Health care workers generally have fared better in the recession than people working in other sectors of the economy. But, that doesn't mean they have remained unscathed.

We are now moving from concepts to specifics in health reform legislation. The two Senate bills will be merged, the tri-committee bill in the House will be finalized, then the voting begins.

With many bioethicists across the ministry retiring or contemplating retirement, members of CHA's mission department are encouraging students and professionals with an interest in ethics to begin graduate training programs soon with the goal of completing doctoral-level training in the next several years.

A majority of physicians in the U.S. support health care reform that includes adding a public insurance option, according to a poll conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

In his work as a chaplaincy consultant, the Rev. George Handzo has seen the situation over and over again: The chaplains on one side of the hospital working hard but feeling unappreciated and administrators on the other side of the hospital, asking, "What do the chaplains do all day? We never see them."

Men in Springfield, Ill., are wearing pink on Fridays throughout October to increase awareness of the importance of mammograms in the early detection and treatment of breast cancer. Pink is internationally associated with breast cancer awareness because of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure's pink ribbon campaign.

Dietary teams from 22 long-term care facilitates in the Benedictine Health System brought their best appetizer and dessert recipes to the second annual "Taste of Benedictine Hospitality" competition, preparing the dishes for the 360 system and facility administrators attending the system's late-September leadership meeting.

St. John's Regional Medical Center of Oxnard, Calif., and St. John's Pleasant Valley Hospital of Camarillo, Calif., accepted the Circle of Life citation of honor for innovation in their joint end-of-life and palliative care program at a summer luncheon held in San Francisco in conjunction with the American Hospital Association's annual leadership summit.

Attendees of the 2009 Catholic Legislative Advocacy Conference spent Sept. 22, the second day of the gathering here, calling on nearly 100 lawmakers and legislative staffers on Capitol Hill.

Patty Farrell calls her son's progress "amazing." "Steven is a much happier young man," she said. "He loves greeting people at the front door, and now we can even take him home regularly for trial visits."