This fascinating book traces Methodist's transformation from a community institution into an internationally renowned hospital equipped for heart-lung transplants. Opened in 1924, its history reflects the most revolutionary era in medicine. Methodist grew to meet the challenge and to stay on the cutting edge of a new era in medicine that included atomic medicine, high technology, and organ transplants.

In Good Evening, Friends, Houston's iconic Eyewitness news anchor Dave Ward shares his untold personal and professional stories. Known as "the most trusted voice in Houston," Ward first joined ABC's KTRK-Channel 13 in 1966 and today hosts "Dave Ward's Houston" on ABC13. His journey from a simple life as the son of an East Texas pastor to become a welcome daily presence in the homes of millions of Houstonians unfolds as if it were preordained. As his early love of music and passion for technological innovation combined with his skill for distilling a story to its essence, it became apparent that Ward not only had a gift as a broadcaster but also a talent for riding the waves of change in the industry and emerging ever more beloved by his audience. In these pages, Ward details a remarkable sixty-year career as a newsman that began before the JFK assassination. He takes readers behind the scenes of America's most successful local news team--revealing his personal history with Marvin Zindler, chronicling the growth and development of the U.S. space program, and providing fascinating play-by-play about life on the road with the Houston Oilers in the "Luv Ya Blue" era. Additionally, Ward details his instrumental role in establishing Houston Crime Stoppers, the city's top non-profit dedicated to public safety, and he opens up about his personal struggles and dramatic brushes with death. Whether he was covering wars in Vietnam and the Middle East or providing accurate and in-depth coverage of presidential elections and historic natural disasters, Ward has always provided his audience with a clear and unbiased understanding of the news. Now, this long-awaited book captures the spirit of Houston as it presents a candid look at the man who has faithfully investigated its problems and broadcast its stories through almost seventy years of constant change.

This issue of Gastroenterology Clinics of North America is on Gastrointestinal Motility Disorders. GI motility disorders are common reasons for patients to see gastroenterologists. Knowledge of the pathophysiology, evaluation and treatment of these disorders is important to appropriately care for patients with gastrointestinal motility disorders in clinical practice. The chapters of this issue will discuss key aspects of gastrointestinal motility disorders focusing on how they relate to practicing gastroenterologists and other health care providers. Current knowledge in the area as well as evolving concepts from clinical investigations and translational research from basic sciences will be discussed. The rapid explosion of new technology used in the evaluation of patients will be covered.

Neuro-ophthalmology has been an established subspecialty in neurology for over 30 years. This issue of Neurologic Clinics contains the following articles: Ocular Motor Cranial Neuropathy (Volpe); Papilledema (Wall); Transient Monocular Visual Loss (Ahmed/Foroozan); Multiple Sclerosis (Galetta); Nonarteritic Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy (Bonelli/Arnold); Optic Neuritis (Eggenberger); Pupil Disorders (Kawasaki);Giant Cell Arteritis (Falardeau); Functional Visual Loss (Newman); Orbital Disease (McCulley); Thyroid Eye Disease (Cockerham); Vascular Neuro-ophthalmology (Biousse); Neuroimaging (Costello); and Optic Atrophy (Golnik).

Since 1980, obesity has more than doubled worldwide in adults, and tripled in youth. This has spurred a nationwide health issue: metabolic syndrome, a cluster of diseases including obesity, fatty liver, and cardiovascular disease that can be fatal if not kept under control. Armed with decades of experience and a deep understanding of metabolic syndrome, Dr. Joe Galati looks to use this book to educate you on how to avoid these diseases. Through a strong family structure, eating habits and regular exercise, you can avoid or reverse metabolic syndrome, and help your children, our most precious resource, avoid becoming another unhealthy statistic.

As the Baby Boom generation ages, an increased need for geriatric specialty care becomes particularly important. This shift will especially affect ophthalmology, as the occurrence of common visual disorders such as cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy increases with age. This book anticipates this pending and inevitable demographic shift and fulfills the need for a practical, "bread-and-butter" approach to Geriatric Ophthalmology.

This classic work is written for frontline clinicians who need to ask "Where is it?" when diagnosing a neurological disorder, helping them reach a diagnosis with greater accuracy and avoiding unnecessary testing. Updated to reflect the latest literature, enhanced with color anatomical diagrams and additional tables, Localization in Clinical Neurology is a cornerstone in clinical neurology.

Basic research over the last decade or two has uncovered similarities between speech, especially its sensori-motor aspects, and vocal communication in several non-human species. The most comprehensive studies so far have been conducted in songbirds. Songbirds offer us a model system to study the interactions between developmental or genetic predispositions and tutor-dependent influences, on the learning of vocal communication. Songbird research has elucidated cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying learning and production of vocal patterns, perception of vocal sounds, vocal motor control and vocal neuromotor plasticity. More recently, the entire genome of the songbird zebra finch has been sequenced. These discoveries, along with the identification of several genes implicated in familial human speech and language disorders, have made it possible to look for analogues of speech and language dysfunction in zebra finches, at least at the perceptual and sensori-motor levels. Two approaches in particular have led us closer to the development of animal models of human speech conditions, namely developmental stuttering and a familial verbal dyspraxia associated with a mutation in the gene for the transcription factor FoxP2. Work on other animals that show developmental sensori-motor learning of vocal sounds used for communication have also shown significant progress, leading to the possibility of development of models of speech and language dysfunction in them. Among mammals, the principal ones include dolphins and whales. In non-human primates, while vocal learning per se is not very prominent, investigations on their communicative abilities have thrown some light on the rudiments of language. These considerations make the publication of a book focused on animal models of speech and language disorders, detailing the overall investigative approach of neurobehavioral studies in animals capable of vocal communication and learned vocalizations, a much-needed and worthwhile project. It would serve as a unifying review of research in this new multidisciplinary frontier, spanning the molecular to the behavioral, for clinicians and researchers, as well as a teaching resource for advanced speech pathology and neuroscience students. This book will also be the first of its kind.

The pineal region is an anatomic location where various intracranial tumors, in particular germ cell tumors and pineal parenchymal tumors, occur. Interestingly, pineal germ cell tumors are detected more frequently in Asian countries, including Japan, while pineal parenchymal tumors are less frequent in Asia than in the United States and Europe. This publication takes advantage of the knowledge and experience of Japanese experts in pineal tumors, with emphasis on epidemiology and pathological diagnosis. A variety of treatment modalities including radiotherapy, radiosurgery, surgical therapy and chemotherapy are also discussed. This valuable book will enhance the knowledge on pineal tumor treatment of not only neurosurgeons and radiation oncologists but also neurologists, neuro-oncologists, pediatricians and neuropathologists interested in pineal region tumors.

When Larry L. Mathis was selected CEO of The Methodist Healthcare System in Houston at age 39, he began keeping a journal of the truth as he saw it--in the form of maxims. Each is the product of excruciating experience and told with often hilarious details. The range of Mathis' experiences led him to understand that "Leadership in life and death situations is different than that described in the management books." While his maxims primarily deal with the challenges every leader faces, they also touch on life, love, wisdom and folly. These maxims are valuable and entertaining reading for both the beginning executive and the seasoned executive, especially those in health care leadership.