Susan Dunbar called upon 25 years of experience in events planning when organizing her at-home wedding on Dec. 29, 2002. "We didn’t have money for a grand affair," explains the 48-year-old bride, who had been single for 27 years when she met Andre Desmeules, 42. He is French-Canadian and owns a custom tile company. She [...]

As the rate of asthma cases increases, so does the search for "complementary and alternative" medicine to treat the condition. CAM encompasses everything from dietary restriction to herbs to acupuncture, and while there is little scientific evidence to support its efficacy over modern medicine, its use is growing by leaps and bounds. Researchers at the [...]

Medical science changes rapidly these days, and what was standard practice a week ago, can change overnight as researchers discover yet another advance. Doctors are running to keep up. For example, Dr. Lee Mitchel, the Sarasota gastroenterologist who uses the brand-new capsule endoscopy-the "camera pill" that takes pictures of the small bowel-reports that there’s already [...]

Born and raised in Cortez, Thomas "Blue" Fulford hails from a line of fishermen who settled in the fishing village on Sarasota Bay in the 1890s to raise their families. A handsome septuagenarian with china-blue eyes and a droll sense of humor, he recalls waking up as a child and running out the door for [...]

Where are the most exciting advances in medicine today? Take your pick. According to Sarasota neurosurgeon Dr. Peter Mayer, "I don’t think you’ll find one area of medicine that isn’t seeing rapid change." Even in Sarasota, where no university teaching hospital is spurring the development and use of the latest techniques, Sarasota physicians participate in [...]