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Good doctors are a bit like good detectives. They use their wits, informed by training and experience, to track down the precise cause or causes of a patient’s symptoms and recommend the best treatment. And the clues that physicians follow often come from laboratory tests — of blood or tissue samples, for example. Get the tests right and you can make a diagnosis. If the test results are wrong, though, little else can go right. (10/22)

Early in March 2020, I decided to write about the risks posed by Covid-19. I have no background in epidemiology or even health journalism, but I can multiply, divide and make charts and was frustrated with the lack of quantification in most reporting and public-health messaging on what was soon to be declared a pandemic. (Justin Fox, 10/23)

Two years ago, when my father was dying of dementia, my siblings and I faced a terrible dilemma: Whose wishes for his medical treatment were we to honor? Those of my father back when he was a healthy, highly functioning geneticist? Or those of the simpler, weakened man my father had become? It was a predicament that has led me to rethink my views on advance directives for end-of-life care. (Sandeep Jauhar, 10/23)

Between 1993 and 2013, the number of people 55 or older in state prisons increased by 400 percent. The American Civil Liberties Union estimates that by 2030, people over 55 will constitute a third of the country’s prison population. (Carmilla Floyd, 10/21)

The U.S. preterm birth rate has hit a 15-year high, a startling increase of over 10 percent. This outsized leap is not an anomaly — rather, it is the culmination of a decade-long trend, one that has been particularly dangerous here in the U.S. Today, more than one in every 10 babies are born too early, the second leading cause of infant death (35.8 percent) after birth defects. (Elizabeth Cherot and R. Lawrence Moss, 10/20)

Last week, I joined a number of my fellow colleagues to meet with Gov. Ned Lamont to discuss our concerns regarding Manchester Memorial Hospital, issues with its owner Prospect Medical, and its potential and discussed sale to Yale New Haven Health. We are working with the Governor’s office to ensure the local population is represented in light of the extreme concerns that could arise if Manchester Memorial does not continue the operations its community is accustomed to. (State Sen. MD Rahman, 10/23)