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The charity that wants video game karts in every hospital
In many ways, Jonathan Watson is like other 11-year-olds. He does his homework, dreams of becoming a doctor and plays video games when he can. Depending on the day, his favorite is either Minecraft or The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Unlike most kids his age, though, Jonathan is at the hospital every three weeks for blood transfusions -- a procedure that can take up to six hours at a time. When I visited him at Mott Children's Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he wasn't slaying dragons or building a pixelated fortress; he was replaying the opening levels of Rayman Legends on a kart that had just been wheeled in. The kart was donated by a local Eagle Scout who raised funds through the Gamers Outreach Foundation (GO), a nationwide charity that puts medical-grade gaming equipment in hospitals around the country. The "GO Kart" Jonathan was using included everything needed to play video games: a modest Samsung television, an Xbox 360 (though any console will fit) and a pair of gamepads. The kit itself is hardly revolutionary, but anyone who's schlepped their gear to a LAN party can appreciate the simplicity of this rolling, self-contained setup. At Mott and 19 other hospitals around the country, they're the most popular "toy" available. And when you're a kid with a medical condition like Watson's, it's easy to see why.
The first uterus transplant in the US has failed
Medical progress sometimes doesn't go according to plan. Cleveland Clinic has announced that the first US uterus transplant failed just two weeks after doctors put it in. Details of what went wrong are scarce, but the Clinic says that a "sudden complication" forced the removal. While the 26-year-old patient (referred to only as Lindsey) is recovering well, it's clear that such a groundbreaking procedure isn't easy. Not that the Clinic is giving up -- it's continuing with a transplant study that should include 10 women, and hopes that this transplant will eventually give more women a chance at childbirth.
Cleveland Clinic performs first uterus transplant in the US
Doctors in Cleveland have performed the first successful uterus transplant in the United States. But, once the 26 year-old recipient has one or two babies, the womb will be removed so she can stop taking medications that prevent her body from rejecting the foreign organ -- a very real risk that's haunted the procedure in the past. Her previously impossible pregnancy will rely on in vitro fertilization, using her eggs (harvested prior to the transplant) that've been fertilized with her husband's sperm and then frozen, according to The New York Times.
Cleveland Clinic and IBM team up to make Watson a Doctor (video)
Medical research facility Cleveland Clinic and IBM are teaming up to develop ways to let supercomputer Watson become a useful tool for doctors. The machine's ability to analyze language and scour its database for answers is hoped to offer quicker and more exhaustive diagnoses for patients. As modern medical students spend less time memorizing diseases, they're focusing on learning how to think critically and navigate the huge amount of available data. Big Blue is also hoping that the Jeopardy champion will learn how to digest a person's medical records in order to match up their history with maladies. We're just nervous that someone will give Watson a telepresence robot and send him out onto the wards -- you'd be worried about his bedside manner if you've seen his ruthless quizzing manner.
