But for modest Muslim women, it's an unthinkable indignity.

"I have witnessed their misery and how bad they feel about it. They don't like it. They feel ashamed. It's very embarrassing," said Asha Abdulleh, a native of Kenya and a medical interpreter.

When officials at Maine Medical Center discovered many Muslim women were so ashamed they were canceling doctor visits, the hospital took action, redesigning the standard gown to provide extra coverage for patients who want it. The new hospital gowns have been available for several weeks.

"This is a great example of a challenge raised by a specific community that can ultimately benefit all patients," said Dana Farris Gaya, the hospital's manager of interpreter and cross-cultural services.

The problem was acute for Maine Medical because 2,000 Somali refugees have come to Portland over the past few years and most of them are treated at the hospital's international clinic. As many as three out of 10 women were skipping their appointments, said Osman Hersi, a medical interpreter at the hospital.

Tracked down at home, the women whose religion and culture require them to be covered, described to interpreters the horror of being asked to wear the revealing gowns during outpatient procedures.

Furthermore, they were publicly humiliated when they had to wait in a hallway in the radiology department.

On a recent morning after the new patient gowns were provided, Shamso Abdi appeared for her first hospital visit since arriving in Portland.

She and her husband, Aden Ali, came to the United States from Mogadishu, Somalia. They lived in a small town in Kentucky, and then Columbus, Ohio, before coming to Portland.

Abdi, who was clothed in a dress, a sarong and a hijab, a scarf wrapped around her head, said she had canceled appointments in Columbus when she had to see male doctors and wear the standard drafty gown.

The gown created by the Portland hospital is long enough to provide more coverage of a patient's legs and has extra material to ensure that a patient's backside remains covered. Underneath, there's a wraparound sarong for even more coverage.

Abdi said she was grateful to see that Maine Medical had created a patient gown with her principles in mind.

"I'm so happy they made the change. I'm so happy that they considered us," she said, speaking through an interpreter.

Other hospitals are responding to the needs of Muslims. In southeastern Michigan, home to 300,000 Arab-Americans, the University of Michigan Medical Center is also addressing the issue of modesty.

The hospital is thinking of posting signs on the rooms of Muslim women warning male visitors and staff to check with a nurse's station before entering, said spokeswoman Krista Hopson in Ann Arbor, Mich.

As for the gown itself, Maine Medical isn't the only hospital to try to create a more acceptable - http://data.gov.uk/data/search?q=acceptable version.

Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey introduced vibrant colors and funky patterns five years ago. Other hospitals and garment producers have tweaked the traditional design with snaps, 연천출장안마 - https://www.opanma.com/14-yeoncheon Velcro and other changes.

Still, the standard-issue gown will never go away entirely. In some situations, in emergency rooms for example, it's more important to put the interests of doctors and nurses ahead of the interests of patients.

But for many situations, it makes sense to keep patients happy.

Asks Dr. Nat James of the hospital's international clinic: "Why didn't we think of this so long ago?"

The idea of changing the gown isn't completely new.

In 1999, designer Cynthia Rowley unveiled new gowns that offered a mid-calf length with a mock turtleneck and three-quarter length sleeves with snaps for women and drawstring pants, a short sleeve shirt and a matching robe for men.

That same year, Missouri state Rep. Sam Gaskill pushed a bill that would have required hospitals to provide patients with "dignity gowns," covering the body from neck to knee. The bill, prompted by Gaskill's own hospital experience, never made it out of committee.

WELLINGTON, 장수출장안마 - https://www.anmatoto.com/12-long-live New Zealand -- A powerful earthquake that struck in the southern Pacific Ocean on Wednesday sent jitters around the region after authorities warned of possible tsunamis, but there were no initial reports of destructive waves or major damage.

The magnitude 7.5 quake hit in the afternoon near New Caledonia at a shallow depth, where earthquakes are generally more damaging. It was felt as far away as Vanuatu.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said tsunami waves of between 3 and 10 feet were possible along some coasts of New Caledonia and Vanuatu before later lifting the warning.

Judith Rostain, a freelance journalist based in New Caledonia's capital Noumea, said there was no damage to the city and that the threat of a tsunami appeared to have passed. She said the situation remained unclear on the east coast and scattered outer islands.

In Vanuatu, Dan McGarry said he heard only of three small wave surges hitting the southern island of Aneityum. McGarry, the media director at the Vanuatu Daily Post, said the waves traveled only 7 feet beyond the normal tidal waves, and that everybody was fine on the island.

McGarry said he felt the quake where he is based in Vanuatu's capital, Port Vila, as a mild shaking.

"We get a lot of earthquakes every year," he said. "The tsunami warning was what was different this time, though."

The warning center said there was no tsunami threat to Hawaii. It said waves of up to 3 feet were possible in Fiji.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake struck about 104 miles east of Tadine in New Caledonia at a shallow depth of  6 miles. At least five aftershocks also hit, ranging in magnitude from 5.6 to 6.6. The 6.6 was also six miles down.

The populations of Vanuatu and New Caledonia are similar, with just over 280,000 people living in each archipelago.

Last month, voters in New Caledonia elected to remain a territory of France rather than becoming independent - http://venturebeat.com/?s=independent .

Both New Caledonia and Vanuatu sit on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," the arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where most of the world's earthquakes and volcanic activity occur.

The August issue of the Journal of Virology suggested the H9N2 strain has gotten hotter in recent years, killing far more lab mice than the same strain that circulated just four years earlier. That increased virulence, its prevalence among birds and the ability of the H9N2 virus to infect humans raises fears it could trigger a pandemic, scientists warned.

Already, the H9N2 bird flu showed its ability to strike at humans by sickening three people in Hong Kong in 1999 and 2003.

"Given the poor condition of public health systems in many developing regions and the ubiquity of modern air travel, the consequences of a widespread outbreak of avian influenza in humans could be severe," said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "Information generated under this contract will be important for preparing our nation and the world against new influenza viruses with pandemic potential."

In May, 대구출장안마 - https://www.opanma.com/10-daegu Chiron received an NIAID contract to produce 8,000 doses of vaccine - http://www.hometalk.com/search/posts?filter=vaccine for H5N1, a more lethal strain of bird flu that has resurfaced in Asia.

Chiron will manufacture the H9N2 vaccine in Siena, Italy, using an inactivated strain of the virus provided by the Centers for Disease Control - http://hararonline.com/?s=Disease%20Control . The Emeryville, Calif.-based company will manufacture up to 40,000 doses of the vaccine. Some will contain a substance that increases the vaccine's protective value and - perhaps - may permit the health agency to stretch its vaccine supply by lowering doses.

NIAID is scheduled to conduct clinical trials using both versions of the vaccine as early as 2005.

Almost five years after treatment, six men in the radiation-only study group died of prostate cancer; none of the men who got combined treatment died of prostate cancer. The study involved about 200 men.

Of the more than 200,000 U.S. men diagnosed each year with the disease, nearly half have the kind cancer involved in the study: An exam and imaging indicates it hasn't spread but other tests indicate it might have.

Treatment for such men often involves radiation alone or radiation combined with long-term use of hormone-fighting drugs, often for as long as three years or more. But long-term drug use may cause thinning bones, heart abnormalities that can lead to sudden death and impaired mental function.

The study found that using hormone-blocking drugs for 구례출장안마 - https://www.anmatoto.com/17-pursuit six months had the same survival benefits as long-term use but without the potential health risks. Some men did have side effects including impotence, but that can occur with other prostate cancer - http://wordpress.org/search/prostate%20cancer treatments, including surgery and radiation.

"It's a very important and useful study and should have nearly immediate impact on the fashion in which men are treated," said Dr. Durado Brooks, director of prostate cancer programs at the American Cancer Society.

"Significant numbers of men are getting radiation only," Brooks said. That's partly because many men reject hormone-suppressing drugs when they learn about all the bad side effects from long-term treatment, he said.

Brooks said radiation plus short-term medication is likely to become prevalent given the study results.

Researchers studied 206 men aged 49 to 82 randomly assigned to receive about seven weeks of daily radiation treatments, or radiation plus six months of medication overlapping the radiation treatment. Six of those only on radiation died from prostate cancer while none of those getting combined treatment died from prostate cancer.

More than twice as many radiation-only men had evidence of cancer recurrence, 46 versus 21 in the combined treatment group.

The study by researchers at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana Farber Cancer Institute appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

The patients had prostate cancer that physical exams and imaging tests indicated had not spread. But they also had high blood levels of PSA - prostate specific antigen - and high Gleason scores, which measure the degree of abnormality found in cancer tissue.

The high levels raise the possibility of cancer elsewhere, said lead author Dr. Anthony D'Amico, a radiation oncologist at both institutions.

The drug treatment studied involved flutamide pills three times daily with periodic injections of either leuprolide acetate or goserelin. The drugs suppress production of testosterone, which can fuel prostate cancer growth.

Men in the drug-radiation group had more severe impotence and more breast tissue enlargement than the radiation only group. But they had no obvious evidence - https://www.behance.net/search?content=projects&sort=appreciations&time=... of the potentially more debilitating complications of long-term treatment. Although those weren't specifically measured, they usually don't appear until after at least a year of treatment, D'Amico said.

In a JAMA editorial, Dr. Theodore DeWeese of Johns Hopkins University, said the study did not address how the drug treatment affected patients' quality of life. He also said the radiation dose was lower than is frequently given, which might explain the differing survival rates.

Still, he called the study "extremely important" because of the survival advantage shown.

By Lindsey Tanner

WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- A powerful earthquake that struck in the southern Pacific Ocean on Wednesday sent jitters around the region after authorities warned of possible tsunamis, but there were no initial reports of destructive waves or major damage.

The magnitude 7.5 quake hit in the afternoon near New Caledonia - http://imgur.com/hot?q=Caledonia at a shallow depth, where earthquakes are generally more damaging. It was felt as far away as Vanuatu.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said tsunami waves of between 3 and 파주출장마사지 - https://www.popanma.com/%ed%8c%8c%ec%a3%bc%ec%b6%9c%ec%9e%a5%ec%83%b5%cf... 10 feet were possible along some coasts of New Caledonia and Vanuatu before later lifting the warning.

Judith Rostain, a freelance journalist based in New Caledonia's capital Noumea, said there was no damage to the city and that the threat of a tsunami appeared to have passed. She said the situation remained unclear on the east coast and scattered outer islands.

In Vanuatu, Dan McGarry said he heard only of three small wave surges hitting the southern island of Aneityum. McGarry, the media director at the Vanuatu Daily Post, said the waves traveled only 7 feet beyond the normal tidal waves, and that everybody was fine on the island.

McGarry said he felt the quake where he is based in Vanuatu's capital, Port Vila, as a mild shaking.

"We get a lot of earthquakes every year," he said. "The tsunami warning was what was different this time, though."

The warning center said there was no tsunami threat to Hawaii. It said waves of up to 3 feet were possible in Fiji.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the quake struck about 104 miles east of Tadine in New Caledonia at a shallow depth of  6 miles. At least five aftershocks also hit, ranging in magnitude from 5.6 to 6.6. The 6.6 was also six miles down.

The populations of Vanuatu and New Caledonia are similar, with just over 280,000 people living in each archipelago.

Last month, voters in New Caledonia elected to remain a territory of France rather than becoming independent.

Both New Caledonia and Vanuatu sit on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," the arc of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean where most of the world's earthquakes and volcanic activity occur.

Although the study found that psychotherapy plus Prozac works better than either method alone at treating depression in adolescents, including reducing suicidal thoughts, 양양출장안마 - https://www.opanma.com/28-yangyang1 the study does not resolve ongoing questions about potential links between some antidepressants and suicidal thoughts and behavior in children.

That's because patients on Prozac had more suicidal tendencies during the 12-week study than any other group: those on Prozac plus psychotherapy, those on psychotherapy - http://search.usa.gov/search?affiliate=usagov&query=psychotherapy alone, and those on dummy pills - http://www.houzz.com/?search=dummy%20pills alone.

There were no suicides and few suicide attempts during the study.

Study co-author John Curry of Duke University said too few patients exhibited suicidal tendencies - 24 out of 439 - to determine whether there truly are differences among the treatments studied.

"The first thing that needs to be clear is that the overall rates are low," and that combining Prozac with talk therapy seems to mitigate any suicidal risks, Curry said.

Overall, 71 percent of patients on the combined treatment had scores showing substantial improvement on a depression rating scale. The combined treatment involved Prozac plus a form of psychotherapy called cognitive behavioral therapy, which teaches problem-solving skills and ways to refocus negative thoughts and behaviors.

By contrast, significant improvement was seen in 61 percent of Prozac-only adolescents, 43 percent of behavior therapy-only patients and 35 percent of patients on dummy pills.

The study is the first phase of ongoing research led by Dr. John March, Duke's chief of child and adolescent psychiatry. The results appear in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study makes "a very important contribution" by showing that there is effective treatment, said Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, which funded the study.

"I wouldn't in any way downplay the adverse events," Insel said. But "just because a few kids develop this doesn't mean that you don't treat anybody."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is investigating the suicide concerns and earlier this year asked makers of 10 drugs including Prozac to add or strengthen suicide-related warnings on their labels.

While March's study was publicly funded, he and several co-authors have received grants and served on speakers' bureaus for anti-depressant manufacturers. Prozac maker Eli Lilly and Co. provided the drug and dummy pills but had no role in the study design or data analysis.

The study involved 439 depressed patients aged 12 to 17 assigned to one of four treatments for 12 weeks. During that time, suicidal tendencies were seen in nine Prozac patients, six in the Prozac plus behavior therapy group, five in the behavior therapy-only group and four on dummy pills.

The study excluded adolescents at high risk for suicide based on recent suicidal behavior or pervasive suicidal thoughts.

That's a noteworthy omission since "those are a lot of the kids who we see," said Dr. David Fassler, a Burlington, Vt., psychiatrist who treats adolescents.

Also, the study doesn't address whether the combined approach worked because of the specific kind of talk therapy involved, or whether other forms of psychotherapy would work as well or better, Fassler said.

Still, he said the study should be "reassuring for physicians and parents."

By Lindsey Tanner

At issue is financing for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a program initiated by the United Nations.

It was supposed to provide roughly $7 billion a year to fight those diseases - http://www.lifebeyondtourism.org/?header_search=diseases . But it is facing a serious budget shortfall that AIDS activists say jeopardizes efforts to stem the growing epidemic in poor 광명출장마사지 - https://www.popanma.com/%ea%b4%91%eb%aa%85%ec%b6%9c%ec%9e%a5%ec%83%b5%cf... countries.

Wednesday's announcement sparked more concern.

Congress set aside $547 million as the U.S. contribution to the fund this year, but on the condition - https://www.sportsblog.com/search?search=condition that the U.S. money could not exceed 33 percent of the fund's total donations. It was considered an incentive to ensure other donors pitch in, said Randall Tobias, the U.S. global AIDS coordinator.

As a result, donations from other countries or private donors had to total $1.11 billion for the Swiss-based Global Fund to get all the U.S. cash, Tobias said. But he calculates the non-U.S. share is $243 million short.

So the United States is set to withhold a final $120 million contribution, a far higher amount than AIDS advocates had expected.

But Tobias announced Wednesday he'd make an exception: If other donors make up the shortfall by Sept. 30, he'll release the U.S. cash after all.

"The U.S. government certainly wants the Global Fund to have this money, but we have to provide it in accordance with U.S. law," Tobias said. "I am very, very hopeful that the rest of the world will take action."

The announcement came after negotiations between Tobias and Global Fund Director Richard G.A. Feachem.

Countries pledge how much they'll give to the Global Fund, but when they deliver the actual cash varies, with many waiting until closer to year's end. Congress, on the other hand, set July 31 as the date that the Tobias' office is supposed to calculate the final U.S. payment.

"We appreciate Ambassador Tobias' decision," said Global Fund spokesman Jim Palmer. "By accepting that other countries' deadlines don't necessarily conform to the United States' deadline," the Global Fund should be able to collect all its pledged donations.

But other AIDS specialists worried that another six weeks isn't enough.

"This is not a matter of arithmetic. This is a matter of life and death," said Stephen Lewis, the U.N.'s special envoy to Africa on AIDS. "If Mr. Tobias has been given flexibility, I would appeal to him to exercise the flexibility to the end of the year rather than the end of September."

"The Global Fund needs the money in the bank now," added David Bryden of the Global AIDS Alliance. "That would be a more effective way of challenging the rest of the world to donate what it should."

Tobias said if the Global Fund doesn't get the $120 million, it will be spent on other global AIDS work, but he couldn't detail how.

496999_qq1766空间动态-, ." style="max-width:400px;float:right;padding:10px 0px 10px 10px;border:0px;">Almost five years after treatment, six men in the radiation-only study group died of prostate cancer; none of the men who got combined treatment died of prostate cancer. The study involved about 200 men.

Of the more than 200,000 U.S. men diagnosed each year with the disease, nearly half have the kind cancer involved in the study: An exam and imaging indicates it hasn't spread but other tests indicate it might have.

Treatment for such men often involves radiation alone or radiation combined with long-term use of hormone-fighting drugs, often for as long as three years or more. But long-term drug use may cause thinning bones, heart abnormalities that can lead to sudden death and impaired mental function.

The study found that using hormone-blocking drugs for six months had the same survival benefits as long-term use but without the potential health risks. Some men did have side effects including impotence, but that can occur with other prostate cancer treatments, including surgery and radiation.

"It's a very important and useful study and should have nearly immediate impact on the fashion - http://de.bab.la/woerterbuch/englisch-deutsch/fashion in which men are treated," said Dr. Durado Brooks, director of prostate cancer programs at the American Cancer Society.

"Significant numbers of men are getting radiation - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?sel=site&searchPhrase=radiation only," Brooks said. That's partly because many men reject hormone-suppressing drugs when they learn about all the bad side effects from long-term treatment, he said.

Brooks said radiation plus short-term medication is likely to become prevalent given the study results.

Researchers studied 206 men aged 49 to 82 randomly assigned to receive about seven weeks of daily radiation treatments, or radiation plus six months of medication overlapping the radiation treatment. Six of those only on radiation died from prostate cancer while none of those getting combined treatment died from prostate cancer.

More than twice as many radiation-only men had evidence of cancer recurrence, 46 versus 21 in the combined treatment group.

The study by researchers at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana Farber Cancer Institute appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

The patients had prostate cancer that physical exams and imaging tests indicated had not spread. But they also had high blood levels of PSA - prostate specific antigen - and high Gleason scores, which measure the degree of abnormality found in cancer tissue.

The high levels raise the possibility of cancer elsewhere, said lead author Dr. Anthony D'Amico, a radiation oncologist at both institutions.

The drug treatment studied involved flutamide pills three times daily with periodic injections of either leuprolide acetate or goserelin. The drugs suppress production of testosterone, which can fuel prostate cancer growth.

Men in the drug-radiation group had more severe impotence and more breast tissue enlargement than the radiation only group. But they had no obvious evidence of the potentially more debilitating complications of long-term treatment. Although those weren't specifically measured, they usually don't appear until after at least a year of treatment, D'Amico said.

In a JAMA editorial, 양산출장안마 - https://www.opanma.com/7-sunshade Dr. Theodore DeWeese of Johns Hopkins University, said the study did not address how the drug treatment affected patients' quality of life. He also said the radiation dose was lower than is frequently given, which might explain the differing survival rates.

Still, he called the study "extremely important" because of the survival advantage shown.

By Lindsey Tanner

Just eight federal employees monitor widely varying state efforts to fight Medicaid fraud, the Government Accountability Office said. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has been reviewing state programs since 2000 at a pace that will take it until late 2006 to cover all 50 states and the District of Columbia, 군산출장안마 - https://www.opmassage.com/17-gunsann said GAO, Congress' investigative arm.

The oversight "may be disproportionately small relative to the risk of serious financial loss," GAO said.

CMS administrator Mark McClellan said his agency is beefing up its financial management staff to review Medicaid spending.

Medicaid is the government health care program for the poor. It is run by the states, and its costs are shared by the federal and state governments.

Medicaid reimbursements are expected to top $300 billion this year, more than half of that in federal money - http://lerablog.org/?s=federal%20money .

While the report said it could not put a dollar figure on the extent of Medicaid fraud, it detailed several schemes uncovered by state and federal prosecutors. In California, for example, 15 laboratories billed more than $20 million for tests that were never ordered by physicians.

Also in California, an eyeglasses store fraudulently billed Medicaid for 59,574 pairs of glasses between 1995 and 2001, GAO said.

In addition, there are indications that Medicaid fraud involving drug pricing practices is increasing, said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who requested the GAO study.

Federal and state prosecutors are investigating several allegations of improper drug pricing, following settlements in seven cases of alleged pricing and marketing fraud since 2001, said Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Grassley said the government needs to do more. "CMS has a problem with Medicaid fraud and its limited oversight is insufficient to protect the integrity of the program."

By contrast, he said, the government's Medicare health care program for older and disabled Americans, is more successful in rooting out abuse.

Other studies have found that the federal government recovers 20 times more money from prosecuting fraud in Medicare than in Medicaid - $1 billion compared with $43 million in 2001, according to the Washington-based Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund.

McClellan said the government is taking steps to look at both programs together since schemes to defraud - http://www.usatoday.com/search/defraud/ one also often target the other.

A pilot program in California in one year produced a reported $58 million in savings and more than 80 cases against health care providers suspected of fraud, GAO said.

By Mark Sherman

But for modest Muslim women, it's an unthinkable indignity.

"I have witnessed their misery and how bad they feel about it. They don't like it. They feel ashamed. It's very embarrassing," said Asha Abdulleh, a native of Kenya and a medical interpreter.

When officials at Maine Medical Center discovered many Muslim women were so ashamed they were canceling doctor visits, the hospital took action, redesigning the standard gown to provide extra coverage for patients who want it. The new hospital gowns have been available for several weeks.

"This is a great example of a challenge raised by a specific community that can ultimately benefit all patients," said Dana Farris Gaya, the hospital's manager of interpreter and cross-cultural services.

The problem was acute for Maine Medical because 2,000 Somali refugees have come to Portland over the past few years and most of them are treated at the hospital's international clinic. As many as three out of 10 women were skipping their appointments, said Osman Hersi, a medical interpreter at the hospital.

Tracked down at home, the women whose religion and culture require them to be covered, described to interpreters the horror 광명출장안마 - https://www.softanma.com/13-light of being asked to wear the revealing gowns during outpatient procedures.

Furthermore, they were publicly humiliated when they had to wait in a hallway in the radiology department.

On a recent morning after the new patient gowns were provided, Shamso Abdi appeared for her first hospital visit since arriving in Portland.

She and her husband, Aden Ali, came to the United States from Mogadishu, Somalia - http://bordersalertandready.com/?s=Somalia&search=Search . They lived in a small town in Kentucky, and then Columbus, Ohio, before coming to Portland.

Abdi, who was clothed in a dress, a sarong and a hijab, a scarf wrapped around her head, said she had canceled appointments in Columbus when she had to see male doctors and wear the standard drafty gown.

The gown created by the Portland hospital is long enough to provide more coverage of a patient's legs and has extra material to ensure that a patient's backside remains covered. Underneath, there's a wraparound sarong for even more coverage.

Abdi said she was grateful to see that Maine Medical had created a patient gown with her principles in mind.

"I'm so happy they made the change. I'm so happy that they considered us," she said, speaking through an interpreter.

Other hospitals are responding to the needs of Muslims. In southeastern Michigan, home to 300,000 Arab-Americans, the University of Michigan Medical Center is also addressing the issue of modesty.

The hospital is thinking of posting signs on the rooms of Muslim women warning male visitors and staff to check with a nurse's station before entering, said spokeswoman Krista Hopson in Ann Arbor, Mich.

As for the gown itself, Maine Medical isn't the only hospital to try to create a more acceptable version.

Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey introduced vibrant colors and funky patterns five years ago. Other hospitals and garment producers have tweaked the traditional design with snaps, Velcro and other changes.

Still, the standard-issue gown will never go away entirely. In some situations, in emergency rooms for example, it's more important to put the interests of doctors and nurses ahead of the interests of patients.

But for many situations, it makes sense to keep patients happy.

Asks Dr. Nat James of the hospital's international clinic: "Why didn't we think of this so long ago?"

The idea of changing the gown isn't completely new.

In 1999, designer Cynthia Rowley unveiled new gowns that offered a mid-calf length with a mock turtleneck and three-quarter length sleeves with snaps for women and drawstring pants, a short sleeve shirt and a matching robe for men.

That same year, Missouri state Rep. Sam Gaskill pushed a bill that would have required hospitals to provide patients with "dignity gowns," covering the body from neck to knee. The bill, prompted by Gaskill's own hospital experience, never made it out of committee.