Today's Globe: primary care pipeline, clinical trials, Cape Cod Healthcare credit, colon cancer care, lab specimens, child trauma therapies, VA dose problem

Only 2 percent of graduating medical students say they plan to work in primary care internal medicine, raising worries about a looming shortage of the first-stop doctors who used to be the backbone of the American medical system.

For years, local life sciences leaders have lamented the state's dearth of clinical trials, the human studies that are crucial to determining whether experimental drugs and medical devices are effective and safe. But federal data show Massachusetts is currently recruiting volunteers for nearly 1,900 trials, significantly more than most states.

Reflecting a tough year with an anticipated loss of more than $20 million, Cape Cod Healthcare's credit rating will be lowered in a report set to be released today by Standard & Poor's, the bond rating agency.

Nearly two-thirds of hospitals fail to check colon cancer patients well enough for signs that their tumor is spreading, says a study that advises patients to ask about this mark of quality care before surgery.

Lawmakers yesterday castigated Veterans Administration health officials for ordering the destruction of biomedical specimens on Legionnaires' disease and other infectious diseases that two prominent researchers had collected over a quarter century.

Many doctors and therapists use unproven approaches such as drugs, art, or play therapy on children suffering trauma when old-fashioned talk therapy has been shown to work, a report released yesterday said.

About 55 prostate cancer patients were given too-low doses of radiation treatment at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs hospital in the past six years, and US investigators want to know why (third item).