Insights

<p>If you were going to make a bet on which doctor lost his license in Minnesota, who would you choose?</p> <p>The doctor who didn’t pay his taxes?</p> <p>The doctor who repeatedly had female patients undress in front of him, asked them to assume unusual positions while undressed and then touched their genitals without explaining why?</p> <p>If you chose the tax laggard, you win. If you are a female patient in Minnesota, you may be losing.</p>

<p>Here’s what we’re reading today:</p>

<p>These days, when we talk about careers in journalism, the focus is often on the razzle dazzle, the tricks and technology and the ups and downs of the industry. This week at <em>CareerGPS</em>, I'm getting back to basics. A student asked me recently, how do I make a career as a writer? I thought a

<p>Maria Garcia smoked.</p> <p>That was her one big vice, according to her brother and her estranged husband.</p> <p>This otherwise healthy 39-year-old visited the doctors at Hills Surgical Center in Anaheim because she didn’t like the way she looked. To remedy that, the surgeons scheduled a series

<p>Here’s what we’re reading today:</p> <p><strong>Health Reform: </strong>KBUR’s Common Health Blog’s Carey Goldberg <a href="http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2010/09/top-10-health-reform/">finds “nuggets” that can serve as great health reform story ideas</a> in a new Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on how health care reform has affected Massachusetts.</p>

<p><strong>Superbug:</strong> In his Neurotribes blog, Wired’s Steve Silberman details how the <a href="http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2010/09/08/is-wikipedia-journalism-ai… has gotten the Acinetobacter superbug story all wrong</a> with potentially disastrous consequences.</p>

<p>The best doctors know their limits. General practitioners trust radiologists to read X-rays, pathologists to interpret lab results. Pulmonologists call oncologists if they suspect cancer. Obstetricians send patients to nutritionists to make sure they are eating the right foods during a pregnancy.</p> <p>And then there are doctors who like to fly solo.</p>

<p>Here's what we're reading and watching today:</p> <p><strong>Research:</strong> Poor meta-analyses: they’re often bashed for mashing together a bunch of studies that don’t really belong together, leading to suspect conclusions. Current Medicine TV features an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality researcher talking about how the federal &nbsp;agency <a href="http://www.currentmedicine.tv/2010/biostatistics/roger-chou-md-how-the-… which meta-analyses are good and which are junk</a>. &nbsp;</p>

<p><a href="../../../../../../../../blogs/qa-dr-adriane-fugh-berman-ghostwriting-sneaks-past-most-journal-editors">Adriane Fugh-Berman</a> has been leading the charge against the use of drug company-sponsored ghostwriters to craft scientific articles for publication in seemingly legitimate journals. She has been a paid expert witness on behalf of plaintiffs in the litigation over hormone replacement therapy drugs, and she directs <a href="http://www.pharmedout.org/">PharmedOut</a&gt;, a project at Georgetown University that aims to scrub industry influence from medical training.

<p><em>Editor's note: To hear from one of the grantees who has started up a new community health project, thanks to Mary Lou Fulton’s vision on community health, see </em><em> ReportingonHealth’s Barbara Feder Ostrov's </em><em><a href="http://www.reportingonhealth.org/blogs/qa-kqeds-raul-ramirez-blogging-o… with KQED’s Raul Ramirez</a>.</em></p>