It's almost 8 a.m. and Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa—universally known as Dr. Q—is racing through the tunnels beneath The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

"I usually walk this way, because if I walk upstairs, through the hallways, it takes too long," he says, adding his signature high-pitch laugh. "Everybody wants to stop and talk."

He was in the operating room until 2 a.m. the night...

Each of the 22 cubicles at the Infusion Therapy Center at the University of Maryland's Greenebaum Cancer Center is filled today, as patient navigator Elizabeth Saylor takes a slow lap around the room.

This is where cancer patients come for chemotherapy. The small spaces include comforts like recliners and televisions, along with seats for guests, but there is no way to evade the deep...

It was April 4, and Michael McDevitt had just watched the Orioles beat the Detroit Tigers during their home opener. To celebrate, he and a buddy headed to Porters of Federal Hill, ordered some beers, and started chatting with fellow patrons. Then, as so often happens in this country where an estimated 68 percent of adults are overweight, the talk turned to dieting. A woman in her late 40s was...

If you have a serious phobia about that guy with the drill, you might want to sidestep the Dr. Samuel D. Harris National Museum of Dentistry.

Located in the University of Maryland Medical Center complex on the hallowed grounds of the world's first dental school (founded in 1840), its 40,000 objects tell a history rich with painful trial and error.

There's the 13th-century English...