Nursing homes in California have reaped $880 million in new funding from a 2004 state law designed to help them hire more caregivers and boost wages. But many homes did just the opposite.
Julio Cesar Ortiz, a reporter for KMEX TV 34 (Univision) in Los Angeles, produced a three-part series that examined the effects of Alzheimer's disease on elderly Latinos. Titled "Thief of Memories," his Spanish-language series highlighted the various stages of the memory-destroying condition and presented options for families who are struggling to care for a loved one with Alzheimer's Disease.
Mike Tharp is the executive editor of the Merced Sun-Star. He attended the Mar. 2010 seminar for the California Health Journalism Fellows as the editor of Fellow Danielle Gaines, where he met the subject of this column, Dr. Edward Newton, chair of Emergency Medicine at the Los Angeles County USC Hospital.
Even a doctor with dead patients in his past can find startup capital.
When Dr. Andrew Rutland was trying to set up shop in the old "Modern Woman's Clinic" building in Chula Vista, he tapped a friend for a loan: Dr. W. Constantine Mitchell.
According to records from the California Office of Administrative Hearings, where Rutland's case before the medical board is currently being heard, Mitchell loaned Rutland $50,000 to help him start his practice.
Valentine's Day should be a national holiday. Until it is, most of us have to work Feb. 14 every year and tango with our valentines at night.
Pity poor Dr. Amanda Waugh then.
She couldn't even look forward to a nice dinner and a long conversation about the plays of Tony Kushner over chocolate soufflé, because on Valentine's Day in 2009, she was stuck with the night shift at the La Palma Intercommunity Hospital's emergency room south of Los Angeles.
As the 2010 Census gets underway, journalists need a more sophisticated understanding of people over 65 to report on them accurately, says Steven Wallace, a University of California-Los Angeles public health researcher.
"There is no 'The Elderly,'" he told California Endowment Health Journalism Fellows at a Los Angeles seminar on Sunday. "The elderly are a complex mixture of individuals. It's important to realize there are different groups and profile the diversity within them."
On a Saturday morning, four people wait outside the front door of a converted mini-mall in Rosemead, CA. Ten minutes later -- the doors open exactly at 9 a.m. -- the two women and two men file into the lobby to sign in for their appointments at the Asian Pacific Family Center. The front desk is covered with pamphlets in the many languages of the significant Asian immigrant populations of the San Gabriel Valley. The clinic operates in Vietnamese, Mandarin, Cantonese. Cambodian Chiu Chow, Japanese and Korean, serving over 1,700 immigrant Asian Pacific outpatient families per year.
