Featuring hospital and health care headlines from the media and Web.

Iowa News

Driving treacherous in southwest Iowa
After another dusting of snow overnight, Monday morning’s drive to work was once again treacherous. Officials with the Iowa Department of Transportation were still calling a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 29 impassable. The interstate was initially closed Sunday afternoon and was physically blocked by barrels on all ramps. (Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil)

Regents approve UIHC project
The Iowa Board of Regents approved the construction of a $73 million University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics outpatient clinic in Coralville’s Iowa River Landing redevelopment district. (Iowa City Press-Citizen)

MMSC hires next CEO
Brian Burnside will be the next leader of Marshalltown Medical & Surgical Center as it was announced he will take over as president and CEO in early April. The MMSC Board of Trustees made the announcement of Burnside’s hiring Friday. Burnside, 36, is currently CEO of Wayne County Hospital in Corydon, which is located in southern Iowa near the Missouri border. (Marshalltown Times-Republican)

Osage native headed to Haiti for spring break
While college students across the nation will spend spring breaks in destination locations, Gabe Lancaster will spend his spring break in Haiti. Lancaster is a 2006 Osage High School graduate attending his fourth year at the University of Iowa, studying pre-med. (Mason City Globe Gazette)

Donor dollars let clinic offer basic care, key jobs
Students from Des Moines University students witnessed a typical morning at an Ugandan medical clinic: Scores of residents packed the clinic’s concrete porch and lined up around the side of the building. Many carried babies or young children, including dozens with fevers and diarrhea. More than half of the clinic’s patients had malaria, caused by a mosquito-borne parasite that kills more than 1 million African children per year. (Des Moines Register)

The white coat
I really don’t like white lab coats.  They’re hot, they snag on doorknobs and edges of desks, and stuff dumps out of the waist pockets when I sit down.  Moving around the ICU in a long lab coat is like touring a china shop in a poorly tailored trench coat.  Add to this my own perception that with my thin frame I can’t really pull off the “doctor look” in a lab coat. I look more like somewhat trying to look like a doctor—like I’m going to work wearing a Halloween costume. (Alegent Health Blog)

U.S. News

Five health care leaders weigh in on rising charity care
In part one of this two-part series, CEOs are asked how they and their teams are addressing uncompensated care at their facility. In part two, these same healthcare leaders will offer their thoughts on how they remained patient centered in the midst of rising charity care and are still prospering. (HealthLeaders Media)

Expecting a surge in U.S. medical schools
New schools are seeking to address an imbalance in American medicine that has been growing for a quarter century. Many bright students were fleeing to offshore medical schools, or giving up hope entirely, when they could not get into domestic schools. Meanwhile, American hospitals were using foreign-trained and foreign-born physicians to fill medical residencies. During the 1980s and ’90s only one new medical school was established. (New York Times)

Dangerous caregivers not on list
The long-awaited federal repository is missing serious disciplinary actions against what are probably thousands of health providers. (Los Angeles Times)

Something new for the old
Senior playgrounds offer aging boomers the chance to get exercise, and get together. (Boston Globe)