A publication known for its rankings of businesses and schools has rated hospitals and Iowa’s among the winners. U.S. News and World Report in its July 28th issue rates Mason City’s Mercy Medical Center 48th out of fifty in the nation for neurology and neurosurgery. Sifting data on death rates, reputation, technology and nurses per patient for some six-thousand U.S. hospitals, the magazine ranked University hospitals in Iowa City within the leaders in nine specialties — cancer, gynecology, hormonal disorders, respiratory, urology, eyes, psychiatry, ear-nose-and-throat and orthopedics. On the state’s western border, U.S. News declares that another top cancer center’s at the Omaha teaching hospital of the University of Nebraska.

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