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SOUTH BEND -- A man with Alzheimer's disease who was wandering amidst traffic in the middle of a busy street suffered multiple injuries when a South Bend police officer used a Taser on him Friday night while attempting to coax him to safety. Thompson Thewo, 65, suffered deep cuts to his face, a fractured arm and a dislocated elbow after the officer tried to keep him out of the Ironwood Drive and Lincoln Way East intersection. Thewo hurt his face during a fall after he was hit by the first of two Taser probes, then suffered the arm injury when...

MONROE — A man who last night shot and killed his 5-year-old grandson before turning the gun on himself suffered from depression and previously alluded to hurting himself, Monroe Police Chief Tim Quenzer said. The Snohomish County Medical Examiner's Office identified the man as Roy Bryan Hetherwick, 58, and the boy as Roy Brennan Hetherwick, 5. According to Hetherwick's wife, Quenzer said, Hetherwick took medication for depression but had never talked of injuring the child. In a release issued this afternoon, Monroe police said officers responded to the house on July 2, when they found Hetherwick "despondent and feeling suicidal."...

Rhetoric ANNOUNCER: “Step right up, step right up. Watch the amazing George Bush take three sides of an issue. Gasp as he takes credit for bills he opposed. Gawk in amazement as you listen to George Bush flip-flop on the Patients Bill of Rights.”PRESIDENT BUSH:  “That’s not true, I do support a national Patients’ Bill of Rights. As a matter of fact, I brought Republicans and Democrats together to do just that in the state of Texas, to get a Patients’ Bill of Rights through.”ANNOUNCER:  “The amazing George Bush actually vetoed the Patients’ Bill of Rights. Then it became...

Dr. Bruce W. Wilkin, a rural physician in Nevada, has recently been in the news. He is one of thousands of physicians who are facing legal challenges for his professional treatment of patients in pain.CPAIN.ORG has been provided with this Press Release in which Dr. Wilkin tells his side of the story.RURAL NEVADA DOCTOR FACES  THREATENED LICENSE REVOCATION FOR TREATING CHRONIC PAIN PATIENTS February 19, 2004 Deputy Attorney General, Richard J. Legarza, legal counsel for the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners, has filed 19 unspecified charges of malpractice against Bruce W. Wilkin, M.D., a 64 year-old physician who has...

The day may be coming when you will call your doctor in the middle of the night with an ailment and he will tell you, ''Say two prayers and call me in the morning.'' Doctors who believe in the power of prayer are increasing. The cover story in a recent issue of Newsweek magazine carried the headline ''God and Health: Is Religion Good Medicine? Why Science is Starting to Believe.'' In the Nov. 10 article, Newsweek's Claudia Kalb wrote that many of today's doctors are beginning to ''embrace the God they banished from the clinic long ago in favor of...

Saddam was captured this morning. No doubt there's been a sigh of relief in Washington. But most importantly, the majority of Iraqis must be feeling more safe and secure. Is it necessary to remind eveyone of why Iraqis would feel relief in light of Saddam's legacy? An estimated 300,000 dead Iraqis lay in some 260 mass graves, 40 of which have been confirmed to date. Saddam's rule meant torture chambers, dropping posion gas on civilians, starting an 8-year war with Iran which claimed a million lives, etc. Imagine if Hitler would've been running around in post-war Germany. Kind of unsettling,...

The patient is bleeding us dry but shows few signs of getting better (Filed: 25/09/2003) Labour vowed to save the NHS - but it is proving an expensive promise. In the fourth part of our investigation into the state of public services Celia Hall gives the money-hungry beast a check-up. During almost 20 years in opposition, there was one issue on which Labour could rely for voter support: the National Health Service. It had been the party in power when the NHS was established in 1948 and felt that it possessed proprietorial rights. As demands for health care grew, Labour...

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- A woman in southeastern Thailand is returning to the hospital where her uterus was taken out nearly six years ago - this time for surgery to remove the forceps that doctors left behind. Lamphan Yinsuth, 46, has had stomach pains since her hysterectomy at Chanthaburi province's Prapoklao Hospital in November 1997. X-rays in April revealed that the pains were caused by the 6-by-29 centimeter (2.4-by-11.4 inch) forceps lodged in her abdomen. After filing a complaint to the Medical Council, a national association of doctors, the hospital agreed to compensate Yinsuth 400,000 baht (US$9,520) for the operation...

A black woman who is to undergo a foot amputation was at first offered a white artificial replacement because it was cheaper, a hospital has admitted. Ingrid Nicholls, 46, from Calcot near Reading, is yet to undergo the operation and health chiefs have now backed down and offered her a prosthetic matching her own skin colour after she complained. A Royal Berkshire Hospital official is said to have told her: "Sorry, they only come in pink shades." The single mum told the Daily Mirror: "We have black Cabinet ministers, judges and doctors but apparently only false limbs for white people....

<p>FRANKLIN, N.H. (AP) The state has suspended the license of a New Hampshire dentist for refusing to treat a lesbian patient and for berating another patient.</p> <p>The Board of Dental Examiners found that in March 1999, Joseph Roper Jr. refused to treat Tricia Thompson, a patient of his for almost three years, for a painful infected tooth after he found out that she considered herself married to a female partner.</p>

Anatomy of the deadly China syndrome Virus Sars is first of many epidemics to come Ian Sample, science correspondent Friday April 25, 2003 The Guardian We're unsure where it came from, have no treatment for it and no idea when or where it will spread next. The virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome is shrouded in unknowns. But two things are agreed upon: it's lethal, and it's not going to go away. What's more, we can look forward to far more new and extremely dangerous viruses in the next few years. In mid-February, a retired Chinese doctor, Liu Jianlun,...

Who is the best patient? Five surgeons are discussing who makes the best patients to operate on. The first surgeon says, "I like to see accountants on my operating table, because when you open them up, everything inside is numbered." The second responds, "Yeah, but you should try electricians. Everything inside them is color-coded." The third surgeon says, "No, I really think librarians are the best; everything inside them is in alphabetical order." The fourth surgeon chimes in: "You know, I like construction workers. They always understand when you have a few parts left over at the end and when...

<p>A Connecticut hospital profiled this week in a Chicago Tribune series is suing a former patient and the widower of another patient, alleging they violated a confidentiality agreement by speaking to the newspaper.</p> <p>In addition, Bridgeport Hospital obtained a temporary restraining order Thursday barring the patient, family members or their attorney from publicly discussing their medical cases or details of their settlement with the hospital that was sealed in May 2001.</p>