Here by my home in South Florida is a cemetery where a tombstone is inscribed with the simple and powerful words: "Beloved daughter sister and mother, Here lies a virtuous woman." With her untimely death at only 40 years old and a legacy of four beautiful children, she has become...

In the heated debate surrounding health care reform in the United States, one thing is consistent and urgent: waste is expensive to our country's health.

As Americans, we are now hearing that so many diagnostic tests that we once had may never really have been necessary at all, or...

The American family experiences enough stress nowadays without considering the added reality that cancer kills about 1,500 U.S. citizens daily. That ominous number is on the rise and cancer is second to only cardiovascular disease in taking lives each year -- and effectively "ending" the health and happiness of many...

For the past four decades, the medical specialty of women's health has struggled to grow beyond babies, breast cancer and osteoporosis. Women have insisted on a more "whole body" approach to their health since the 1970s, yet hospitals and clinicians have lagged behind in their ability to provide integrated diagnostic,...

Last month brought a shower of cardiologists to New Orleans for the annual scientific convention of the American College of Cardiology. In my role of as a health care planning adviser, to hundreds of hospitals across the United States, I stay on the cutting edge of...

I spent a good bit of last week in Las Vegas attending and speaking at the annual conference of the National Consortium of Breast Centers (NCBC), the professional organization that defines and raises the standards for operation of quality breast centers in the United States. Interestingly enough, the...

This past Saturday, February 26, 2011, in more than 70 cities around the U.S., people danced at hospitals, at malls, in parks and in other public spaces -- "As If Their Life Depended On It." And, perhaps, it does. More than 200 hospitals in 95+ American cities are members of...

The 50+ million women who are next in line to become the largest users of the U.S. health care system are between the ages of 45-65, a generation brought up on wonder women, bionic women and golden girls. We were the first women to read "Our Bodies, Our Selves" and...