Former employees of Dallas-based Medoc describe a complicated system that left patients with piles of pills and creams they didn’t need, while executives cashed in—to the detriment of the healthcare system. Full Story
For hospitals, sports medicine can offer an attractive entry point into lasting relationships with families. And there might be no better place than Collin County to form those bonds. The area is booming, sports-crazed, and deep-pocketed—and just about every health system in Dallas-Fort Worth wants a piece. Full Story
Smithsonian once tagged it as “the most futuristic medical treatment ever imagined”: A surgeon drills a hole in the skull and inserts a device deep in the brain so that constant electrical pulses can calm movement disorders like Parkinson’s and Essential Tremor. A Collin County neurosurgeon has been doing it as long as anyone in the world. Full Story
When physician-invested Walnut Hill Medical Center opened a few years ago in Dallas, it was among the nation’s most upscale hospitals. Then, just three years after it opened, Walnut Hill unceremoniously declared bankruptcy. How—and why—did it happen? Full Story
If you need a new heart, you want Dr. Gonzo leading the search. The charismatic head of the transplant team at Baylor takes chances on donors others doctors don’t want, while maintaining the same survival rate. Here is an exclusive inside look at how he does it. Full Story
Health systems are circling overhead like hawks. They’re buying independent physician practices that have all but collapsed in the post-Obamacare environment. The costs of providing healthcare are now so high that employers and insurance plans are demanding that the providers show their value. What’s a solo practitioner to do? Village Health Partners is building a model of survival—and health plans, employers, and patients are all taking notice. Full Story
Her father was a drunk. Her mother was a heroin addict. Somehow Lara Johnson still became the valedictorian of her high school class. But she might never have gone to college if not for a generous proposition, one that set her on a path to becoming a doctor. Full Story
When the cures come out of Dr. Sean J. Morrison’s lab—and he’s certain they will—almost no one will remember when the place used to be just a couple of empty concrete boxes. There were no centrifuges, no dissection microscopes, no imaging flow cytometers. The founding director of the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute’s home base at UT Southwestern looks more like a startup space now—and he has populated it with some of the best young researchers in the country. Full Story
Thomas Eric Duncan was already isolated in the emergency department at Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas last September when Barclay Berdan, the CEO of the hospital’s nonprofit parent company, Texas Health Resources, heard for the first time that Duncan had probably contracted Ebola. Full Story
Can common sense trump partisan politics? The question is especially apropos these days in Texas, which accounts for about 25 percent of the 4 million Americans who would gain health insurance if their state’s lawmakers expanded Medicaid. Full Story