expected to stay until Friday.
"People are really coming together, doing jobs that aren’t normally their jobs," he said. "People are going above and beyond."
Seniors are especially susceptible to pneumonia and yet, just 30 percent of adults 65 and older get the vaccine to protect against it, a
Still shoveling? We are too. As you tackle the remains of the weekend's 
We'll admit it. The prospect of a mega snowstorm, makes us freak out a bit. We Marylanders love to make panicked last-minute trips to the grocery store for toilet paper and milkat the sight of a flurry. But the storm on its way this afternoon could be huge -- 
In this Sunday story Meredith Cohn and I explained how a 
More dispatches from Haiti -- from the doctors themselves. Of the medical teams we've told you about who are on the ground in Haiti, several have been chronicling their missions with blogs of their own. 
We've got more updates from Baltimore-area medical teams in Haiti: 
Or does it just get you high? 
Or more importantly, should they? 
Dr. Carol Ritter, an OBGYN at Greater Baltimore Medical Center who rushed to Haiti last week to help aid earthquake victims, delivered a baby there over the weekend.
Americans are fat. We've known this for years. But new research suggests that the obesity rate -- while still high -- might be slowing. 
It's been nearly a year since former city Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein 
I admit, I've done it. Fess up, you have too. But using that fine silverware to help the medicine go down isn't recommended and could result in giving yourself a dangerously inaccurate dose, says a small study appearing in this week's 
The maker of 
For all you Marylanders still trying to find your driveway after the 
Our 
Diabetes is deadly and costly. And the number of people with the disease and the cost to treat them is only expected to soar in the coming years, according to a new study. 
Hospital infections can be deadly. In fact, preventable infections are among the top 10 causes of death in the U.S., according to the CDC. 
We've been urged for years to cook poultry thoroughly to prevent food-borne illness. But just how contaminated are store-bought chickens in the first place?
Long waits in the nation's emergency rooms are nothing new. But research finds they're getting worse. 
Hospital food. Yuck, right? Ranks right up there with bland school lunches and nuked airline "meals," goes the stereotype. Well, not all hospital food is lousy, according to the folks at Chowhound, a great site for restaurant reviews, recipes and good foodie tips. 
People can struggle for years to quit smoking and the magnitude of advice and remedies about how to do so effectively can be overwhelming. 
New York beef manufacturer Fairbanks Farms has issued a voluntary recall of a little more than half a million pounds of ground beef. 
We talk about it all the time here at Picture of Health -- diet and exercise can help ward off a host of diseases. Bear with me if you're tired of hearing it, but it's true. A new study based on 10 years worth of data drives home the point when it comes to a disease that affects some 24 million people nationwide: diabetes. 
Anyone who has struggled with their weight knows what it's like to be on the receiving end of fat jokes. Despite a national obesity epidemic, our society isn't particularly sensitive to overweight people. Doctors included. 
Around the country 60 percent of the best-selling health care plans will charge a 40-year-old nonsmoking woman more for her health insurance than a nonsmoking man of the same age, according to a recent report by the 
Medical professionals are often left in the dark about the benefits and harms of prescription drugs because the details often fail to make their way to the label, according to a new editorial in the 
It's been mantra of public health officials since the swine flu outbreak in the spring: wash your hands. 
A story in Sunday's New York Times takes a 
Surgeons try their best to repair torn cartilage and flesh in serious injuries. But what if they got a little help from the body itself? What if the body could generate its own repair mechanisms to replace vital tissues?
There are two ways to get the flu vaccine -- in a shot, or in a mist that sprays up the nose. While both have long been used to protect the public from seasonal flu strains, a new study found the shot was 50 percent more effective than the spray for healthy adults. 
It's a wrenching story. In 2001, 18-month-old Josie King was burned over 60 percent of her body after being scalded in the bathtub of her family's home. 
Antibiotics are easily available online and without a prescription, a new study finds, a potentially unexplored source of overuse of this kind of medication.
Up until now, food manufacturers determined if and when they would tell government officials about products they believed could seriously sicken humans or animals.
There's still time left to take part in Picture of Health's inaugural "ask an expert" extravaganza. Got a pressing medical concern? Step right up and submit one here. We'll pick the best question, find you the right expert to answer it and post the response here. (The original deadline for submissions was supposed to be today, but because of the holiday week, we're extending it until next Wednesday) 
President Barack Obama seems to be talking health care reform everywhere these days. Tonight, he'll address a joint session of Congress. He's even on the cover of the October issue of Men's Health magazine, which hits newsstands next week, where he does discuss health care reform, but also takes on a range of health issues. (Sorry, ladies, unlike this mag's more typical cover models, his abs are hidden under a dignified suit and tie.)
One person's little pink pill looks like a little blue pill to someone who is colorblind. With color blindness found in 8 percent of men and .4 percent of women, color-coding of medication may not prevent mistakes as it is intended. 
We here at Picture of Health know you worry about your health. We do, too. And we know you probably have pressing questions you would love to ask your doctor, if only she had time to sit and chat. So next Friday, we will inaugurate our Ask a Medical Expert feature.
Jurisdictions around the globe have tried to squash secondhand smoke by banning smoking in public places. 
Life expectancy has hit an all-time high, the CDC tells us, reaching nearly 78 years in the United States.
Laid-off workers have been flocking in recent months to COBRA, the federal program that has long allowed them to keep their employers' health insurance for 18 months -- but for a hefty price.
Breast is best. That's what the breastfeeding advocates always say. Public health proponents, too, have long promoted the benefits of nursing, from boosting infants' immunity to encouraging critical bonding time between mother and baby. 
The Spanish doll -- known as Bebe Gloton (roughly, Gluttonous Baby in English) -- comes with a halter top with flowers placed where nipples should be. Bebe latches on and voila, sucks. There's even a 
It's going to be a hot one today. It's already 91 degrees in Baltimore and some places may even reach 100. The city has declared it a Code Red day, opening cooling centers to ensure people get enough cool air and water. One of the city's many tips: Stay inside during the hottest time of the day.
We've written about kidney donation here a few times lately, most of it stemming from
Consumer Reports is now in the 
As long as marriage has been around, people have been extolling the benefits of it. And every so often a study comes along to tell us a new perk of being wed, from sheer happiness to financial stability to, of course, health. Well, here's the latest: Not only is marriage good for you, the inverse is also true -- divorce or the death of a spouse can harm one's health even if the person remarries, according to a study by researchers from Johns Hopkins and the University of Chicago.
It's time to roll up your sleeve. 
Let's say this swine flu business got really serious and a pandemic flu emergency took hold. You might expect an army of doctors and nurses would flock to hospitlas to serve the public at a time of crisis -- right? 
It happened just three weeks after the 9/11 attacks -- mysterious white powder was turning up in letters to the media and politicians in congress. The powder turned out to be deadly, the sender unknown. 
The first one, out of Spain, was about a woman who less than three years ago became the oldest new mother in the world at the grandmotherly age of 66. She had lied about her age and convinced an American doctor to help her conceive her twins. 
The second story comes out of the inspiring tale of Dr. Regina Benjamin, the family doctor picked to be President Obama's surgeon general. Last week, we wrote about how Benjamin has spent her career in rural Alabama, seeing patients who sometimes paid her for her services in oysters, if at all. She built a clinic for those in need, and built it again and again when Hurricane Katrina and then a fire stood in the way.
A fancy new tool from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention enables users to 
As members of Congress duke it out in the health care reform debate, a national consumer advocacy group releases this sobering statistic: an average of 740 Marylanders lose their health insurance every week, according to a new study by Families USA.
The new caution about acetaminophen, the popular painkiller, isn't about it suddenly being more toxic. Rather, it highlights a fear that we may be 
See the guy on the far right? The one decked out in aviator shades rocking out next to Aerosmith’s Joe Perry? 
It all started with a Virginia man who offered his kidney to a woman from his parish who needed one. They had never met but Thomas F. Koontz thought the donation would be a good way to give back to God, whom he credited with saving his teenage daughter's brain cancer. The woman from church ended up finding a different donor. So Koontz called Johns Hopkins. He offered his kidney to anyone who might needed it,
Long-distance travel may increase the risk of potentially deadly blood clots, a new study published today suggests, and the longer the trip, the greater risk of danger.
My friend Rebecca posted something about her toe Friday night on her Facebook page. Rebecca wrote that she thought "it's broken; my husband thinks it's just bruised. Either way, my toe hurts." 
Long known to be a concern of aging women, osteoporosis turns out to be nearly as common in older men, a new study suggests.
Ten days ago, Johns Hopkins Hospital exec Pamela Paulk had two kidneys. Today, she has one -- and a co-worker she barely knew three years ago also has one, thanks to Paulk's decision to donate one of hers. Just because she could. 
