Insights

<p>A loophole in California law means that insurers could require you to take a genetic test to qualify for long-term care insurance – and potentially deny coverage based on the results.</p>

<p>Do you know how many hours there are in a week?</p> <p>For doctors, the answer is on the tips of their tongues: 168 hours. As one medical resident recently put it to me, “When you are in residency, you start with the hours in the week and then subtract the few hours that you are <em>not</em> at the hospital. It’s not uncommon to work 120 hours a week. It’s the reverse human schedule.”</p>

<p>In the heated debate over the new routine <a href="http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/USpstf/uspsbrca.htm">mammogram screening recommendations</a> from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, not enough coverage has focused on our perception of risk.</p> <p>It’s important context for all reporting on medical screening.</p> <p>Journalist Merrill Goozner, who blogs at <a href="http://www.gooznews.com/">GoozNews</a&gt;, has a great <a href="http://www.gooznews.com/node/3174">post</a&gt; on this topic, and on the costs of our misperception of risk. He writes:</p>

<p>Blogs, twitters and daily print help keep us abreast of breaking news. But there's nothing like an old-fashioned book to get inside a big sweeping tale. In the summer of 2007, when I was a fellow here, I had little more than a vision for a book that explored Big Pharma. Well, I also had some solid sources, a blockbuster drug, and a dramatic plot that spanned some 20 years. The hard part was finding a place to adequately tell the tale.

<p>Diabetic children are in jeopardy of dying in the classroom due to a severe shortage of California registered school nurses. There are 15,000 school districts in California and less than 50 percent of those districts have a registered nurse on campus. Current law in California requires only a reg

<p>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.</p>

<p>Most reporters never have the misfortune of being sued for libel. If they are, there are broad free speech protections in court precedent, especially in California, that make it unlikely a plaintiff will win, unless a reporter has been truly reckless.</p>

<p>This weekend, we ran a story that looked at Shasta County's high rates of hysterectomies and back surgeries, an important -- and touchy -- topic in our community given Redding <a href="http://www.redding.com/news/2009/oct/24/former-rmc-heart-surgeon-realyv… still recovering</a> from its years-long ordeal following FBI agents investigating allegations of unnecessary heart procedures performed at what was then Redding Medical Center </p>

<p><a href="http://www.healthjournalism.org/secondarypage-details.php?id=377">Felice Freyer</a>, veteran medical writer at the Providence Journal and <a href="http://www.healthjournalism.org/">Association of Health Care Journalists</a> board member, is surveying reporters about how state and local agencies are releasing, or refusing to release, basic demographic information (not names) about people who have died from H1N1/swine flu. </p>

<p><br />Some doctors crave distinction.</p><p>They carefully place their many diplomas and certificates on their wall to signal to patients that they are high achievers who can be trusted with surgical instruments and drugs that can cure or kill you, depending on how they are dosed.</p><p><a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/perv_doctor_hit_with_ny_biggest_3… Sorodsky</a> craved the distinction of being a doctor. Instead, he now has the distinction of being thrown into jail with a massive bail: $33 million.</p>