While the Urgent Care clinic claims to provide fast and affordable health care for non-emergency medical needs, the McAlester facility can now claim to be on the cutting edge when it comes to doling out prescription drugs. Say hello to InstyMeds. InstyMeds is a fully automated ATM-style machine that dispenses prescription medications directly to patients immediately before leaving the office. The ...

“We are the nurses, the mighty, mighty nurses! Everywhere we go, people want to know who we are… So we tell them: We are the nurses, the mighty mighty nurses!” So went the chant of 100 or so members of Brooklyn Hospital Center’s nursing staff this afternoon as they picketed outside the hospital at 121 DeKalb Avenue..

Margaret Bryant would rather die than live in a nursing home. For more than a decade, the 67-year old spitfire has lived in her own quarters in an apartment center for senior citizens on Arlington Avenue. She is independent but not alone. Four times a week for three hours at a time, a home health aide comes to assist her -- ...

LOS ANGELES - Michael Jackson was so distraught over persistent insomnia in recent months that he pleaded for a powerful sedative despite warnings it could be harmful, says a nutritionist who was working with the singer as he prepared his comeback bid. Cherilyn Lee, a registered nurse whose specialty includes nutritional counseling, said Tuesday that she repeatedly rejected his demands ...

Jonathan Fine didn't intend to be a patient advocate. But when an 85-year-old friend wasn't getting what he needed, he couldn't just stand by...

A Cape Cod Hospital nurse told state legislators yesterday that the obesity epidemic is hurting American nurses -- particularly in the neck, shoulders and back. Speaking at a hearing on the proposed The Safe Patient Handling Act, registered nurse Beth Piknick said she developed a "never-ending back spasm" after 25 years of heaving lifting on the job. Heavier patients mean nurses ...

CHICAGO - No news isn't necessarily good news for patients waiting for the results of medical tests. The first study of its kind finds doctors failed to inform patients of abnormal cancer screenings and other test results 1 out of 14 times. The failure rate was higher at some doctors' offices, as high as 26 percent at one office. Few medical ...

In what might be a counterintuitive take on crowded emergency rooms, patients say the time spent waiting is not their top concern, according to a customer satisfaction survey last year of 1.4 million patients. Though decreasing the length of the visit would improve overall customer satisfaction, the report says, patients' top priorities are how well they were kept informed about delays, ...

People who visit their primary care physician for routine blood tests or screenings are often not informed of the results, a new study finds. The failure of doctors and medical facilities to follow-up and give people test results is "relatively common," the researchers wrote, even when the results are abnormal and potentially troublesome, and affects one of every 14 tests... ...

The next time a large-scale disaster strikes, emergency responders will be able to treat hundreds of injured people at the scene by emptying a couple of tow-behind trailers. Local responders on Tuesday got their first look at a portable hospital system that the Pennsylvania Department of Health has placed in Crawford County for use throughout the region. The system was set ...

BALTIMORE — At one of the nation's top trauma hospitals, a nurse circles a patient's bed, humming and waving her arms as if shooing evil spirits. Another woman rubs a quartz bowl with a wand, making tunes that mix with the beeping monitors and hissing respirator keeping the man alive. They are doing Reiki therapy, which claims to heal through invisible ...

CHICAGO — Doctors are testing a new kind of obesity surgery without any cuts through the abdomen, snaking a tube as thick as a garden hose down the throat to snap staples into the stomach. The experimental, scar-free procedure creates a narrow passage that slows the food as it moves from the upper stomach into the lower stomach, helping patients feel ...