CDC communication breakdown raises public health risk
Editor's Note The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has gone largely silent under new federal oversight, stalling disease alerts, halting newsletters, and freezing social media updates even as outbreaks and chronic health issues persist across the US. NPR reported the news May 21. As detailed in the article,…
Study: Shorter radiation schedule matches safety of standard prostate cancer treatment
Editor's Note New research shows postoperative prostate cancer radiation delivered via stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT)—which includes just five high-dose sessions—appears as safe and tolerable as weeks-long conventional treatment. Medical Xpress reported on the findings May 15. Led by by UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and published in JAMA Oncology, the…
Poll: Healthcare cybersecurity leaders overlook AI-enabled physical security gaps
Editor's Note AI-powered attacks are breaching not only firewalls, but also hospital walls. That’s the urgent takeaway from a May 20 report from Black Book Research on the Black Book Q2 2025 poll, which reveals that while 93% of healthcare cybersecurity leaders feel confident in their digital defenses, only 18%…
Scrubs to startups: Nurse entrepreneur turns Navy-taught leadership into consulting mastery
The kind of Navy-taught leadership Brian Dawson, MSN, RN-BC, CNOR, CSSM, taps into is straightforward. “If you’re going to lead 3,500 people to move to the left when you need them to, you better know how to get them to see your goals as their goals,” he says during a…
Hospital support staff cuts raise risk of infection, delays in care
Editor's Note Although health system layoffs so far involve mostly non-clinical staff, the cuts nonetheless threaten both hospital operations and patient safety, according to a May 21 article in Modern Healthcare. As detailed in the article, thousands of nonclinical workers—such as those working in nutrition, janitorial, and sterile processing—have been…
Study: Blocking stress-linked prolactin surge relieves postoperative pain in women
Editor's Note Blocking stress-induced prolactin may significantly reduce postoperative pain in women and curb the need for opioids, according to a study led by University of Arizona Health Sciences. News-Medical.Net summarized the findings May 20. Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research suggests a path toward…
Airborne bacteria pose hidden threat in cardiac ORs, study warns
Editor's Note Air quality in cardiac ORs may be a silent driver of surgical site infections (SSIs), with airborne contamination linked to significantly elevated infection risk and mortality—especially when ventilation is suboptimal. A newly published study covered by Medical Dialogues May 19 reveals that one-third of bacteria in cardiac procedures…
Simulation-based training boosts scrub nurses’ confidence in OR non-technical skills
Editor's Note Targeted training in non-technical skills significantly improves scrub practitioners’ self-efficacy—particularly in communication, teamwork, and situational awareness—according to a new randomized controlled trial published by BMC Medical Education on May 7. As reported in the study, 60 scrub practitioners from two Iranian hospitals were randomly assigned to intervention and…
New AHRQ toolkit empowers OR teams to cut MRSA, SSI risk
Editor's Note An actionable, evidence-based toolkit from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), released in April 2025, aims to help curb the risk of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and surgical site infections (SSIs), especially in high-risk orthopedic and cardiac procedures. As detailed in the AHRQ website, the “Toolkit…
UCLA surgeons perform world’s first bladder transplant
Editor's Note University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and University of Southern California (USC) surgeons have completed the world’s first human bladder transplant, marking a new milestone in organ transplantation and paving the way to for treating debilitating bladder conditions previously considered irreversible. As detailed in a May 18 announcement…
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