
Texas A&M border collie mascot Reveille X has right eye removed after glaucoma diagnosis
In a statement released by the school, Texas A&M president Mark A. Welsh III said that Reveille X will 'take a brief hiatus from engagements while she recovers,' but will return for all of her customary activities in the fall.
'Our priority is her health and well-being, and we are blessed to have access to the remarkably talented and caring Texas A&M veterinary team who will continue to monitor Miss Rev on her road to recovery,' Welsh said in the statement.
REQUIRED READING: After Rose Bowl meltdown, Oregon doubling down on College Football Playoff title run
The collie had been experiencing discomfort and cloudiness in her right eye. During a check-up at the Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, veterinarians recommended surgery to relieve the discomfort. In the middle of the procedure Wednesday, they discovered signs of abnormal tissue and, because of that, elected to remove the eye.
The Reveille mascot is one of the most iconic in college sports, dating all the way back to 1931, when a group of cadets came across an injured dog, brought her to campus and gave her her nickname when she barked when buglers played morning reveille.
The current Reveille, the 10th the school has had, took over the role in 2021.

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Forbes
3 days ago
- Forbes
Oregon's Bold Stand Against Private Equity In Healthcare: What's Next?
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These investments often involve significant control over the company's operations and strategic decisions, typically funded through a combination of investor capital and borrowed funds. In healthcare, the funding structure tends to rely more heavily on borrowed funds. In essence and in broad generalization, PE firms identify a business, believe they can operate it more efficiently, and aim to sell it for a profit. This trend reflects the increasing financialization of medical care. In healthcare, PE investments span a wide range of entities, including hospitals, physician groups, medical practices, fertility clinics, cosmetic clinics, imaging centers and ambulatory surgical centers. PE firms now own 460 hospitals, a 25-fold increase over the past twenty years. From 2010 to 2020, private equity deals in healthcare surged by over 250%. This growth is understandable. Healthcare processes often suffer from significant inefficiencies, and investors view the sector as an attractive opportunity due to its size, valuable fixed assets, and stable demand, which is largely independent of traditional market dynamics. "Private equity has revolutionized the engineering space, and it's clear what's been happening in healthcare isn't working. Private equity rewards high performing entities. Why wouldn't medicine want to lean into that?" says Michael Tobias, Founder Principal New York Engineers and shareholder Eaglestone Private Equity when interviewed for this article. This surge aligns with PE's standard approach: acquiring potentially undervalued assets, streamlining operations for short-term profits, and exiting within 3–7 years through sales or initial public offerings (IPOs). This strategy involves taking on immediate financial risk in pursuit of high returns. In healthcare, PE firms have traditionally focused on consolidating high-margin specialties such as dermatology, ophthalmology, and emergency medicine but are now expanding into more diverse areas of care delivery, including neurosurgery. Why Are Physicians Turning To Private Equity? In certain medical circles, surgeons in the latter half of their careers—typically with 15–20 years of practice—view private equity (PE) as an attractive exit strategy. The costs of operating a medical practice continue to rise steadily, driven by expenses such as staffing, equipment, and regulatory compliance. Meanwhile, reimbursement rates to physicians from insurers, including Medicare and private payers, are consistently declining. Private equity offers a way to mitigate these financial risks and exit the market with significant compensation for the assets built over years of practice. This approach can be highly lucrative for senior shareholders within a group practice. However, it may pose challenges for younger partners, who might face exclusion from the deal or diminished roles post-acquisition. What Are The Risk Of Private Equity In Healthcare? Private equity (PE) firms traditionally target high-margin specialties and procedures in healthcare. A leading article in JAMA reported that, following PE acquisition of hospitals, patient safety incidents increased significantly: a 27.3% rise in falls, a 37.7% increase in central line-associated bloodstream infections, and a doubling of surgical site infections. These outcomes occurred despite hospitals treating younger and more financially secure patients. Concerns arise that these issues stem from PE strategies, such as cost-cutting, staff reductions, and deferred investments, which are often implemented to manage debt. How Is Oregon Limiting Private Equity In Healthcare Senate Bill 951 (SB 951) establishes the most comprehensive state-level barriers to private equity (PE) in healthcare, strengthening the corporate practice of medicine (CPOM) doctrine, which prohibits non-physicians from owning or controlling medical practices. Historically, this doctrine was underenforced. The law targets the common structure used by PE for investment, focusing on management service organizations (MSOs) rather than direct PE ownership. MSOs typically handle administrative tasks such as billing and IT, but their contracts often enable indirect operational control. SB 951 closes these loopholes by prohibiting MSOs from interfering in clinical decisions, capping their fees at fair market value, and banning non-compete, nondisclosure, and nondisparagement agreements that restrict physicians or their interactions with patients. SB 951 prohibits PE participation in clinical operations, including hiring, firing, work schedules, compensation, coding decisions, clinical policies, billing collections, pricing, contract negotiations, and, most critically, setting clinical staffing levels and patient interaction time. This legislation essentially undermines the operational influence of PE investments in healthcare. Nationwide Ramifications of Oregon's New Law Oregon's Senate Bill 951 (SB 951) establishes the most stringent state-level restrictions on private equity (PE) in healthcare. Investors must comply with new regulations in a phased approach, with full compliance required by January 2029. Other states may follow Oregon's lead and adopt similar legislation. Recent high-profile health system bankruptcies, some of which involve PE-backed entities, have fueled momentum to strengthen regulations on the corporate practice of medicine in states like California. 'We're at an inflection point in this country when it comes to the corporatization of healthcare,' said House Majority Leader Ben Bowman (D-Tigard, Metzger, S Beaverton), who introduced the bill. 'With the passage of this bill, every Oregonian will know that decisions in exam rooms are being made by doctors, not corporate executives.' What Do Surgeons Have to Say About Private Equity In Healthcare? Brian Gantwerker, MD, a private-practice neurosurgeon in Santa Monica, CA, offers a nuanced perspective on PE in healthcare. "I believe private equity is a good thing in terms of commerce and goods and services outside of the medical field. The main issue is of course that private equity job is to purchase assets load them up with a lot of debt and then sell them off the commoditization of healthcare. Private equity as it is now represents a pump and dump scheme. I think it is possible to have private equity involved in a responsible way where the assets are purchased as part of an agreement with healthcare leaders in their community, and there are certain guidelines that they have to abide by such as keeping it open up to a minimum of five years and knowing and announcing when sale of assets will occur at least 6 to 12 months in advance of that transaction occurring. That way, if things fall through or if the clinic or entity fail, the community will be deprived of that service, but in a way that other services might be set up in advance to help catch those critical patients that may fall through the cracks. Responsible capitalism is possible. When it comes to patients, that must be our north star." John Abrahams, MD, a neurosurgeon at New York Brain & Spine, authored the leading paper on private equity in neurosurgery, published in The Journal of Neurosurgery. He expresses a more pessimistic view when quoted for this article: 'I don't see any benefit in the short or long term.' Dr. Abrahams argues that expected benefits, such as economies of scale, fail to materialize. Private equity (PE) firms often struggle to negotiate better insurance rates due to insufficient outcome data, and growth through acquisitions tends to diminish practice valuation. The risks are clear to practicing surgeons: PE firms impose management fees and may require surgeons to assume debt. In his defining article, Dr. Abrahams writes, 'Private practice neurosurgery is in serious trouble. Recent reports do not support its survival, and as costs increase while reimbursements decrease, new solutions and business models need to be developed. Successful business models need to be shared at a national level so we can all learn the difficult lessons at once and grow with the new knowledge gained. Private equity is not the solution for healthcare, and if you want to learn more about its perils, read the book These Are the Plunderers: How Private Equity Runs—and Wrecks—America by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner. It describes in detail how private equity ruins companies in general, as well as gives some examples of failure in healthcare.' What's Next for Private Equity in Healthcare? The Deeper Question Oregon's SB 951, by reinforcing the corporate practice of medicine doctrine, establishes regulatory guardrails to protect the patient-physician trust, potentially curbing excesses while sparking broader debates about the limits of state oversight in complex systems. Caution is always warranted with government intervention, as overly prescriptive laws risk unintended consequences, stifling the entrepreneurial spirit that could address healthcare's inefficiencies and echoing Hayek's warnings against the hubris of centrally planned economies. At its core, the fundamental question persists: Are we content to entrust the stewardship of healthcare—our vital guardian of life and dignity—to entities such as government bureaucracies or distant investors chasing the scraps of crony capitalism, whose contributions and ownership may be mere abstractions. Or, perhaps more appropriately, we should steer reform toward those directly providing and receiving care.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Can my 10-year-old stay home alone in Oregon?
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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Answers To Your Most Pressing Questions About Migraine And Parenting
Throbbing head pain, sensitivity to light and sound, and feeling like you might vomit (or actually vomiting) don't tend to mix well with raising kids. If you're a mom who suffers from chronic migraine attacks, research backs up what you already know: Parenting through repeated headaches often makes you feel like you're falling short. Take a break, and you feel guilty about missing out on time you could have spent with your children. 'I'd constantly have to put myself to bed and not be as outgoing with them,' says Laura Hill, a Portland, Oregon-based mom of an 8- and 11-year-old. 'I still feel guilty about it sometimes. Like, why can't I just deal with it?' On the other hand, keep on parenting when you feel like a zombie, and your symptoms can turn you into the worst version of yourself. 'Even my kids' voices would bother me. I would get irritated and yell at them,' says Ana Verdecia, MD, a professor of neurology in Ohio who has children 8, 10, and 15 years old. As with so many parenting challenges, there's no one-size-fits-all solution for coping with headaches while still showing up for your kids. But hearing from others who have been there, done that, can help you feel less alone—and maybe give you some new strategies to try. We reached out to four moms who struggle with chronic migraine (including a headache doc!) to ask how they manage to pull off parenting in spite of the pain. Here's what they had to say. Q: How Do You Explain Your Migraines To Your Children? Every family is different, and how to approach the conversation depends on your kids' age and maturity level. The parents we chatted with generally aimed to be straightforward in an age-appropriate way. During the pandemic, Hill's migraine attacks were coming every day while she was single-parenting and working from home. Her kids, then 4 and 7, were fighting nonstop. 'I was really frustrated, because they were terrorizing each other and I was at the end of my rope from a sensory standpoint,' says Hill, whose splitting head pain comes with a blinding aura and facial numbness. Since just asking them to be quiet wasn't working, she tried to appeal to their self-interest. 'I sat them down, showed them my four medications, and said, 'This is what I have to take just to be what I am right now,'' she says. Then she explained how they'd benefit from being quieter. 'If you can help me by keeping the noise down,' she told them, 'I'll feel better and we can do more things.' It took many conversations, but eventually the message got through. These days, when a migraine hits Hill, her kids have learned to be more sensitive to her need for quiet. Older children can handle more information. Dr. Verdecia, who specializes in headache disorders, has explained to her 15- and 10-year-old that migraine is a brain disorder that cause certain symptoms. She's told them how some lifestyle behaviors (like staying hydrated and eating regular meals) can help prevent migraine attacks, but that these tactics don't work 100 percent of the time. Now when her head starts to throb, the rest of her family is understanding. 'They'll turn off the TV or the lights so I can get some relief,' she says. Q: How Do You Handle A Young Child When A Migraine Attack Happens? Having your partner or someone else take over while you get some peace and quiet is by far the best remedy. Norma Rhee, a Philadelphia-based mom to 3- and 6-year-old kids, has intense but relatively infrequent migraines. She says she has been lucky that her husband is usually around when she needs to cut out. 'If I were alone with the kids, I don't know what I would do,' she says. 'The migraines wipe me out and I just have to sleep.' Not everyone is so fortunate, and you can't exactly line up a babysitter in advance for a migraine. The solution: Find a few emergency backups able to come to the rescue on short notice, like a retired neighbor or a parent you've gotten friendly with. 'Call on the village to assist, for sure!' says Abbie Dillard, also from Philadelphia, who has a 7-year-old and an infant. Make sure to reach out to them as soon as you start to notice symptoms, to give them time to come over before your migraine knocks you off your feet. Q: What's Your Best Migraine-Management Strategy? According to Dr. Verdecia, some combination of meds and lifestyle changes is usually your best bet, though figuring out an effective game plan can take some trial and error and help from a neurologist. For her, the right combo is onabotulinumtoxinA injections and feel-good habits like eating consistent meals, getting adequate sleep, and exercising regularly. Hill relies on a combination of preventive oral medications (rimegepant, gabapentin, and methocarbamol), plus fast-acting migraine-abortive meds (diclofenac potassium, naratriptan, rizatriptan) when symptoms strike. Steering clear of triggers like repeated loud noises and eye strain helps, too. She wears prism glasses, which bend and redirect light to help her eyes focus, minimizing strain. No treatment plan is foolproof, and the obvious strategy is often the most effective: All of the parents we spoke to agreed that lying down in a dark, quiet room is the best thing to do when a migraine strikes. Q: Does Treatment Really Make A Difference In How You Parent? Yes, 100 percent. When you find a medication that makes you have fewer, less intense migraine attacks, you can be more present with your family and miss out on less stuff, Dr. Verdecia says. You'll probably have more positive interactions with your kids, too, since there are fewer instances where you're on edge just because they're doing normal kid things, like playing a loud game, asking for snacks every 15 minutes, or whining, Hill says. The key is being consistent with your treatment plan. That means if you're on a migraine-abortive med, you should take it the moment you start to feel symptoms to stop the headache in its tracks. 'I try to be very aware when I get the slightest tinge,' Dillard says. 'I have at least one rizatriptan pill in every outdoor item I have or could be using, just in case.' Q: What's The Most Surprising Thing You've Learned? There's no arguing that migraines suck. But if there's one possible silver lining to being a parent with a debilitating chronic condition, it's the fact that you have a built-in opportunity to demonstrate to your kids the importance of being sensitive to others' needs. 'It's teaching my kids some empathy—they have to be aware that I'm a person, too,' Hill says. You Might Also Like Jennifer Garner Swears By This Retinol Eye Cream These New Kicks Will Help You Smash Your Cross-Training Goals Solve the daily Crossword