Insights

<p><a href="http://www.reportingonhealth.org/users/docgurley">Dr. R. Jan Gurley</a>, better known as Doc Gurley, wears many hats. She is a physician at the San Francisco Department of Public Health homeless clinic, but also a blogger and columnist.</p>

<p>Mental Health America’s Media Awards recognize excellence in reporting and portrayals of mental health issues from the previous year in news and feature stories and the entertainment media, on the national, state, local and student levels, and in print, online, wire, radio, television and film.</p>

<p><em>Originally posted on <a href="http://www.docgurley.com/2010/02/16/haiti-journey-hitting-the-ground/">… Gurley: Posts from an Insane Healthcare System</a>.</em></p>

<p>The physicians in the <a href="http://www.eyespecialtygroup.md/">Eye Specialty Group</a> in Memphis thought that their partner, <a href="http://health.state.tn.us/licensure/Practitioner.ASP?prof=1606&amp;licn…. Seth Yoser</a>, was faking out patients.</p>

<p>Veteran journalist Dan Weintraub today launches <a href="http://www.healthycal.org/">a new website</a> dedicated to helping Californians better understand and talk about public health and community health, broadly defined. Supported by <a href="http://www.calendow.org/">The California Endowment</a>, the state’s largest health philanthropy (which also supports ReportingonHealth), <a href="http://www.healthycal.org/">HealthyCal.org</a&gt; will also examine land use, transportation, poverty, food and criminal justice issues as they relate to health.

<p><em>Originally posted on <a href="http://www.docgurley.com/2010/02/15/haiti-journey-carry-the-world-in-a-… Gurley: Posts From an Insane Health Care System</a>.</em></p>

<p>Because of the intense media swarm around Michael Jackson’s death, it might have seemed inevitable that the physician who administered the fatal dose of anesthesia to the pop singer would be charged with a crime.</p> <p>But there’s a reason Dr. Conrad Murray was not formally accused of anything until nearly eight months after Jackson’s death. Doctors who screw up are rarely charged with crimes, unless they have committed <a href="http://sandiego.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/sd020910.htm">insurance fraud</a>.<strong></strong></p> <p>Mostly, this makes sense.<strong></strong></p>

<p>When the FDA <a href="../../../../../../../../blogs/ozone-cure-part-1-unproven-machines-can-rob-patients-crucial-time">seized 77 ozone generators</a> from Applied Ozone Systems in Auburn, California recently, it was a reminder to health writers to ask tough questions about unproven medical techniques being touted as miracle cures.</p> <p>Here are five musts for stories about ozone therapy and similar treatments.</p>

<p>Could medical marijuana really become a government-approved treatment for workers injured on the job?</p> <p>Now that <a href="http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20100125/BLOGS02/100129967">a California court has left the door open</a> for that possibility, some experts think it’s only a matter of time. Which raises the specter of all kinds of interesting dilemmas for workers and employers: what if an injured employee uses medical marijuana approved by his or her worker’s comp doctor – and then fails a drug test?</p>

<p>To most reporters, <a href="http://content.hcpro.com/pdf/content/245957.pdf">a recent lawsuit</a> filed by California doctors to stop nurse specialists from administering unsupervised anesthesia looks like a yawn-worthy turf war over who gets to do what in medicine.</p> <p>As far as I can tell, no mainstream California media outlet picked up the story. I can just see the thought bubbles (having been guilty of it myself in the past). <em>That’s inside baseball. It’s not a local story, right?</em></p> <p>Think again.</p>