Part health care practitioner, part clown?  Or maybe all clown with a background in therapeutic healing?

The nonprofit organization ClownZero, based out of San Francisco, California, mixes humor and health care at the University of California at San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital.

Professional performing artists dressed as clowns bring this circus-like atmosphere to one of California’s premier pediatric ward at Benioff Children’s Hospital. This hospital, located within the UCSF Medical Center, provides care for virtually all pediatric conditions, including cancer, heart disease, neurological disorders, organ transplants, and orthopedics, in addition to the care of critically ill newborns.

According to ClownZero Director Dan Griffiths: “We train all the clowns to be super sensitive because the scale of play is much smaller in a hospital room; it’s like an exclusive performance for the person in the hospital bed. All our clowns work with children and have a lot of experience in knowing how to govern oneself accordingly.” … Read more →

Why did Neanderthals have such large noses? A popular theory connected the size of prehistoric man’s protuberance in vertebrates that houses the nostrils with the ability adapt to cold temperatures.

This enigma led scientists to suggest there were equally large sinuses behind these noses, warming the air before it entered the lungs (and thus keeping bodies warm). Still, others opined the sinuses had the exact opposite function, eliminating heat from the body and reducing sweat.

According to Todd Rae, a paleoanthropologist at Roehampton University in London: “The $64,000 question is what sinuses do — that is, what is their biological function. Scientists have been arguing over that for hundreds of years. There are dozens of suggestions for what they may do for the animals that have them, including adding resonance to the voice and acting as flotation devices!” … Read more →

A new report published in BioEssays explains the nature of “the pandemic.”

The study questions the traditional understanding of the process by which at least two different strains of a virus (or different viruses), such as influenza combine to form a new subtype having a mixture of the surface antigens of the two original strains.

This process is known as an “antigenic shift.” … Read more →

Surgery has come a long way since the Middle Ages. In the tenth century, surgery was only used in “life or death” situations. One particular reason was the lack of any meaningful anesthetic to offset the ever-present excruciating pain that came with the actual cutting a surgical procedure typically entailed.

Many potions designed to relieve pain or induce sleep during surgery were often just as deadly as the surgery itself. One such “anesthetic agent” administered to a patient before surgery mixed lettuce juice, gall from a castrated boar, briony, opium, henbane, hemlock juice and vinegar.  This was called “Dwale” (pronounced  dwaluh).

If the hemlock by itself did not cause death, the balance of the cocktail would usually induce a deep sleep, at which time the surgery would proceed. Surgery would stop, however, if the patient stopped breathing. … Read more →

Whether at home, work, or in a social setting, sometimes you just can’t let anyone know what you’re thinking. A new study from Rice University, the University of Toronto, and Purdue University involving employees who must maintain a neutral disposition in a work setting examine the toll this may take.  Due to the energy required to meet this need, the researchers suggest the employee has less less energy to devote to work itself.

The study concluded that individuals who must avoid appearing either overly positive or negative — such as journalists, health care professionals, social workers, lawyers, and law enforcement officers — simply suppress expressions of emotion more than their counterparts in other similarly oriented professions where expression of emotions is necessary and expected. … Read more →

By the beginning of the twentieth century, Boston was in need of an additional state hospital. Resources were finally available more than two decades later, and by 1930, Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham, Massachusetts opened.

With its first cornerstone laid down in 1927, Metropolitan State Hospital existed on an enormous campus spanning across three towns — Waltham, Lexington, and Belmont.

Built in the Colonial style tradition, Metropolitan’s campus consisted of an administration building, medical-surgical facility, acute and chronic care buildings, staff housing, morgue, and power plant. … Read more →

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued its notice of proposed rules for hospital value-based purchasing (VBP).  Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or Health Care Reform), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services must establish a hospital VBP program for hospital payments beginning in 2013. This program must be based upon hospital performance measures from 2012 that are part of the hospital inpatient quality reporting program (formerly known as RHQDAPU). … Read more →

On Friday, November 19, 2010, without any warning, nurses, patients, and staff at Lakeside Hospital in Bastrop, Texas received an early holiday surprise.  The hospital was closed and all employees had lost their jobs. Patients were sent elsewhere or discharged.  The only information was a sign on the door that said the hospital was closed. The Texas Department of State Health Services had not been notified about the closing, and the state agency did not find out until after it was done.

One former hospital employee explained the events that occurred on November 19: “Early this morning management came in and put the hospital on divert from any EMS traffic. Department managers were escorted off the premises, patient’s families were called to pick up their sick loved ones, and ER patients were told to leave and go to another hospital.” When Lakeside Hospital closed, five patients were taken to other area hospitals. Two patients that were in the emergency department at the time were taken care of and then sent home. … Read more →

Researchers are close to developing a vaccination for persons addicted to cocaine, nicotine and heroin, helping them to repress cravings and eventually overcome their addiction.

Funded by The National Institute on Drug Abuse, researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and the Scripps Research Institute in California injected billions of specially made viral cocktails into non-genetically engineered laboratory mice. By identifying the strong immune response generated against the vaccine, the researchers developed a new antibody that when put in test tubes, destroys the cocaine’s ability to circulate throughout the system and eventually reach the brain’s pleasure center. … Read more →