It is a long trip to the South Pacific Ocean. I met my son in California, and we then flew to Australia to meet our team. After a night of organizing our medical supplies, we flew from Australia to Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, which is near Papua New Guinea.

The city of Guadalcanal has an interesting history, as the United States occupied this area during World War II. We were surprised to find ourselves there with so many older American men,

According to a report released in 2012 by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), almost 60 percent of emergency room visits and 25 percent of hospital admissions of Medicare patients were potentially preventable.

As part of Atrius Health’s efforts to reduce healthcare costs and provide high quality ambulatory care for our Medicare population, programs have been implemented to help reduce unnecessary hospitalization and emergency room (ER) visits by patients.

One of these programs being piloted by Granite Medical Group is the Intensive Home Based (IHB) program.

At one point or another – maybe at the age of two or five or even older – many children get scared to go for a visit to their pediatrician.  There’s lots of reasons for their anxiety, and many of them come from not knowing what to expect:  what will they see when they look in my ears?  will it hurt when they tighten that band around my arm?  and what about shots (okay,

Now that school, sports and activities are in full swing, a healthy breakfast is more important than ever.

At this month’s SMArt kids shared medical appointment, we highlighted the need for a daily, healthy breakfast. The general consensus in the medical community is that children should eat breakfast every day. The old adage does hold true: breakfast really is the most important meal of the day. Studies have shown that children who eat breakfast actually perform better in school.

At our recent September SMA, which kicked off our fourth SMArt kids series, we had many new SMArt Kids plus a great showing of recent graduates. The returning patients reported on their summer successes and did a stellar job showing our new participants the ropes. We reviewed our SMArt Kids objectives for 2013-14:

While you may want to look exactly like your favorite movie character or singer or have the perfect costume for Halloween, choosing to change the appearance of your eyes with contact lenses can be dangerous.

Because these lenses don’t correct vision—they just change the color or shape or appearance of your eye – people may think they are harmless.

But without proper testing and fitting, they can cause damage to your eyes,