You may wait a while to get an appointment with doctor, and may wait a while to SEE the doctor, but how long in the room WITH the doctor? In most people's experience, it's not a very long visit. And that is precisely the issue Victoria Sweet, herself a physician, has with modern medicine: the speed. She says good medical care takes time, and she advocates for it in her book Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing . How slow?

Inspectors from the federal Department of Veterans Affairs are expected in Oregon again this week to pay visits to the VA facilities in Roseburg and Eugene. U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Springfield) asked for inspectors to follow up on complaints about the VA from current and former employees. Those complaints focus on what they see as poor-quality care, and retaliation on the people who speak up about it. Dr. Scott Russi was a surgeon at the Roseburg VA (Eugene clinic) who says he's

Communities all over the country look for ways to get people off the streets. Homelessness persists, despite--or perhaps because of--an improving economy. One answer that works on a local level is to get homeless people out of town, literally. Good News Rescue Mission in Redding is one of several agencies that provide transportation to send homeless people from Redding back to places where they have a support network. More than 100 people have used the program since the mission began offering it

You've probably heard it said that the central factor in whether a person is pleasant to other people (or not) is empathy. But psychology professor Abigail Marsh has been digging even deeper, and has concluded it's a shorter word: fear. The response to the fear we recognize in OTHERS is central to empathy, or its lack. Dr. Marsh expands on what she's learned in The Fear Factor: How One Emotion Connects Altruists, Psychopaths, & Everyone In-Between .

Oregon is the "beaver state," but the designation does not help beavers much. The title confers no protection, and beavers are still killed all the time. Some are killed by government workers, and that is the reason for a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Environmental Law Center . They say up to 400 beavers a year are killed as pests by federal Wildlife Services, an agency of the Department of Agriculture.

Any public building erected in recent years includes ramps and other devices to get people in wheelchairs inside with minimal effort. So we've adjusted our physical spaces, but how about our literature? The depictions of people with disabilities are changing there as well, and University of Oregon Associate Professor Betsy Wheeler is observing and assisting the changes. Wheeler's work includes studies of disabilities in literature, but also postwar (WWII) literature and culture, including comic

Therapist Eric Maisel thinks about how our minds work. A lot. He's visited The Exchange several times to talk about his books, including a visit in December 2014 to talk about Life Purpose Boot Camp . You don't actually have to go to camp to make use of the concepts, which center around organizing your life to find meaning and purpose.

Ravel. Berlioz. Pinkston. Pinkston? Yes, he is among the composers whose works will be performed by the North State Symphony in concerts this weekend (Nov. 11 in Chico, Nov. 12 in Redding). Dan Pinkston chairs the music department of Simpson University in Redding, and is the composer of a concerto for violin and symphony premiering at the concerts. It is the latest in a series of Pinkston works performed to acclaim around the world.

It's not like we can interview characters from TV's long-running cartoon "The Simpsons." But... there IS a play based on Simpsons characters coming to a stage in Ashland soon. "Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play" is a production of the Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University, and it brings to life--even in song!--the creepy nuclear power plant boss from the TV show.

Complete this phrase: "all work and no play..." No matter your answer, it's clear we hold work and play as two completely separate entities. Creativity expert Marney Makridakis says there's some natural overlap, and there COULD be a whole lot more. She explains in her book HOP, SKIP, JUMP: 75 Ways to Playfully Manifest a Meaningful Life .