Two brothers-in-law who live next door to one another in rural Northern California have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Yet crucially only one has access to palliative care.
An outlasted medical device that can’t be replaced by any other...
On January 2, ProPublica and The New York Times co-published “When a Patient’s Death is Broadcast Without Permission,” a powerful article that explored legal and ethical questions posed by ABC’s “NY Med” and similar TV documentaries about actual medical dramas taking place in hospitals....
One of the most overlooked stories in the rollout of the Affordable Care Act is an experiment to rein in Medicare and Medicaid costs by pushing millions of poor and disabled beneficiaries into coordinated plans.
Elizabeth Varin wrote this story for The Imperial Valley Press as a 2011-12 California Endowment Health Journalism Fellow.
Tulare County, a poor, semi-rural county in California's Central Valley, has a one-third of its population on Medi-Cal — California's version of Medicaid. This is more than any other county in the state, yet the resources to care for the Medi-Cal population are few.
Although Doctors Behaving Badly tends to focus on exactly what you would expect, its mission is to make people aware of the many ways that patients are left unprotected.
There are nearly 1 million licensed, practicing physicians nationwide. Antidote has no ability to count how many are “behaving badly,” but it is safe to say that only a slim minority are tainting the reputation of the medical community. Doctors who abuse, injure or kill patients are the surrogate markers for an illness in the physician discipline system. They are not the illness.
But not South Dakota.
Have you ever worked on a story where you knew that you were just one source away from a blockbuster? But you could never find that one great document that spelled out the connections or that one repentant insider willing to walk you through the corporate crime, government malfeasance or law enforcement deceit.
Ask your doctors about the hardest period of their lives, and they likely will say their medical residency. The hours are long. The work is mentally and physically exhausting. There's little credit when you get something right. Getting something terribly wrong can send you packing.
Dr. Bruce Anthony Ames, Jr. (Oregon License No. 23261, California 97046) found a hobby, of sorts, to relieve his stress.
