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The Duke University School of Medicine is ranked number 7th among all medical schools in the nation, up from eight last year. The rankings were published by U.S. News & World Report. Several specialty programs in the School of Medicine also were ranked among the best in the country: Internal Medicine (fifth); Geriatrics (tied for fifth); Family Medicine (ninth).

Anticoagulants were not used according to guidelines, despite evidence they prevent strokes More than 80 percent of stroke patients with a history of atrial fibrillation either received not enough or no anticoagulation therapy prior to having a stroke, despite the drugs’ proven record of reducing stroke risk, according to a Duke Clinical Research Institute study.

  ​ (left to right) Rheaya Willis, Medical Student; Laura Previll, MD; Jeff Marcotte, PA; Elizabeth Mathenge, Medical Student; Iris Padilla, PhD, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC; Mackenzie Tulleners, Nurse Practitioner Student; Deanna Griffie, Nurse Practitioner Student

Scoring points for health: Former All-American Female Duke basketball player transitions to career in medicine By Aliza Inbari

Overall survival and development of infants born at 23, 24 weeks improving, study finds Babies born at just 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy continue to have sobering outlooks _ only about 1 in 3 survive.

IBM Health Corps team shares ideas on how to better connect and coordinate Durham’s efforts to make our community healthier    Members of the IBM Health Team with staff from Urban Ministries, one of the many organizations they visited while in Durham, NC. Photo courtesy of IBM.  

Scientists identify biomarkers in mucous that verify viral infection from cold or flu It may seem obvious, but the key to confirming whether someone is suffering from a cold or flu virus might lie at the misery’s source -- the inflamed passages of the nose and throat.

Duke and UNC researchers receive CTSA Consortium Collaborative Pilot Award to develop a new way to study cancer  For doctors and patients, the fight against cancer can be a lot like an exceedingly tricky version of the classic arcade game of whack-a-mole. You might beat back a tumor or part of a tumor, only to have another one pop up. To make matters worse, the “mallet” or treatment that successfully whacks the first tumor cells doesn’t always work on those arising later. You might need a new strategy or even an entirely different drug. It’s a tough game to win.

Researchers from Duke and UNC team up to find an answer, with funding from the two institutions’ NIH Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA).  For hundreds of millions of people around the world with chronic hepatitis B infection, anti-viral treatments do a good job of keeping the virus under wraps. Anti-viral treatments are essential in slowing damage to the liver, reducing the chance of liver cancer, and helping people live longer. But in the vast majority of cases, there is no end to the infection.

Shutting down this source at the root cause could improve cancer survival Advanced prostate cancer and high blood cholesterol have long been known to be connected, but it has been a chicken-or-egg problem.