City officials and public health officials in Sacramento, Calif., began distributing special breathing masks to unsheltered people and residents as smoke from the region's wildfires reached "emergency" levels, according to Capital Public Radio.

Even before graduation, many future physicians have a number hanging over their heads that influences their chosen specialty: debt accrued throughout their medical education, the American Medical Association stated in a Nov. 12 blog post.

Former Boston-based Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier, MD, waded into the debate over faculty candidate diversity statements this past weekend, calling the requirement "an affront to academic freedom," according to Inside Higher Ed.

Aspiring physicians are learning harmful ways to discuss abortion and medical schools are not doing much to stop it, a physician wrote in a STAT op-ed.

A study published in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology examined the short- and long-term outcomes of Clostridium difficile infection in the elderly.

After the Department of Veterans Affairs released its annual hospital ratings this fall, the Atlanta VA facility dropped to the bottom, while West Haven, Conn.'s facility rose to the top, leaving questions as to why these ratings changed so significantly, The New…

The FDA announced Nov. 9, it gave approval for emergency use of a new rapid, single-use fingerstick test for detecting Ebola in the midst of the Democratic Republic of the Congo's current Ebola outbreak.

After an emergency department patient died Nov. 7 at Albany (N.Y.) Medical Center, the hospital is investigating the incident and has placed staffers involved on administrative leave, according to The Daily Gazette.

In the week ending Nov. 3, 40 states reported sporadic influenza activity; two states reported regional activity; six states reported local flu activity; and two states reported no activity, according to the CDC's most recent FluView report. 

After a study found no link between U.S. hospitals that get accredited by independent organizations — including the Joint Commission — and lower death rates, the Joint Commission responded that the study has methodological issues that bias it against accredited hospitals.