Insights

<p>Public Citizen put together an <a href="http://www.citizen.org/documents/1873.pdf">important report</a> in May that was mostly missed by the <a href="http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/042209/sta_431717193.shtml">press</…; (including me).</p> <p>It's a comprehensive and critical investigation of <a href="http://www.npdb-hipdb.hrsa.gov/">The National Practitioner Data Bank</a> (NPDB), created by the <a href="http://www.npdb-hipdb.hrsa.gov/legislation/title4.html">Health Care Quality Improvement Act</a> 19 years ago, ostensibly to protect patients from rogue doctors.</p>

<p><a href="/blogs/qa-andrew-schneider-part-1-what-do-when-big-story-finds-you"><br /></a></p>

<p>To be generous, we could say that Dr. Alexander Kalk of Creve Coeur, Mo. was a workaholic.</p> <p>He literally lived in his medical office, according to the medical board in Missouri, and was so busy, apparently, that he did not have time to change his clothes or take a shower.</p> <p>Walking around in the same clothes day after day might make a guy irritable. So perhaps it's understandable that he took to berating his employees and sending threatening messages to a medical billing company.</p>

<p>I am a California Broadcast Fellow this year. For my fellowship project, I am developing three series of radio reports 1590 KLIV, an all-news radio station in San Jose, Ca. and I'm looking for feedback. Here's a synopsis of the three series:</p><p> <b>1. What's Killing Silicon Valley?</b></p>

<p>Often following a major journalistic investigation a governor or a senator or a president even will call for hearings or declare the creation of a blue ribbon panel to assess the situation and decide how to proceed. </p><p>Years can go by before a report, usually thick with euphemism and buck passing, lands on someone's desk, often a different governor or senator or president than the one who called for the assessment. Processes are "streamlined." Efficiencies are realized. Nothing really changes.</p>

<p>By the time you read about the case of 9-year-old Caitlin Greenwell, unable to talk because her brain was starved of oxygen during a botched birth, you are convinced: the oversight of nurses in California is abysmal. </p>

<p>Her story is deep inside "<a href="http://www.propublica.org/feature/when-caregivers-harm-california-probl… Caregivers Harm</a>," an investigative collaboration between <a href="http://www.propublica.org/">ProPublica</a&gt; and the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/">Los Angeles Times</a> published Sunday.</p>

<p>Andrew Schneider is one of the country's most accomplished investigative journalists. His work has won not just <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/awards/1987">one</a&gt;, but <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/awards/1986">two</a&gt; Pulitzer Prizes, and countless other awards. I had the privilege of meeting him when both of us were finalists for the <a href="http://www.hks.harvard.edu/presspol/news_events/archive/2001/goldsmith_… Prize</a> for Investigative Reporting at Harvard. My team lost. So did his.

<p>If you, like me, were wondering how a guy like Dr. Conrad Murray, who had not bothered
keeping up with his studies enough to continue his certification as a cardiologist, could become the personal physician to the King of Pop, it's instructive to look at Dr. Jagat Narula.</p>

<p>Most of you won't know that name, but his career illuminates the gap between what the public expects when they see "Dr." in front of a person's name and what is often the reality.</p>