Mass General: State of the Art from the Start

Among other things, Mass General trustees took great pride in being able to offer patients a fresh breeze. “The hospital is situated at the western part of Boston on a small eminence forming part of the Charles River or bay,” said a front-page article in the Oct. 27, 1821, edition of the Columbian Centinel, a Boston newspaper of the day. “It is so placed that it must be forever open and accessible to the air from the south, west, and east; and on the north there is a considerable space between it and the nearest buildings.”

The Invisible Wounds of War

Last summer, a co-worker suggested that Mike Kelly get in touch with the Home Base Program, a partnership of the Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital that supports military veterans and their families. By then, Mike and his wife, Carol, knew they needed help.

Eric, the younger of their two sons, was among the U.S. Marines then engaged in a gritty offensive against the Taliban in the Marja district of Afghanistan’s Helmand province. Marine deaths in that area were making headlines. The Kellys could some-times hear explosions during sporadic calls from their son.

Curing Childhood Cancer … One Step at a Time

The 2011 MassGeneral Marathon Team, with the partnership of John Hancock Financial, is already in training for the 2011 Boston Marathon and raising money to benefit the pediatric hematology-oncology program at MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC).

Tipping the Scale

In the U.S., one out of every three adults and an estimated 17 percent of children and adolescents are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). As obesity rates climb to an historic high, the condition and its complications result in 240,000 premature deaths and medical costs of approximately $147 billion annually. Experts now predict that the up-and-coming generation of American children will be the first to have a shorter life expec­tancy than their parents.

House Calls for the Homeless

Pops is a fixture of the stretch of Cambridge Street winding down to Boston’s Charles River, but he can be a hard man to get to know. On any given day, this slightly built, bearded man is usually shuffling up and down the steep hills of Beacon Hill. His legs swollen, he walks slowly and leans heavily on a cane. He carries a coarse blanket under his arm and has a plastic grocery bag in tow filled with prescription medications for his high blood pressure. Pops might smile and wave to a familiar face, but he’s likely to slip away quickly when approached rather than strike up a conversation.