Faculty Bibliography

More than 20 cases have occurred among people on other atolls who acquired measles on Majuro. To stop the outbreak, health officials have undertaken a large immunization program. They have also suspended travel by sea and air from Majuro until immunization programs have been completed on other atolls and islands

Dr. [Julie L. Gerberding] cautioned doctors to consider West Nile fever in patients who experienced headaches and fevers after transfusions. After transfusion-associated cases of West Nile were first identified last year, federal officials said they realized the need for a test to screen the blood. Blood banks asked donors about symptoms of recent illnesses. But the West Nile virus can be present in blood before symptoms develop or even among people who report few, if any, symptoms. In some areas where West Nile is particularly prevalent this summer, blood banks are testing each donor's blood. Those states include Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota, Dr. Gerberding said

A 27-year-old medical researcher who acquired a mild case of SARS while working in a laboratory has recovered and was discharged from a hospital. He will be in quarantine at home for two weeks

''Our greatest concern was that this was Lassa fever,'' said Dr. Gregory J. Martin, a Navy captain and the program director of infectious disease fellowships at Bethesda Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Dr. Martin led the military medical team that examined the marines at Andrews Air Force Base and later cared for them at Bethesda. As of today, the malaria outbreak has affected 54 of the 625 troops who were in Liberia. The patients include three Navy corpsmen embedded with the marines. Two marines are being treated in the military's regional medical center in Landstuhl, Germany, and 11 aboard the Iwo Jima, Dr. Martin said. Dr. Gregory J. Martin led the military medical team that examined and cared for the marines ill with malaria. Thirty-one marines had become sick aboard two Navy ships, the Carter Hall and the Iwo Jima, right, after spending two weeks ashore in Liberia in August. (Photo by United States Navy/Reuters); (Photo by Marty Katz for The New York Times)

The daily squeeze hit me hardest the morning I saw a likable 68- year-old patient of mine waving at me through my waiting-room window. I'd been treating him for years, but he didn't have an appointment and I barely recognized him with his newly bald head, yellowed skin and shaking hands. My office staff wanted to turn him away because the day's schedule was already packed, but I sensed his desperation and made time for him. In the examination room, he told me that his oncologist had informed him bluntly that his cancer had spread and then dismissed him. I was the man's internist, his gatekeeper to the medical world, and he had returned to me -- not for expertise, but for warmth. The pressures are fierce for doctors to compromise their professionalism, their humane instincts, for business reasons. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission suggested last year that the United States needs a payment system that more accurately reflects doctors' rising costs. Most doctors would agree. While it is true that we still make a decent living, at the same time we must hire more and more staff members to handle certifications, pre- certifications and referrals while also accepting lower payments. And with the new fee reduction almost certain to filter down from Medicare to the HMOs the way such reductions have done in the past, it will become increasingly harder to stay level. Struggling with my professional identity, I try to find myself in the famed physicians' Hippocratic Oath, which says, in part, 'In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction. . . .' Well, doctors abandoned making house calls and gave up accepting a chicken in lieu of payment long ago in most parts of the industrialized world. But 'for the good of the patient' remains a noble ideal that has guided physicians for centuries. I feel it must continue to guide me

A pioneering gene researcher and the discoverers of a powerful therapy for autoimmune disorders are the winners of the 2003 Lasker awards for medical research. And [Christopher Reeve], the actor whose struggle against paralysis has given new hope to patients with severe spinal injuries, has won the Lasker public service award. Dr. Marc Feldmann and Sir Ravinder N. Maini of the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in London won the clinical medical research award for a discovery that led to development of powerful drugs that can soothe joint pain and restore mobility among people with rheumatoid arthritis. The therapy, known as anti-T.N.F., for tumor necrosis factor, has also benefited people with other autoimmune disorders, like the bowel ailment Crohn's disease and a form of arthritis caused by psoriasis. Dr. Feldmann, an Australian immunologist, and Sir Ravinder, who was born in India, overcame major scientific skepticism when they began their anti-T.N.F. work in 1984. It has led to the development of three licensed drugs for rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune disorders -- Remicade, Enbrel and Humira

Dr. Marc Feldmann and Sir Ravinder N. Maini of the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in London won the clinical-medical - research award for a discovery that led to development of powerful drugs that can soothe joint pain and restore mobility among people with rheumatoid arthritis

Christopher Reeve, the actor whose struggle against paralysis has given new hope to patients with severe spinal injuries, has won the Lasker public-service award. Reeve was paralyzed from the shoulders down when he was thrown headlong from a horse in 1995. He is now chairman of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation and a leading advocate for increasing financial support of medical research aimed at curing not only his injury, but a wide variety of other conditions. The Lasker committee said it was citing Reeve, 50, 'for his perceptive, sustained and heroic advocacy for medical research in general and victims of disability in particular.'

[Christopher Reeve] was paralyzed from the shoulders down when he was thrown headlong from a horse in 1995. He was honored for transforming his personal tragedy into public service. He is now chairman of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation and a leading advocate for increasing financial support of medical research aimed at curing not only his own injury, but a wide variety of other conditions