By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

In a perspective piece in the New England Journal of Medicine this week, two Yale doctors recount a case in which they observed “the bystander effect” in a hospital intensive care unit. Just as strangers observing a crime may do nothing, willing to dismiss the incident as someone else’s problem, doctors without ownership in patient care may not act, write Drs. Robert Stavert and Jason Lott, residents in dermatology at Yale School of Medicine.

By Kay Lazar and Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

Governor Deval Patrick announced planned legislation Friday to reorganize the board of pharmacy to add professionals from other fields and to give the board the authority to regulate out-of-state compounding pharmacies that distribute products in Massachusetts. The state board has been scrutinized following a national outbreak of fungal meningitis that has killed at least 40 people and has been blamed on tainted steroids produced at New England Compounding Center in Framingham.

By Kay Lazar, Globe Staff

A Westborough drug company with the same owners as the Framingham specialty pharmacy at the center of the national fungal meningitis outbreak will remain closed until at least February 22, public health regulators said Thursday. Ameridose LLC, which voluntarily ceased operations Oct. 10, will remain shuttered while a joint investigation by state and federal authorities continues into “unsanitary conditions and questionable sterility practices at the facility,” according to a statement by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

The federal office in charge of a massive rollout of electronic health records has issued a plan aimed at making those systems safer by encouraging providers to report problems to patients safety organizations. Though some in the field say it doesn’t go far enough, others said the plan is an important step for an office whose primary role has been cheerleader for a technology that has the potential to dramatically improve health care in the United States but that may come with significant risks.

By Dr. Kiran Gupta, Globe Correspondent

After reviewing Mr. T’s vital signs, I put down my notes, pulled a chair up, and began taking his history. Though it should seem routine, my interaction with Mr. T felt like a rarity. Contrary to what I had learned in medical school, as a resident I quickly realized that in the hospital setting, a patient’s history is almost never taken in logical or linear fashion, with the patient relaying a sequential series of events to a doctor seated next to him.

By Kay Lazar, Globe Staff

A decade-long push to open a controversial infectious-disease research lab in Boston’s South End neighborhood is one giant step closer to fruition, with federal regulators signing off on the project. In a notice published Wednesday in the Federal Register, the National Institutes of Health said that after “careful consideration” it has concluded that Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, which will work with some of the world’s deadliest germs, “poses minimal risk to the community surrounding the facility.”

By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff

A former research fellow at Harvard School of Dental Medicine falsified numbers in slides presented at a laboratory meeting and in research summaries submitted to conferences, according to a finding by the federal Office of Research Integrity. The scientist, Martin Biosse-Duplan, switched numbers to show differences in bone density between genetically-modified mice and a comparison group of mice, according to the notice, published on Friday.

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

Doctors will not see a 27 percent cut to Medicare payments this year. The fiscal cliff deal passed by Congress Tuesday includes a one-year delay on automatic reductions in Medicare spending that have been put off for a decade. But the fix is not free. Other areas of health care, primarily hospitals, will pay for it.

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

Sophanie Sejour delivered Boston’s first baby of 2013 at 12:09 a.m. at Massachusetts General Hospital, according to a hospital spokeswoman. The baby’s name or other details have not been released, but mother and daughter are doing well.

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

The National Rifle Association successfully lobbied for the national health care law signed by President Obama in 2010 to include provisions restricting the ability of doctors and health plans to collect patient information about gun ownership, Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post reported Sunday.

By Kay Lazar, Globe Staff

The dreaded annual tide of fever, sore throat, sniffles and body aches is washing over Massachusetts unusually early this year, and with uncharacteristic force. State health officials said Friday that the number of people sick with the flu, or flu-like symptoms, has dramatically increased over the past several weeks, and the level of illness has already surpassed the peaks of the last two flu seasons. Many other states around the country are also reporting early and heavy flu counts.

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

Two Boston pediatricians, in a New England Journal perspective piece published Friday, call on their colleagues to focus on gun safety, following the tragedy two weeks ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults. “It is time to act for these families and for those who continue to lose children to gun violence,” write Drs. Judith and Sean Palfrey, wife and husband who are pediatricians at Boston Children’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center.

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

Plenty has been written this year about the history of medicine through the lens of the New England Journal of Medicine, which celebrated its 200th anniversary. In an article published today on the journal’s website, two top editors join Dr. Isaac Kohane of Boston Children’s Hospital in looking forward, at what medicine may look like in the next 100 years.

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

A national group of researchers, including some from Boston, were tracking the toxicity and long-term effects of a specific chemotherapy regimen in children and adolescents treated for Hodgkin’s lymphoma when one of the drugs became unavailable. The researchers replaced it with what they thought was a comparable drug. When they looked at their data later, they discovered that those who were treated with the substitute had a significantly higher chance of relapsing.

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

As people wrap presents for friends and family in this season of gift-giving, many also will dole out tokens of appreciation to co-workers, babysitters, those who deliver their morning newspaper, and, perhaps, to their doctors. But gifts given in generosity sometimes can put some providers in a dilemma, says a local bioethicist. Extravagant gifts -- and sometimes even small ones -- could be seen by doctors, patients, or third parties as attempts at securing special treatment or gaining favor.

By Kay Lazar, Globe Staff

State regulators said Thursday they will keep the most controversial aspect of emergency regulations tightening oversight of Massachusetts compounding pharmacies, despite protests from pharmacy groups. At issue is a new rule, adopted by the pharmacy board Nov. 1, that allows the state to shut down a pharmacy for 21 days without a hearing to “protect the public health, safety or welfare.” The board also met in closed session to address complaints by the Globe about alleged violations of the open meeting law.

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

David Seltz was named executive director of the new state Health Policy Commission Tuesday, charged with implementing much of the massive health care cost control bill signed by Governor Deval Patrick in August. Seltz, 31, has been a special advisor to Patrick on health cost containment since August and previously worked nine years in the Legislature. A former aide to Senate President Therese Murray, Seltz helped draft the bill. He lives in Boston.

By Kay Lazar, Globe Staff

In bold, bright red lettering, a full-page advertisement in Tuesday’s Boston Globe warns readers that elderly nursing homes residents in three HealthBridge Management-owned Massachusetts facilities are given antipsychotic drugs at rates much higher than the national average -- despite federal warnings about lethal side effects from the powerful sedatives. The ad was paid for by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, a union that represents workers in five states, including Massachusetts.

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

Showing frustration during a state legislative hearing Monday, Senator Mark Montigny challenged the leader of a trade group for compounding pharmacies that has lobbied to preserve state oversight of the industry, rather than accept some regulation by the US Food and Drug Administration.

By Chelsea Conaboy , Globe Staff

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has been named part of a Stand Up to Cancer “dream team” focused on treatments aimed at prompting a person’s own immune system to attack cancer cells. Dana-Farber researchers will receive $1.5 million of a $10 million grant over three years and will partner with leading cancer centers in the United States and abroad.

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

Secretary of Health and Human Services JudyAnn Bigby will leave the Patrick administration, along with three other cabinet members, as the governor prepares for his last two years in office, Glen Johnson of the Globe staff reported. Bigby will be replaced by John Polanowicz, who has been president of St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, part of Steward Health Care, since last year. He previously led Marlborough Hospital.

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

We are a society of people who like to feel part of something. We fill our wallets with membership cards for stores or hotel chains and sign up to be part of an ever-proliferating number of online communities, to connect with friends and join circles. So, when a flier dropped in my mailbox offering me “membership” to a new primary care practice in Boston, I thought they might be on to something.

By Robert Weisman, Globe Staff

An executive at Steward Health Care System told presidents of Steward’s hospitals Monday that the Boston-based chain “unilaterally withdrew” from talks to acquire Mercy Health System in Maine after concluding Mercy had misrepresented its finances. The account given in a confidential memo from Steward director of media relations Chris Murphy, obtained by the Globe, differed from a statement Steward and Mercy released jointly late Friday afternoon saying the letter of intent to merge had been terminated because the parties “were unable to come to a definitive agreement” during negotiations.

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

As the Legislature begins planning for next year’s budget, public health leaders are calling on the state to “reverse the trend of disinvestment” in programs essential to protecting the public from infectious diseases, environmental contaminants, medical errors, and other potential harms.

By Chelsea Conaboy, Globe Staff

The growth of New England Compounding into pharmacy of national scope, operating beyond what its state license allowed, did not happen out of view of state and federal regulators. In meticulous detail, Liz Kowalczyk and Todd Wallack of the Globe staff outline how a Walgreens pharmacist became a major player in a competitive market and how health officials repeatedly failed to act on signs that the pharmacy posed a threat to patients.