Susan Tolle, M.D., says: "If we could encourage people to take a deep breath and step forward and say, ‘I really want to talk about this,’ it could trigger conversations in their families. COVID is one more reason why we need to talk about it now ... It is a true gift if you can engage in advance care planning, which would help your loved ones feel they know what you would want in a crisis and that they are doing what you would have wanted. They won’t have to wake up at 2 a.m. and wonder if they did the right thing.”

"The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has peaked and will steadily recede until reaching pre-omicron levels by the end of March," according to the forecast by Oregon Health & Science University.

Following the untimely death from head trauma of celebrity Bob Saget, WebMD asks Ben Hoffman, M.D., what should be done if a child suffers a head injury: "In general, kids tend to be very resilient. For the most part, they bounce. I mean that in a good way," adding that vomiting and altered mental status ''at least warrant a phone call to the doctor if not an ER trip."

OHSU and Providence support HB 4083, which would require insurers to offer three free visits a year and assign primary health care providers for those who lack one.

A profile on gene-sequencing producer Illumina’s purchase of Grail, a startup that developed a blood test for the early detection of dozens of kinds of cancer, Tom Beer, M.D., discusses the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute’s leadership in a clinical research study in collaboration with Grail: “Where this field is going to shake out is hard to know. But this approach has a lot of underlying scientific promise.”

Marcia Friedman, M.D., discusses the American College of Rheumatology’s updated COVID-19 vaccine guidance for individuals with rheumatic disease: “There are some people who prefer very concrete medical information, with no changes. But that’s just not the reality we live in. I think being honest and transparent with people as much as possible and acknowledging what we know and what we don’t know are the most useful things we can do.”

A study led by Jacob Raber, Ph.D., reveals a definitive casual connection between changing the microbiome with fecal implants and behavioral and cognitive changes in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease: “To the best of my knowledge, no one has shown that before in an Alzheimer’s disease model.”

While discussing how regulatory loopholes enable some pop-up COVID-19 test sites to use questionable practices, Richard Scanlan, M.D., says: "There are insatiable demands for testing and a lot of money floating around. Undoubtedly, people see that as an opportunity."

OHSU research in mice for the first time draws a definitive causal connection between changes in the gut microbiome to behavioral and cognitive changes in an animal model of Alzheimer’s disease.