Insights

You learn a lot when you spend months reporting on a given issue or community, as our fellows can attest. Whether you’re embarking on a big new story or seeking to go deeper on a given issue, it pays to learn from those who’ve already put in the shoe leather and crunched the data. In these essays and columns, our community of journalists steps back from the notebooks and tape to reflect on key lessons, highlight urgent themes, and offer sage advice on the essential health stories of the day. 

Author(s)
By William Heisel

<p><a href="http://www.consumersunion.org/">Consumers Union</a> invited me to speak at its Safe Patient Summit in Austin last week. The group of patient advocates, health care providers and reporters engaged in a fascinating discussion about how health care might become a more transparent industry and a less frightening and frustrating experience for those who are the victims of medical error or negligence.

Author(s)
By Barbara Feder Ostrov

<p>Here’s what we’re checking out today:</p> <p><strong>Gimme Insurance:</strong> Writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, Trudy Lieberman <a href="http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_education_of_congressman-elect_and… the astonishing case of a newly elected doctor-Congressman</a> who was irked because his new health insurance didn’t start on the very first day of his new job. Welcome to the rest of America, Rep. Andy Harris.</p>

Author(s)
By William Heisel

<p>When a patient is under anesthesia, they are truly at a doctor’s mercy.</p> <p>This makes the case of Dr. Russel J. Aubin, an osteopath and anesthesiologist, especially troubling.</p> <p>Antidote has written in the past about doctors who overprescribed medications, made the wrong diagnoses or started illicit affairs with their patients. At least these patients had control over their bodies and minds.</p>

Author(s)
By Angilee Shah

<p>Today's <em>Daily Briefing</em> travels to Chinese mental institutions, California prisons, and all over the map with bogus trend stories.<br />

Author(s)
By William Heisel

<p>Sometimes justice does win.</p> <p>Antidote <a href="../../../../../../../../blogs/doctors-behaving-badly-cornered-doctor-turns-nurses-help-friendly-sheriff">wrote last year</a> about how Dr. Rolando Arafiles in Kermit, Texas, had used his clout to persuade Winkler County Sheriff <a href="http://www.co.winkler.tx.us/wcso.htm">Robert Roberts</a> to go after two nurses who had accused him of stealing hospital supplies and using his medical office to run an herbal remedy business.</p>

Author(s)
By Angilee Shah

<p>When Linda Marsa received a copy of the December issue of <em>Discover</em> magazine in the mail, she was thrilled. Her story about climate change and its effect on long forgotten diseases in America made the cover. Never mind that she has been a journalist for 30 years, Marsa finds health journalism as riveting now as when she first began. And she is still learning ways to be a better freelancer.</p>