surgery

NBC's Today is featuring real-life surgeries this week in its "Inside the O.R." series. Though questionable in taste and purpose, the timing couldn't have been better for the February sweeps period that starts tomorrow and runs to March 3.

"The Checklist Manifesto," a new book by surgeon and New Yorker writer Atul Gawande, contends that the simple checklist has become indispensable throughout the world of increasingly complex work -- and it should not be underestimated or dismissed, even by experts.

Like some 47 million other Americans, Nancy Sowa (pictured) doesn't have health insurance. So when her doctors last year told her she needed a total hip replacement, the office manager for a non-profit did what a growing number of U.S. citizens are doing: She headed abroad. At Wockhardt Hospital in...

If you bring me your computer and ask me to put in a new DVD burner but somehow I remove your hard drive and leave a screwdriver inside your computer, how would you respond to me asking you to pay for the "service" rendered? Wow! You can stop with the profanity it was only a hypothetical question....

Let me start by saying that I'm not a medical professional. I am a quite healthy 41-year-old. And, while none of my friends or family members seem to think I'm very tough, I think I'm a pretty resilient sort of person. But I've had the not-so-fun experience of having surgery twice in the past year,...