medical

Jan. 16 (Asia Today) — Jaseng Korean Medicine Hospital said Thursday it hosted a two-week winter internship program for overseas medical students and pre-medical students, aimed at showcasing the scientific development and global potential of Korean medicine.

Jaseng Korean Medicine Hospital said the 2026 Jaseng Medical Academy Winter Internship Program, which ran from Jan. 5, brought together five participants from four countries – the United States, Canada, Thailand and South Korea.

Participants included students and graduates from the University of Florida, the University of Texas at San Antonio, Northeastern University, Pomona College and Thailand’s Kasetsart University, according to the hospital. They spent two weeks experiencing Jaseng’s clinical system and treatment environment.

The program featured observation of outpatient clinics, lectures on Korean and integrative medicine, hands-on training in treatments such as acupuncture and manual therapy, and question-and-answer sessions with medical staff. Students also worked in teams to develop Continuing Medical Education lecture content, presenting their projects at the conclusion of the program.

Interns visited the Jaseng MediBio Center, where they toured acupuncture needle manufacturing and research facilities and learned about efforts to scientifically standardize Korean medicine, the hospital said.

“The internship program is designed to raise awareness of Korean and integrative medicine among future healthcare professionals worldwide and help them grow into global medical talent,” said Jin-ho Lee, director of the hospital. He added that Jaseng would continue to strengthen international exchange and education to enhance the global competitiveness of Korean medicine.

The hospital said it is the only institution in East Asia accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education. It also plans to co-host the Jaseng International Academic Conference later this year with Indiana University School of Medicine.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Jan. 14 (UPI) — NASA’s Crew-11 returned safely to Earth on Thursday after the first ever medical evacuation from the International Space Station.

The agency posted a video online of SpaceX‘s Dragon space capsule carrying American astronauts Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov and Kimiya Yui of Japan, splashing down in the Pacific off the coast of San Diego at 3.41 a.m. EST.

“Welcome home! Splashdown of Crew-11 after 167 days in space,” NASA announced.

NASA also posted a photo of the crew inside their capsule after splashdown.

A medical issue with one astronaut prompted NASA to evacuate a crew from the station for the first time in its almost three-decade-long history.

It was not clear which of the four developed the medical issue sometime in the five months from when Crew-11 blasted off from Kennedy Space Center on Aug. 1 and Jan. 7 when NASA announced a crew member had a “serious medical condition.”

The issue was not deemed an emergency, but NASA officials opted to cut short the mission by a month and evacuate all Crew-11 members, with the four departing the ISS on Wednesday afternoon to head back to Earth.

“It is not an emergency de-orbit, even though we always retain that capability and NASA and our partners train for that routinely,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told media on Jan. 7.

“The capability to diagnose and treat this properly does not live on the International Space Station,” Isaacman said.

NASA officials did not identify the affected crew member or the medical condition prompting the evacuation, but they said the individual is in stable condition.

The matter arose when a medical issue reported on Jan. 7 forced NASA to delay a planned spacewalk on Thursday that involved the affected astronaut.

Cardman and Fincke were scheduled to do the postponed spacewalk, which narrows the medical condition to one of those two.

NASA chief medical officer Dr. James Polk said the medical issue involves microgravity and is not caused by an injury or an operational issue.

The limited ability to diagnose the medical condition required the evacuation, and the affected astronaut is expected to recover.

While the medical evacuation is the first in the history of the ISS, Polk said statistical analysis suggested such issues should arise about every three years aboard the orbiting science lab.

The departure of the four Crew-11 members leaves the ISS with a skeleton crew of three until replacements are deployed.

Those three are astronaut Christopher Williams and cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, who arrived at the ISS on Nov. 27 after being conveyed by a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Endeavor carried the four to the ISS on Aug. 1, and their six-month deployment was nearing its end when they were ordered to return to Earth.

“We’re always going to do the right thing for our astronauts, but it’s recognizing it’s the end of the mission right now,” Isaacman said of the medical evacuation.

“They’ve achieved almost all of their mission objectives,” he added. “Crew-12 is going to launch in a matter of weeks, anyway.”

Isaacman said the spaceship is ready and the weather is ideal, making it an “opportune time” to bring them home.

On a sunny morning in October 2025, 42-year-old Fatima Ibrahim walked into the outpatient department of the Adamawa Specialist Hospital in Yola, northeastern Nigeria. Fatima had been vomiting for days and felt increasingly weak. She said she believed going to the hospital was the safest option; however, her consultation with the doctor was brief. After asking a few questions and checking her vitals, the doctor gave her a handwritten prescription and asked her to collect her medication from the hospital pharmacy. Fatima moved from one pharmacy desk to another within the hospital, each pharmacist struggling to read the illegible handwriting.

Eventually, one pharmacist examined the prescription for a moment and told her, “This prescription is not clear. You will have to go back to the doctor.” Exhausted, Fatima turned back toward the consulting room. As she walked under the midday sun, she became unsteady. A few metres from the hospital entrance, she suddenly lost her balance and fell. A passerby rushed to help her up and guided her to a bench until she was stable.

“I felt very light-headed,” she recounted. “My body was already weak, and the back-and-forth movement made it worse.”

After resting briefly, she went back to see the doctor, who clarified the prescription he had written only minutes earlier. She then returned to the pharmacy for the second time. By 2:30 p.m., nearly four hours after she first arrived at the hospital, she finally received her medication.

Handwritten prescriptions are common in many Nigerian hospitals, especially in Adamawa State. Moses Mathew, a medical doctor at Specialist Hospital in Yola, told HumAngle that on busy days, prescriptions are often written hurriedly due to long patient queues. “All prescriptions are handwritten,” he noted. “After consulting with the patient, I write the diagnosis in the case file and then write the prescription on a card or prescription sheet for the patient to take to the pharmacy.”

Emmanuel Somtochukwu, a pharmacist, said he’s familiar with patients returning to consultation rooms because of illegible prescriptions.

“Illegibility remains one of the most common challenges with handwritten prescriptions. In most cases, they are quite difficult to interpret and dispense,” Pharm. Emmanuel said, adding that prescriptions also frequently arrive with missing details on dosage, strength, duration, or frequency of medication intake.

Dr Mathew acknowledged that while this does not happen often, it can occur on extremely busy days, and the patient may need to return for clarification. “Sometimes it is because the handwriting is not clear. It happens, but it is not usual,” he said.

Recent studies conducted separately in hospitals across northern and southern Nigeria have consistently identified illegible prescriptions as the leading prescriber-related error, leading to incorrect drug dispensing and, in some instances, death.

Pharm. Emmanuel, however, reiterated that the back-and-forth due to illegible writing is common where he works. He claimed that “about one in every ten patients is sent back to the consulting room due to unclear handwriting or missing clinical information, though this often depends on the department or the attending clinician”.

Patients, he noted, often carry handwritten prescriptions from one unit to another, dealing with unclear instructions, queues, and repeated walks within the same facility, even when they are already unwell. These interruptions, Dr Mathew noted, also affect clinical workflow.

“When patients return for clarification, it interrupts consultations,” he said. “Time spent rewriting prescriptions or answering pharmacy queries reduces the number of new patients that can be seen in a day and adds to fatigue.”

A troubling system failure

In August 2025, Aisha Bello, who was pregnant, visited Cottage Hospital in the Girei area of Adamawa State for a routine check-up. She said that the pharmacist could not read the doctor’s instructions and could not dispense her tablets without confirmation.

“I was told I must go back,” she recalled. “I was tired. My legs were aching.”

When she returned, one of the prescribed medications was out of stock. She was asked to take the same handwritten note to a different pharmacy outside the hospital.

“When drugs are unavailable in one unit, patients may experience lost time, delayed commencement of therapy, or even abandon treatment altogether,” Pharm. Emmanuel explained.

What Fatima and Aisha experienced was a system failure; the problem was not the diagnosis but the process they had to follow to receive treatment. In many hospitals in Nigeria, medical care depends heavily on paper moving between disconnected units, forcing patients, many of them weak, pregnant, or elderly, to carry their own medical information.

“Without easy access to a patient’s previous prescriptions, allergies, or medical history, decisions are made with incomplete information,” Dr Mathew noted. “You rely heavily on what the patient remembers or what is written in the paper file. This increases the risk of drug interactions, repeated medications, or prescribing something a patient may be allergic to.”

He suggested digital public infrastructure (DPI) as a solution, enabling health facilities to share information seamlessly with patients. He argued that a digital prescribing system could entirely change patients’ negative experience with handwritten prescriptions.

“Prescriptions would be clear and instantly accessible to pharmacists,” he said. “Doctors would also be able to see past prescriptions, allergies, and drug availability. It would save time and ultimately make care safer and more efficient for patients.”

DPI refers to shared digital systems that enable governments, service providers, and institutions to securely share information and work together efficiently. In healthcare, the infrastructure enables prescriptions, medical histories, insurance status, and laboratory results to move electronically between units, without requiring patients to act as messengers.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) defines DPI as “interoperable, reusable and privacy-respecting digital systems” that enable both public and private actors to deliver services at scale and with greater efficiency. According to UNDP, countries that invest in these shared digital foundations are better able to expand access to healthcare, social protection, and financial services without duplicating effort or excluding vulnerable populations.

Digital identity is often the starting point for effective DPI in healthcare, experts said, noting that when patients are reliably identified across systems, their records, insurance coverage, and entitlements are easily linked and verified instantly. In Nigeria, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) reports that over 120 million National Identity Numbers (NINs) have been issued as of 2024, serving as a major building block for integrated public services, including health insurance and electronic medical records.

Lessons from other countries

Countries with interoperable digital health systems have demonstrated what is possible. Estonia’s health system allows doctors and pharmacists to access patient prescriptions and records through a shared digital platform, reducing prescription errors and wait times. In India, the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission links digital health IDs, electronic prescriptions, and insurance claims across public and private facilities, enabling near-instant verification for millions of patients.

According to Asor Ahura, a Nigerian-based AI engineer and digital health expert, electronic medical record (EMR) systems, a digital version of a patient’s paper medical file used within a health facility, have become standard globally because of the efficiency they bring to health facilities and digital prescribing. Asor added that these systems improve speed, accuracy, and the integrity of clinical decisions in ways paper-based processes cannot match.

Across Nigeria and other parts of Africa, private health-tech startups are attempting to close the digital divide. One such company, Helium Health, says it has digitised operations for more than 500 healthcare providers in Nigeria and Kenya. However, these efforts remain fragmented, and the broader challenge of system-wide integration persists.

Why Nigeria’s health sector struggles with interoperability

Nigeria’s health sector is undergoing digital reform, but interoperability remains largely aspirational rather than operational. Most public hospitals still rely on paper records or isolated digital tools that do not communicate with one another. Handwritten prescriptions remain vulnerable to legibility errors, while paper records degrade over time. Digital records, by contrast, can be preserved, duplicated securely, and retrieved instantly.

“Physicians are not known for great penmanship, which leads to the legibility issues associated with paper-based prescriptions that often cause pharmacists to dispense wrong regimens to patients. Furthermore, paper is relatively more destructible than digital information; even with careful handling, the former erodes in quality while the latter can persist indefinitely,” Asor noted.

In 2024, the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare launched the Nigeria Digital in Health Initiative (NDHI), which is designed to create a national digital health backbone that supports interoperable electronic medical records, shared data standards, and secure health information exchange across public and private providers. However, the initiative is still in its early stages. Many state hospitals, including those in Adamawa, are yet to benefit from the infrastructure, funding, training, and governance structures required to make interoperability routine in daily clinical practice.

According to NDHI, scaling digital health systems requires coordination across federal and state governments, regulators, technology vendors, and health workers. Asor argues that a key missing shift is the adoption of hospital-wide EMR systems, noting that digitising prescriptions alone, without integrating laboratories, radiology, and clinics, still results in poor patient experiences and care.

Another major barrier to interoperability is the slow development and enforcement of national standards and legal frameworks for digital health. While Nigeria has articulated a vision for digital health transformation, binding requirements for interoperable systems, electronic prescribing, and patient data portability are still evolving.

Ridwan Oloyede, a tech policy consultant and Co-founder of Tech Hive Advisory, said the digital health services bill seeks to address some of these gaps by defining rules around digital health platforms, data protection, system accreditation, and interoperability standards.  Corroborating, Asor noted that countries with seamless data sharing rely on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), a global standard for storing and exchanging medical data. He said Nigeria would need to adopt a national implementation guide and mandate FHIR compliance to avoid creating new digital silos.

For patients like Fatima and Aisha, the absence of interoperability is not an abstract policy/implementation gap. It translates into longer waiting times, repeated walks across hospital compounds, delayed treatment, and increased physical strain, especially for pregnant women, the elderly, and those already unwell.

“Personnel training is key,” Asor added. “Basic digital skills are a must for all health facility personnel if the benefits of digitisation are to be realised. Government needs to implement recurrent training of its staff along with provision of infrastructure, including computers, internet and local network connectivity as a precursor to the implementation of the EMR.”

This report is produced under the DPI Africa Journalism Fellowship Programme of the Media Foundation for West Africa and Co-Develop.

India has shut down a medical college in Indian-administered Kashmir in an apparent capitulation to protests by right-wing Hindu groups over the admission of an overwhelming number of Muslim students into the prestigious course.

The National Medical Commission (NMC), a federal regulatory authority for medical education and practices, on January 6 revoked the recognition of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical Institute (SMVDMI), located in Reasi, a mountainous district overlooking the Pir Panjal range in the Himalayas, which separates the plains of Jammu from the Kashmir valley.

Of the 50 pupils who joined the five-year bachelor’s in medicine (MBBS) programme in November, 42 were Muslims, most of them residents of Kashmir, while seven were Hindus and one was a Sikh. It was the first MBBS batch that the private college, founded by a Hindu religious charity and partly funded by the government, had launched.

Admissions to medical colleges across India, whether public or private, follow a centralised entrance examination, called the National Entrance Examination Test (NEET), conducted by the federal Ministry of Education’s National Testing Agency (NTA).

More than two million Indian students appear for NEET every year, hoping to secure one of approximately 120,000 MBBS seats. Aspirants usually prefer public colleges, where fees are lower but cutoffs for admission are high. Those who fail to meet the cutoff but meet a minimum NTA threshold join a private college.

Like Saniya Jan*, an 18-year-old resident of Kashmir’s Baramulla district, who recalls being overwhelmed with euphoria when she passed the NEET, making her eligible to study medicine. “It was a dream come true – to be a doctor,” Saniya told Al Jazeera.

When she joined a counselling session that determines which college a NEET qualifier joins, she chose SMVDMI since it was about 316km (196 miles) from her home – relatively close for students in Kashmir, who often otherwise have to travel much farther to go to college.

Saniya’s thrilled parents drove to Reasi to drop her off at the college when the academic session started in November. “My daughter has been a topper since childhood. I have three daughters, and she is the brightest. She really worked hard to get a medical seat,” Saniya’s father, Gazanfar Ahmad*, told Al Jazeera.

But things did not go as planned.

‘No business being there’

As soon as local Hindu groups found out about the religious composition of the college’s inaugural batch in November, they launched demonstrations demanding that the admission of Muslim students be scrapped. They argued that since the college was chiefly funded from the offerings of devotees at Mata Vaishno Devi Temple, a prominent Hindu shrine in Kashmir, Muslim students had “no business being there”.

The agitations continued for weeks, with demonstrators amassing every day outside the iron gates of the college and raising slogans.

Meanwhile, legislators belonging to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – which has been accused of pursuing anti-Muslim policies since coming to power in 2014 – even wrote petitions to Kashmir’s lieutenant governor, urging him to reserve admissions in SMVDMI only for Hindu students. The lieutenant governor is the federally appointed administrator of the disputed region.

In the days that followed, their demands escalated to seeking the closure of the college itself.

As the protests intensified, the National Medical Commission on January 6 announced that it had rescinded the college’s authorisation because it had failed to “meet the minimum standard requirements” specified by the government for medical education. The NMC claimed the college suffered from critical deficiencies in its teaching faculty, bed occupancy, patient flow in outpatient departments, libraries and operating theatres. The next day, a “letter of permission”, which authorised the college to function and run courses, was withdrawn.

‘The college was good’

But most students Al Jazeera talked to said they did not see any shortcomings in the college and that it was well-equipped to run the medical course. “I don’t think the college lacked resources,” Jahan*, a student who only gave her second name, said. “We have seen other colleges. Some of them only have one cadaver per batch, while this college has four of them. Every student got an opportunity to dissect that cadaver individually.”

Rafiq, a student who only gave his second name, said that he had cousins in sought-after government medical colleges in Srinagar, the biggest city in Indian-administered Kashmir. “Even they don’t have the kind of facilities that we had here,” he said.

Saniya’s father, Ahmad, also told Al Jazeera that when he dropped her off at the college, “everything seemed normal”.

“The college was good. The faculty was supportive. It looked like no one cared about religion inside the campus,” he said.

Zafar Choudhary, a political analyst based in Jammu, questioned how the medical regulatory body had sanctioned the college’s authorisation if there was an infrastructural deficit. “Logic dictates that their infrastructure would have only improved since the classes started. So we don’t know how these deficiencies arose all of a sudden,” he told Al Jazeera.

Choudhary said the demand of the Hindu groups was “absurd” given that selections into medical colleges in India are based on religion-neutral terms. “There is a system in place that determines it. A student is supposed to give preference, and a lot of parameters are factored in before the admission lists are announced. When students are asked for their choices, they give multiple selections rather than one. So how is it their fault?” he asked.

Al Jazeera reached out to SMVDMI’s executive head, Yashpal Sharma, via telephone for comments. He did not respond to calls or text messages. The college has issued no public statement since the revocation of its authorisation to offer medical courses.

‘They turned merit into religion’

Meanwhile, students at SMVDMI have packed their belongings and returned home.

Salim Manzoor*, another student, pointed out that Indian-administered Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region, also had a medical college where Hindu candidates are enrolled under a quota reserved for them and other communities that represent a minority in the region.

The BJP insists it never claimed that Muslim students were unwelcome at SMVDMI, but encouraged people to recognise the “legitimate sentiments” that millions of Hindu devotees felt towards the temple trust that founded it. “This college is named after Mata Vaishno Devi, and there are millions of devotees whose religious emotions are strongly attached to this shrine,” BJP’s spokesman in Kashmir, Altaf Thakur, told Al Jazeera. “The college recognition was withdrawn because NMC found several shortcomings. There’s no question of the issue being about Hindus and Muslims.”

Last week, Omar Abdullah, chief minister of Indian-administered Kashmir, announced that SMVDMI students would not be made to “suffer due to NMC’s decision” and they would be offered admissions in other colleges in the region. “These children cleared the National Entrance Examination Test, and it is our legal responsibility to adjust them. We will have supernumerary seats, so their education is not affected. It is not difficult for us to adjust all 50 students, and we will do it,” he said.

Abdullah condemned the BJP and its allied Hindu groups for their campaign against Muslims joining the college. “People generally fight for having a medical college in their midst. But here, the fight was put up to have the medical college shut. You have played with the future of the medical students of [Kashmir]. If ruining the future of students brings you happiness, then celebrate it.”

Tanvir Sadiq, a regional legislator belonging to Abdullah’s National Conference party, said that the university that the medical college is part of received more than $13m in government aid since 2017 – making all Kashmiris, and not donors to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine – stakeholders. “This means that anyone who is lawfully domiciled in [Indian-administered Kashmir] can go and study there. In a few decades, the college would have churned out thousands of fresh medical graduates. If a lot of them are Muslims today, tomorrow they would have been Hindus as well,” he told Al Jazeera.

Nasir Khuehami, who heads the Jammu and Kashmir Students’ Association, told Al Jazeera the Hindu versus Muslim narrative threatened to “communalise” the region’s education sector. “The narrative that because the college is run by one particular community, only students from that community alone will study there, is dangerous,” he said.

He pointed out that Muslim-run universities, not just in Kashmir but across India, that were recognised as minority institutions did not “have an official policy of excluding Hindus”.

Back at her home in Baramulla, Saniya is worried about her future. “I appeared for a competitive exam, which is one of the hardest in India, and was able to get a seat at a medical college,” she told Al Jazeera.

“Now everything seems to have crashed. I came back home waiting for what decision the government will take for our future. All this happened because of our identity. They turned our merit into religion.”

Jan. 14 (UPI) — A medical issue with one astronaut prompted NASA to evacuate four Crew-11 members from the International Space Station for the first time in the space station’s history.

The medical issue is not an emergency, but NASA officials decided to evacuate the four Crew-11 members, who departed the ISS on Wednesday afternoon and are returning to Earth.

Crew-11 is made up of astronauts Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov and Kimiya Yui of Japan.

“It is not an emergency de-orbit, even though we always retain that capability and NASA and our partners train for that routinely,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told media on Thursday.

“The capability to diagnose and treat this properly does not live on the International Space Station,” Isaacman said.

NASA officials did not identify the affected crew member or the medical condition prompting the evacuation, but they said the individual is in stable condition.

The matter arose when a medical issue reported on Jan. 7 forced NASA to delay a planned spacewalk on Thursday that involved the affected astronaut.

Cardman and Fincke were scheduled to do the postponed spacewalk, which narrows the medical condition to one of those two.

NASA chief medical officer Dr. James Polk said the medical issue involves microgravity and is not caused by an injury or an operational issue.

The limited ability to diagnose the medical condition required the evacuation, and the affected astronaut is expected to recover.

While the medical evacuation is the first in the history of the ISS, Polk said statistical analysis suggested such issues should arise about every three years aboard the orbiting science lab.

The departure of the four Crew-11 members leaves the ISS with a skeleton crew of three until replacements are deployed.

Those three are astronaut Christopher Williams and cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, who arrived at the ISS on Nov. 27 after being conveyed by a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Endeavor carried the four to the ISS on Aug. 1, and their six-month deployment was nearing its end when they were ordered to return to Earth.

“We’re always going to do the right thing for our astronauts, but it’s recognizing it’s the end of the mission right now,” Isaacman said of the medical evacuation.

“They’ve achieved almost all of their mission objectives,” he added. “Crew-12 is going to launch in a matter of weeks, anyway.”

Isaacman said the spaceship is ready and the weather is ideal, making it an “opportune time” to bring them home.

Jan. 8 (UPI) — NASA said Thursday that four astronauts aboard the International Space Station will return to Earth a month earlier than scheduled after one of them suffered a “serious medical condition.”

Neither the astronaut nor the medical issue were made public, with NASA officials saying they were withholding the information due to medical privacy.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told reporters in a press conference that they expect to announce an anticipated undock and re-entry timeline in the next 42 hours.

It will be the first medical early return of an astronaut in the 25-year history of the orbiting laboratory.

“After discussions with chief health and medical officer Dr. J.D. Polk and leadership across the agency, I’ve come to the decision that it’s in the best interest of our astronauts to return Crew-11 ahead of their planned departure,” Isaacman said.

NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov make up Crew-11, which launched on Aug. 1 for the ISS aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

Polk said the affected astronaut was “absolutely stable” but had suffered a medical incident “sufficient enough” that they would be best served by a complete evaluation on Earth.

“Again, because the astronaut is absolutely stable, this is not an emergent evacuation,” he said. “We’re not immediately disembarking and getting the astronaut down, but it leaves that lingering risk and lingering question as to what that diagnosis is, and that means there’s some lingering risk for that astronaut aboard.”

Though it is ISS’ first medical evacuation, Polk said it was being carried out as NASA was “erring on the side of caution for the crew member and in their best interest and their best medical welfare.”

The announcement came hours after NASA postponed Thursday’s spacewalk from the ISS due to an astronaut medical issue involving a single crew member.

“Safely conducting our missions is our highest priority, and we are actively evaluating all options, including the possibility of an earlier end to Crew-11’s mission,” NASA said in a statement. “These are the situations NASA and our partners train for and prepare to execute safely.”

Crew-11 was originally scheduled to complete its mission and return to Earth in late February, after being relieved by Crew-12.

Isaacman said they are now looking at earlier launch opportunities for Crew-12 to reach the ISS.

Until then, NASA astronaut Christopher Williams, who launched to the station late November, will maintain a U.S. presence on the orbital laboratory.

Along with Williams, the ISS is inhabited by cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, who arrived via Russian Soyuz on Nov. 27.

Caracas, January 6, 2025 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Brazilian government will send medical equipment and medicine to Venezuela in the wake of the January 3 US bombings against military sites and other infrastructure.

Brazilian Health Minister Alexandre Padilha made the announcement Tuesday, invoking humanitarian reasons as well as regional health concerns, after medicine warehouses in Venezuela’s La Guaira state were destroyed by the US attacks.

“We are trying to mobilize, via the public healthcare sector and private companies, dialysis supplies and medicines to support the Venezuelan people after this distribution center was targeted,” Padilha said in a press conference.

The minister recalled Venezuelan solidarity in shipping oxygen to the Brazilian city of Manaus in 2021 during a coronavirus crisis. Venezuela’s eastern neighbor will also deploy healthcare professionals as part of its solidarity efforts.

The offer of assistance follows the Lula da Silva government’s firm condemnation of the US strikes and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores as “unacceptable” and a “dangerous precedent for the international community.”

According to local reports, the warehouses belonging to the Venezuelan Social Security Institute (IVSS) were destroyed during the US bombing of La Guaira port in the early hours of Saturday.

In a statement, the IVSS reported that the lost supplies were destined for renal patients and denounced the “terrorist character of the US government” in targeting healthcare facilities.

Nelare Bermúdez, from La Guaira state’s healthcare authority, said that three-months worth of medicines for renal patients had been lost. Nevertheless, she vowed that authorities will work to ensure that healthcare services are not affected.

Venezuela has an estimated 16,000 patients suffering from chronic kidney conditions. The direct destruction of supplies adds to difficulties chronic patients already face under US sanctions. A 2018 CEPR report found that 300,000 Venezuelans with heart and other conditions were at risk as a consequence of US economic coercive measures.

In recent years, sanctions have also seen Venezuelan authorities face prohibitions, delays and overpricing in acquiring medical equipment and medicines. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Venezuela suffered delays in securing necessary vaccines.

Washington’s January 3 attacks have killed a reported 80 people, with 32 Cuban nationals confirmed dead. Venezuelan authorities have yet to disclose information on damages and casualties from the strikes.

On Tuesday, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez decreed seven days of mourning in honor of the Venezuelans killed in the US military operation.

“Our young martyrs gave their lives to defend our country,” Rodríguez told reporters. “My heart was broken by the images of the fallen bodies but I know they sacrificed themselves for the values of this nation.”

Rodríguez was sworn in on Monday after the Supreme Court declared a “temporary absence” in the Venezuelan presidency. Maduro, as well as First Lady and legislator Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty to charges including cocaine importation conspiracy during their arraignment hearing on January 5.

The USmilitary operations followed months of buildup and regime-change threats from the Trump administration. The US president has threatened Rodríguez and the Venezuelan government to accept US demands, including favorable oil deals.

[UPDATE: Venezuelan authorities reported the arrival of a shipment with supplies for dialysis patients on Tuesday night at Maiquetía airport but did not specify its origin and contents.]

Dec. 28 (Asia Today) — A research team at Yonsei University has built a generative AI-based medical record system that is now being used at Severance Hospital, aiming to cut doctors’ documentation time and allow more focus on patient care.

The system, known as Y-NOT and implemented through the hospital’s “Y-NOT” record platform, uses a large language model to draft admission and discharge notes for clinicians to review, according to Professor Yoo Seung-chan of Yonsei University’s Department of Biomedical Systems and Information Science.

“Why should we spend more time sitting in front of computers than seeing patients?” Yoo said, describing a question often raised by emergency care staff that helped drive the project.

Yoo said he began full-scale development last year as administrative burdens on medical staff intensified during tensions between doctors and the government. He said the team judged AI technology had matured enough to meaningfully reduce record-keeping workload and started development.

The project began in July last year and was deployed in clinical settings by November, Yoo said, with model development and hospital rollout carried out in parallel. He said the team focused first on achievable clinical usefulness rather than pushing only for maximum model performance.

Some medical staff initially expressed concerns, including the risk of errors in records, questions over responsibility for mistakes and worries that the system could infringe on physicians’ authority. Yoo said two surveys conducted after implementation showed those concerns eased, with especially strong satisfaction among older staff.

He said the team framed the system as supporting, not replacing, clinicians. Doctors continue to diagnose and make decisions, he said, while the AI drafts and organizes documentation for verification. Yoo added that some staff said the system made care easier because it reduced the need to manually search through past electronic records.

The “Y-NOT” system is now used beyond the emergency department, including operating rooms and inpatient wards, for broader record management, Yoo said.

The time required to create emergency room medical records fell by more than half, according to the report, dropping from 69.5 seconds to 32 seconds. Staff have said the reduced documentation burden gives them time to make eye contact with patients, Yoo said.

He said evaluations indicate record completeness and standardization have improved across care teams, including nurses, and that the time saved helps emergency physicians move quickly to the next patient or offer additional guidance to patients leaving the hospital.

Yoo said the longer-term goal extends beyond a documentation tool to an intelligent agent system designed to support safe care aligned with global standards. That direction is tied to Severance Hospital’s “Doctor Answer 3.0” project, he said, and future plans include exploring ways for patients to communicate with an AI system based on their own medical records.

Yoo said AI could help address rising medical demand tied to population aging and a decline in essential medical staff. He said it could support guideline-based care for clinicians and help patients maintain a sense of continuous connection to the hospital after discharge.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.