Tampa General Hospital officials say staff mistakenly started performing a cardiac catheterization on the wrong patient. The man was not harmed.

Hospital spokesman John Dunn says staff members failed to follow proper hospital protocol to identify the patient before the medical procedure. The hospital is conducting an internal investigation.

A new report published in the online edition of Occupational and Environmental Medicine puts more data behind what we psychiatrists and psychologists have long known from listening to our patients:  Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is costing American businesses untold millions in lost productivity.

Studies reveal about 4.5 percent of working Americans suffer with ADHD.  One of the new findings is that each loses, on average, more than 22 days of productivity annually.  That translates into billions of dollars in losses.

I think the toll could be much higher.  Undiagnosed and untreated ADHD not only saps productivity in and of itself; it fuels other substantial causes of suffering and lost possibilities, including substance abuse and dependence, workplace accidents and inability to master new skills and reach increased levels of education and performance.

Many patients of mine only learn after visiting with me that their use and abuse of alcohol and illicit drugs (including cocaine) has been partly driven by searching for relief from the constant psychological discomfort of underlying ADHD.  Treating the ADHD makes it possible for them to become sober.

As an expert witness in cases involving the workplace, I know that ADHD is the music playing in the background of life-altering (and economically devastating) injuries.

Other patients I have treated tell me that they gave up hope for advanced training or for advanced degrees because they cannot focus long enough to master new skills or new knowledge. 

The modern workplace may itself be accelerating the costs.  Voicemail, e-mail, text messaging, video conferencing and telecommuting translate to a free flow of ideas, rapid transfer of information, and flexible lifestyles.  But they also call for quick changes of focus and self-direction.  For those with ADHD, the information super- highway can look a lot more like a maze. 

American employers would be well-served to offer education about ADHD, and confidential screening and treatment for it.  Even more could be saved — in human and economic terms — if that screening took place earlier rather than later, as part of our public education system. 
It any expanded screening and treatment program, it will be critical that ADHD is not oversimplified.  While stimulant medications can be tremendously helpful, patients of mine with ADHD have had complicated life stories, often marked by emotional turmoil early in life.

An essential part of helping my patients feel better includes listening to their stories and convincing them to stop running away from their feelings (by not focusing on them – or anything else).

The best reason for the education system and/or the workplace to undertake new initiatives to diagnose and treat ADHD is that the condition is indeed, treatable. 

Once patients identify ADHD as a major factor in their lives and get help for it, the changes I’ve seen in their lives are astounding and inspiring.

Guadalupe Benitez claims that after being treated with fertility drugs for nearly a year, her Christian doctors refused to inseminate her because she is a lesbian.

She sued and a San Diego County trial judge sided with her. But an appeals court reversed the ruling, and her lawsuit is scheduled to be heard by the California Supreme Court this week.

The case is closely being watched by civil rights and physician groups who think it could have consequences for other medical procedures, including abortion and end-of-life decisions.

Life is a race against the clock for Robert Chaiban, who suffers from a rare disease that has trapped his adult mind in a boy’s body.

Chaiban, 17, has Barth Syndrome. He was the 17th person in the world diagnosed with the disease that afflicts and eventually kills boys, Australia’s Moreland Leader reported on Wednesday.

Growth and motor skills are reduced, the immune system is weakened and muscles around the heart slowly suffocate it.

Last year Chaiban, of Chintin, Australia, survived five heart attacks. (Continue)

Sen. Edward Kennedy’s battle with a malignant brain tumor is likely to put a dramatic personal stamp on a health care cause he first championed nearly 40 years ago: The nation’s war on cancer.

Kennedy had already begun work on an overhaul of the 1971 National Cancer Act when his tumor was diagnosed, and advocates hope the fact that Kennedy has fallen victim to this disease will generate public support and lend new urgency to the need to update the bill. (Continue)

The percentage of American children who are overweight or obese appears to have leveled off after a 25-year increase, according to new figures that seem to offer a glimmer of hope in an otherwise dismal battle.

“That is a first encouraging finding in what has been unremittingly bad news,” said Dr. David Ludwig, director of an obesity clinic at Children’s Hospital Boston. “But it’s too soon to know if this really means we’re beginning to make meaningful inroads into this epidemic. It may simply be a statistical fluke.”

The study, conducted by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, found that roughly 32 percent of children were overweight but not obese, 16 percent were obese and 11 percent were extremely obese.

The anguish of Hurricane Katrina should have ended for Gina Bouffanie and her daughter when they left their FEMA trailer. But with each hospital visit and each labored breath her child takes, the young mother fears it has just begun.

“It’s just the sickness. I can’t get rid of it. It just keeps coming back,” said Bouffanie, 27, who was pregnant with her now 15-month-old daughter, Lexi, while living in the trailer. “I’m just like, `Oh God, I wish like this would stop.’ If I had known it would get her sick, I wouldn’t have stayed in the trailer for so long.”

The girl, diagnosed with severe asthma, must inhale medicine from a breathing device. (Continue)

Some women will want to string me up for this one. I’m about to divulge some of the real reasons a gal will say “no” to sex, even if she’s totally in the mood.

There are plenty of them. (Continue)

Obesity has long been a growing problem in America, where more than 40 million people are 30 pounds or more overweight.

But one celebrity trainer believes he has found the secret to permanent weight loss.

“People are overeating,” celebrity trainer Robert Reems told FOXNews.com. “Thirty-three percent of Americans can’t control their weight, simply because they do overeat.”

While fad diets and supplements promise to slim you down, the reality is that weight lost through fad diets can and will come back, Reems said.

But a new program developed by Reems has people sticking to their goals one day at a time. (Continue)

A new kind of men’s underwear is being designed to pick up information about arterial blood flow and blood pressure, reported London’s Daily Mail.

The underwear has at least four sensors in the waistband and would determine how fast blood is flowing through the arteries, according to the newspaper.

The technology would not work as well in women’s underwear because the waistbands would be too thin to accommodate the equipment.