A sampling of news media stories involving UC Health:

Facing walkout, UC medical centers canceling elective surgeries, Los Angeles Times

Facing a possible two-day strike next week by patient care and technical workers, the five large University of California medical centers are starting to cancel elective surgeries that had been scheduled as soon as Monday, officials said. Emergency care will not be shut and patients already in the five hospitals across the state will continue to receive care. But many elective procedures will delayed until after the potential strike, set for Tuesday and Wednesday, according to John Stobo, UC’s senior vice president for health sciences and services. Patients are being notified about the surgery delays at the hospitals in San Diego, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Davis, he said. The union representing the 13,000 nursing assistants, scanning techs, operating room scrubs, respiratory experts and others threatening the strike said it will keep weekend-level staffing in critical areas such as respiratory therapy for intensive care, neonatal and burn units during a walkout.

See additional coverage: Sacramento Bee

Bay Area hospitals brace for strikes, San Francisco Chronicle

Picket signs may be a common sight at Bay Area hospitals starting Friday, when registered nurses at Sutter Health hospitals in Alameda and Contra Costa counties begin a seven-day strike that might overlap with a strike at UC medical centers. Hospitals workers at UCSF and the four other UC medical centers, including respiratory therapists, MRI technicians and licensed vocational nurses, are scheduled to walk off their jobs at 4 a.m. Tuesday (May 21) and not return until the same hour Thursday unless UC officials are successful in obtaining a restraining order to stop the strike. The nearly 13,000 striking UC workers, represented by the AFSCME Local 3299, are expected to be joined on the first day by up to 3,400 employees from the UPTE-CWA Local 9119. The unions held rallies Wednesday at the UC medical centers in preparation for the strike, which centers on cuts to workers’ pension and health benefits. At the UC regents meeting in Sacramento on Wednesday, police arrested 13 health care workers during a sit-down protest. Read UC statement.

See additional coverage: Los Angeles Times; Oakland Tribune; KPBS; KQED May 17, May 16, May 15; Sacramento Bee; Sacramento Business Journal May 16, May 13; ABC San Diego; Fox San Diego; Calpensions

Increasing medical residencies could help Inland Empire, California Healthline

As the Inland Empire grapples with a shortage of primary care physicians, experts say the solution hinges on creating more medical residencies. New state legislation could help. AB 1176 proposes to increase the number of primary care medical residencies in underserved regions, such as the Inland Empire. The new slots would be funded by levying a fee on insurers. The bill, co-authored by Assembly members Paul Bocanegra and Rob Bonta, would encourage the creation of more family medicine residencies, an area of primary care for which there is a particular need statewide. G. Richard Olds, dean of UC Riverside’s new medical school, said there are not enough residencies to meet current demand, which is expected to intensify when 500,000 uninsured residents become eligible for health coverage in 2014. A related bill (SB 21), by state Sen. Richard Roth, would provide $15 million annually to the medical school.

UC San Diego Medical Center gets a new trauma unit (audio), KPBS

One of San Diego’s busiest trauma centers has gotten a major upgrade. The trauma department at UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest has a brand new center. The new unit at UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest has the capacity to treat four patients at once. That’s a big plus for a department that sees more than 3,000 severely injured people every year.

Want to help heal the world? Start by sharing your health data, The Huffington Post

What can you do to help yourself, family, friends — and why not everyone? — to heal from and perhaps avoid deadly diseases? Why not share your personal health data to help a new multi-industry, collaborative effort to improve therapies? That’s the drive behind a new website, MeForYou.org, part of a University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) awareness campaign around precision medicine, the topic of its recent OME Summit.

Tiny bit of formula promotes breastfeeding, San Francisco Chronicle

Giving a little bit of formula – the equivalent of a single bottle over several days – to a newborn who’s losing too much weight after birth might actually increase the likelihood that the baby will be breast-feeding three months later, according to a small Bay Area study. The article quotes Dr. Valerie Flaherman, lead author of the study and a pediatrician at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.

St. John’s bidding war escalates, Los Angeles Times

This story reports that UCLA Health and two large Catholic hospital chains may partner in a bid to acquire St. John’s Health Center.

Jonathan Fielding, the public’s MD, Los Angeles Times

A Q&A with Jonathan Fielding, who heads the L.A. County’s Department of Public Health. A pediatrician by training and the head of the county’s health programs since 1998, Fielding is such a believer that he and his wife, Karin, turned savvy investments into a $50-million gift last year to UCLA’s School of Public Health.

Health exchange awards $37 million in outreach grants, The Sacramento Bee

The UC Davis Center for Reducing Health Disparities and the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency have a million reasons to celebrate after the state agency overseeing a federal health care overhaul Tuesday announced 48 winners of education and outreach grants. The two Sacramento-area groups were among 16 winners of million-dollar grants by Covered California, which is implementing federally mandated changes to health care by creating an exchange for buying health insurance. The agency cumulatively awarded 48 grants totaling $37 million, including one to UC Berkeley’s Health Initiative of the Americas.

See additional coverage: Los Angeles Times

UCSD creates brain mapping center, U-T San Diego

UC San Diego on Thursday will launch the Center for Brain Activity Mapping (CBAM), which is meant to be a focal point of President Barack Obama’s potentially transformative BRAIN Initiative.

Traumatic brain injury research gets $6 million, U-T San Diego

A research team including Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute and UCSD scientists has been awarded $6 million to develop nanotechnology treatments for traumatic brain injuries and related infections.

Cheap device can detect internal bleeding, brain trauma, U.S. News and World Report

Next time you bump your head, a small, $50 device that detects brain trauma and internal bleeding could save your life. The device – which was developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley – won’t give those injured a photo like an X-ray, CAT scan or an MRI would, but according to developer Boris Rubinsky, it can determine whether someone needs to go to the hospital or not. In developing countries, that knowledge might be enough to save a life, he says.

Bayer inks startup matchmaking deal with QB3, Mission Bay Capital, San Francisco Business Times

Bayer HealthCare and venture funding company Mission Bay Capital LLC have signed a three-year deal with the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, or QB3, a UC-affiliated startup incubator, to evaluate, fund, and help startups spun out of university research.

Sacramento region poised for growth in bioscience, med tech, Sacramento Businesss Journal

Cary Adams, chairman of the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance’s MedStart Program, believes the biosciences and medical technology economy in the region will double every four to six years, fueled in part by UC Davis’ commitment to research and advancement in bioscience and medicine.

UCSF dumps private office model in Mission Bay, San Francisco Business Times

At first glance, UC San Francisco’s planned Global Health & Clinical Sciences Building sounds like a community as well as an office complex. Employees will live in “neighborhoods”, chat in “huddle rooms” and connect in one of three “town centers” at the $94 million building in San Francisco’s Mission Bay. Scheduled to open in summer 2014, the 265,000-square-foot complex will house 1,500 employees across the street from UCSF’s new medical center, which is slated to open in February 2015. The building is viewed as an office of the future.

Subway might not be ‘healthy’ fast food, UCLA study finds, The Denver Post

If you think you’re eating healthy just because you choose a sub sandwich instead of a burger and fries, not so fast. New UCLA research finds that Subway, which bills itself as the healthy fast food restaurant, isn’t much healthier than McDonald’s. The study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that adolescents who purchased Subway meals consumed nearly as many calories as they did at McDonald’s.

The science behind Angelina Jolie’s choice of a preventative double mastectomy (audio), KPCC Airtalk

Actress Angelina Jolie actress made a stunning announcement in a New York Times op-ed that she underwent a double mastectomy to reduce her risk of contracting breast cancer. Jolie said she was a carrier of the “faulty” gene BRCA1. The gene can be detected with a blood test and can alert patients to a higher-than-average risk of breast and ovarian cancers. What is the BRCA1 gene and how do you test for it? Are the tests reliable? If you are a carrier of the gene, what are your medical options? Is preventative surgery the best way to cut down your cancer risk? Guests include Nova Forster, co-director of the UCLA Breast Center at Santa Monica and associate clinical professor of surgery.

Catching up with Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, The New York Times

A profile of Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, clinical professor of medicine in the division of cardiology, director of imaging at the UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Center and author of “Zoobiquity,” which examines the species-spanning nature of illness.

Wounded soldiers race to the South Pole, The New York Times

A blog post by Mark Wise, one of UCLA’s Operation Mend patients who will join a team of other wounded American veterans on a 225-mile race across Antarctica racing for more than two weeks against similar teams of wounded veterans from the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia to raise awareness and funds for the program that can assist in reintegration issues from post traumatic stress, unemployment, drug or alcohol abuse and suicide.  Wise, who was injured in a blast while serving in Afghanistan, credits Operation Mend with providing him with free facial reconstructive surgery that allowed him to feel comfortable in public again.

A mild case of nerves can have benefits, San Francisco Chronicle

A story about stress includes discussion of a recent study led by UC Berkeley biology professor Daniela Kaufer finding that significant but short-term stress can have beneficial effects on mental performance. The researchers found that brief elevations of the stress hormone cortisol induced stem cells to generate new nerve cells in the brain’s hippocampus, a region associated with memory. The story also mentions research by UCSF assistant professor of psychiatry Kristin Aschbacher.

Placenta research up — may be autism tie, San Francisco Chronicle

Increasingly, scientists in the Bay Area and across the nation are beginning to pay the placenta more attention. It might not be at the cool kids’ table just yet, but the placenta is climbing the social ranks as scientists find it may hold secrets to a child’s future health. The placenta could predict neurological problems or other disorders. In other words, the placenta “can give us a window into a part of that person’s life that’s usually somewhat mysterious,” said Dr. Cheryl Walker, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UC Davis.

Materials in some household products tied to lung damage, HealthDay News

Kent Pinkerton, director of the UC Davis Center for Health and the Environment, is a senior author of a new study that shows inhaling particles from “nanomaterials,” which are used in a growing number of household and commercial products, can cause lung inflammation and damage.

Valley fever cases soar in West, yet ‘off the radar’ of East Coast policymakers, NPR

This story about valley fever quotes George Rutherford of UC San Francisco.

Find out how to cut carcinogens out of your grilling (video), CBS Sacramento

Jim Felton and his team of researchers at the UC Davis Cancer Center have spent years researching how and why cooked meats can potentially cause cancer, and they have several tips for how to reduce the risk of causing these chemical reactions.

Oprah’s ‘all-time favorite guest’ to graduate from UC Berkeley (video), ABC San Francisco

Tererai Trent, a woman to whom Oprah Winfrey has given more than $1 million to support her work to educate young girls in Zimbabwe, is about to graduate from UC Berkeley with a master’s in epidemiology. The mother of six had been forced to marry when she was 11 years old. She is now 52.

A sampling of news media stories involving UC Health:

UC medical centers: Nearly 13,000 technical workers plan strike on May 21-22, Contra Costa Times

Nearly 13,000 technical workers have announced plans to strike the five University of California medical centers, including UC San Francisco, on May 21 and 22. But UC officials said they will seek a restraining order to block the strike, arguing that it poses a threat to public health and safety and that the union has not exhausted all other options. Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 said they are taking the action to protest nearly a year of stalled contract negotiations. Read UC statement.

See additional coverage: Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, Sacramento Business Journal, U-T San Diego, San Francisco Bay Guardian, San Francisco Business Times, San Francisco Examiner, CBS San Francisco, Davis Enterprise

UC lifts cap on student health insurance, San Francisco Chronicle

The University of California will lift limits on student health insurance after hearing objections from hundreds of students, including some with severe illnesses who had reached the maximum benefit and risked bankruptcy to pay their bills.

California ranks 11th in hospitals with A grades for safety, Los Angeles Times

The Leapfrog Group, a nonprofit  health care quality organization, released its latest national hospital safety report. This story mentions that Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center received a D. A UCLA Health Sciences spokeswoman said the score was based on data from 2009 to 2011 and she expected to see “significant improvement” going forward. “We are disappointed, but not surprised by the latest Leapfrog rating and know that it does not reflect in any way the quality of care the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center provides its patients,” she said in an email. The other UC medical centers received grades of A or B.

See additional coverage: NBC San Diego

New gene test guides prostate therapy, San Francisco Chronicle

The first genetic test to help men with low-risk prostate cancer and their doctors determine whether they can simply monitor the disease rather than treat it with more aggressive radiation or chemotherapy treatments became available Wednesday. Genomic Health of Redwood City decided to put the test on the market after a UCSF study released Wednesday showed it accurately predicted whether prostate cancer was likely to spread.

One hospital charges $8,000 — another $38,000, The Washington Post

Consumers on Wednesday will finally get some answers about one of modern life’s most persistent mysteries: how much medical care actually costs. For the first time, the federal government will release the prices that hospitals charge for the 100 most common inpatient procedures. Until now, these charges have been closely held by facilities that see a competitive advantage in shielding their fees from competitors. What the numbers reveal is a health-care system with tremendous, seemingly random variation in the costs of services. The article quotes Renee Hsia, an assistant professor at the UC San Francisco Medical School whose research focuses on price variation.

See additional coverage: Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Times

Invisible wounds of war (video), CBS 60 Minutes

Tens of thousands of servicemen and women are dealing with lasting brain damage as the Pentagon scrambles to treat these invisible wounds. In the military, concussion was an invisible — and therefore neglected — wound. It took an outsider — Dr. David Hovda, director of the Brain Injury Research Center at UCLA — to prove to the Pentagon that even a mild concussion can result in serious injury.

USC gains Bruin brains as neuroscientists switch universities, Los Angeles Times

In a major case of academic poaching involving crosstown rivals, USC has lured away two prominent neuroscientists from UCLA with a promise to expand their internationally renowned lab that uses brain imaging techniques to study Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, autism and other disorders. Arthur Toga and Paul Thompson will move to the USC Keck School of Medicine campus next fall, along with scores of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staffers who now work at UCLA’s Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, known as LONI. In establishing a new institute at the USC campus in Boyle Heights, they will also move substantial government and private grants that fund the lab’s $12-million annual budget as well as some of the highly sophisticated equipment used to investigate the brain’s inner workings. UCLA Chancellor Gene Block praised the accomplishments of the LONI scientists and expressed disappointment at their exit. Read a statement from Block.

Free pet clinic for homeless needs major funding to continue (video), CBS Sacramento

The UC Davis Mercer Veterinary Clinic for the Homeless is in desperate need of additional funding in order to continue operating. The clinic is a nonprofit, student-operated organization that provides an array of services to the homeless and their pets.

Op-ed: Look for insurance savings, San Francisco Chronicle

UC Berkeley School of Public Health’s Richard Scheffler, professor of health economics and director of the Petris Center; Stephen M. Shortell, a professor of health policy and management and dean of the School of Public Health; and Liora Bowers, director of health policy and practice at the Petris Center, write about the need to change the way we pay for and deliver health care.

Benioff, Zuckerberg and healthcare movers gather at UCSF summit, Forbes

Call it a healthcare brain trust. About 175 leaders and innovators in healthcare and medical research spent the better part of two days at UC San Francisco late last week, drumming up concrete ideas on how to improve the use of data and technology to deliver more precise medical care.

How hospital CEOs see future: More home monitoring, Sacramento Business Journal

Facing a shortage of doctors and other providers as millions more people gain health coverage next year under the Affordable Care Act, local hospital CEOs see promise in patients doing their own monitoring from home — and better use of mid-level providers to the full extent of their license. UC Davis Medical Center CEO Ann Madden Rice is quoted.

Hospitals go green on cleaning supplies, San Francisco Chronicle

Healing health hazardsIt’s a paradox that UCSF and other hospitals in the Bay Area and across the nation are trying to reconcile: the things that make medical facilities places of wellness and healing can also be sources of potential health hazards.

One-on-one with UC San Diego’s Sandra A. Brown, U-T San Diego

There’s so much innovation happening in San Diego, including new ways to treat HIV/AIDS and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as programs that offer free medical care to Tijuana’s poor. Encinitas resident Sandra A. Brown oversees many of those projects. As the vice chancellor for research at UC San Diego, she helps scholars and scientists earn grants, set up their research and put those discoveries out in the real world. Brown, who moved to San Diego in the 1980s to work at the university, discusses why science and research is good for San Diego.

Kathy Griffin honored at Fifth Annual Heroes Celebration, The Hollywood Reporter

This article reports on a gala held at the Mr. C Beverly Hills hotel that honored UCLA’s Operation Mend founder Ronald Katz. Hollywood showed its support for veterans at the 5^th Annual Heroes Celebration. Comedian Kathy Griffin and Katz received awards for their commitment to veterans and their families. The event was hosted by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).

Special Reports: State’s proposed scope-of-practice changes designed to expand access to abortions (audio), California Healthline

Experts, including Tracy Weitz, associate professor of UC San Francisco, discuss how legislation could potentially expand access to one type of abortion, particularly in rural, underserved areas of California.

Moms with hospitalized kids get day of pampering to celebrate Mother’s Day (video), CBS Los Angeles

This story reports on an early Mother’s Day event at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA organized by the Chase Child Life department that treated the mothers of pediatric patients to a day of pampering and lunch at the hospital. The beauty treatments were provided by Beauty Bus and the lunch was provided by the nonprofit Grace’s Basket.

UC Berkeley scientists pinpoint how brain tracks fast-moving baseball pitches and tennis serves, San Jose Mercury News

The human brain is far slower than a Major League fastball or a blistering tennis serve — but it has figured out a workaround. New research by UC Berkeley scientists solves a puzzle that has long mystified anyone who has watched, in awe, as elite athletes respond to incoming balls that can surpass 90 mph.

See additional coverage: Los Angeles Times

Infection Files: When Valley fever strikes with fury, Los Angeles Daily News

A column by Claire Panosian Dunavan, UCLA clinical professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases, about the spread of Valley fever in California.

A sampling of news media stories involving UC Health:

Union for patient-care workers at UC hospitals to take strike vote, Los Angeles Times

The union representing nearly 13,000 University of California patient-care workers plans to take a strike vote beginning Tuesday. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME 3299, will hold the strike vote through Thursday and announce results next week. The vote comes after nearly a year of negotiations between the workers and UC over staffing, pay and pension reforms. The contract expired in September. UC officials said the strike vote is an effort to “divert attention” from the key sticking issue of pension reform. “The issue is not patient safety,” said spokeswoman Dianne Klein, who said UC medical centers are among the best in the nation. UCLA Health System Chief Medical Officer Tom Rosenthal said he was concerned about a possible strike and about patients being used as a “bargaining chip.”

See additional coverage: KCBS (audio)

Hospitals fear lost revenue, U-T San Diego

Local hospital executives say they are concerned about looming changes to federal reimbursements that have traditionally helped defray their costs of caring for the poorest of patients. Federal health reform calls for these payments to be significantly reduced starting on Oct. 1, the first day of the 2014 federal fiscal year. A handful of San Diego County hospitals get 5 percent or more of their total net patient revenue from disproportionate share funds. They include: Paradise Valley Hospital, UC San Diego Medical Center, Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center and Scripps Mercy Hospital, which has dual campuses in Hillcrest and Chula Vista.

UC cuts lifetime coverage limit for health insurance, Sacramento Business Times

Chancellors at all 10 University of California campuses have agreed to eliminate the lifetime coverage limit and other caps on essential health benefits in the student health insurance program. The decision was made Wednesday in response to recommendations by the 31-member UC Student Health Insurance Program Advisory Board. The catch: it takes effect with the new plan year for 2013-14 academic year, so current coverage limits hold until then. Some campuses will remain with the student health insurance program and some will pursue other options. Students on campuses leaving the program will have comparable insurance through another insurer.

See additional coverage: San Francisco Business Times

Bills would expand powers of optometrists, pharmacists and nurse practitioners, The Riverside Press-Enterprise

Legislation that would let optometrists, pharmacists and nurse practitioners perform medical tasks that now are the domain of doctors passed its first committee.The measures considered Monday, April 29, are the most far-reaching of several bills pending in the Legislature this year that pit different groups of health care professionals against each other in scope-of-practice fights. Supporters of Monday’s legislation said it would help improve a lack of primary care providers in Inland Southern California and other parts of the state. The California Medical Association and other physician organizations have said a better approach is to target more physicians at underserved areas through such efforts as loan-forgiveness programs and by opening UC Riverside’s school of medicine.

Health care leaders push for ‘precision medicine’ (audio), KQED Forum

UC San Francisco Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann joined Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Peggy Hamburg, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, to talk about precision medicine in the lead up to the OME Precision Medicine Summit at UCSF.

Lipstick’s allure may come with heavy metal price, maybe toxic, Los Angeles Times

The quest for lusher, ruby-red lips may be exposing women to dangerous metals, including cadmium, a highly toxic element linked with renal failure, a UC Berkeley study suggests. Researchers found trace amounts of nine metals, some benign, some potentially dangerous, in 32 lipsticks and glosses used by Asian women in Oakland. None exceeded current public health exposure standards.

See additional coverage: USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, Contra Costa Times

A sleep gene has a surprising role in migraines (audio), NPR All Things Considered

Mutations on a single gene appear to increase the risk for both an unusual sleep disorder and migraines, a UC San Francisco-led team in Science Translational Medicine. The finding could help explain the links between sleep problems and migraines. It also should make it easier to find new drugs to treat migraines, researchers say. The story interviews Emily Bates, who worked on the study at UCSF, and UCLA neurologist Andrew Charles.

Boston bombing survivors will face challenges to wound healing, USA Today

Among the many challenges facing injured survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing, doctors say, will be simply coaxing their wounds to heal. These patients face an increased risk of infection from shrapnel blown into their wounds, from the nails and ball bearings included in the bomb, to dust, dirt or gravel from the street, says Barbara Bates-Jensen, an associate professor at the nursing and medical schools at UCLA.

UCLA tobacco ban puts L.A. ahead of the pack (audio), KCRW Which Way, L.A.?

UCLA’s campus went tobacco-free on Earth Day, April 22. UCLA School of Nursing professor Linda Sarna discusses the ban and UCLA’s leadership in being the first UC campus to do so. UC President Mark Yudof called last year for all 10 UC campuses to go tobacco-free by 2014.

Reform may improve access to pediatric specialties, California Healthline

Children with special health care needs in Los Angeles County should not be treated as “small adults,” according to pediatric specialists who see health care reform as a golden opportunity to design tailored systems of care for children with complex, chronic and rare health conditions. “Professionals in health care in L.A. County, the state and nationally are working very hard to make the system work as we move toward reform,” said Thomas Klitzner, the Jack Skirball professor of pediatrics and director of the Pediatric Medical Home Program at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA. More than one million California children age 17 and younger have special health care needs, according to a new policy note from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

Ask an allergist: Children’s food allergies, Los Angeles Daily News

Maria Garcia-Lloret, assistant professor of pediatric allergy and immunology at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA and director of the Pediatric Food Allergy Clinic at UCLA, participated in a web chat to discuss common myths about food allergies in children.

Scientist’s target: carcinogenic products, San Francisco Chronicle

UC Berkeley visiting chemist and lecturer Arlene Blum is profiled for her efforts to spearhead what this article’s author describes as “one of the biggest health campaigns in the nation: the drive to remove flame-retardant chemicals from the environment.

What do babies think? (audio, video), NPR/TED

UC Berkeley psychology professor Alison Gopnik gives a TED presenation on research — including her own — on how babies think.

Groups creating autism brain bank, The Boston Globe

Autism advocates and scientists are collaborating to form the Autism BrainNet, a national network for collecting brain samples of recently deceased people with the condition, relatives, others, and several participants. The network will be run at the UC Davis MIND Institute and led by director David Amaral.

Shriners burn surgeon (audio), Capital Public Radio Insight

Tina Palmiere, director of the UC Davis Burn Center, speaks about her work and how the events in our lives impact the delivery of health care.

Rhesus pieces, Sacramento News & Review

Harvard Medical School announced last week that come 2015, it will close its primary monkey-research laboratory. UC Davis is one of the seven remaining primate research centers backed by the National Institues of Health, working to fight Parkinson’s disease.

Doctors tout effectiveness of 3-D mammography (video), KTVU 2

UC Davis Medical Center is among the first to offer 3-D mammography, and doctors hope the procedure will result in fewer false positives and less worry. “We also potentially are going to be able to detect more breast cancers with this technique,” said radiologist Karen Lindfors.

UCLA gets $11 million to study how to reduce stroke in low-income communities of color, KPCC

UCLA researchers plan to use an $11 million federal grant to fund three studies that will look at how low-income communities of color can reduce disparately high rates of stroke among their ranks.

Editorial: A way forward on gun safety, Bloomberg

This editorial on the need for stricter gun laws mentions a study by Garen Wintemute of UC Davis, who revealed how easy it is for criminals to obtain guns at unregulated gun shows, bypassing legal checks.

See additional coverage: Pacific Standard

The Arc in S.F. to help pilot U.S. study, San Francisco Chronicle

As part of a new effort to address those issues, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention selected The Arc of the United States, a national organization that has been helping adults with developmental disabilities for more than 60 years, to take part in a three-year, $1 million project to collect health data on their clients. The article quotes Gerri Collins-Bride, clinical medical professor at UCSF’s School of Nursing who specializes in treating patients with cognitive disabilities, and Megie Okumura, an assistant professor at UCSF who studies the health needs of developmentally disabled people as they age.

What the brain is doing when you’re searching for your keys, San Francisco Chronicle

A new study led by UC Berkeley neuroscientist Tolga Cukur used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology to illuminate the functioning of the brain when it is engaged in a search. The study revealed that when we begin a targeted search, multiple visual and non-visual regions of the brain that are usually focused on other objects or tasks redirect their attention to join the search party.

A sampling of news media stories involving UC Health:

Hospital worker union threatens strike, U-T San Diego

With contract negotiations stalled, union workers at University of California hospitals, including UC San Diego Medical Center, say they will vote next week on whether to strike. The strike talk started Friday with a statement from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, which represents about 13,000 employees at university medical facilities across the state. The university attributes the current strike talk to a refusal by the union “to agree to UC’s pension reforms,” which require employees to pay a larger percentage of their incomes toward pensions starting July 1. Read UC statement.

See additional coverage: San Francisco Bay Guardian, OC Weekly

Kidney designers take cues from nature, San Francisco Chronicle

Even the brightest scientists will freely admit that their best work can’t compete with nature. Whether it’s designing the most modern prosthetic limb or developing a hair-replacement drug, nature’s work is always far superior. That’s why a team of scientists at UCSF that is trying to develop the world’s first artificial kidney is taking its cues from the best.

See additional coverage: Contra Costa Times

More doctors to save the valley (video), KSEE 24

Randell Rueda is a medical student studying in Fresno. He is one of five students enrolled in a unique medical program at the UC Merced San Joaquin Valley Program in Medical Education. It’s also called PRIME. The program offers students clinical training designed to bring more highly trained health care practitioners to serve communities in the San Joaquin Valley.

In rural California, physician shortages expected to increase, HealthyCal.org

In rural California, physician shortages are expected to increase, especially once the federal Affordable Care Act takes place. Alexa Calfee, second-year medical student at UC Davis, is enrolled in the school’s Rural-PRIME program that was established to help alleviate health disparities in rural California. The story quotes Calfee and Gaber Saleh, who is also a second-year medical student in the UC Davis Rural PRIME program.

Study: Sub-specialty pediatricians in short supply, HealthyCal.org

California has one sub-specialty pediatrician for every 5,464 children, making it difficult for children with special needs to see an endocrinologist, cardiologist or other medical specialist. While there’s no ideal ratio—the American Academy of Pediatrics says multiple factors dictate the appropriate figure such as the number of insured and uninsured children, disease burden of the community and presence of academic medical centers—California’s ratio is strikingly low in comparison to other states. In fact, California’s kids experience more problems obtaining sub-specialized pediatric care than children in any other state, a new UCLA Center for Health Policy Research study has found.

Commentary: Improving health with partnerships between academia and industry, JAMA Internal Medicine

The pharmaceutical industry gets a bad rap for having a corrupting influence on clinical trials, but that perception undermines the many scientific breakthroughs that have come from industry-backed research, according to UC San Francisco Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann.

UCSF gears up for major expansion, San Francisco Chronicle

UCSF Medical Center, the city’s health care giant, will grow by more than 30 percent by 2035, adding new hospitals, research labs, medical offices and housing at sites across the city. The university’s long-range development plan also calls for razing and replacing aging Moffitt Hospital on its flagship Parnassus Heights campus and demolition of three structures at Mt. Zion Medical Center, including the 1914 Hellman Building, the site’s original hospital. The university also intends to sell or lease its Laurel Heights site, most likely for a housing development.

Health facility is envisioned for UC site, The Palm Springs Desert Sun

The Palm Desert City Council has set the final vote on a land transfer to the University of California at Riverside for a May meeting, but most of the council members have already given their stamp of approval. Once the land is handed over, what is currently empty space will become the “Palm Desert Health Campus,” which will be used as a residency location for UC Riverside medical students. The campus clinic will also help fill a gap between the number of physicians and patients throughout the Inland Empire, which is as high as 1 doctor to 9,000 patients in some parts of the valley.

On Earth Day, UCLA becomes first UC to institute tobacco ban, Los Angeles Times

Tobacco users on the UCLA campus will have to find a new place to light up as the university enacted its tobacco ban on Earth Day. UCLA Chancellor Gene Block announced the change last October following a call from UC President Mark Yudof to go smoke-free across the UC system by 2014.

Firearms research: The gun fighter, Nature

A profile of Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis and one of the few researchers studying the effects of firearms on public safety.

A former Google exec aims to power a patient revolution, Forbes

This story mentions that UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann, former head of development at Genentech, gave a talk at TEDMED on how increasingly empowered patients could help, not hurt physicians. She praises Smart Patients, a startup led by former Google executive Roni Zeiger, for including doctors in its communities.

50 Most Influential Physician Executives, Modern Healthcare

Modern Healthcare’s list of the 50 Most Influential Physician Executives includes UC San Francisco’s Robert Wachter.

‘Rapid strides’: Limb advances offer hope for Boston amputees, NBC News

Several victims of the Boston Marathon bombing have lost limbs, but doctors are hopeful of their recovery with new advances in artificial limb technology. “There are so many types of prosthetic feet and knees that can be selected for their needs,” says Julie Gross, a prosthetic technician with the UC Davis Health System.

Hospitals quick to implement lessons from Boston, but funding a concern, CBS News

This article about Boston hospitals’ response in the wake of the recent bomb attack highlights the ways in which Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center prepares for major disasters. William Dunne, director of emergency preparedness and security services for the UCLA Health System, is quoted.

New transplant technology keeps organs ‘alive’ outside body, CNN

This story reports on a new experimental device that delivers donor lungs in a near-physiological state instead of in an icebox.  UCLA performed the nation’s first transplant using this device in November.  Dr. Abbas Ardehali, professor of cardiothoracic surgery and director of the heart and lung transplantation program at UCLA, is interviewed.

Disfigured veteran deals with disprespect at home, USA Today

This story highights UCLA’s Operation Mend and patient Tony Porta, who suffered major burn deformities, and his challenges in adjusting to life after the war.

‘Zoobiquity’: What humans can learn from animal illness (audio), NPR

Dr. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, professor of clinical medicine in the division of cardiology and director of imaging at the UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Center, is interviewed about her research comparing physical and mental disorders in animals and humans and her book “Zoobiquity,” which examines the species-spanning nature of illness.

Placentas provide clues about autism risk at birth, study says, Los Angeles Times

Researchers from Yale and UC Davis believe they have come up with a way to tell whether a newborn infant has a higher-than-normal risk of developing autism — by looking for abnormalities in the placenta shortly after birth.

See additional coverage: New York Times

UCSD might create brain research center, U-T San Diego

With an intensity rarely seen on campus, UC San Diego scientists are racing to figure out the role they might play in President Obama’s proposed BRAIN initiative in hopes of positioning the school to compete for tens of million of dollars in research money.

Brain mapping: From the basics to science fiction (audio), KQED QUEST

UC Berkeley psychology professor Jack Gallant and neurobiology professor John Ngai discuss their work in the burgeoning field of brain mapping, recently spurred by a $100 million initiative announced by President Obama. In Gallant’s lab, scientists have been able to use fMRI technology to record what happens inside subjects’ brains while they watch movies, then translating those responses into images, and Ngai is studying how the brain translates information into behavior.

Playing for all kinds of possibilities, The New York Times

UC Berkeley psychology professor Alison Gopnik, author of “The Scientist in the Crib” and “The Philosophical Baby,” studies the ways that children learn to assess their environment through play. She connects her findings to neuroscience and human evolution. Her focus lately has been on distinguishing between “exploring” new environments (which young children do) and “exploiting” them (an adult tendency). She and scientists like her see play as a fundamental factor in individual development, as well as a source of humanity’s rare ability to inhabit, exploit, and change their environment. View a video featuring Gopnik.

Commission funds research into health benefits, The Packer

The Watsonville-based California Strawberry Commission is funding research by the UC Davis Department of Nutrition, led by Carl Keen, which will examine whether strawberry consumption can significantly improve vascular reactivity in overweight male adolescents.

Nurse sees education as reshaping health care in Sacramento, CBS Sacramento

Terri Wolf, nursing and quality coordinator at the UC Davis Cancer Care Network, says her degrees in nursing science and health care leadership, as well as nutrition and communication, are vital to her everyday work in empowering nurses to assist in transforming the health care process.

Growing up Latino (audio), Capital Public Radio

Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola and Lina Mendez of the UC Davis Center for Reducing Health Disparities, along with UC Davis student Nikko Gabriel Reynoso, speak about the challenges of growing up Latino/a in America today.

Future of veterinary care: UC Berkeley — Amanda Wong, DugDug

Amanda Wong, a UC Berkeley junior molecular environmental biology student who is also vice president, webmaster and historian of the Cal Pre-Vet Club on campus, is interviewed.

Antronette Yancey, advocate of short bursts of exercise, dies at 55, Los Angeles Times

Dr. Antronette K. Yancey, a UCLA professor, urged people to take an “instant recess” to get fit. Yancey, who was described as a “rock star in the public health community,” died of lung cancer.

See additional coverage: KPCC (audio)

A sampling of news media stories involving UC Health:

Op-ed: UC medical centers provide world-class care, San Francisco Examiner

John Stobo, UC senior vice president for health sciences and services, and Mark Laret, CEO of UCSF Medical Center, respond to an op-ed about labor-management issues at UC medical centers.

UC health care union schedules strike vote for late April, San Francisco Business Times

AFSCME local 3299 says its 13,000 patient care technical workers at five University of California medical centers, including UCSF Medical Center and UC Davis Medical Center, will hold a strike vote April 30 through May 2.

See additional coverage: Sacramento Bee, Sacramento Business Journal, San Francisco Examiner

UCSF School of Nursing dean hopes to double number of men in nursing, Nurse.com

When David Vlahov received his nursing degree in 1983, he joined the 2% of men who were working as nurses. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of male RNs increased to 8.1% in 2011. While the rise has been slow and steady, Vlahov said he hopes to see that number increase significantly in the coming years. In April 2011, Vlahov made history when he was named the first male dean of nursing at the University of California, San Francisco. Two years into his tenure, Vlahov said he hopes to double the number of men enrolled in the UCSF nursing program over the next five years.

Medical school money in health care turf war mix, The Riverside Press-Enterprise

Supporters of spending $15 million in state money on a medical school at UC Riverside point to a critical need for primary care doctors as the federal Affordable Care Act kicks in next year. The federal law also is the reason given by backers of bills that would expand the types of medical care that nurse practitioners and other health care professionals could perform without physician oversight. Otherwise, they say, it will be impossible to meet the demand of up to seven million newly insured Californians come January. An earlier story mentioned that the Senate Education Committee unanimously approved legislation that would appropriate $15 million for UC Riverside’s school of medicine. The bill, Senate Bill 21 by state Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, is virtually identical to Assembly Bill 27, by Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside. That measure passed the Assembly Higher Education Committee last month.

See additional coverage: Sacramento Business Journal

Competition spurs northern expansion in San Diego, California Healthline

Competition is heating up among San Diego’s health care systems as they work to capture the area’s most lucrative patient population in an economic environment of shrinking reimbursement and growing uncertainty.The UC San Diego Health System is expanding its Thornton Hospital in La Jolla. The new Jacobs Medical Center will offer cardiovascular care, cancer care, specialty surgery, and women’s and children’s services. The facility is scheduled to open in 2016. The system also has expanded its outpatient services in the northern part of the county with clinics in Encinitas, Vista and Scripps Ranch, all of which will feed referrals to the new $700 million hospital in La Jolla.

Many Boston victims require limb amputations, Los Angeles Times

Jeffrey Eckardt, professor and chair of the UCLA Department of Orthopedic Surgery, is quoted in this article about injuries and amputations resulting from the bomb attack in Boston.

Grizzly bears may have diet lessons that can be helpful for humans, The Washington Post

A profile of Barbara Natterson Horowitz, associate clinical professor of medicine, division of cardiology and director of imaging at the UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Center, highlighting her research comparing physical and mental disorders in animals and humans and her book “Zoobiquity,” which examines the species-spanning nature of illness.

Obama’s BRAIN gets hammered, Salon

If only we had access to technology that would allow us to accurately map all the brain activity going on at a single moment inside the skull of a particular human. Such technology would allow us to conduct some fun and instructive neuroscience experiments. For example, we could compare the changes in synaptic action in the brains of neuroscientists before and after they read a letter sent April 12 by Larry Swanson, the president of the Society for Neuroscience, to all 42,000 members of his association. This item mentions that Justin Kiggins, a Ph.D. student in neuroscience at UC San Diego, captured the mood of many in an open letter to Swanson published on Monday.

UCSF Medical Center plans integrated system with 800-doctor South Bay group, San Francisco Business Times

Watch out, Stanford Hospital & Clinics. UCSF Medical Center, Pacific Partners Management Services Inc. and the 803-doctor Individual Practice Association Medical Group of Santa Clara County have signed a letter of intent to form an integrated system that would likely compete directly with Stanford in the South Bay.

Toxic-absorbing ‘nanosponges’ invented at UCSD, U-T San Diego

“Nanosponges” that can absorb a wide range of venoms and toxins from bacteria such as MRSA have been invented by UC San Diego researchers.

Lymphedema awareness, treatments grow, San Francisco Chronicle

For cancer patients, lymphedema – the uncomfortable and potentially debilitating swelling that occurs when lymph nodes are damaged or removed – has long been considered just an unpleasant side effect of treating a serious disease. More and more, hospitals are offering dedicated lymphedema programs and clinics. St. Mary’s Medical Center in 2001 became the first hospital in San Francisco to open its own lymphedema clinic, and Alta Bates Summit Medical Center runs a clinic in its Herrick campus in Berkeley. UCSF started a program last year and is involved in several studies and clinical trials. In a study released Tuesday in the journal Plos One, UCSF researchers looked at genetic and physical characteristics of about 400 breast cancer patients and identified four genetic markers that are associated with a higher risk of developing lymphedema.

New health care law tax surprise (video), NBC Bay Area

UC Berkeley assistant law professor David Gamage helped draft parts of the Affordcable Care Act’s tax provisions while working at the U.S. Treasury Department during an academic leave in 2010-2012. He says the penalty for not having insurance coverage is necessary to make sure everyone who can afford it shares the burden of costs. He admits that this penalty for not buying insurance could sneak up on taxpayers on tax day, 2015, if they don’t pay attention.

Autism: What we know right now, CNN/Parenting

Irva Hertz-Picciotto, environmental epidemiologist at the UC Davis MIND institute, says a possible contributor to the rise of autism is that people are having children later in life, though this explains only a very small fraction of the increased numbers.

Ric Ryan, walking man, The Sonora Union Democrat

A profile of Ric Ryan, a Vietnam veteran who raises money for the UCLA Operation Mend program by collecting donations while he walks. Ron Katz, the program’s founder, and David Feinberg, president of the UCLA Health System and associate vice chancellor, are cited.

Flame retardants in consumer products are linked to health and cognitive problems, The Washington Post

This story about increasing evidence linking flame retardants in consumer products to serious health risks mentions several studies conducted at UC Berkeley. Researchers include public health and epidemiology professor Brenda Eskenazi, of UC Berkeley’s Center for Environmental Research and Children’s Health, biochemistry professor Bruce Ames, and visiting chemistry scholar Arlene Blum. “We have more than enough research data to support not putting such potentially harmful compounds in furniture and other consumer products,” Blum says. “Especially when there’s no proven fire safety benefit.”

Lazarus: Why are prices for medical care such a mystery?, Los Angeles Times

UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica, is cited in this column exploring the costs of various medical treatments.

Stereotyping in medical settings — ouch, The Sacramento Bee

Michael Wilkes, professor of medicine at UC Davis, has written about the dangers of stereotyping within hospitals and how important it is for medical professionals to remember that their patients have lives beyond the labels of their illnesses.

A sampling of news media stories involving UC Health:

Charting her own course, The New York Times

A feature on Nobel laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, a professor of biology and physiology at the University of California, San Francisco.

A faster, cheaper malaria drug, KQED

A new malaria drug developed by UC Berkeley chemical engineering professor Jay Keasling and colleagues at the Joint Bioenergy Institute and the company Amyris is being hailed as the first major breakthrough in synthetic biology. The drug is a synthetic version of artemisinin, a plant compound that was slow and expensive to produce. The cheaper and more readily available treatment offers hope for the nearly 200 million people a year, primarily in Africa and Asia, afflicted with the disease. Sanofi, a company in Italy, and nonprofit drug developer OneWorld Health will begin large-scale production of the drug today.

The talking cure for health care, The Wall Street Journal

Doctors need to work on their people skills.It’s something patients have grumbled about for a long time. Doctors are rude. Doctors don’t listen. Doctors have no time. Doctors don’t explain things in terms patients can understand. It’s a familiar litany. But here’s what is new: The medical community is paying attention. The article quotes Robin DiMatteo, a researcher at UC Riverside.

The Experts: How to improve doctor-patient communication, The Wall Street Journal

What is the single thing doctors could do to improve their communication skills with patients? The Wall Street Journal put this question to The Experts, an exclusive group of industry and thought leaders who engage in in-depth online discussions of topics from the print Report. This question relates to a recent article on improving doctors’ communication skills with patients and formed the basis of a discussion in The Experts stream. Expert respondents include UCSF’s Rita Redberg, Gurpreet Dhaliwal and Robert Wachter.

Medical school debt at $278,000 means even Bernanke son has debt, Bloomberg

The next generation of U.S. physicians is being saddled with record debt amid a looming shortage of doctors needed to cope with a rising elderly population. The burgeoning debt burden may be turning students away from primary care, which pays about $200,000 a year, toward more lucrative specialties and scaring off low-income and minority students fearful of taking on big loans. The article quotes Rep. Ami Bera, who served as a dean of admissions at the medical school at UC Davis and graduated medical school at UC Irvine with less than $10,000 in loans in 1991. The article also quotes anesthesiology resident David Lin, who had no debt from his undergraduate years at UC Berkeley but large debt from medical school.

Laureates urge no cuts to budgets for research, The New York Times

More than 50 Nobel laureates are urging Congress to spare the federal science establishment from the looming budget cuts known as the sequester, saying that research has endured years of budget reductions and that additional cuts could endanger “the innovation engine that is essential to our economy.” The laureates included Saul Perlmutter and George Smoot of UC Berkeley/Berkeley Lab, Louis Ignarro of UCLA, Mario Molina of UC San Diego, J. Michael Bishop of UCSF, and Davis Gross and Walter Kohn of UC Santa Barbara.

Scientists test smallpox vaccine as cancer killer, Fox 5 San Diego

Scientists at the University of California San Diego are conducting a clinical trial to see if genetically engineered smallpox virus can be used to fight liver cancer.

Antioxidants to the rescue, Better Nutrition

C. Tissa Kappagoda, professor of medicine at UC Davis, says a lot of oxidative stress comes from food, and extracts from grape seed and Pycnogenol can help ameliorate some of the effects.

Special Reports: California’s school-based health centers see promise, challenges in the Affordable Care Act (audio), California Healthline

In a Special Report by Rachel Dornhelm, experts discussed how the Affordable Care Act could lead to new opportunities and challenges for California’s school-based health centers. The report includes comments from Claire Brindis, professor of pediatrics and health policy at UC San Francisco.

Op-ed: Short staffing at UC hospitals is putting patients at risk, San Francisco Examiner

Kathryn Lybarger, president of AFSCME 3299, which represents more than 22,000 Service and Patient Care Technical Workers at the University of California’s 10 campuses and five medical centers, writes about labor-management issues.

A sampling of news media stories involving UC Health:

Obama outlines private-public project to study the brain, Los Angeles Times

Patterned after the Human Genome Project, the BRAIN initiative aims to make an unprecedented study of the human brain. UC researchers will play a key part. Most of the federal-private funding, however, remains to be worked out.

See additional coverage: San Francisco Chronicle, The Chronicle of Higher Education, San Francisco Business Times, KPBS (audio, video)

UC Riverside: Medical school gets $3 million Kaiser grant, The Riverside Press-Enterprise

Kaiser Permanente of Southern California has given the UC Riverside School of Medicine a two-year $3 million grant, school officials announced Wednesday, April 3. The money will bolster the school’s $10 million annual budget, providing funds for outreach efforts and scholarships for eight of its 50 incoming students. The school opens its doors for the first time this fall.

60 protest layoffs, labor negotiations at UCSF Medical Center; 10 arrested, Becker’s Hospital Review

Approximately 60 union members and medical staff from UCSF Medical Center held a protest on the San Francisco-based hospital’s campus yesterday in opposition to recent layoffs and stalled contract negotiations, and 10 people were arrested as a result of the rally, according to a Daily Californian report.

See additional coverage: San Francisco Examiner

Self-help fights childhood obesity: UCSD study, U-T San Diego

Overweight children and their parents can shed extra pounds on their own, if they get guidance from medical experts, according to a new study led by UC San Diego researchers.

Medical establishment ponders meditation for its health benefits, The Sacramento Bee

Many of the nation’s hospital systems have begun to offer classes in mindfulness meditation as well as mindfulness-based stress-reduction programs. Clifford Saron, associate research scientist at UC Davis, runs the Shamatha Project, a comprehensive study into how intensive meditation training can affect the mind and body. He says the best way to reach a mindful meditative state is with a good teacher.

Staying H.I.V.-free for $288, The New York Times

A new study by researchers at UC Berkeley and Mexico’s national public health institute suggests that most of Mexico City’s young gay men would participate in an extensive H.I.V. prevention program if paid $288 a year.

Genetics seen as key to cancer fight, U-T San Diego

Dr. Scott Lippman, director of the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, said a growing ability to read the genetic code of individual patients is bringing with it an unprecedented ability to tailor response to threat. Dr. Anne Wallace, director of the Breast Care Unit at Moores Cancer Center, said that genetic profiling of a breast tumor sometimes can show that chemotherapy is actually not beneficial.

Viewpoints: NIH cutbacks bite into research for cancer cures and treatment, The Sacramento Bee

Ralph de Vere White, director of the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, has written an op-ed about how cutbacks to the National Institutes of Health will negatively affect cancer research opportunities as laboratories rely on grants to fund their work.

A sampling of news media stories involving UC Health:

Committee votes to remove limits on coverage for UC students, California Healthline

The Assembly Committee on Health last week voted to halt caps on health care coverage for some UC students. Currently, coverage for the roughly 135,000 students covered by UC plans runs out at $400,000, which can be catastrophic to students who develop rare and severe conditions, such as brain cancer. “We want to make sure that UC students receive the same reforms as are in the Affordable Care Act,” said Assembly member Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), author of AB 314, which passed the Assembly Committee on Health last week by a 13-4 vote. But according to UC officials at last week’s hearing, AB 314 will become moot by the time it passes a floor vote. “We are in the middle of a process with this,” said Peter Taylor, executive vice president and chief financial officer at the University of California. “Preliminary feedback is that students are in favor of removing the caps, but by Apr. 8 we’ll have a better idea.”

Hope Center clinic serves ‘super users’, San Francisco Chronicle

Hope Center, an initiative from the Alameda County Medical Center to help people who struggle to manage their chronic conditions, is part of a larger statewide effort to bolster care at public hospitals. A special federal-local partnership made the Hope Center possible. In 2010, the federal government approved a waiver called California’s Bridge to Reform to help the state prepare for the Affordable Care Act, the major components of which kick in next year. The component of the waiver that helped pay for the Hope Center was the Delivery System Reform Incentive Pool, which offered more than $3 billion in federal matching funds to public hospitals to help boost care. Twelve California county hospital systems and five UC hospital systems have pursued the funding for a variety of improvement projects.

UC to pay $1.2 million to settle suit targeting UCI Medical Center, Los Angeles Times

The University of California has agreed to pay $1.2 million to settle a federal whistle-blower lawsuit charging falsification of records and poor supervision of patients by UC Irvine anesthesiologists.

Sequestration: California may lose $180 million in science research, Los Angeles Times

California stands to lose about $180 million in medical and scientific research funding under sequestration cuts, the most of any state, according to a group of biomedical researchers. Sequestration, which went into effect March 1 after Congress failed to reach a budget compromise, cuts $85 billion across government departments, agencies and programs. The National Institutes of Health, which will lose $1.6 billion of its $30-billion budget through the sequester, is the world’s largest supporter of biomedical research, funding $2 billion in programs at the University of California system alone.

California Rural Health Association closes shop, California Healthline

The California State Rural Health Association, a unifying voice for the state’s disparate rural health care providers for almost two decades, has laid off staff and closed its Sacramento office. The 16-member board of directors hopes to keep the trade association alive and active, “but it’s becoming more difficult in this environment,” said Dave Jones, president of the volunteer board. The article quotes John Blossom, director of the California Area Health Education Centers Program and president-elect of the national AHEC organization. A family physician, Blossom runs California’s 40-year-old AHEC program at the University of California School of Medicine’s Fresno Medical Education center.

Autism: UCLA study finds air pollution correlation, The Riverside Press-Enterprise

UCLA public health researchers have uncovered evidence suggesting that pregnant women living in high-pollution areas are more likely to have children who develop autism.

A sampling of news media stories involving UC Health:

Breath of fresh air: UCLA ‘breathing lung’ device first of its kind (video), NBC Today Show

This story reports on a Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center patient who underwent the nation’s first lung transplant utilizing an organ-preservation system that allows donor lungs to function in a near-physiologic, breathing state outside the body during transport to a recipient. Dr. Abbas Ardehali, professor of cardiothoracic surgery and director of the heart and lung transplantation program at UCLA, is interviewed.

Legislature will ‘look carefully’ at UC medical system after report, California Healthline

California state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), chair of the Senate Committee on Health, said state legislators will look into allegations of mismanagement at University of California medical centers that have put patient safety in jeopardy. A new report from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 contends that the UC system’s five medical centers are understaffed and patient care is suffering. UC officials discount the report as a disgruntled labor union seeking to gain bargaining clout. “These wildly misleading charges are simply a bargaining ploy, one that AFSCME has employed in the past,” said Dianne Klein, spokesperson for the UC Office of the President.

Editorial: UCR med school requires state, UC cooperation, The Riverside Press-Enterprise

Increasing the supply of doctors should be a top priority for the state, and not an issue tangled in a budgetary tug of war. UC Riverside’s new medical school offers a bargain for taxpayers, and a wise long-term investment for the state. Legislators and University of California officials should work cooperatively to fund this crucial need.

A plan to chart heart risk in 1 million adults in real time, The Wall Street Journal

Researchers are launching a major study that will marshal the power of smartphones and other personal technologies in an effort to develop new strategies for preventing and managing heart disease. The project, called the Health eHeart Study, will use tools such as smartphone apps, sensors and other devices to gather data on a wide variety of measures associated with cardiovascular health—including blood pressure, physical activity, diet and sleep habits—all in real time. The study aims to enroll up to one million participants. Researchers will sift through the huge, accumulating banks of data, looking for patterns that might give advance warning of a heart attack or predict the onset of a dangerous irregular heart beat. The initiative amounts to “a large-scale digital version of the Framingham Heart Study,” said Jeffrey Olgin, chief of cardiology at UC San Francisco and co-principal investigator of the effort.

California stem cell bank established for disease study, San Diego Union-Tribune

California’s stem cell agency has awarded $32.3 million to establish a “stem cell bank,” consisting of cells taken from people with various diseases. While the public generally thinks of using stem cells for disease therapy, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has a different goal in mind. The cells are meant to help researchers better study the diseases, so they can develop more effective treatments. The cells will be supplied from patient samples collected by seven researchers, including three at UC San Diego and one each from UCLA and UC San Francisco. Read UC story.

See additional coverage: San Francisco Business Times

Doctors urge F.D.A. to restrict caffeine in energy drinks, The New York Times

A group of 18 doctors, researchers and public health experts jointly urged the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday to take action on energy drinks to protect adolescents and children from the possible risks of consuming high amounts of caffeine. The group includes Patricia Crawford of UC Berkeley and UC Cooperative Extension, C. Tissa Kappagoda of UC Davis, Kristine Madsen of UC Berkeley and UCSF, and Jeffrey Olgin of UCSF.

New concussion guidelines stress individual treatment, The New York Times

This article highlights new guidelines co-written by Dr. Christopher Giza, an associate professor of neurosurgery and pediatric neurology with the David Geffen School of Medicine and Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA, for handling sports-related concussions.

Fresno family funds pharmacy college in Central Valley, California Healthline

A family known for breaking ground to build housing developments and downtown lofts is now financing a project that is groundbreaking in a different way — starting a new health sciences school from scratch, beginning with a program offering a four-year post-baccalaureate pharmacy degree. The Assemi family, founder of Granville Homes in Fresno, is privately funding the project with a $20 million investment. Currently, there is only one pharmacy school between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area — at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, about two hours north of Fresno. The new four-year school — California Health Sciences University — plans to accept its first students in the fall of 2014. The article mentions that the Center for the Health Professions at UC San Francisco launched a research project last fall examining health care training programs in California with special attention to private, for-profit programs.

More UC Davis medical students headed to primary care, Sacramento Business Journal

Nearly half of the 107 medical school students graduating from UC Davis in June will enter primary-care residency programs, the highest percentage in more than a decade.

Some medical students seek a match for two, Kaiser Health News

This article is about what happens to couples on Match Day, when graduating medical students find out where they where will do their residency training. The article quotes Lee Jones, the associate dean for student affairs at the UC Davis School of Medicine, and Shane Snowdon, he former director of the LGBT Resource Center at UC San Francisco.

Federal hospital report database reveals issues at California facilities, California Healthline/Payers & Providers

Federal hospital inspection documents recently released by CMS include four dozen reports that detail 199 separate patient care violations at California facilities, Payers & Providers reports. The reports were compiled in an online database by the Association of Health Care Journalists. Most of the reports on California hospitals were conducted by the California Department of Public Health during 2011 and 2012. UC San Diego is mentioned.

Patients should decide what the end of life is like, study says, Los Angeles Times

Finding out what dying patients want and treating them accordingly leads to happier patients who are in less pain and who use fewer health care dollars, UCLA researchers said Tuesday.

New procedure repairs dog jawbones, USA Today

A new procedure from researchers at UC Davis has helped repair the jawbone of Whiskey, a 9-year-old Munsterlander dog who had a cancerous growth that was removed, along with part of his jaw. Creators of the procedure hope that what they’ve learned through the process could help in regrowing bones in humans as well.

From teens’ sleeping brains, the sound of growing maturity, Los Angeles Times

In a new study published Monday, scientists from UC Davis say they believe slowed fluctuations observed during the delta-phase of teens’ sleep may be evidence of a pruning process at work, when synaptic networks are thinned and the strongest and most evolutionary useful remain.

Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro (audio), Capital Public Radio

Randi and Paul Hagerman, along with other scientists from the UC Davis MIND Institute, spent seven days through different zones of Mount Kilimanjaro in order to raise awareness and funds for their groundbreaking research in finding a cure for fragile X syndrome and associated disorders.

This protein could change biotech forever, Forbes

A story about the revolutionary discovery that a protein called Cas9 could be used to more accurately cut DNA mentions contributions from researchers worldwide, including UC Berkeley biochemistry and molecular and cell biology researchers Jennifer Doudna and Martin Jinek.

Genetically engineered tomato mimics good cholesterol, Los Angeles Times

This article reportsthat UCLA researchers have genetically engineered tomatoes to produce a peptide that mimics the actions of good cholesterol when consumed.

Hospital ratings are in the eye of the beholder, Kaiser Health News/The Philadelphia Inquirer

Evaluations of hospitals are proliferating, giving patients unprecedented insight into institutions where variations in quality can determine whether they live or die. Many have similar names, such as “Best Hospitals Honor Roll,” “America’s Best Hospitals” and “100 Top Hospitals.” Illinois, Florida and other states have created their own report cards. In some places, such as California, there are more than a dozen organizations offering assessments on hospital quality. But those ratings, each using its own methodology, often come to wildly divergent conclusions, sometimes providing as much confusion as clarity for consumers. Some hospitals rated as outstanding by one group are ignored or panned by another. Ratings results from an individual group can change significantly from year to year. UCSF is mentioned and Chief Medical Officer Josh Adler is quoted.

A new approach to hip surgery, The New York Times

This story about a new hip replacement treatment quotes Francis B. Gonzales, an orthopedic surgeon and assistant clinical professor at UC San Diego, and Kevin J. Bozic, professor and vice chairman of orthopedic surgery at UC San Francisco.

Who lives longest?, The New York Times

This article on life expectancy quotes Andrew Noymer, associate professor of public health and sociology at UC Irvine, and Michael Gurven, a professor of anthropology at UC Santa Barbara.

Can high levels of vitamin D help to prevent breast cancer?, The Toronto Globe and Mail

Cedric Garland, a professor in the department of family and preventive medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and and his colleagues were given access to samples that included blood from about 600 premenopausal women who were diagnosed with breast cancer. In some cases, the blood had been drawn just months before they learned that they had cancer. The researchers used the samples to measure the amount of vitamin D circulating in the women with breast cancer. These figures were compared with the vitamin D levels of 600 healthy female military recruits who served as a control group.

Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center hosts conference on the substance of mindfulness, San Jose Mercury News

An all-day conference on March 8 at the Craneway Pavilion sought to prove the veracity of an improbable claim: Something that looks like nothing is really … something. Seeking to deepen human relationships and promote an enriched life, the UC Berkeley-based Greater Good Science Center and a new magazine, Mindful, invited experts and practitioners of mindful research and application to bring an eager audience stories from the field and rock solid science at “Practicing Mindfulness and Compassion” conference. A sellout crowd of 500 attendees, with a waiting list and 200 people signed up for the live webcast, were a first indication that mindful, compassionate meditations and connections are not only something, they are fast becoming everything.

Don’t overthink it, Los Angeles Magazine

Dr. Michael Irwin, UCLA professor of psychiatry and director of the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology and the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) at the Semel Institute, is featured in this article, which discusses the health benefits of Mindful meditation. Marvin Belzer, MARC’ associate director, is also quoted, and Diana Winston, director of mindfulness education at MARC, is referenced.

Op-ed: Why Lent makes people happier, San Francisco Chronicle

Jason Marsh, editor in chief at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, co-writes about new research showing that indulging in life’s pleasures in smaller doses, or giving them up for a while, helps people enjoy those pleasures more. Noting related research findings, they say: “All of this research points to a paradox of happiness: It’s not tied to abundance but to recognizing and appreciating what we do have.”

Inside Medicine: Restrict drug company ‘bribes’ of doctors, The Sacramento Bee

Michael Wilkes, professor of medicine at UC Davis, has written about the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and doctors, and he calls for restrictions on drug company “bribes” of doctors.

A sampling of news media stories involving UC Health:

UC Davis medical school climbs rankings for primary care, Sacramento Business Journal

The UC Davis School of Medicine made the top 20 in primary care among America’s medical schools in new rankings released Tuesday by U.S. News & World Report. Overall, five UC medical schools placed in the top 50 nationally for research rankings and four placed in the top 40 nationally for primary care rankings. Read UC story.

See additional coverage: The Orange County Register

Squeeze looms for doctors, The Wall Street Journal

This article about the shortage of primary care physicians spotlights UCLA’s International Medical Graduate program, which helps Spanish-speaking doctors who earned their medical degrees in Latin America prepare for their medical residency exams in the United States. Patrick Dowling, chair of the department of family medicine and co-founder of the program, is quoted.

UCR medical school’s economic benefit will take time, The Riverside Press-Enterprise

The UC Riverside School of Medicine was pitched as an economic engine that would change the fortunes of Riverside and maybe even the Inland Empire. Former Riverside Mayor Ron Loveridge compared its potential to that of a large corporation. Timothy White, former UCR chancellor, said it would be a “catalyst for transforming economic development” and anchor “a new economy for our region.” Whether such rosy predictions come true — and when — remain open questions. But experts say it will take years and possibly decades. A related story focuses on the potential impact of medical school spinoffs.

Palliative therapy teams coordinate care, San Francisco Chronicle

This feature on palliative care highlights the work of UCSF and quotes Steven Pantilat, director of UCSF’s palliative care program.

Riverside lawmakers renew push for medical school funds (audio), KPCC

Last year, UC Riverside won approval to extend its two-year medical program to four years. University officials now say they need a long term commitment from the  state to sustain the program. Fifteen million dollars a year for the next ten years ought to do it — and two Riverside lawmakers are trying to secure the funds. Senator Richard Roth and Assemblyman Jose Medina took their request to the Senate’s Higher Education Committee Wednesday. The money would be paired with an annual $10 million from local government and private donors.

UC hospital workers allege patient neglect, harm, The Orange County Register

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a labor union representing about 15,000 UC hospital workers, has issued a report accusing UCI Medical Center and four other hospitals of inadequate and uneven staffing levels that have led to patient neglect and harm. UC spokeswoman Dianne Klein said in an email the allegations were “wildly misleading” and declined to respond to them directly. “It’s not unusual for such allegations from AFCSME to arise during the bargaining process,” Klein said. “UC medical centers are world renown for their patient care.”

Medical students find out today where they will serve residencies, ABC 10

More than 100 graduating medical students at UC San Diego and thousands more across the country will find out Friday where they will serve their residencies. The Match Day event is synchronized to noon Eastern Time, or 9 a.m. in San Diego, when the students will open their envelopes and learn their assigned hospitals.

See additional coverage: Palm Springs Desert Sun, USA Today

Academic medicine at the crossroads: Five steps for success in 2020, Navigant Healthcare Pulse

Academic medicine has a history of reinventing itself. Ever since the Flexner Report prompted more rigorous medical education with a devastating assessment of medical schools 100 years ago, academic medical centers have had to adapt to waves of scientific development, such as antibiotics, transplantation and genomics, followed by the dawn of Medicare and Medicaid. Now, as a result of the Accountable Care Act and the global economic crisis, academic medicine again must face some hard truths. After nearly five decades of remarkable growth and development, there are threats to every element of the academic mission – teaching, research, patient care and community service. UCSF Medical Center CEO Mark Laret is quoted and UCLA is mentioned.

UC Davis vet school opens $58.5 million ‘hub’ building, The Sacramento Bee

Officially, the ceremony at UC Davis on Friday was about a building. A four-story structure with a sandstone and gray-colored exterior – with water-chilled beams for energy conservation and recycled construction materials for forest sustainability. But to Michael Lairmore, dean of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, the opening of a $58.5 million building – dubbed “Research Facility 3B” – was “a celebration of discovery.” His effusiveness Friday was due to the fact the new 76,000-square-foot facility will serve as the hub for one of America’s top veterinary schools.

What blood, spit and a data bank can tell us about disease, PBS NewsHour

A giant data bank containing genetic information on 200,000 people is in full operation in the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s being ballyhooed by its founders as the world’s best such repository — more racially diverse than others in England and Iceland — and linked to the electronic medical records of the participants. Researchers have begun to use it to explore the links between genes and disease, and, to some extent, between environmental factors like pesticides and genetics. The big data bank is a cooperative venture between the University of California at San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente, the big health provider that keeps health records for its 5.5 million California members. It is part of the genetic revolution that appears to be reshaping medical research.

State of California OKs land shift for new University of California, Riverside clinic, The Palm Springs Desert Sun

The state Department of Finance has approved the transfer of 11.5 acres of former Palm Desert Redevelopment Agency land to UC Riverside for construction of an out­patient medical clinic at the school’s Coachella Valley campus.Students and residents from UCR’s new medical school will be trained at the clinic, as part of its mission to bring more primary care and internal medicine physicians to the desert and other parts of the Inland Empire that experience a doctor shortage.

New cancer fundraiser unites UCSD, Sanford-Burnham, Salk, San Diego Union-Tribune

As federal research feel the pinch of forced budget cuts, supporters of cancer research in San Diego have organized to support the work with a new fundraiser. Pedal the Cause will hold its first event this fall, a bicycling trek on Oct. 26-27 between La Jolla and Julian. All of the proceeds will go to the three National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers in San Diego: UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute and the Salk Institute. The three institutions recently joined forces to speed up research and treatment under the name San Diego National Cancer Institute Cancer Centers Council, or C3.

FDA approves drug developed by UC San Diego researchers (audio), KPBS

An injectable drug that was developed from scratch at UC San Diego has just been approved by the FDA. It’s an imaging agent that will help doctors locate cancerous lymph nodes.

Widespread flaws found in ovarian cancer treatment, The New York Times

Most women with ovarian cancer receive inadequate care and miss out on treatments that could add a year or more to their lives, a new study has found. The results highlight what many experts say is a neglected problem: widespread, persistent flaws in the care of women with this disease, which kills 15,000 a year in the United States. About 22,000 new cases are diagnosed annually, most of them discovered at an advanced stage and needing aggressive treatment. Worldwide, there are about 200,000 new cases a year. “If we could just make sure that women get to the people who are trained to take care of them, the impact would be much greater than that of any new chemotherapy drug or biological agent,” said Dr. Robert E. Bristow, the director of gynecologic oncology at the University of California, Irvine, and lead author of the new study presented on Monday at a meeting of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology in Los Angeles.

FDA plans looser rules on approving Alzheimer’s drugs, The New York Times

The Food and Drug Administration plans to loosen the rules for approving new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. Drugs in clinical trial would qualify for approval if people at very early stages of the disease subtly improved their performance on memory or reasoning tests, even before they developed any obvious impairments. Companies would not have to show that the drugs improved daily, real-world functioning. The article mentions that Paul S. Aisen of UC San Diego and Reisa Sperling of Harvard are leading a federally financed study that will enlist 70-year-olds who seem perfectly normal but are accumulating amyloid plaques in their brains, a sign that Alzheimer’s could arise within about 15 years.

DDT exposure in womb tied to hypertension, San Francisco Chronicle

According to researchers from UC Davis and the Public Health Institute in Berkeley, women who were exposed in the womb to the pesticide DDT have an increased risk of developing high blood pressure before age 50. The insecticide was banned in 1972 but is still widely used to combat malaria in Africa and Asia.

Valley fever advocates see hope for new funding, new laws, The Bakersfield Californian/Reporting on Health Collaborative

Two Central Valley assemblymen say they are exploring ways to support valley fever-related research at the University of California, Merced. Assemblyman Rudy Salas, D-Bakersfield, plans to meet soon with university researchers to determine what resources they need to move forward, he said. Assemblyman Henry T. Perea, D-Fresno, said he would use the upcoming budgeting process to try to allocate money to UC Merced for valley fever-related research. UC Merced and Children’s Hospital Central California in Madera have received seed funding for one research project. The university is also exploring two other research projects.

See additional coverage: Merced Sun-Star

Brain regulators (audio), Capital Public Radio

Researchers at UC Davis’ MIND Institute have discovered that microglia cells are eating excess neurons and regulating brain growth during development. The discovery could help scientists find the cause of developmental disorders like autism or schizophrenia. Lead author Dr. Stephen Noctor spoke with Capital Public Radio about the study.

Study: Gun retailers rarely report illegal purchase attempts, U.S. News and World Report

According to a new survey by researchers at UC Davis, gun retailers rarely notify law enforcement if they think a customer is trying to buy a gun illegally. Though most stores claimed to refuse the “straw purchase” — purchasing a gun for another person who may not be able to legally — only 12 percent said they notified law enforcement.

See additional coverage: New York Times

Editorial: Actually, more gun laws can reduce gun violence, The Sacramento Bee

A new study has found that the states with the most gun control laws generally had the lowest rates of death by firearms. However, Garen Wintemute, director of the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program, pointed to shortcomings in the study, such as differences in laws enacted by the states and the impact of the flow of firearms from states with looser gun laws.

Commentary: Change your lifestyle, reverse your diseases, CNN

Let’s address the underlying causes of what make us sick and what make us well, writes Dean Ornish, the founder and president of Preventive Medicine Research Institute and clinical professor of medicine at UC San Francisco. Ornish encourages people to watch the documentary film “Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare” on CNN.

Infection Files: Saving babies’ sight a drop at a time, Pasadena Star-News

This column by Claire Panosian Dunavan, UCLA clinical professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases, is about the late Leonard Apt, a UCLA pediatric ophthalmologist whose work on eye infections in newborns saved the sight of countless babies around the world. Sherwin Isenberg, Laraine and David Gerber Professor of Ophthalmology at the Jules Stein Eye Institute, is quoted.

A sampling of news media stories involving UC Health:

Op-ed: UC advances medical research through trust, San Francisco Chronicle

Personalized medicine, based on increasingly detailed and useful information about a patient’s health and disease status, is allowing health care providers to better tailor treatment to individual patients for better outcomes, write UCSF’s Elizabeth Boyd and Daniel Dohan. In the future, it is possible that genetically driven precision medicine will guide not just treatment but also how we prevent disease and preserve health. We don’t yet know how far this infant science will develop. Further progress depends on the support of patients and on the protection of sensitive patient data. Each day, at UCSF, clinicians use blood tests or tissue biopsies to diagnose illness or monitor patients’ health. Used this way, these samples help each individual patient. But, in addition, the “remnant” samples have the potential to help large numbers of people when they are used in medical research. UC Santa Cruz associate professor Jenny Reardon also writes an op-ed about patient consent.

Union calls for Legislature to investigate UC hospital system, The Sacramento Bee

A union deadlocked in contract talks with the University of California said Thursday that the system’s medical facilities are understaffed, waste money and put patients’ health in jeopardy. Kathryn Lybarger, president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, said lawmakers and state authorities should investigate everything from the university system’s debt and staffing policies to its constitutional autonomy from the Legislature. Dwaine Duckett, the UC system’s vice president of human resources, countered that the 22,000-employee union’s complaints and its appeal to the Legislature were bargaining ploys. The local’s contract expired last year and talks for the 15,000 or so hospital employees it represents have reached an impasse.

UCSD researchers help confirm HIV cure, San Diego Union-Tribune

The startling finding that it may be possible to cure HIV infection in babies was confirmed, in part, by a UC San Diego researcher who has helped direct the war against the virus since AIDS emerged as a global health threat in the 1980s. Dr. Douglas Richman said he worked with a team of East Coast researchers last fall to analyze blood samples for traces of HIV from the Mississippi toddler who appeared to have been “functionally cured” of the virus.

See additional coverage: Reuters

San Diego surgeon helps people walk (video), San Diego 6

UC San Diego neurosurgeon Justin Brown works to help people with severe spinal and brain injuries to walk again.

CMS quietly makes some ED wait times public, HealthLeaders Media

How fast can an emergency department diagnose, triage, and assure proper care for all patients who come through its doors, however scared, intoxicated, delusional, in pain, infectious, bleeding, and maybe even close to death they may be? With precious little fanfare, Uncle Sam last month rolled out a big, fat database with seven measures comparing a service that many people—healthcare providers and patients alike—consider the most critical any hospital can provide. UC San Diego Medical Center is mentioned.

Checklists and more: Systems matter in aviation, can save lives in health care, too, KQED

Hippocrates may have told doctors to “First, do no harm” more than 2,000 years ago, but it’s taken almost that long for modern medicine to “begin approaching the problem of medical mistakes as a system and create a concerted movement,” says Dr. Robert Wachter, Associate Chairman of the Department of Medicine at UC San Francisco. In a report published Tuesday intended to move American health care closer to a safer system, Wachter and his colleagues identified the top 10 strategies that doctors and nurses should embrace to help protect patients from unintended harm.

Hard time understanding health reform law? Try figuring it out in Tagalog, Hmong or Vietnamese, The Associated Press

A story about the challenges of implementing and communicating the Affordable Care Act in the many languages of immigrants mentions a joint study co-authored by UC Berkeley’s Labor Center and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. The study found that in California two-thirds of the estimated 2.6 million adults who will be eligible for federal subsidies in the health care exchange will be people of color, while roughly 1 million will not be proficient English speakers.

SGIM calls for end to fee-for-service, HealthLeaders Media

Fee-for-service medicine is a financially unsustainable payment model that should be phased out by the end of the decade, a study commissioned by the Society for General Internal Medicine recommends. The study released Monday by SGIM’s National Commission of Physician Payment Reform calls for an aggressive five-year transition into blended payment models such as patient-centered medical homes or accountable care organizations that reward outcomes quality and value. During the transition, the commission said fee-for-service would be “recalibrated” to correct payment inequalities for services such as evaluation and management. Commission Chairman, Steven A. Schroeder, professor of health and healthcare at UCSF, says he went into the year-long project last March thinking that fix fee-for-service could be fixed, but concluded after months of study that an aggressive phase-out makes more sense.

See additional coverage: Kaiser Health News, Politico

UC Berkeley finds federal sugar daddy as unreliable as the state was, San Francisco Business Times

Just a year ago, the University of California, Berkeley, decided to try and replace vanishing state funding with money from the U.S. government. And how has that worked out? Federal funding for its research is down already by $50 million for the first two quarters of its fiscal year due to “federal budget uncertainties.” And the sequester cuts will hurt even more. Over the last decade, UC Berkeley has shifted from a primarily state-funded school to a federal-funded one, getting much of its roughly $400 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Sequester’s budget cuts spell uncertainty for Sacramento, Calif., The Sacramento Bee

Lars Berglund, senior associate dean for research at the UC Davis School of Medicine, says he anticipates funding cuts as a result of the sequester but doesn’t know the impact for university research. “It is likely to be much more difficult to get new research funded,” he said. “And that’s the most important thing — because investing in research is investing in the future.”

Federal agency cites UC Davis primate center in deaths of monkeys, The Sacramento Bee

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has cited a primate research center at UC Davis for “failure to provide adequate veterinary care” in the death of 19 monkeys, most of them infants, in 2009 and 2010. The federal findings, resulting from self-reporting by UC Davis and a follow-up government inspection, concluded that the university needed to improve monitoring of infant monkeys for signs of illness.

Hospitals crack down on tirades by angry doctors, Kaiser Health News/Washington Post

This story focuses on disruptive and often angry behavior by doctors. Experts estimate that 3 to 5 percent of physicians engage in such behavior, berating nurses who call them in the middle of the night about a patient, flinging scalpels at trainees who aren’t moving fast enough, demeaning co-workers they consider incompetent or cutting off patients who ask a lot of questions. Growing attention to the problem, which appears to be most common among surgeons and other specialists who do procedures, has spawned a cottage industry of therapists who provide anger management counseling, which is sometimes billed as “executive coaching.” Programs are flourishing at Vanderbilt, the University of Virginia, the University of California at San Diego and, most recently, George Washington University. UCLA Medical Center also is mentioned.

Office stress: His vs. hers, The Wall Street Journal

Chronic tension hurts mental clarity. Emotional responses to stress often divide along gender lines, with men more likely to have a “fight or flight” reaction while women are more likely to have a “tend and befriend” response, seeking comfort in relationships and care of loved ones, according to research by Shelley E. Taylor, health psychology professor at UCLA, and others.

The human body–in ‘Google map’ form, Time

Curious about how a disease gets started? Researchers may soon be able to “street view” the inner workings of the human body. An international group of researchers have successfully created the most comprehensive map of the human metabolism, called Recon 2, which details how the body’s converts food into energy, and assembles all of the hormones and proteins that contribute to a normal day’s work for cells and tissues. The article quotes  Bernhard Palsson, a professor of bioengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and one of the authors of the paper.

Medical research has focused on males, San Francisco Chronicle

This article notes that most of the early lab and animal research in medicine is done on males, and with almost no consideration given to the subtle – and not-so-subtle – differences between male and female biology. Stanford, at least, is aiming to dig into that problem with the creation of a new center focused on sex and gender in health. The Stanford Center for Health Research on Women and Sex Differences in Medicine officially opens Wednesday with a conference on sex, gender and the brain, at which Brizendine, now a UCSF psychiatrist who has written two books on the male and female brain, is speaking. Also, the article quotes Irving Zucker, a UC Berkeley behavioral psychologist who has studied sex and gender bias in scientific research.

Going green for spring cleaning? Environmentally friendly alternatives can still sicken pets, The Associated Press

Pet owners using environmentally friendly alternatives to toxic cleaners should still keep in mind that what is green for a human can still be dangerous to animals. “People expose their animals without even realizing the risk,” said Karl Jandrey, who works in the emergency and critical care units at the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital.

Op-ed: The real promise of ‘accountable care’, The Wall Street Journal

Stephen Shortell, dean of Berkeley’s School of Public Health, co-authors a commentary advocating a transition away from conventional fee-for-service insurance to an accountable care organization (ACO) payment model, which pays providers more for achieving better care at a lower cost. Unlike 1990s-style HMOs, the ACO model wouldn’t allow health care providers to keep savings from lowered costs unless they show measurable quality improvements. The authors conclude: “The early evidence from private and public ACOs suggests that real savings are possible. The right direction for health care policy is to build on ACO successes through further steps to reward low-cost innovation, while steering support away from health care providers who are unwilling to change.” Link by subscription only.

Commentary: Responding to the crisis of firearm violence in the United States, JAMA Internal Medicine

In an invited commentary, Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine physician and director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, discusses important limitations of a new firearms and crime study linking firearms laws with lower firearm-related deaths.

A sampling of news media stories involving UC Health:

Boost health coverage, officials urge UC, San Francisco Chronicle

Rep. Nancy Pelosi and nine other members of Congress are urging the University of California to lift its caps on student health insurance – limits that for the rest of the country are illegal under the Affordable Care Act and that jeopardize students with catastrophic medical problems.

See additional coverage: San Francisco Business Times

University of California will lose research grants with sequestration (audio), Capital Public Radio

The National Institutes of Health alone awards UC $2-billion a year for research in cancer, diabetes, vaccines and robotic surgery. NASA, the Department of Energy, and other agencies also award UC research grants. All of those agencies face sequestration. “That could cost the University of California jobs for scientists, researchers, and for graduate students and post-docs,” says UC’s Gary Falle. He says it’s hard to say how much money is at risk because agencies have discretion in how they make cuts. But sequestration won’t just hurt UC research. “1,000 California biotech and high tech companies utilize University of California research,” says Falle. So you can see as this is drying up, it’s going to have consequences on the economy as a whole.”

See additional coverage: KPCC (audio)

UCSD researcher surprised to win $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (audio, video), KPBS

Napoleone Ferrara, the senior deputy director for basic sciences at the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, talks  about winning the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.

Truven top 100 hospital scores measure ‘leadership impact’, HealthLeaders Media

Emphasizing that this year’s Truven Health Analytics 100 Top Hospitals list “is not an advertising scheme,” senior vice president Jean Chenoweth says the 2013 winners list reflects “a balance scorecard,” that keeps “all the goals and mission of the whole organization in mind.” The list includes UC San Diego Medical Center.

Atkinson donates $3.5 million for science prize, San Diego Union-Tribune

Former UC San Diego Chancellor Richard Atkinson has donated $3.5 million to the National Academy of Sciences to create an annual $200,000 prize that will honor the work of pioneering researchers in psychology — which is his specialty — and the cognitive sciences. “I will probably donate more later because I want the prize to go on forever,” said the 83-year-old Atkinson, who also served as president of the University of California system.

It’s the sugar, folks, The New York Times

Sugar is indeed toxic, writes Mark Bittman. It may not be the only problem with the Standard American Diet, but it’s fast becoming clear that it’s the major one. A study published in the Feb. 27 issue of the journal PLoS One links increased consumption of sugar with increased rates of diabetes by examining the data on sugar availability and the rate of diabetes in 175 countries over the past decade. And after accounting for many other factors, the researchers found that increased sugar in a population’s food supply was linked to higher diabetes rates independent of rates of obesity. In other words, according to this study, obesity doesn’t cause diabetes: sugar does. The study demonstrates this with the same level of confidence that linked cigarettes and lung cancer in the 1960s. As Rob Lustig, one of the study’s authors and a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco, said to me, “You could not enact a real-world study that would be more conclusive than this one.”

See additional coverage: KQED (audio), NPR, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times

Michael Hiltzik: Herbalife cozies up with UCLA, Los Angeles Times

UCLA’s medical school has an unusually close relationship with Herbalife, which constantly promotes its connection to doctors there, writes columnist Michael Hiltzik.

DNA science points to better treatment for acne, Los Angeles Times

This article is about a study led by Huiying Li, assistant professor of molecular and medical pharmacology and a member of UCLA’s Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging, discovering that a friendly strain of the bacteria linked to acne may help protect the skin from pimples.

Healthcare overhaul may threaten California’s safety net, Los Angeles Times

If public hospitals and clinics lose too much funding, county health leaders say, who will treat the uninsured? About 10 percent of Californians could still lack coverage after the law takes full effect. Under the healthcare overhaul, the state could enroll as many as 1.4 million additional residents in Medi-Cal, its program for the poor and disabled, and sign up 2.1 million others for subsidized private insurance through a marketplace known as Covered California, according to a recent UC Berkeley report. Report author Ken Jacobs, chairman of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, is quoted.

Medi-Cal expansion will test capacity, San Francisco Chronicle

In less than one year, the Affordable Care Act’s promise to bring health care to perhaps 1 million more California residents will be tested. On Jan. 1, 2014, Medi-Cal, the publicly funded health program for low-income and disabled residents, launches a huge statewide expansion. But making a promise is one thing, and delivering is another. In some places, it’s already difficult for many poor California residents to find a doctor who is able – or willing – to see them. Many medical providers who see these patients say they are overwhelmed, a situation that could worsen when those newly covered by Medi-Cal arrive for care. Between 2014 and 2019, another 1 million to 1.4 million Californians will enroll in Medi-Cal, according to UCLA and UC Berkeley estimates. The article quotes eye surgeon and ophthalmologist Andrew Calman, an associate clinical professor at UCSF.

Coordinated healthcare could save California $110 billion, group says, Los Angeles Times

A report by the Berkeley Forum — a new group of healthcare executives, state officials, and academics — is recommending a transition away from conventional fee-for-service healthcare to a “global budget” system in which physicians and hospitals provide care under preset amounts that are adjusted to reflect the health of their patients and tied to providers’ performance on various quality measures. The group claims the switch could cut $110 billion in healthcare spending over the next decade, saving the average household $800 a year. According to co-author Stephen Shortell, dean of UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, “This could be a game changer in the state. … These are the CEOs of big insurers, big health systems and large medical groups saying it’s time for a change, and these are the people who can get things done.”

See additional coverage: KPCC (audio), The Sacramento Bee

Warn Act warnings: 118 health care jobs to be cut at Dignity Health, Mills-Peninsula, San Francisco Business Times

Two of the Bay Area’s largest health care systems, Dignity Health and Sutter Health, have filed with the state for WARN layoffs totaling 118 jobs. San Francisco-based Dignity Health has filed to cut 70 jobs at its West Bay Financial Services unit in San Mateo, according to the state’s WARN data base, and Sutter Health affiliate Mills-Peninsula Health Services in Burlingame has filed to slash 48 positions. Other local systems, including Kaiser Permanente and UCSF Medical Center, have also reduced staffing levels recently. Click here for further details.

Bay Area universities team up to commercialise innovation, Financial Times

Richard Lyons, dean of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur Steve Blank are to head up a programme to commercialise university research and fostering innovation in the Bay Area. The hub will commercialise research from three Californian institutions, Stanford, Berkeley and UC San Francisco, and is being funded through a three-year, $3.75m grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Women’s health study spans generations, San Francisco Chronicle

A study begun more than 50 years ago by UC Berkeley biostatistics professor Jacob Yerushalmy is today yielding more clues about whether certain environmental factors could lead to breast cancer.  Several generations of the study have collected an unprecedented trove of data on 15,000 mothers, daughters and granddaughters in the Bay Area enrolled in the Child Health and Development Studies. Over the years, the methods of saving blood samples have become more sophisticated. According to Nina Holland, director of the state-of-the-art biorepository at Berkeley, they were simply freezing samples 50 years ago, but today they are dividing and preserving samples so that researchers can extract more information.

Breast cancer ties to environment probed, San Francisco Chronicle

UC Berkeley public health research scientist Megan Schwarzman comments on research into the possibility that environmental factors are linked to breast cancer. “We wouldn’t want to suggest that the environment is the most important cause or is the only cause of breast cancer,” she says. “But it’s a very understudied cause and it’s also the one that points toward prevention. … If we can understand what chemicals are raising the risk of breast cancer, that’s a place where we can prevent the disease. … How much better is that than trying to treat it after the fact?” Robert Hiatt, chair of UCSF’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, also is quoted.

Trauma sets female veterans adrift back home, The New York Times

This article about homelessness and other challenges facing female military veterans cites research by Donna Washington, associate professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, showing that many female veterans who become homeless were victims of sexual harassment or assaults during their military service. Washington is quoted.

New accurate app helps diagnose skin problems (video), KABC 7

This story is about VisualDx, a new diagnostic tool developed with the expertise of UCLA professors of medicine and researchers at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Noah Craft, an LA BioMed lead researcher who is the chief medical officer for Logical Images Inc., the company that developed VisualDx, demonstrated how physicians can input symptoms into a smart phone or iPad app and retrieve images of diseases for comparison purposes, resulting in more accurate diagnoses and fewer medical mistakes.

Sacramento volunteers sought for long-term cancer-prevention study, The Sacramento Bee

The American Cancer society is launching a massive prevention trial called Cancer Prevention Study-3, the third of its kind launched in more than six decades. Moon Chen, professor and associate director of Population Research and Cancer Disparities at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, says the three studies offer invaluable bodies of research that cannot be uncovered in clinical trials.

The decision to neuter pets just got more complicated, The Huffington Post

Researchers at UC Davis studied 759 golden retrievers registered at their Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital and found that the risk of lymphatic cancer was three times more common in early-neutered males than non-neutered, and cancer of the blood vessel walls was quadrupled in late-neutered females.

First responders learn how to handle animals during emergencies (video), KPBS

At the Del Mar Fairgrounds this week, first responders trained for human emergencies were also trained to deal with animals. John Madigan, doctor of veterinary medicine at UC Davis, offered several strategies for being able to read the situation and choose the best course of action for large animals in emergencies.

Earned Income Tax Credit linked to fewer low birth weight babies: Study, The Huffington Post

UC Davis researchers have found that women who claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit were linked to a reduction in low birth weight babies, which reduces the risk of infection, developmental delays and even death. “This adds to a small, but growing, literature on the potential health benefits of nonhealth programs in the safety net,” said primary author Hilary Hoynes.

Soccer kicks up activity level of overweight kids: study, HealthDay News

A study led by UC Berkeley assistant public health nutrition professor Kristine Madsen has found that an afterschool soccer program increased the physical activity levels of overweight and obese children, although it did not lead to significant changes in physical activity, fitness or weight among all the students in the study.

Editorial: Critiquing the stem cell board, Los Angeles Times

California’s stem cell institute is finally heeding criticism that it needs to address conflicts of interest in its funding procedures. The single biggest problem identified in the report by the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, was that the large governing board, which approves all of the grants made from the $3-billion bond that funds the stem cell agency, includes 13 representatives from institutions that apply for the grants, such as the state’s large research universities (including UC). And even though they can’t vote on applications from their own organizations, the concern has been that some mutual hand-washing might be taking place, especially considering that during the first several years, 90% of the grants went to those organizations.

Editorial: Finally, toxic flame retardants aren’t a mandate, The Sacramento Bee

At Gov. Jerry Brown’s direction, Technical Bulletin 117 has been modified so that furniture makers will not be required to use flame-retardants in the foam that forms couch cushions. The UC Davis MIND Institute summarized a recent study of one component of common flame-retardants by saying the “chemical, quite literally, reduces brain power,” an example of genetics and environment increasing the risk of autism and other neurological disorders.