Jacobs Medical Center at UC San Diego Health boasts the only intra-operative magnetic resonance imaging surgical suites in Southern California, which allow doctors to scan patients without either leaving the operating room.

A woman's ability to delay and plan for child birth is essential to her health, education and career goals. UC San Diego Health pharmacist Sally Rafie, PharmD, and colleagues are leading several projects to help make birth control more accessible, especially in rural and underserved communities.

Many New Year's resolutions involve getting a new body, or at least an improved version. For most people, that translates into eating better, losing weight or exercising more. For others, it means plastic surgery. A "new" look at the top 10 procedures.

Every 12 minutes, someone dies from pancreatic cancer in the U.S. The new Pancreatic Cancer Prevention and Screening Clinic at UC San Diego Health aims to improve that stat, helping high-risk patients prevent the disease or detect it early, when treatment is most effective.

Above is a darkfield micrograph, taken by Harald Andersen of Steinberg, Norway, of a dyed human hair, magnified 40 times. The average, non-follically challenged person has more than 100,000 head hairs, plus another 4.9 million in assorted other places.

Certified athletic trainers in our Sports Medicine program can work with you to help prevent and recover from injuries and surgery. In the third of four videos, they walk us through shoulder exercises you can do at home.

When used correctly, opioids can be a valuable tool for managing moderate to severe pain. Yet this type of prescription medication, which includes hydrocodone, oxycodone and codeine, is notoriously misused and abused. Pain management specialist Timothy Furnish, MD, describes six ways UC San Diego Health physicians, staff and even patients themselves are making efforts to reduce opioid prescriptions, ensure they are used and disposed of appropriately and get help to those who need it.

A bluetooth-enabled "pacemaker" for chronic focal nerve pain; wisdom may be an antidote to severe loneliness; new buzz about a malaria prevention drug; complex sugars and microbiome in mother's milk influence viral infections; language skills in toddlers with autism linked to altered gene expression; infectious prions found in eyes of patients; Kawasaki disease has many triggers; and researchers study binge eating in veterans.

According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, human trafficking in the U.S. rose by more than 35 percent in 2016. Many victims end up in a hospital, seeking treatment for conditions related to trafficking. In this episode, we talk to Regina Wang, MD; Sarah Williamson, RN; and Karen Mitchell-Keels, RN, who have formed a committee to help educate health care workers about signs indicating a patient may be a victim of human trafficking.

Clinical Trials

Clinical trials are the last and most important step before scientific discoveries can be delivered to patients in the form of new diagnostics and therapies. Each year, UC San Diego Health researchers and doctors, including those at Moores Cancer Center, conduct hundreds of such trials involving a vast array of diseases, disorders and conditions. Among studies currently recruiting participants are:

Testing the Use of Aspirin in Preventing Breast Cancer Recurrence

Evaluating a Drug to Reduce Risk of Cardiovascular Disease in HIV-Infected Adults

Multicenter Study to Evaluate Functional Outcome after Knee Replacement

Detection of Autism Spectrum Disorder at First Birthday as Standard of Care

Decision Aid for Renal Therapy

Assessing Reproductive Outcomes in Young Female Cancer Survivors