The ‘Destruction Is Almost Unimaginable’: Trauma Surgeons Share Experiences With Assault-Style Rifle Wounds
The damage the type of weapons inflict on the human body is "ghastly," trauma surgeons say.
The New York Times:
Wounds From Military-Style Rifles? ‘A Ghastly Thing To See’
Perhaps no one knows the devastating wounds inflicted by assault-style rifles better than the trauma surgeons who struggle to repair them. The doctors say they are haunted by their experiences confronting injuries so dire they struggle to find words to describe them. At a high school in Parkland, Fla., 17 people were recently killed with just such a weapon — a semiautomatic AR-15. It was legal there for Nikolas Cruz, 19, the suspect in the shooting, to buy a civilian version of the military’s standard rifle, while he would have had to be 21 to buy a less powerful and accurate handgun. (Kolata and Chivers, 3/4)
In other national health care news —
The New York Times:
Suit Calls Navy Board Biased Against Veterans With PTSD
Things got ugly for Cpl. Tyson Manker in Iraq. During a firefight in the confusion of the 2003 invasion, the 21-year-old Marine shot up a bus full of civilians. Later, during a chase, he dropped an Iraqi in a flowing white robe with a shot to the torso, only to discover afterward that he had hit a teenage girl. His squad beat detainees, and accidentally shot several other civilians. After his deployment, Corporal Manker was kicked out of the Marine Corps with an other-than-honorable discharge — not for anything that happened in combat, but for smoking marijuana to try to quiet his nerves when he got home. (Philipps, 3/2)
The New York Times:
As Trump Pushes Medicaid Testing, The Grading Falls Short
The Trump administration is hoping to transform Medicaid by allowing states to test work requirements, premiums and other conservative policies, but a new government report says federal and state officials do not properly evaluate whether such experiments improve patient care or reduce costs. Evaluations “generally lacked rigor,” and the findings were often kept secret for years, so they were of little use to policymakers, the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, said in the report issued last month. (Pear, 3/4)
The Hill:
CDC: Worst Of Flu Season May Be Over
The worst of the nation’s flu season may be over, according to new data from federal officials. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday said the 2017–2018 flu season peaked in early February and is now on the decline. While 45 states plus Puerto Rico continued to report widespread flu activity, that number is down compared to past weeks, the CDC said Friday. (Weixel, 3/2)
NPR:
U.S. Immigration Policy Threatens Shake-Up In Home Health Aide Business
On a rare rainy night in Albuquerque, two dozen students are learning the proper way to care for older people. Teacher Liliana Reyes is reviewing the systems of the body — circulatory, respiratory and so on — to prepare them for an upcoming exam. These students are seeking to join a workforce of about 3 million people who help older adults remain in their homes. They assist these clients with things like bathing, dressing, and taking medication on time. (Jaffe, 3/5)
The Washington Post:
Sexting Is Becoming Common For Teens
haring sexually explicit photos, videos or messages — or sexting — seems to be increasingly common among teens today. About 27 percent of teens say they’ve received such an electronic message, or sext, according to a study in the journal JAMA Pediatrics that included more than 110,000 teens. Nearly 15 percent admitted to having sent a sext. About 12 percent also said they had forwarded a sext without permission. (Searing, 3/3)
The Washington Post:
Exercise Pill Could Someday Help Those Incapable Of Working Out
Not everyone can exercise. People with muscle-wasting diseases and movement disorders, the frail, the very obese and post-surgical patients are among those who face a significant challenge when it comes to working out. This can be frustrating, considering the well-established benefits of exercise. But what if a drug could stimulate the body into producing some of the same effects of exercise — more endurance and weight control, for example — without the need to run a single step? Such a pill may be on the way. Several scientists are testing compounds that apparently can do this — and people wouldn’t even have to move at all to benefit. (Cimons, 3/4)
NPR:
Personal Health Technology Is Getting Smarter
With sensors that can collect data on body movements, heart rate, blood pressure and other metrics, the list of health trackers that go beyond activity trackers like Fitbits gets longer each year. "There's definitely an explosion of these things," says Dr. Joseph Kvedar, the vice president for connected health at Partners HealthCare in Boston, and an associate professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School. (Chen, 3/5)