In case you missed it: ban urged on freebies, extreme preemies, RI bone marrow unit denial, no transplant for medical marijuana user, Jim Lehrer at MGH

In today's New York Times:

Drug and medical device companies should be banned from offering free food, gifts, travel and ghost-writing services to doctors, staff members and students in all 129 of the Association of American Medical Colleges has concluded. “Most medical schools do not have strong conflict-of-interest policies, and this report will change that, Rob Restuccia, executive director of the Boston-based Prescription Project, told the Times.

In the Sunday Globe Magazine:

Babies born at 23, 22, even 21 weeks gestation are testing the limits of modern medicine. (At left, Jacob Stewart, one of the youngest patients earlier this month at the Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center, was born at 24 weeks, 5 days of gestation. Here, a foot monitor measures the oxygen level in his blood.) As two local families learned, the advances bring complications and questions about when is too early to deliver.

In Sunday's Providence Journal:

Rhode Island has rejected a proposal by Rhode Island Hospital to build a bone-marrow transplant unit to treat certain cancer patients. The decision means that children who need bone-marrow transplants must still travel to Boston hospitals and that Rhode Island Hospital cannot move forward with a key element in its efforts to become a major academic medical center.

On boston.com Saturday:

Timothy Garon's liver, ravaged by hepatitis C, is failing. Without a new one, his doctors tell him, he will be dead in days. But Garon (with his girlfriend, Leisa Bueno) has been refused a spot on the transplant list, largely because he has used marijuana, even though it was legally approved for medical reasons. With the scarcity of donated organs, transplant committees like the one at the University of Washington Medical Center where he is a patient use tough standards, including whether the candidate has other serious health problems or is likely to drink or do drugs.

In Saturday's Globe:

Jim Lehrer (left), anchor of PBS' "NewsHour," has undergone successful heart valve surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. Lehrer, who had the operation Wednesday, plans to be back on the broadcast in a few weeks, spokeswoman Anne Bell told AP. She added that Lehrer, 73, first felt ill last week and checked into MGH (fourth item).