Insights

<p>Medical malpractice cases can dredge up some frightening examples of human behavior.</p> <p>Few examples could be uglier than the Ku Klux Klan.</p> <p>Dr. Joseph Dickstein, a family doctor in Chicago, had three patients complain that they suffered complications following surgical procedures he performed. The allegations were serious enough that Dickstein lost his hospital privileges.</p> <p>Perhaps he was feeling desperate then when he was sued by Karla Morgan.</p>

<p>This Sunday evening, we began our week-long National Health Journalism Fellowships, which brings together 20 journalists to discuss, debate and learn about health journalism topics. At our keynote dinner, we had a chance to meet and hear from our National Health Journalism Fellows and the grantees of our Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism who had joined us from across the country.</p>

<p>Get your week rolling with these tidbits from around the web:<br /><br /><strong>Live Now:</strong> <em>Forbes</em>' Matthew Herper is <a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/sciencebiz?s=avandia">blogging the Food and Drug Administration’s Avandia review</a> in real time.<br />

<p>Former health journalism Fellows Suzanne Bohan and Sandy Kleffman, colleagues at the Bay Area News Group, teamed up to write <a href="http://www.contracostatimes.com/life-expectancy">Shortened Lives</a>, a groundbreaking series on how where you live affects your health – and won a <a href="http://www.whca.net/2010windocs.htm">White House Correspondents’ Association award</a> for their efforts.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.policylink.org/site/c.lkIXLbMNJrE/b.5137443/apps/s/content.a… Lee</a> knows firsthand the fallout from living in an area without proper access to fresh, healthy food: She drives past three South Los Angeles grocery stores offering expired tortillas and wilted

<p>"We're homogenizing the way the world goes mad," Ethan Watters, author of "Crazy Like Us," today told USC/California Endowment <a href="http://www.reportingonhealth.org/fellowships/seminars/national-health-j… Health Journalism Fellows</a> gathered in Los Angeles this week.</p>

<p>Catch up with stories you might have missed over the weekend and share what you're reading in comments:</p>

<p>Got restrictions on your medical board license? A couple of arrests in your past keeping you from landing a good-paying medical job? If you're an MD in California, you might want to consider opening a marijuana clinic.</p><p>Sunday in the Record Searchlight, I explored the growing number of these lucrative new medical business models popping up in Redding and the doctors behind the town's three cannabis clinics.</p><p>Critics say California's vague medical marijuana laws open the door to unscrupulous doctors looking to make easy cash handing out "'scrips" to whomever wants one.</p>

<p>When the <a href="http://www.isms.org/NewsRoom/newsreleases/Pages/2010_0204.aspx">Illinois State Medical Society</a> was on the verge of persuading the Illinois General Assembly to cap non-economic malpractice damages at $500,000, state <a href="http://housedem.state.il.us/members/flowersm/index.htm">Rep. Mary Flowers</a> decided that it might be a good time to ask for a few concessions for patients.</p>

<p>A young black man is rolled on a gurney into an emergency room in an inner-city neighborhood. What assumptions do health care providers make about why he is there? What assumptions do journalists make?</p> <p>Dr. John A. Rich laid out the basic assumption this way: "Young black men don't just get