He was young — still in his 40s — and facing a devastating diagnosis: congestive heart failure that would end his life too soon. Readily admitting that his own lifestyle decisions had brought him to this place, Mr. D (his name has been changed to protect his privacy) suffered from what could only be described as transcendental angst.

Ten years ago, Sarah Colby established the Arts + Healthcare program at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. With a master of fine arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art, her background encompassed 25 years of teaching and administrative positions at art schools, community art centers and children’s arts programs in Baltimore, New York City, Cincinnati and St. Louis. Though her experiences had prepared her for most any position dealing with the arts and people, she tackled a new set of challenges when she became part of the complex world of a large teaching hospital.

For decades, the list of standard treatments for many blood cancers has remained short and largely unchanged. But now there is a new entry on the list. If chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant fail to stop the cancer, doctors can harness a type of personalized immunotherapy that trains a person’s own immune system to attack cancer cells.

In December 1954, physicians in Boston did something revolutionary. They transplanted a kidney into a 23-year-old patient: the first successful organ transplant in history. Now, 64 years later, organ transplants save tens of thousands of lives each year. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reports that U.S. transplant teams performed more than 19,000 kidney transplants in 2016 alone.

Suicide is one of the top 10 causes of death in the united states and is the 10th leading cause of death in missouri. Among Missourians ages 10-24, suicide is the second leading cause of death. On average, one person in the state dies by suicide every eight hours.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine are studying the use of nitrous oxide, also called laughing gas, as a treatment for people who are hospitalized due to suicidal thoughts. They are investigating using the gas as a possible treatment to speed up recovery and reduce risk of suicide.