Dartmouth Medicine Magazine

Table of Contents

FEATURES

No one ever sat down and designed the U.S. health-care "system." It simply evolved, in bits and pieces. As it now threatens to crack under its own weight, a DMS faculty member is a leading proponent of the need to stop tinkering and rethink things—from a "microsystem" perspective.

The Anatomy of an Epidemic
By Laura Stephenson Carter

June 2006 marks the 25th anniversary of the first published report about AIDS—a paper coauthored by a DMS alumnus. In the quarter of a century since then, the disease has swept the globe and killed 25 million people.

The Sick Shriners
By Roger P. Smith, Ph.D., and Nicholas Jacobs, Ph.D.

Hundreds of Shriners were in town for an annual highschool all-star football game and pre-game parade. What started as a festive day, filled with miniature motorbikes and capering clowns, turned chilling as the Mary Hitchcock Emergency Room began to fill up with sick Shriners.

COVER (jpg) (pdf)

Dartmouth's Paul Batalden is a leading proponent of a concept called "microsystems" that might be just what the doctor ordered to cure the ailing U.S. health-care system. To learn how, see the feature "What System?". The cover photo is by Chris Milliman.

DEPARTMENTS

Editor's Note

Discoveries

Pondering prions
Pursuing polyps
Catching a cancer culprit
Delving deep in the brain
Studying stents
. . . and more.

Vital Signs

A Match, please
Spotting phony photos
Proponents of palliative care
A special kind of camp
Reducing infection rates
Disaster preparedness
A doctor in the house
. . . and more.