By TOM KISKEN, Scripps Howard News Service
Docs balk at cost of computerizing medical records
The federal government wants to give Dr. Geoffrey Drew $44,000 over five years to migrate from paper records to electronic ones.
He doesn't want it.
Immigration losing urgency as a top national issue
The punches keep coming from both sides, but the slugfest over immigration may be losing some of its urgency.
'Nighthawk' radiologists read X-rays, MRIs from hundreds of miles away
A person suffering an apparent stroke is rushed to a hospital in Ventura County, Calif. sometime after 7 p.m. Almost instantly, e-mailed images of the patient's brain emerge on Dr. James Brull's computer in Hays, Kan.
Disputes over religion and health care land in Calif. courts
Dr. Catherine Kim of Simi Valley, Calif. can't do it. Her practice as an obstetrician-gynecologist is based on medical science. But her convictions as a born-again Christian sculpt every aspect of her life, from the Bible stories she reads to her kids before bedtime to the prayers she offers people who visit her office.
Native-born, insured patients fill Calif. hospital ERs, study says
It's not the uninsured. It's not illegal immigrants.The Californians most likely to crowd hospital emergency rooms -- often with fevers or infections that could be treated elsewhere -- are insured by the government and born in the United States, according to a new statewide study.
Experimental vaccine helps California man with cancer
The brain tumor that threatened to kill Lupe Carrillo is now being used to help him survive.The 61-year-old Oxnard, Calif., man, diagnosed with a cancer that carries a 98 percent fatality rate, is being treated with an experimental vaccine made of his own white blood cells and amino acids from the tumor.
Online database would track painkiller prescriptions
Pain patients understand why California's attorney general says he needs to raise $3.5 million to stop addicts and drug dealers who use doctors to stockpile Vicodin and OxyContin.
Ethics of having baby to harvest stem cells questioned
Maria and Rick Kent want to do all they can to save their 23-month-old daughter from leukemia.That desire is propelling the Simi Valley, Calif., couple down an intricate and controversial path. They plan on having another child to increase the chances that Hailey Joy will be able to find a match if she needs a second stem cell transplant.
Health care costs force many to keep working
VENTURA, Calif. -- There are many reasons H. Gene Hansmeier wants to retire. He has worked since he was 10 and delivered the Waterloo Courier newspaper in Iowa. He wants to restore antique Fords, build his own furniture and travel to Ireland with his wife.
A campaign aimed at helping adult children talk to their parents
He was a war veteran, a business owner and a man who always took care of himself. But in the last months of his life, he lost control of his bladder.His family didn't talk about it, instead protecting his mattress with padding because he refused to wear Depends. They didn't talk about a lot of things, like the time he fell in the shower and needed help.
