News & Issues
Stories from around the Kansas City Metro area on a variety of topics.
How canine cancer patients help sick people
If you have cancer and your dog has cancer, it turns out you may be treated with the exact same drugs. An innovative initiative at the University of Missouri combines traditional cancer research and care with veterinary medicine. This benefits our canine friends and, ultimately, human cancer patients. Dr. Carolyn Henry, a veterinary oncologist at…
The Learning Curve: Innovating education, in Kansas
A recent Kansas law allows up to 10 per cent of the state’s school districts to be designated as “Innovative,” allowing them to opt out of certain state regulations they deem unproductive or restrictive. Blue Valley and KCK, along with McPherson, Concordia and Hugoton, are the first five on board. Along with a waiver on some…
Bringing cancer treatments to rural Kansas
A cancer diagnosis is often the beginning of a life-or-death struggle. Patients want to go into that fight armed with the most powerful weapons available. In many cases, that involves treatments still in their experimental stages that are only available through clinical trials, which are typically found at academic medical centers. But the University of Kansas Cancer Center has created a partnership to bring those options closer to home for rural Kansans.
KU, Children’s Mercy cement relationship with cancer agreement
A new agreement between the University of Kansas and Children’s Mercy will strengthen research, education and clinical ties between the institutions in oncology and beyond, officials said Wednesday at a signing ceremony.
KC week in review: elections, minimum wage and the Schweich issue
The news sounded implausible. Just weeks after Missouri State Auditor and candidate for governor Tom Schweich took his own life, his aide and communications chief, Spence Jackson, is found dead in his Jefferson City apartment of a single gunshot wound to the head. Also on this edition of “Kansas City Week in Review”: Seattle and…
KC Checkup: 4 questions for Seft Hunter
Seft Hunter became chief operating officer last year of Communities Creating Opportunity, a faith-based organization that addresses poverty-related issues. As part of its campaign to promote health access and equity, CCO, working with the REACH Healthcare Foundation and other groups, has been mapping medical “hot spots” in the metropolitan area in an effort to better manage residents’ chronic conditions, improve access to health care and reduce emergency room visits.
Children’s Mercy, KU team up to fight childhood cancer
Children’s Mercy Hospital said late Monday that it has joined a consortium organized through the University of Kansas Cancer Center.
The Learning Curve: Ervin Early Learning Center
The Hickman Mills School District had a problem: Low-income kindergartners were arriving without the basics they needed to start school on the right foot. Solution? Revamp a dilapidated middle school building and provide high-quality, full day pre-K programming to every child in the district, free of charge. The first of four phases kicked off in February of…
Cancer in KC: ‘Beauty of survival, strength, courage, humor’
Krista Graham asked photographer Angie Jennings to document her breast cancer treatment. Jennings complied the photos into a book. They share their story as part of KCPT and Flatland’s Cancer in KC. Ken Burns’ “Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies”
‘The Big C’ Is Big Business in KC area
The 40-mile stretch of highway between Olathe, Kan., and Liberty, Mo., is a key artery in the region’s health care system, bookended by community hospitals and passing a few more medical centers along the way. Yet this part of Interstate 35 is quickly becoming something more: a cancer corridor, dotted with expanding oncology programs and…