Lisa Greene, Times Staff Writer
Lisa Greene covers health and medicine. She joined the Times in 2000. Greene grew up in North Carolina, is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, and spent several years working for newspapers in South Carolina. She and her husband have three children.
Phone: (813) 226-3322
E-mail: greene@tampabay.com
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For care of elderly, not enough specialists
12/07/08HealthLARGO
Dr. James Steg stopped by to check on one of his nursing home patients and found himself chatting about her brush with death.
Martha Cruise, 78, had recovered so much that she was in a physical therapy class, doing stretches in her wheelchair, when Steg found her.
"They thought I was dying," Cruise told Steg, as they talked about her recent illness. "Now I'm going home. With your help." ...
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Psychiatric patient rapes another at St. Joseph's in Tampa
12/05/08HealthTAMPA — One psychiatric patient raped another at St. Joseph's Hospital on Thursday, police said Friday.
The male patient entered a female patient's room, forced her to the floor in the bathroom and raped her, the woman reported.
Tampa police arrested Thomas Kelly Bolduc, 39, on two counts of sexual battery.
"We take patient safety very, very seriously. It's our top priority," said Lorraine Lutton, chief operating officer at St. Joseph's. "We will evaluate this incident and determine if there are any steps we need to take to strengthen our security."...
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Too much water nearly kills infant
12/01/08HealthTAMPA — Jeri Moss never knew drinking water could hurt anyone.
So Moss thought she could stretch her budget by adding extra water to the baby formula she fed her son, 5-month-old La'Damian Burton.
Then a week ago, La'Damian had a seizure and stopped breathing. As Moss frantically tried to revive him with CPR, it never crossed her mind that water could be the culprit. ...
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Doctor answers your questions about vaccines
11/24/08HealthWhy do babies get combination shots? Why do they get their first shot so young? Why don't we just slow down the vaccination schedule?
Parents asked a doctor who specializes in vaccines to answer some of their questions as part of a package of stories about parents' fears surrounding vaccines and autism. Dr. Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic Vaccine Research Group, answered. Poland helps set national vaccine policy as a liaison member of the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. ...
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Two sides unable to bridge gap
11/23/08HealthSecond of two parts
A decade ago, doctors hailed Rotashield as a miracle vaccine that could save thousands of lives each day. It would fight rotavirus, a nasty bug that causes dehydration so severe it kills more than 600,000 babies each year, mostly in developing nations.
But within months of its release, after a million children received it, the vaccine's makers discovered a rare, dangerous side effect and pulled it from the market. ...
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Vaccine delays favored by some
11/23/08HealthLAND O'LAKES — Melanie Dymond kept talking to her pediatrician for months, looking for reassurance.
In the end, she just couldn't give her son Dayton the MMR shot.
"I couldn't fathom him getting the shot, because I know that's the one that's linked to controversy," she said.
Instead, she drove her baby, now 2, across town to get the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines one at a time, instead of as a 3-in-1 shot....
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Debate rages over need for vaccines
11/21/08HealthOne is a former Playboy Playmate of the Year. The other was once voted one of People magazine's most beautiful people. They had a spat this fall. Actor Amanda Peet used the word "parasites" to describe people aligned with Playmate Jenny McCarthy. "She has a lot of nerve," McCarthy huffed in response. This would be a bit of celebrity fluff, except that Peet was criticizing parents who don't vaccinate their children. McCarthy took up for them because she's the most visible person who claims childhood vaccines cause autism. As famous as they are, Peet and McCarthy are merely two combatants in a national controversy. The nation's most trusted scientific organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics, have said there's no link between childhood vaccines and autism....
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Older drivers' death rate down since vision test requirement
11/10/08NewsA 4-year-old Florida law requiring that older drivers pass a vision test before getting a new driver's license appears to help save lives.
Since the law took effect, the death rate among drivers age 80 or older from car crashes has dropped by 17 percent, according to a study released Monday in the Archives of Ophthalmology.
During the same period, the crash death rate among drivers of all ages increased by 6 percent....
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Staying up to catch Rays could make for sluggish days
10/21/08HealthGotta love the baseball playoffs. The drama. The excitement. The night after night of prying your eyelids open to watch that last pitch, dragging through the next day, wishing you could just take a nap.
Even on a regular basis, we are a sleep-deprived nation. About one in five Americans fails to get enough sleep.
And that's before baseball.
"Sleep deprivation is probably a little more acute in Tampa Bay right now," said Dr. Lee C. Kirkman, founder of the sleep lab at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa....
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Flu arrives in Hillsborough
10/15/08MedicineTAMPA — Flu has arrived in west-central Florida, state health officials said Wednesday.
Hillsborough, Manatee and Polk counties are among 12 in the state reporting "sporadic flu activity," the lowest of four levels that health officials track.
Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando aren't reporting any cases of influenza.
Florida is among seven states in the nation reporting sporadic activity....
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Hospitals jump on the biometrics bandwagon with patient hand scans.
10/11/08MedicineLARGO — Registration clerks needed some personal information from Seminole resident Kathleen McGuire when she checked in recently at a clinic run by BayCare Health System.
So McGuire placed her hand on a little black box on the registration desk. A tiny built-in camera beamed infrared light into her palm.
The camera scanned an image of the veins inside McGuire's palm — a signature that's supposed to be as unique as a fingerprint. A computer recorded it in digital code....
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$28.8M grant allows USF to study children's health
10/03/08ResearchTAMPA — Some 1,000 future Hillsborough County residents — babies who aren't even born yet — will be studied from the womb until age 21 as part of a sweeping national study to learn more about the causes of diseases such as diabetes and autism.
The University of South Florida will receive $28.8-million to study 1,000 children in Hillsborough and 1,000 children in Orange County, who will be among 100,000 children nationwide. The University of Miami will lead Florida's research effort, including the study of 1,600 more children in Baker and Miami-Dade counties....
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Depression in heart patients prompts call for screening
09/29/08MedicineHaving a heart attack can make you sad.
That may seem obvious, but heart patients are more likely to experience serious depression, and it's often overlooked, heart experts said Monday.
In a sweeping recommendation, the American Heart Association said doctors should screen all heart patients for depression, and refer them for further treatment if needed. The measure was endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association as well. ...
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Back-to-school season is lice season, too
09/26/08HealthJust hearing the word makes your head itch.
If you're a parent with young children, you know the word I mean. It starts with an L.
You're already starting to scratch, aren't you?
It's that time of year: Back-to-school season always means an uptick in cases of lice. Kids spread out over the summer, but then they come back to their classrooms and start exchanging hugs, hair brushes and creepy crawly little bugs. ...
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Cause of death for Buc player's baby 4-6 weeks away
09/25/08BucsA cause of death for Matt Bryant's 3-month-old son, Tryson, will not be available for at least four to six weeks, which is not uncommon, said Dick Bailey, operations manager for the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's Office. Final autopsy results will not be ready for about 12 weeks.
The most common cause of death in babies under 1-year-old is SIDS, or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. About 4,500 babies in the United States die each year for no apparent reason. About half of those deaths are classified as SIDS — cases in which doctors cannot find an explanation. ...
