If an organ transplant candidate is flexible and owns his own jet, Tennessee can be an attractive place to get a liver.

WASHINGTON - As the debate on overhauling the nation’s health care system exploded into partisan squabbling, virtually everyone still agreed on one point: There are not enough primary-care doctors to meet current needs, and providing health insurance to 46 million more people would threaten to overwhelm the system.

It might look and feel a little strange at first, but the health benefits associated with a simple piece of exercise equipment has some area workers setting aside their office chairs for a seat atop a decades-old alternative: stability balls.

A national organization has chosen the University of Tennessee’s Audiology and Speech Pathology Department, once slated to close because of budget cuts, to lead Tennessee and the country in changing how traumatic brain injury is handled.

The Harvey Broome Group of the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club’s upcoming hikes include a June 6-7 beginner backpack to Citico Creek Wilderness; a June 13 moderate rated day hike to Ace Gap Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s Cades Cove area; a June 20-21 backpack at the Chattooga cq River/Ellicott Rock Wilderness in South Carolina; and a June 21 difficult-rated, 12-mile day hike to the Great Smoky Mountains’ Gregery Bald.

Now that summer is pretty much here, local parks and recreation experts are trying to show people all the reasons they should step outside and hike, bike or boat their way around Knox County.

Dr. Tom Kim still gets letters and occasional calls from her, the Ohio woman whose life he helped save. Kimberly Gaines, then 32, had moved to Knoxville and taken a job without health care benefits. She found a lump in her breast but wasn’t able to find medical care.

The statistic is sobering: Only 7 percent of medical students plan to pursue primary care.