Emergency Room

The noise, an incessant loud whooshing in his left ear, was driving Roger Luchs crazy -- literally. For six months the real estate lawyer who lives in Bethesda had struggled to cope with a problem relieved only by sleep. The emergency room physician who examined him shortly after the problem surfaced in August 2000 had assured him that the noise, inaudible to everyone but Luchs, would probably clear up on its own. Three otolaryngologists had told Luchs he had tinnitus, a harmless but annoying condition typically characterized by a ringing sound,...

Loudoun County's only hospital is opening the first phase of a $39.2 million renovation and expansion of its facility on Cornwall Street in Leesburg this week. The hospital, part of the Inova Health System, will open its new emergency department at the Cornwall Street campus Thursday, along with a new diagnostic imaging unit and an expanded lab. Renovated facilities for behavioral health, child advocacy and the Loudoun Free Clinic will open at the site late next month, hospital officials said.

CORRECTION: The column misstated the name of a sugar present on meat linked to a food allergy. It is galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose, not alpha-galactosidase. This cannot be happening again, Hayden Newell thought as the angry, red, ferociously itchy welts encircled his waist and spread up his arms. The 57-year-old metallurgist from tiny Boones Mill, Va., who was attending a business lunch in Florida, knew what would probably happen next: His lips would grow numb, making it hard to speak, he would become short of breath and his blood...

BOSTON — Two days after the Boston Marathon bombings, Boston Medical Center chaplain Sister Maryanne Ruzzo was checking on staffers who'd been caring for the injured when she received a page. A bombing victim wanted to see her. The bedside was fraught with worry. A woman in her 30s had lost a leg to amputation as surgeons deemed it unsalvageable. Still suffering multiple injuries, she was now heading into surgery again, knowing she might wake up with no legs at all. Ruzzo stood among the woman's parents and siblings and...

During the worst moments of her ordeal last month, her mouth gaping as wide as possible into an oxygen mask in a labored effort to keep breathing, Nancy Szokan remembers wishing she could just pass out. "I couldn't stand it anymore," recalled Szokan of the several hours she spent in the emergency room of tiny North Country Hospital in Newport, Vt. "I was that frightened. " Szokan could no longer speak. She could see that her husband was visibly alarmed by the strangulated, high-pitched sound of her breathing.

Boston Children's Hospital had a wave of young patients brought in on stretchers Monday, all hurt by bombs detonated on a sunny day amid spectators of the city's famed marathon. One was a 2-year-old boy with a bleeding head injury, who was admitted to the surgical intensive care unit. Another was a 9-year-old girl with a leg trauma so severe that she spent hours in the operating room. Law enforcement officials said an 8-year-old boy was among the people killed in the explosions near the finish line.

One day in October, Rena Dubin got a call saying her 15-year-old daughter, Mia, who has Asperger's syndrome and an anxiety disorder, had a panic attack so severe it caused her to run from her school building in Reisterstown, Md., and toward a busy road. Confused and delusional, Mia was taken to Northwest Hospital in nearby Randallstown, the closest emergency room, where her mother hoped she would be swiftly transferred to a hospital that accepts adolescents for...

Policymakers frequently say that Medicaid patients overuse the emergency room for routine care, citing it as a factor driving up health-care costs. But a new study says that the majority of Medicaid visits to the emergency room are for urgent or serious issues. "There's this perception that Medicaid patients go to the emergency department for very little things that could easily be addressed elsewhere," said study author Emily Carrier. "What we found here is that Medicaid patients use...

MedStar Health will acquire Southern Maryland Hospital Center in Prince George's County by the end of the year and plans more than $100 million in improvements to the 35-year-old facility. The hospital in Clinton was founded in 1977 to address shortages in specialty care for residents of Calvert, Charles, Prince George's and St. Mary's counties. It was managed by its founder, Francis P. Chiaramonte, a physician, until he passed the organization to his son Michael in 2007. According to MedStar, the 238-bed...

BENGHAZI, Libya — After the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission last fall that left the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans dead, the Islamist militia widely accused of leading the assault all but disappeared amid a popular backlash. But Ansar al-Sharia is edging back into society, and many of Benghazi's residents now say they want it here. The militia tentatively resumed its role as guardian of Benghazi's two main hospitals last week. Its fighters have staked out positions at the western...

Boston Children's Hospital had a wave of young patients brought in on stretchers Monday, all hurt by bombs detonated on a sunny day amid spectators of the city's famed marathon. One was a 2-year-old boy with a bleeding head injury, who was admitted to the surgical intensive care unit. Another was a 9-year-old girl with a leg trauma so severe that she spent hours in the operating room. Law enforcement officials said an 8-year-old boy was among the people killed in the explosions near the finish line.

Thursday, March 21 "African Encounters: Coast to Coast" exhibit, watercolors and collagraph prints by Kathleen Stafford. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Alexandria Black History Museum, 902 Wythe St., Alexandria. Free. 703-746-4356. Seniors safe-driving class, 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Thursday-Friday, Aurora Hills Senior Center, 735 S. 18th St., Arlington. Free with 55+ Pass . Registration required. 703-228-5722. New Member photography show, by Soomin Ham, Tim Hyde and Fred...

BENGHAZI, Libya — After the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission last fall that left the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans dead, the Islamist militia widely accused of leading the assault all but disappeared amid a popular backlash. But Ansar al-Sharia is edging back into society, and many of Benghazi's residents now say they want it here. The militia tentatively resumed its role as guardian of Benghazi's two main hospitals last week. Its fighters have staked out positions at the western entrance to the city.

A 14-year-old with large brown eyes and tightly cropped hair told me a few weeks ago that voices were telling him to kill people. A day before the Sandy Hook school massacre , he threatened to light his house on fire and stab everyone in the family, according to his mother. This boy — whom I'll call Trevor — is a severe case, presenting the early, violent symptoms of schizophrenia at an age when the illness often begins to emerge. Untreated, his condition poses a serious danger to himself and those...

"Am I going to die today?" I asked Jay as we rode together in an ambulance through the streets of Chicago. Jay Alexander was my doctor but also my friend, and I knew he wouldn't lie. "Just give me a percentage," I pleaded. "There's a 98 percent chance you're not going to die today," he said. It wasn't the way I expected my day to go, but as soon as I'd felt dizzy and experienced numbness in my left arm that Saturday morning, Jan. 21, 2012, I knew I was in trouble. An MRI soon...

still clutching his discharge instructions from a suburban Maryland emergency room, Brian Harms struggled to make sense of what the neurosurgeon was saying. The ER staff had told Harms, admitted hours earlier, that his diagnoses were headache and vertigo and that he should go home and rest. A CT scan had found a benign cyst in his brain, but the staff didn't convey any urgency about treating it. As the 29-year-old College Park resident was gathering his things, a neurosurgeon rushed in, telling Harms he would not be going...

When I walked into the hospital room of a 19-year-old woman, a foul smell all but overwhelmed me. I called a nurse to assist me and saw her, too, catch her breath. When we examined the young woman we found a chronic infection of her pelvis so painful that she resisted our slightest touch. How long had she been living like this, I wanted to know. Through tears, my patient hesitantly began an explanation that told me as much about our diseased medical system as about her illness: She'd had diabetes since she was a...

Jerri Nielsen, an emergency room physician from Ohio working for a year at the South Pole's scientific station, had no other medical professional to rely upon when she discovered a lump in her breast in March 1999. The polar winter had set in, and by the time Dr. Nielsen realized that the lump was not a benign cyst, there was no hope of an airlift until October. So Dr. Nielsen, using ice as an anesthetic, stuck herself in the breast 20 times, hoping to get enough tissue for a biopsy.

It is past time that we talked about the problems associated with mental health care [ "A long wait for mental health care," Metro, Jan. 23]. The Dubin family, featured in the article, is not alone in its experience and heartache. I have sat in the emergency room with a shattered loved one, and it can be frightening. Couple the scenario described in the article with the following: no insurance, no credit card, no means to pay. Or add this bit of feedback: "You have already used up your 10 visits and hospitalization limit as offered by...

One day in October, Rena Dubin got a call saying her 15-year-old daughter, Mia, who has Asperger's syndrome and an anxiety disorder, had a panic attack so severe it caused her to run from her school building in Reisterstown, Md., and toward a busy road. Confused and delusional, Mia was taken to Northwest Hospital in nearby Randallstown, the closest emergency room, where her mother hoped she would be swiftly transferred to a hospital that accepts adolescents for psychiatric inpatient...