Mark Henry Kett’s troubles with the Texas Medical Board began on Feb. 23, 2008, when Carrollton police received a disturbance call at his home. They found Kett armed with a semi-automatic pistol and ranting about assassins who had come to his house to kill his wife. He had fired off…
It’s been nearly a year since Texas legislators slashed the state’s family planning funding, diverting $73 million to a variety of other programs. That was about two-thirds of the total family planning budget, and the conservative lawmakers who orchestrated the cuts were vocal about why they’d done it: to harm…
Until recently, Dr. Wayne Soignier worked out of his office on Royal Lane, primarily providing medical evaluations for the Texas workers’ compensation system. At some point, the Texas Department of Insurance became concerned about his professional conduct and called him to appear before a two-member panel of physicians. The meeting…
Some six million Texans are one health emergency away from financial ruin, and the state of affairs in Dallas County isn’t any better. Nearly 30 percent of its residents are uninsured. That’s 672,681 of our neighbors whom the health insurance markets have excluded, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau…
Governor Rick Perry, it may shock you to learn, is not such a big fan of abortion. Perry vowed some time ago to create a new, Texas-run version of the Women’s Health Program, one that would ban doctors from discussing or “promoting” abortion with their patients. It would also explicitly…
Quick: What day is it today? If you answered Tuesday or September 18, you’re technically right but you’re actually very, tragically wrong, because it’s National Cheeseburger Day which a) exists and b) is a great opportunity to check out a new burger joint. It’s also, perhaps, time to reflect on…
Dallas was already having its worst-ever year for West Nile at the end of July, but things were only going to get worse, as August would prove to be the outbreak’s worst month. The number of confirmed human cases in Dallas County jumped by 10 or 12 or 19 per…
There are times when I’m particularly grateful I’m not a woman. Watching my wife give birth is one. Reading a consumer advisory about tainted tampons is another. Kimberly-Clark, the Dallas-based personal hygiene conglomerate, sent word yesterday that it is recalling large quantities of Kotex Natural Balance Tampons. Why, you ask?…
It’s an easy thing for a state to rationalize. Every year, the percentage of Texas residents who are technically obese inches up slightly. It’s just by a percentage point or so, so maybe it’s a rounding error or a gravitational anomaly that affects every Texans’ scale. Besides, who doesn’t overindulge…
It happens, on average, 12 times per year in the United States: some lucky woman gives birth to five children, not spacing them comfortably over the course of several years but getting them out all at once. It happened in the span of five minutes in Dallas on Thursday, when…
A few months back, the Susan G. Komen For the Cure, the Dallas-based, Nancy Brinker-founded organization that has single-handedly made breast cancer a cause celeb, thrust itself squarely in the middle of the abortion debate when it announced plans to cut funding from Planned Parenthood. Brinker walked the decision back,…
Update at 11:57 a.m.: Dallas County spokeswoman Maria Arita tweeted a response to reports that commissioners are considering aerial spraying. Aerial Spraying for West Nile NOT BEING PONDERED by Dallas County Commissioners. About virus: cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/w… 1.usa.gov/Rik5P6— Dallas County (@DallasCountyTx) August 7, 2012 Original Post: Dallas County is having a record…
I’m not, by nature, someone who spends much time worrying. I assume, more or less automatically, that I’m not going to contract that horrible disease, that ominous-looking strangers probably won’t murder me, that there will be time to swerve when that 18-wheeler drifts into my lane. My wife says I…
Update at 1:29 p.m.:Dr. Shannon’s email announcing his resignation, as well as board chair Donna Branson’s responses to my questions, are below. Original post: Skip over to Parkland’s website and scroll through the roster of senior executives and you’ll notice it hasn’t been updated in a while. But they still…
It’s like clockwork. Every year as summer rolls around, media outlets begin to hyperventilate about the approaching West Nile epidemic, then proceed to breathlessly report on every single human case that shows up. Public health experts dutifully slip on their white coats and talk about what a grave danger West…
Texas Republicans have been complaining loudly since the Supreme Court decided that the Affordable Care Act passed constitutional muster. The law is a huge overreach by the federal government, it’s a “stomach-punch” to the economy, Obama is a socialist, etc. etc. There’s even quite serious talk about refusing a Medicaid…
A little while ago, WFAA reported that Methodist Dallas Medical Center had made a teensy error during a recent operation and transplanted a kidney into the wrong patient. The kidney turned out to be compatible and the patient is fine, but when Methodist discovered the mistake last week, it raised…
The graph above shows the number of babies delivered each year at Parkland Memorial Hospital. Notice the steep downward trajectory, from 15,800 in 2008 to a projected 10,700 in 2013. That’s a 32-percent drop or, in layman’s terms, a shit-load fewer babies. I noticed this almost a month ago, back…
At the end of the day yesterday, the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation sent a dispatch from its president, Brook Rawlings, reacting to the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act. “Make no mistake,” Rawlings wrote. “This outcome is a net negative for every Texan — and every…
Update at 9:40 a.m.: Check out the full decision below. Original post: We were planning to try to localize the Supreme Court’s decision this morning on the Affordable Care Act, do some sort of informed, level-headed analysis like the DMN’s Michael Lindenberger prepared last night. But that would require a…
Over the weekend, the Texas Tribune published one of those eye-opening, number-crunching reports the website has made its niche. This one is about weight-loss surgery, specifically weight-loss surgery that is paid for by taxpayers. This is a relatively new phenomenon, the Tribune notes. Medicare only started covering weight-loss surgery in…
A few moments ago, Parkland sent word that John Dragovits, its executive vice president and chief financial officer, is leaving the struggling hospital. Come mid-July, he’ll become the president and COO of Anthelio, a healthcare IT provider headquartered in Dallas. The press release, of course, makes no mention of Parkland’s…
