This time of year can bring joy as well as sadness to just about anyone. For the local hospital emergency department, however, the holidays can mean an increase in patients who have potentially put themselves in peril.

According to Mark DeSilva, M.D., Emergency Department Medical Director at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital: “For those who have no support system, no friends, family, loved ones or even co-workers, the holidays can prove very deadly. Everywhere, there are signs of gatherings, gift exchanges, happiness and love. If you are not experiencing what the rest of the world is enjoying, it is very bitter. . . . The holidays bring out desperate behavior in unstable individuals and they frequently end up in the ED as a medical emergency.”

DeSilva advises that there are usually signs when an individual is feeling overwhelmed by the holidays, and friends, families, and co-workers have time to intervene. … Read more →

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma. Flashbacks are the symptomatic “calling card” of PTSD, and treatments often focus on the disorder after the flashbacks are firmly established. Unfortunately, early interventions are rare.

In a recent study published in PlusOne.org examines a possible “cognitive vaccine” to prevent PTSD flashbacks after a traumatic event. … Read more →

Before it closed in May 2010, Kingsburg District Hospital was one of the last remaining rural hospitals in the San Joaquin Valley.

Located just off of Smith Street in Kingsburg, California, Kingsburg District Hospital faced many challenges since it opened in 1961. Past cutbacks and bankruptcies did not shut the rural hospital down before, but it was unable to survive financially any longer.

One Kingsburg resident drove herself to the hospital when she thought she was having a heart attack (the hospital was only a few blocks away from her home).  When she arrived, she learned that the emergency department — which had been closed in 2008 — was gone. She had to drive to the local fire department, and was then taken by ambulance to Selma Hospital more than seven miles away. … Read more →

Originally called the United States Marine Hospital and built in 1875, the Public Health Service Hospital initially treated merchant seamen.

Hospital patients later included the U.S. Coast Guard and other governmental agencies, as well as Native Americans and Vietnam refugees. The Public Health Service Hospital also conducted key research on plague diseases. … Read more →

Psilocybin, psilocin, mescaline, DMT, LSD, ketamine, MDMA, salvinorin A, and ibogaine. This laundry list of hallucinogens does not describe the contents in the car of Raoul Duke or his attorney Dr. Gonzo, but instead, ingredients sometimes found in modern day therapeutic research.

What started in the 1950s and slowed in the 1960s due to legal restrictions has resumed in studies around the world. Researchers want to know whether these mind-altering substances can effectively treat post-traumatic stress disorder, help with symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder, provide help in battling addictions, ease the anxiety of cancer patients, or even battle depression. … Read more →

San Diego General Hospital was built in 1972 with city assistance, at the time called Community Hospital of San Diego. The hospital quickly got into financial difficulties due to its patient population (largely uninsured or under-insured). After San Diego General Hospital closed briefly, the facility was leased and operated through the 1980s as San Diego Physicians & Surgeons Hospital.

San Diego General Hospital’s last patients were transferred on March 2, 1991, to Coronado Hospital and various nursing homes, marking the end of its long battle to continue as Southeast San Diego’s only hospital. It’s closing ended the hospitals’ year-long struggle to keep the doors open, even as it piled up more than $15 million in unpaid bills to suppliers and taxing agencies. … Read more →

The American Civil Liberties Union has requested federal intervention to ensure that Catholic hospitals follow the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). The ACLU has alleged that by failing to provide emergency reproductive care to pregnant women, these hospitals violate federal law.

In a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the ACLU referenced St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, which lost its Catholic status Tuesday because hospital physicians performed an emergency abortion when a female patient developed life-threatening complications. … Read more →

As 2010 comes to an end, it is common for many people to think about matters of life, health, and overall well being. The following information, courtesy of by David Maris at CLSA, reports the results of CLSA’s holiday health care survey of 100 doctors.  Some of the findings included:

Should Santa should lose weight? 60% of doctors think Santa should lose 50 pounds or more, while 34% think he needs to lose 75 pounds or more.

Based on the “Twelve Days of Christmas,” who is the healthiest? 60% of physicians believe that the ladies dancing are the healthiest, with the Lords-a-Leaping No.2.

A recent study explores the medicinal role 3, 4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or ecstasy) may have in helping individuals unable to socially connect with others.

MDMA is an entactogenic drug (it produces distinctive emotional and social effects) of the phenethylamine andamphetamine class (a natural monoamine alkaloid, trace amine, and psychoactive drug with stimulant effects). … Read more →

When Marina Hills Hospital closed in June 1990, hospital officials blamed California’s Medi-Cal system and its failure to pay the bills to nursing homes and hospitals.

Left with no choice, Marina Hills Hospital in Ladera Heights transferred its 25 patients to other hospitals ending months of financial problems, employee complaints, and a census that dropped to only one patient at times. … Read more →