TMC Medical Minutes: Hospice Care

Posted: Tue 3:59 PM, Oct 07, 2008

For families and caregivers of those with a terminal illness, providing that loved one with comfort and quality-of-life when a quantity of life can’t be increased is so important. TexomaCare- physician, Dr. Duke Carlson joins us to discuss the care that is provided by hospice services.

Dentist gives back through gift of dental care

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AP Top Health Stories

Doctors, patients scramble ahead of high court Obamacare decision

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Australian court backs finding radio royal prank call broke law

Australia's High Court on Wednesday backed the broadcasting watchdog's finding that an Australian radio station broke the law with a prank call to a British hospital taking care of the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge, paving the way for penalties. Two presenters at Sydney's 2Day FM called the London hospital in December 2012, pretending to be Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles. On Wednesday, the High Court in Canberra ruled in favor of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), overturning a ruling by the lower Federal Court. The High Court said ACMA did have the power to determine the station had committed a criminal offence, as a preliminary to taking enforcement action under the Broadcasting Services Act.
Lawmakers gear up for Supreme Court Obamacare fray

By Richard Cowan WASHINGTON(Reuters) - War rooms of lawmakers and their aides in the U.S. Congress are working furiously to try to influence the Supreme Court's nine justices who will hear arguments on Wednesday on the future of President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare law. These informal working groups, staffed by Republican and Democratic members of Congress, have gone into high gear in recent days. They plan to use an array of tools - from social media and radio interviews to newspaper opinion pieces, news conferences and Senate and House of Representatives floor speeches - to bolster the opposing legal arguments being laid out before the high court and to rally public opinion. On Twitter, for example, at #acaworks, Senate Democrats brim with upbeat assessments of how Obamacare has slashed the numbers of uninsured while also saving on seniors' drug costs.
Supreme Court weighs new conservative attack on Obamacare

By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court will consider on Wednesday a second major legal attack on President Barack Obama's healthcare law, with conservative challengers taking aim at a pivotal part of the statute that authorizes tax subsidies to help people afford insurance. If the court rules against the Obama administration, up to 7.5 million people in at least 34 states would lose the subsidies that help low- and moderate-income people buy private health insurance, according to the consulting firm Avalere Health. The Democratic-backed Affordable Care Act, narrowly passed by Congress in 2010 over unified Republican opposition, aimed to help millions of Americans who lacked any health insurance afford coverage. The case does not affect people who obtain health insurance through their employer.
Spider venom may hold chemical keys to new painkillers
By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists who analyzed countless chemicals in spider venom say they have identified seven compounds that block a key step in the body's ability to pass pain signals to the brain. Experts estimate that as many as one in five people worldwide suffer from chronic pain and existing pain treatments often fail to give sufficient or long-term relief. Pain's economic burden is also huge, with chronic pain estimated to cost $600 billion a year in the United States alone. People sense pain in a part of their body when nerves from the affected area send signals to the brain through what is called the pain pathway, and it is this pathway scientists seek to disrupt when searching for potential new pain medicines.