Today's Globe: Partners CEO search, doctors sued in crash, tobacco rules, child vaccinations, cancer complexity, cholesterol drug probe, arthritis drug warning, Caritas promotion, healthcare costs, video games

Partners HealthCare System Inc., the region's dominant operator of hospitals and other medical care facilities, has begun a search to replace chief executive Dr. James Mongan, 66, who will retire at the end of 2009, according to several healthcare professionals with knowledge of the search.

The widow of a doctor killed when a woman crashed her car through a Brockton hospital entrance is suing the driver's physicians in a case that analysts say could broaden the extent of liability in the medical profession.

City health officials gave initial approval yesterday to sweeping new tobacco control rules that would ban cigarette sales at Boston pharmacies and on college campuses.

US toddlers got the recommended vaccinations against childhood diseases at record levels in 2007, federal health officials said yesterday, as they urged parents to continue to trust vaccine safety.

Cancer experts who probed every gene in tumors from two of the hardest-to-treat cancers found that cancer is much more complicated than anyone thought - and say they found why a cure is so unlikely after a tumor has spread.

A House committee investigating the safety and effectiveness of the popular cholesterol drug Vytorin and one of its components is turning up the heat on the drug's makers.

Arthritis and autoimmune drugs marketed by Amgen Inc., Wyeth, and Johnson & Johnson must carry stronger warnings about fungal infections tied to more than 45 deaths, US regulators said.

Caritas Christi Health Care, the financially troubled six-hospital chain owned by the Archdiocese of Boston, appointed Robert E. Guyon Jr. chief operating officer. Guyon is the current chief executive and president of St. Anne's Hospital, a Caritas Christi hospital in Fall River (fourth item).

"It would be impossible for the state to mandate insurance if it could not provide subsidized coverage to all who are eligible," a Globe editorial says. "Collecting from more businesses that are not doing enough to provide coverage to their workers is a good way to keep the state's promise of universal coverage alive."

"Since the days of Pong and Pac-Man, scolds have warned about the destructive effects of video gaming," a Globe editorial says. "But it's encouraging to learn that even a much-reviled activity can have an unexpected upside."