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Systemic barrier may be especially troublesome for those seeking behavioral, mental health services.

Back in October, the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ officially opened its first dedicated building, on its 9-acre campus on Shadow Lane in central Las Vegas. It was heralded as the beginning of a new era, the opening of a state-of-the art facility that will allow the medical school to eventually double the size of its graduating classes, anchor future development in the medical field and help address the widespread shortage of healthcare professionals across the state.

The announcement this week that Desert Springs Hospital would be shutting down its inpatient operations and laying off nearly 1,000 employees sent ripples throughout the Las Vegas Valley.

The "America's Health Rankings 2022 Annual Report" is out, and it showed Nevada landed at the bottom or close to it among the states, on multiple health care measures.

Local doctors are on high alert over a fungus that is causing serious infections. Hospitals are seeing an influx of patients ranging from the flu, RSV, and COVID.

Early in his presidency, George Washington opined that the promotion of both science and literature was the basis of public happiness and that they were also the very basis of democracy. If Nevada were to use health care as a surrogate for science, and public education as a surrogate for literature, Washington would have reason for concern. Nevada currently ranks in the bottom half of states for quality of health care and ranks 45th for public school systems.

Patients are waiting an average of 26 days for a scheduled appointment with a doctor according to a new survey by Merritt Hawkins. The group polled more than 1,000 physician offices looking at average wait times among family medicine, dermatology, obstetrics/gynecology, orthopedic surgery and cardiology.

A new medical school building at 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ hopes to relieve the doctor shortage that's plaguing Nevada by adding more students and churning out more medical graduates.