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Too much, too little sleep can make younger adults fat
If you’re under 40, think of Goldilocks when you think of how much sleep you need to stay trim: Not too much, not too little, but just enough: six to eight hours, say researchers in North Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado.
We’ve heard for some time that too little sleep can cause gain weight. It is said to throw the hormones out of whack, making us want to eat everything in sight. This study — led by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine — has nothing to do with eating.
The researchers studied 1,107 black and Hispanic adults of all ages (minorities have more extreme sleep patterns, according to the researchers) over five years and found that extremes in sleep hours caused fat to accumulate around the organs — in people under 40. Getting too little sleep was worse than getting too much, said the researchers, who included scientists from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
For some unknown reason this accumulation of visceral fat was not a problem for people over 40. Whew.
“We don’t really know yet why this wasn’t seen in participants over 40, but it was clear that, in individuals under 40, it is worse to get five or less hours of sleep on average each night than it is to get eight or more hours,” Dr. Kristen Hairston, an assistant professor of endocrinology and metabolism and lead author of the study, said in a news release on the school’s Web site. “However, both may be detrimental and, in general, people should aim for six to eight hours of sleep each night.”
People can reduce their amount of visceral fat with vigorous exercise. Those who don’t risk dangerous conditions, including heart disease, metabolic syndromes and insulin resistance.
The study appears in the March issue of the Journal Sleep.
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Dell Children’s opening up center to tackle childhood obesity
Armed with nearly $1 million from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, Dell Children’s Medical Center will open a new clinic and education center for families in the fight to reduce childhood obesity.
A foundation grant of $997,663 will be used to establish the Texas Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Childhood Obesity. It will consist of a clinic that will provide medical and psychological treatment to kids; professionals working with community groups on obesity initiatives and research; and advocacy efforts to reduce childhood obesity, according to a news release from the foundation and Dr. Stephen Pont, the center’s medical director.
The center also will continue a 10-week program that teaches Central Texas families about eating healthy and fun ways to be more active.
The center is a collaboration with University of Texas Southwestern — Austin Programs, UT-Austin and the Texas Child Study Center. It also will do research with the Dell Center for Advancement of Healthy Living at the UT School of Public Health Austin Regional Campus.
Obesity has become a favored topic of the foundation, with Susan Dell narrating a 76-page paperback, Be Well, on the topic.
“As a parent, the scariest thing in the world is to learn your child is in danger,” Dell, chairwoman and co-founder of the foundation, said in a written statement. “Yet children in Central Texas are shortening their life expectancy every day in a combat zone of fast foods, sugar, limited physical activity, and the lure of electronic games and TV.”
Pont said that obese children are at risk for some of the same ailments that afflict middle-age adults: high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, joint problems, even heart disease.
“Some of these kids are going to die in five or 10 years if they are not empowered to make the healthy decisions to take control of their lives,” he said.
Pont said he was a chubby child and got “quite large in middle school, around the same time my mom died. We ate a lot of TV dinners,” he said.
“I feel like I can relate to the struggles of the kids. I have to make decisions every day about what I eat or I’ll gain weight.”
A more detailed article about the center will appear in the newspaper.
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Free sports program starts Saturday for people with disabilities
People in wheelchairs and with other disabilities are invited to take part in a free sports program offered by the Seton Brain & Spine Institute starting Saturday.
This month’s event, from 2 to 6 p.m., is at the Austin Recreation Center, 1301 Shoal Creek Blvd., and is designed for physically-challenged children and youths in Central Texas between the ages of four and 21.
The monthly “Super Sports Saturday” is made possible with support from the Austin Rec’ers Wheelchair Basketball team and the Lone Star Paralysis Foundation. “We hope to increase the participant’s strength, endurance, sport skills and knowledge of the physical fitness necessary for the transition into competitive team programs,” said Mike Haynes, Manager of the Seton Brain & Spine Recovery Center.
Former University of Texas All-America and All-Pro Detroit Lion Doug English, president and founder of the Lone Star Paralysis Foundation, said in a statement: “We are so proud to be a sponsor of this very worthwhile program for our area youth. These programs are so important because they provide a healthy support system for people with common interests, goals and desires.”
A spokeswoman for the Seton Family of Hospitals said those who are interested in taking part can just show up at the recreation center.
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Austin autism center losing second key person
Days after the Thoughtful House Center for Children on Bee Cave Road in Austin announced the departure of its internationally known researcher and executive director, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, it said one of its two medical doctors is leaving.
Dr. Arthur Krigsman, a gastroenterologist who treats intestinal disorders and performs colonoscopies on some children, is leaving in early spring to set up a separate office, Thoughtful House said in a statement today. Krigsman, who also has a practice in New York, and Dr. Bryan Jepson are not employees of the center but see patients there.
“Dr. Krigsman’s decision to relocate his clinical practice to a facility outside Thoughtful House reflects his belief that the complexities inherent in a referral-based practice can be best addressed by his working independently,” the statement said. “We will continue to refer patients for gastrointestinal evaluations when appropriate and we look forward to continuing to work with Dr. Krigsman on research projects. We are grateful to Dr. Krigsman for his dedication to Thoughtful House and for the work he does on behalf of the children we serve.”
Thoughtful House’s media person did not address what those complexities were in response to questions. Krigsman made the decision several weeks ago, she said.
Last week, Wakefield, who is defending his medical license in England in the face of findings that he was dishonest and irresponsible in conducting research on children in England a dozen years ago, was said to be leaving so the controversy he is dealing with would not detract from the center’s work.
Written statements from Thoughtful House did not say Wakefield had resigned, although Jane Johnson in New York, managing director of the center’s board, said he did.
“Dr. Wakefield resigned because he wanted to pursue his defense before the GMC,” she said of the General Medical Council, which held hearings in London regarding the allegations against him. “It was his decision.”
Wakefield has called the findings “unfounded and unjust.”
Jepson plans to stay, Thoughtful House said.
Thoughtful House, a non-profit organization, which through Wakefield attracted celebrity supporters, said its work would go on.
“All of us at Thoughtful House continue to work every day to maximize the potential and strive for the recovery of children with developmental disorders,” it said in a statement. “We will continue to do our very best to accomplish our mission by combining the most up-to-date treatments and important research that will help to shape the understanding of these conditions which are affecting an ever-increasing number of children worldwide.”
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Local woman’s book uses humor, hope to tell of losing breasts, ovaries to cancer at 36
Genae Girard of Lago Vista was 36 — divorced and dating — when she discovered she had breast cancer. She also found out she had a gene mutation that greatly increased her risk of breast and ovarian cancer.
After a lumpectomy, she pondered a double mastectomy and removal of her ovaries to drastically reduce her risk of a recurrence. She had no children, just a warm circle of friends and family and a great boyfriend she had been dating for only a few months. Used to taking charge, Girard, the CEO of Corporate Culture Consulting, LLC, scoured the stores for books about people like her. When she couldn’t find any, she decided to write one herself.
On Saturday, she’ll be signing her short book, Off the Rack, at Hill Country Fitness, 12912 Hill Country Blvd. F-220 Bee Cave, at The Hill Country Galleria, from 1 to 4 p.m. It’s a quick read, and anyone going through what Girard faced will likely find her insights poignant and on target. She went through with the double mastectomy and ovary removal. What she did wasn’t easy, but Girard keeps her sense of humor.
With her Saturday will be another author, Bart Sharp of Austin, an intuitive therapist, who will be signing his book, The Healing Planet.
Ten percent of the proceeds will go to the Breast Cancer Resource Center, which Girard said helped her enormously after her diagnosis.
Girard, now 40, is also a plaintiff, along with the ACLU and others, in a federal lawsuit against a Myriad Genetics, a Salt Lake City company that holds the patent on the breast and ovarian cancer BRCA genes. Girard wanted a second opinion when her BRCA2 gene test came back positive, showing she had the mutation, but she says she couldn’t get one because of the patent.
A hearing in that case was held recently in a New York federal court, and the judge’s decision is pending. Some observers expect the case to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
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$100,000 grant going to school adults in health professions
Low-income adults in Travis, Williamson and Hays counties will get support pursuing two-year degrees in health care professions with the help of a $100,000 grant announced this week.
The grant is from the St. David’s Foundation (http://www.stdavidsfoundation.org) and the Georgetown Health Foundation (http://www.gthf.org). It went to Capital IDEA, a Central Texas non-profit focused on helping lift families out of poverty with educational sponsorships.
The foundations invested in health care to also reduce a growing shortage of health care workers, foundation officials said.
“Capital IDEA has an impressive track record of success in supporting students with all the challenges that can potentially interfere with learning, including lack of transportation and childcare,” Bobbie Barker, vice-president for grants and community programs with the St. David’s Foundation, said in a written statement. “With shortages in the healthcare workforce, it just makes good sense to support innovative solutions to this need.”
For more information about Capital IDEA see the Web site at www.capitalidea.org.
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Newborn blood went to national database; attorney wants consent or samples destroyed
Disclosure that some newborn blood samples in Texas went to the U.S. military for possible use in a national database prompted a lawyer who settled a lawsuit with the state over the blood samples to demand that consent be obtained to use the information from the samples or they be destroyed.
The Department of State Health Services never mentioned that it had sent about 800 samples to the military in the 14 month-period I discussed this issue with them. Nor was it in the few documents I received from the state health department about the program.
The military also was not mentioned to Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, who settled a lawsuit in December with the state over its collection and indefinite storage of the samples since 2002.
But today’s Texas Tribune, an online news service that covers state government and politics, describes the distribution of the samples to the military to help create a national mitochondrial DNA database.
Health department spokesman Carrie Williams said the national database would identify “ethnic or ancestral origins of unidentified corpses using mitochondrial DNA.” It is believed that the DNA could help identify missing persons but she could not provide details on how the database would work using blood spots from newborns.
She also said she didn’t know why the department had not mentioned the use of the blood samples previously but would find out. I asked how the blood was being used numerous times and officials said it was used only for possible medical research and to calibrate lab equipment.
In December, the state settled a lawsuit with Harrington’s organization and the parents he represented by agreeing to destroy 5.3 million samples collected since the state began storing newborn blood in 2002 and May 27, when a new state law restricting the practice was signed. The law requires medical professionals to inform parents or guardians that the blood spots would be collected and stored indefinitely and could be used for research. Parents who object could send a statement to the state health department, and their child’s samples would have to be destroyed within 60 days. If the parents didn’t do that, the child could upon reaching adulthood.
Federal Judge Fred Biery in San Antonio approved the settlement agreement Dec. 14 and gave the state 120 days - until April 13 - to finish destroying the samples, which are stored at Texas A&M University’s School of Rural Public Health.
Harrington said today he now knows why the health department settled so quickly and why it so quickly went along with the law last year.
“I can’t tell you how many times we sat there, and they said no law enforcement,” Harrington said of this discussions surrounding the lawsuit. “They said ‘It’s only about medical research, it’s only about medical research.’ I never understood why that law went through so fast or why that (suit) was settled so fast, until now. They were afraid we’d find out.”
He said he was alarmed by the development and believes the health department lied. He sent a letter to Gov. Rick Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott asking that they intervene to get the samples destroyed if consent is not given.
Last year, when stories in the American-Statesman brought the practice to light, the state health department and some medical researchers defended it, saying that collecting the blood spots on paper - done when newborns are screened for various health disorders - might one day provide valuable clues about childhood cancer and other diseases. They said that because the samples were coded and did not identify the babies by name, privacy rights were protected.
The samples going to the armed forces also are coded, and the child’s identify is protected, Williams said.
Harrington said the agency has undermined its blood storage program by being dishonest.
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Seton offering free session for people traumatized by plane crash
Seton Shoal Creek Hospital is offering free help to people who need personal support or feel traumatized by the incident in which a man deliberately crashed his plane into an Austin building Thursday.
The “trauma debriefing” sessions are being offered as a community service for anyone who was affected by the crash, according to the Seton Family of Hospitals. A licensed clinical social worker will lead the sessions at Seton Shoal Creek, a psychiatric hospital, at 3501 Mills Ave., just behind Randall’s on 35th St.
The debriefings will be held from noon to 4 p.m. on Friday, Monday and Tuesday.
For more information call Seton Shoal Creek at 324-2000, and press 0.
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Beleaguered British doctor steps down from Austin autism center
Defending his medical license in England, the controversial British doctor who heads an autism center in Austin has stepped down as its chief, according to information from the center.
Dr. Andrew Wakefield, executive director of the Thoughtful House Center for Children, faces the possible loss of his physician license by the General Medical Council, which regulates doctors in the United Kingdom. A panel of the council said last month that Wakefield was dishonest and irresponsible in research he did on children in England a dozen years ago. The work fueled a worldwide scare over vaccines and autism.
The panel also said that Wakefield showed a “callous disregard” for children at his child’s birthday party when he had blood taken from them and paid about $10 each, later joking at a conference about them being “paid for their discomfort.”
The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal that published Wakefield’s research study in 1998, retracted the study earlier this month.
The Thoughtful House removed Wakefield from its list of staff and issued a statement today that said:
“The needs of the children we serve must always come first. All of us at Thoughtful House are grateful to Dr. Wakefield for the valuable work he has done here. We fully support his decision to leave Thoughtful House in order to make sure that the controversy surrounding the recent findings of the General Medical Council does not interfere with the important work that our dedicated team of clinicians and researchers is doing on behalf of children with autism and their families.
“All of us at Thoughtful House continue to fight every day for the recovery of children with developmental disorders. We will continue to do our very best to accomplish our mission by combining the most up-to-date treatments and important clinical research that will help to shape the understanding of these conditions which are affecting an ever-increasing number of children worldwide.”
Thoughtful House did not answer other questions about the departure.
Starting April 7 in England, Wakefield goes to the next level of hearings before the council, which will decide whether he is guilty of serious professional misconduct and whether he should be sanctioned. Possibilities include stripping him of his medical license.
Wakefield does not have a license to practice medicine in the United States.
He told reporters outside the medical council’s office in London last month that he was “extremely disappointed” by outcome of the proceedings. “The allegations against me and against my colleagues are both unfounded and unjust. I repeat, unfounded and unjust, and I invite anyone to examine the contents of these proceedings and come to their own conclusion,” he said.
Wakefield is seen as a hero by many parents in the autism community who say he has helped their children improve. They believe in the theory he advanced in the Lancet paper — that some children may develop a form of autism and gastrointestinal disease possibly from exposure to the combined measles, mumps, rubella vaccine. The theory has been widely disputed by other researchers.
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UPDATED: Healthiest county in Texas? Survey says: Williamson
UPDATED: Comments below from Williamson County and Cities Health District officials
Williamson County was graded the healthiest county in Texas in the first national survey on the health of every U.S. county. Travis County came in seventh in the state rankings, Hays was ninth and Bastrop was 91st in health outcomes.
The County Health Rankings report, released today in a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, measured counties on such factors as access to healthy foods, binge drinking, smoking, obesity and high school graduation rates. To determine health outcomes, the report then ranked counties on such factors as premature death, quality of health, mental health and babies’ birth weights.
Researchers used data between 2000 and 2008 to provide a snapshot of a county’s health.
Williamson County got its best points for having a low rate of premature death, while Travis County’s best score was for healthy behaviors, such as low smoking and obesity rates. Both counties got their worst scores in the “physical environment” category, which graded counties on air pollution, liquor store density and other factors.
Dr. Chip Riggins, executive director and health authority for the Williamson Cities and County Health District, says the rankings show that people who live in healthier counties tend to be better educated, have jobs and have access to health care, parks and recreational facilities. “But we also know that health doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not just the resources your community has, but how they are used that make the difference. Good policy decisions by elected officials, good governance by a board of health and productive public-private collaborations over the years have undoubtedly contributed to this ranking.”
Health district officials said the rankings are “a good tool to start discussions about the health of a community and how to maximize strengths and address challenges.”
Williamson County maintains its own health statistics on its Web site.
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Free heart screenings Saturday at Heart Hospital for students
Athletes, band members, cheerleaders and other students between the ages of 14 and 18 who take part in strenuous sports, including drill team, can get a free heart screening Saturday at Heart Hospital of Austin, 3801 N. Lamar Blvd.
The screenings are being sponsored by the Heart Hospital and Championship Hearts, a charity created by Austin Heart, the doctors’ group that founded the Heart Hospital.
The screenings will held from 8 a.m. to noon and are being held in honor of American Heart Month.
With volunteer cardiologists from Austin Heart, Children’s Cardiology Associates of Austin, Heart & Vascular of Central Texas, and the complimentary use of facilities at Heart Hospital, students will receive an echocardiogram, or ultrasound of the heart, and an electrocardiogram, or EKG, to detect hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM, a thickening of the heart muscle and a leading cause of sudden death among athletes. The tests also will detect other conditions, including abnormal heart rhythms.
Although there is no charge, a $15 donation is suggested. Registration will be held in the hospital’s lobby. For more information, go to the Web site, or call (512) 340-7313.
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Health district awards contract on Gracywoods clinic
Board members of Central Health, the organization formerly known as the Travis County Healthcare District, have approved a $12.7 million contract to build a new clinic in the Gracywoods subdivision.
The design-build contract, approved at a meeting Thursday goes to Flynn Construction Inc. of Austin and the Lawrence Group, a national design agency with an office in Austin, said Christie Garbe, a spokeswoman for the district.
The clinic has been the topic of intense community debate, especially from residents in the Gracywoods area who argued the health center did not belong in their neighborhood. They said it was too far from the people it intended to serve, which the district disputed.
The district was turned down in December for a $12 million federal stimulus grant to help pay for the $18 million project, which the district calls North Central Health Center. The district hopes to find other grants that could be used for the project, Garbe said.
The clinic at 1210 W. Braker Lane replaces an aging Northeast Austin Community Health Center at 7112 Ed Bluestein Blvd.
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Scott & White says a dozen hospital prospects popped up in Marble Falls
After announcing last week that its plans to build the first hospital in Marble Falls with a partner had fallen through, Scott & White Healthcare said Monday that a dozen new prospects have surfaced offering to pick up the pieces.
Scott & White spokesman Scott Clark said the hospital system has received “roughly a dozen proposals for land options from developers and others indicating interest in being part of the project” to build the Lake of the Hills Regional Medical Center. The hospital terminated a contract to build the $140 million 70-to-120-bed hospital with the local Crossroads property owners as its partner because it said the two sides could not come to terms. The project had been delayed before, partly because of the difficulty of delivering water to the site, officials said.
“We are heartened by the response to-date, which reaffirms our belief that we will be able to identify a new partner in a timely fashion,” said Peter Brumleve, Scott & White’s chief strategy Officer. “We of course won’t be able to accept every proposal, but the response has provided us with several potential options for making the best choice.”
The Crossroads contract involved plans to acquire 22 acres south of Marble Falls at the northwest corner of Texas 71 and U.S. 281. The hospital was the centerpiece of a planned Crossroads Regional Medical Campus adjacent to a planned retail development at Flatrock Springs.
“Our goal is to keep this process on track and moving forward,” Brumleve said in the statement. “We will scrutinize the proposals we’ve received using a host of criteria, including compatibility with the infrastructure work already started by the City of Marble Falls.”
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Rock, roll and give blood Saturday
The 22nd Annual KLBJ (93.7 FM) Rock N’ Roll Up Your Sleeve Blood Drive is Saturday, so here’s a chance to donate blood, hear some music and receive a giveaway from the radio station.
The event is being hosted by Sherlock’s Baker Street Pub and Grill, 9012 Research Blvd., from noon to 4 p.m. KLBJ is offering giveaways at the pub and to donors who show up at any of the Blood Center of Central Texas locations that are open on Saturday, according to the blood center.
To donate, a person must be at least 17 years of age, weigh at least 123 pounds and be in generally good health. Donors should know their Social Security number. The process takes about 45 minutes to one hour.
For more information, call the blood center or visit the Web site.
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Are you addicted to love?
Robert Palmer sang happily in the mid-80s about being addicted to love. But love addiction can make a person a miserable, like alcoholism or drug addiction, says Betsy Stanfield, an Austin therapist with certification in love and sex addiction counseling from the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals.
She trained with Patrick Carnes, a nationally known sex addiction therapist at Pine Grove Behavioral Center in Hattiesburg, Miss., where golfer Tiger Woods is reported to be receiving treatment. Woods has admitted infidelity in his marriage.
With Valentine’s Day here, how can you tell if it’s love, lust, love addiction or sex addiction? Stanfield sheds light in this edited Q&A.
Q: What’s the difference between love and lust?
A: For the average person, love is an emotional, mental and spiritual feeling. Lust is usually based more on a physical attraction and a need. Love requires discipline and commitment. Lust requires no attribute like that. Love is really focused on the growth, improvement and caring of the person who is the object, while lust is focused on the satisfaction of the self. Lust is integral in the first stage of a relationship, and it’s … a normal part of the courting process. But after that wears off, you’re either left with nothing or you develop love.
Q: What is love addiction?
A: It comes in many forms. Some love addicts carry a torch for unavailable people obsessively. Some get addicted to the euphoric effects of romance. They’re always looking for that high. When that wears off, a love addict is looking for that next fix.
Q: What is the difference between love and love addiction?
A: The question is what distinguishes an addiction from healthy love. When you’re addicted to someone you’re using them. It’s not about them or even about the two of you. If you’re addicted, you’re continually, unsatisfiable. You’re trying to take from them the love you never got as a kid. You’re almost holding them hostage with your feelings, and you’re absolutely terrified of being alone, terrified of abandonment.
Q: Do you have to have a bad childhood to be love addicted?
A: There are always biological and environmental factors that merge together. By no means is it exclusive to a bad childhood, but that is a big driver. A big part of how love addiction starts, it’s in childhood — feeling betrayed by a parent, or by divorce or with a parent leaving. The rejection leads to an object relationship, the need to possess someone of the opposite sex and make them love you. They want to undo what they didn’t get from a rejecting parent. In the movie Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise says to his girlfriend that famous line, ‘You complete me.’ As romantic as that was supposed to be, that really demonstrates … a lot of love addiction. We’re looking for someone to complete us versus that healthy love where you are two separate people coming together and having a healthy interdependence. When you are looking outside yourself to feel complete, then you are not strong and healthy in your own right.
The telltale signs are, a love addict always needs to be in a relationship, and there’s always a feeling of needing more. There’s a built-in feeling of incompleteness and desperation. This is where the addiction and the co-dependency really comes from.
Q: What is sex addiction?
A: It’s a progressive intimacy disorder characterized by compulsive sexual thoughts and acts. It’s giving the addict the same euphoric high (as drugs and alcohol). Sex addiction is compulsive and destructive behavior focused on different ways of acting out sexually.
Q: What’s the difference between sex addiction and love addiction?
A: Sex addiction can be completely done in isolation. Love addiction is focused on another person. Love addiction and sex both serve the same purpose — to avoid going to the real issue, the pain you have inside, which comes from something you didn’t get. It’s really sad because it’s such a painful and destructive onus for people. People think sex addiction is just being too horny, but it’s actually painful and destructive.
Q: How do you know if you need professional help?
A: If the behavior starts to create negative consequences in your life, yet you continue to engage in those behaviors anyway, that’s a sign. If they take up more time, energy and focus than you would like, or if they cause you to persistently act out in ways that cause you to go against your values and beliefs, that’s another sign. If you need more and more of it to get the same high, that’s another sign. If you find yourself minimizing it (as a problem) or denying it to other people that’s another sign. And another sign is when you don’t have access to your drug of choice, you express irritability, anger, anxiousness.
Q: How do you treat this?
A: A combination of one-on-one and group therapy and 12 steps, just like Alcoholics Anonymous.
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Nurse acquitted for reporting doctor, but watchdog group predicts chilling effect
A jury in West Texas acquitted a nurse on trial for reporting that a doctor had improperly encouraged patients to buy herbal medicines and wanted to use hospital supplies to perform a procedure at a patient’s home, according to the Associated Press.
Winkler County prosecutors accused the nurse, Anne Mitchell, of being motivated by personal, not professional concerns when she complained to the Texas Medical Board about Dr. Rolando Arafiles. She was indicted in June on “misuse of official information” after Arafiles filed a harassment complaint with the Winkler County Sheriff’s Department, according to the AP.
The prosecutor dropped a complaint against a second nurse alleged to be involved in the case.
Both nurses were fired from their jobs where they worked wtih Arafiles at Winkler County Memorial Hospital in Kermit.
We’ve run several columns on this by Austin nurse Toni Inglis, including this one.
Alex Winslow, executive director of the consumer group Texas Watch, said that regardless of the acquittal, the case would have a chilling effect on nurses who want to report wrongdoing by doctors and patient safety.
“Texas has become the Wild West when it comes to medicine,” said Winslow in a news release on the acquittal. “Our courthouses are closed and patients have no public advocates. Now, our only line of defense to protect patients from dangerous, careless or unqualified doctors, the Texas Medical Board, is hamstrung because of this prosecution.”
Mari Robinson, executive director of the medical board, said in a letter to prosecutors that, “the willingness of persons to come forward and file complaints with the Board is critical to the Board’s success in regulating the practice of medicine as required by Texas law. Causing persons to fear criminal felony prosecution if they do so undermines the Board’s ability to do its job.”
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Seton, backing medical school in Austin, donates to one in Round Rock
The Seton Family of Hospitals, which expects to invest at least $100 million in what could be the seeds of a medical school in Austin, is donating $600,000 to a similar venture in Round Rock.
The money pledged by Seton Medical Center Williamson to the Texas A&M Health Science Center at FM 1460 and south of FM 112 will go to support nursing education programs. The St. David’s Foundation also has pledged $250,000 to support overall development of the medical campus in Round Rock, Texas A&M announced this morning.
“This community has truly welcomed us with open arms by coming together to ensure not only the success of Texas A&M Health Science Center but more importantly the success of the future health care professionals that we are training here today,” said Dr. Nancy Dickey, president of the Texas A&M Health Science Center and vice chancellor for health affairs for The Texas A&M University System.
Training new nurses is critical to cope with shortages of nursing professionals, said Mark Hazelwood, president and CEO of Seton Medical Center Williamson.
Seton, which operates 10 hospitals in Central Texas, including University Medical Center Brackenridge and Dell Children’s Medical Center, recently partnered with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas to expand medical education and research in Austin. Charles Barnett, president and CEO of Seton, said he hopes the partnership paves the way for an eventual full-fledged medical school in Austin.
Seton’s costs of affiliating with Southwestern will exceed $100 million in the first four years, Barnett has said, including in an article the Statesman published in December.
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Plans for Marble Falls’ first hospital run into new snag
Scott & White is seeking a new site for Marble Falls’ first hospital because the deal with the developer for its Lake of the Hills Regional Medical Center has fallen through, the hospital system announced on its Web site.
Scott & White said that after months of negotiations, it terminated a contract offer Friday with Crossroads property owner/developer to acquire 22 acres south of Marble Falls at the northwest corner of Texas 71 and U.S. 281.
“The Crossroads developers have not completed any of the improvements that were required in the original agreement,” the posting said.
Scott & White didn’t give Crossroads sufficient data to make a budget for the project, said Armand Biglari, who is a co-owner of the land and is with Crossroads. “How can you make improvements without a budget?” he said. “We don’t have any hard feelings.”
Local leaders announced plans for the hospital to great fanfare in 2007. Two years ago, the Scott & White said the hospital would not open in late 2009, as hoped, but probably would be delayed another three to four years because of the difficulty of bringing water to the site.
“We are moving forward with the plan and commitment to build a regional medical campus with a hospital and physician building,” said Dr. Alfred Knight, Scott & White president and CEO. “The City of Marble Falls is making progress on their commitment to bring water and utilities to the project location, and we need to keep up the pace so we will be ready.”
The final cost for the hospital and office building was expected to be $140 million and it’s expected to create 400 jobs, Scott & White said. The hospital plans to have 70 to 120 beds.
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Michael Jackson’s doctor free to practice in Texas, despite charge
Dr. Conrad Murray, charged this week with involuntary manslaughter in the death of King of Pop Michael Jackson, is free to continue practicing medicine in Texas — at least for now.
Murray, who pleaded not guilty to the charge Monday in Los Angeles, specializes in cardiovascular diseases and internal medicine at his practice in Houston, according to the Texas Medical Board. He also practices in California and was at Jackson’s home when he died.
Murray is accused of providing propofol to Jackson, an anesthesia that is used in operating rooms, so Jackson could sleep. An autopsy report said Jackson died of “acute propofol intoxication,” according to the LA Times and other reports.
Texas Medical Board spokeswoman Leigh Hopper said that because Murray is still free to practice in California, he can practice in Texas.
“Right now, we don’t have a basis for action,” Hopper said. “But the minute the California medical board does something, we could do something.”
ABC’s Good Morning America reported Tuesday that the California attorney general asked the California board to revoke Murray’s license to practice medicine there. The judge at the hearing, Keith Schwartz, placed a restriction on Murray’s license saying he could not administer heavy sedatives to patients, according to reports from the hearing.
Murray also practices in Nevada, but no action was taken on his license there, according to Fox 5 News in Las Vegas.
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Weight requirements for blood donors go up in Central Texas
If you struggled to weigh 110 pounds to donate blood at the Blood Center of Central Texas, you better crack open the Girl Scout cookies. And you better eat the whole box.
The minimum weight for all whole blood donors is now 123 pounds, according to center spokeswoman Cindy Rowe. The reason? The center started using larger collection bags last month that hold about three tablespoons more of blood, Rowe said. They evidently don’t want people who are too small getting woozy from donating.
For people who donate platelets, the minimum weight at the center remains 110 pounds.
Some other centers also are using the larger bags, she said. I called to ask which ones. A few other sites I checked at random still list 110 pounds as the minimum weight, such as the Houston/Galveston blood center. I also wonder how many donors the local center might lose because of the bigger bags. I’m waiting to hear back on my questions, and we will publish a more detailed story in the print edition.
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Patient safety campaign targets brutal work schedules of doctors-in-training
A new campaign aimed at reducing medical errors is targeting the grueling schedules required of medical residents (doctors-in-training) and interns who often work shifts up to 30 hours at a time.
Research shows that lack of sleep can lead to impaired decision-making and mistakes. In a hospital, such mistakes can mean life or death.
A coalition of more than 40 health care, patient safety and other advocates is behind the campaign called Safe Work Hours, Safe Patients. They are asking the public to share stories about fatigued physician care and sign a petition to the organization overseeing residency training programs in the U.S., the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.
The coalition wants the council to limit the amount of time residents go without sleep to no more than 16 hours and increase supervision of the residents. The coalition hopes to influence the council’s board, which is meeting Sunday through Tuesday, according to a news release about the campaign.
“Few, if any, people would fly on a plane whose pilot had been awake and working for 25 to 30 hours. In fact, that long a shift is prohibited,” Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, said in the release. “But patients routinely get medical care from resident physicians who have been working that long. They become fatigued, making them more susceptible to making errors that greatly harm patients. It is likely that there are more deaths in U.S. hospitals each year caused by sleep-deprived doctors than the total annual deaths from plane crashes and train accidents.”
Helen Haskell, the founder and president of Mothers Against Medical Error, one of the coalition groups, became involved in patient safety after her 15-year-old son Lewis Blackman died in a South Carolina hospital from an elective procedure in 2000. He died “from ‘failure to rescue,’ or failure to recognize and act upon the signs of serious decline in a patient,” according to Haskell.
“I know that fatigue must have played a role in my son Lewis’s intern’s judgment and in her inability to buck the system for the sake of a patient,” she said in the news release. “There is no way I can ever know how large a role it played, but I do know that in those hours of crisis, the last thing we needed was to have an exhausted, unsupervised young trainee as my dying child’s only lifeline.”
Lisa McGiffert of Austin, who is leading the Stop Hospital Infections project for Consumers Union, said her organization is a backer of the campaign and has long been concerned about medical errors.
“This is the first time consumer organizations have come together on the issue,” she said yesterday, when the campaign was announced.
No one knows how many medical errors occur each year, she said, “possibly as many as 200,000 but we estimated over 100,000. We know there are almost 100,000 deaths from hospital-acquired infections.”
A report her organization wrote said that behind the numbers are real lives, like that of Haskell’s son, Lewis.
“The lack of a reliable measurement of medical harm is a major challenge that must be addressed,” the report concluded. “But don’t confuse the magnitude with the impact. We know the impact of the problem today. Just ask Lewis Blackman’s family.”
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I haven’t seen my ex in a longg time but I still think about her sometimes.
Is this normal? I haven’t spoken to her in over 8 months but I occasionally just feel like I still miss her.
Or am I just an idiot?
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Jemme,
I posed your question to S&W and got back a statement today from a spokeswoman quoting Peter Brumleve, the chief strategy officer for Scott & White Healthcare. He had this to say:
“Scott & White Healthcare is moving forward
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Is it true that Scott & White is pulling out of Marble Falls to build a hospital in Bryan/College Station? As a resident of Marble Falls, I would be ticked to think the city spent all that money to get S&W here and then S&W bails on the project
... read the full comment by Jemme | Comment on Scott & White says a dozen hospital prospects popped up in Marble Falls Read Scott & White says a dozen hospital prospects popped up in Marble Falls
Mike Haynes’ wheelchair sports program was awesome when I attended the Super Sports Saturdays offered many years ago while he worked for St. David’s Rehab Center and I imagine they’re still fantastic at Seton!
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