Local News

Dr. Nora Disis (Courtesy of UW Medicine) Dr. Mary L. “Nora” Disis, a cancer researcher and professor of medicine in oncology at the University of Washington, has been named editor-in-chief of JAMA Network’s new journal, JAMA Oncology, which will launch next year. Disis, 55, who specializes in breast and ovarian cancer and immunotherapy, is associate dean of translational…

After two decades of partnership with Virginia Mason Medical Center, Group Health says it plans to send its HMO patients to Swedish Medical Center. The 10-year arrangement, announced Friday but not quite finalized, will send maternity patients now seen at Group Health’s Capitol Hill location to Swedish beginning next spring, and other hospital patients to Swedish’s First Hill and…

One of two motorcyclists, riding separately, was killed Saturday when he lost control on I-5 just north of Highway 599, the Washington State Patrol said. Trooper Chris Webb said the driver, age 34, died at the scene. Several lanes of traffic were blocked early Saturday evening for investigation of the accident; WSP investigators said evidence indicated high speed was…

Dr. Jack Ciliberti The King County Medical Examiner has identified the small aircraft pilot who was killed Tuesday in Fall City as Dr. John Ciliberti, a former medical director of the emergency department at Overlake Medical Center in Bellevue. The medical examiner’s office said Ciliberti, 70, whose Cessna 182 crashed at Snoqualmie Falls Golf Course early in…

The legal case was grim: a falling-out between partners in an energy-drink company, an alleged deadly drink laced with caffeine and hallucinogens, and a sudden death during a “zombie run.” But a mock-trial team from Seattle Prep was jubilant Saturday night in Madison, Wis., after winning top honors at the National High School Mock Trial Competition. The…

Update: 9:42 p.m. A shooting about 6:30 p.m. Saturday outside Horizon Elementary School in Everett has put one teenage male in the hospital, and prompted a search for the shooter. Witnesses told police a small group of  teenagers were playing basketball when a larger group of about 15 to 20 males in their late teens arrived…

After months of concern that Harborview Medical Center was planning to close or relocate its primary-care clinics, officials Wednesday said the existing clinics would stay put. In December, Harborview clinic faculty and staff said they had been told that officials wanted to move primary-care clinics out of the hospital. The news prompted opposition by faculty and…

Eileen Whalen, a noted trauma-services expert who has served as executive director of Harborview Medical Center since 2008, has abruptly resigned. In a short memo to staff on Friday, Johnese Spisso, chief health system officer, UW Medicine, and vice president for medical affairs, University of Washington, said Whalen’s resignation became effective on Thursday. Spisso said she will…

The Washington State Hospital Association, representing 98 hospitals around the state, has sued the state over new rules that add state scrutiny of hospital affiliations and mergers to a law that previously allowed the state to review only hospital “sales, purchase or lease” arrangements. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Thurston County Superior Court, asks the court to invalidate…

The Seattle-based Polar Star, the  Coast Guard’s only active heavy polar icebreaker, is on its way to the Antarctic to assist a Russian ship and a Chinese icebreaker reportedly stuck in thick ice. The Chinese icebreaker Xue Long, which helped with the rescue of 52 passengers from the Russian ship Akademik Shokalskiy earlier in the week, is…