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By XINYI YANG

BOSTON — Massachusetts teaching hospitals and medical institutions must obtain written informed consent before any sensitive and intimate examination, including breast, rectal, prostate, and pelvic exams, as a result of a federal decision effective...

By CHRIS LARABEE

SOUTH DEERFIELD — After a successful move to Yankee Candle last year, the 17th annual Wheeling for Healing event is back on May 19, as the fundraiser seeks to continue raising tens of thousands of dollars for cancer patients receiving treatment within...

By DOUG SELWYN

A recent essay by Blythe Thomas, initiative director at 1000 Days, an organization that fights “to make health and well-being during the first 1,000 days (between pregnancy and a child’s 2nd birthday) a policy and funding priority,” begins by asking...

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering loosening isolation requirements for people who test positive for COVID-19, meaning they would no longer have to stay at home for at least five days when infected with the virus.Under the...

By DOMENIC POLI

GREENFIELD — Some two dozen aspiring nurses spent Monday morning rubbing elbows with four of the region’s top politicians, where they were able to ask what they could do to drum up support for single-payer health care to how to better protect medical...

Staff Report

Less than a month after it began enforcing a longstanding policy restricting the use of anesthesia during colonoscopies and other procedures, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts is pausing that action after physicians statewide lobbied the insurer...

Editor’s note: Since this story was published, Blue Cross Blue Shield has paused enforcement of a policy that restricts the use of anesthesia during colonoscopies and other procedures.An updated policy from Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts...

By DOMENIC POLI

The Democrat representing the 2nd Congressional District of Massachusetts has teamed up with a Republican colleague from Florida to sponsor a bill aimed at making it easier for Americans to get medically necessary foods.Jim McGovern and John...

By SCOTT MERZBACH

NORTHAMPTON — Even with less severe cases of COVID-19 than the past two years and a marked decrease since last fall in RSV, officially known as respiratory syncytial virus, a surge in flu cases is keeping Cooley Dickinson Hospital’s emergency...

By ERIC WELD

Raise your hand if you get enough sleep.If you raised your hand, well done. Because in America, a large percentage of us do not sleep or rest enough, and the resultant detriments to our health are too numerous to count.More than one-third of adults do...

By MADDIE FABIAN

SOUTH HADLEY — As youth across western Massachusetts struggle with increasing mental health issues, three teenagers at the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School (PVPA) are working to increase the number of mental health personnel in...

By SAM DRYSDALE

BOSTON — The state’s drug overdose crisis is persisting at record high levels, exacerbated by a “poisoned drug supply” that isn’t just affecting those who use opioids anymore.There were 2,323 confirmed and estimated fatal opioid-related overdoses...

By MADDIE FABIAN

NORTHAMPTON — Like many of their peers, 15-year-old Kai Imperial-Jewett experienced “some pretty dark times” during the quarantine and isolation days of the pandemic.Even with supportive parents, as an only child and middle-schooler without any...

By MADDIE FABIAN

In response to the youth mental health crisis, as many experts have called it, the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts has worked with over 25 organizations and many stakeholders on a regional roadmap designed to get youth the help they...

 By Emilee Klein

Before the pandemic, Dr. David Alpern, like many health care workers at the time, didn’t think twice about going to work with a runny nose or cough.But since symptoms of COVID-19 are indistinguishable from the common cold, the retired Cooley Dickinson...

By MADDIE FABIAN

NORTHAMPTON — Local teenagers living in homes with alcohol addiction often find themselves less worried about their own well-being, and more concerned with a sibling, friend, or most often a parent.Some teens have lost a parent to separation, divorce...

By ALEXANDER MACDOUGALL

NORTHAMPTON — Malfunctioning equipment responsible for sterilizing medical instruments and devices forced Cooley Dickinson Hospital to temporarily suspend both elective and emergency surgical operations on Nov. 6, though some of those procedures...

By CHRIS LISINSKI

BOSTON — Patients would pay no more than $25 for certain name-brand medications to treat some chronic illnesses and face no costs whatsoever for similar generic options under the latest prescription drug legislation set to emerge in the Senate.Senate...

By MADDIE FABIAN

EASTHAMPTON — As the city’s new public health nurse, Christine Southworth will play an important role in keeping the community healthy through preventative and educational work.“I really love preventative medicine,” she said. “It’s a nice field of...

By MADDIE FABIAN

NORTHAMPTON — Tova Reznicek, an Israeli-American living in Israel, has spent the last three weeks worried that a rocket will fall on her neighbors, friends, colleagues and herself.Her street has already been bombed, and on a morning call with the...

By SOPHIE HAUCK

HOLYOKE — Mel Hearne sustained a spinal cord injury in 2004 that left her paralyzed and unable to speak. For 17 years, she answered yes or no questions by raising her eyebrows for “yes,” and rolling her eyes back and forth for “no.”Today she “speaks”...