Insights

<p>Low on cash, his reputation shredded by <a href="../../../../../../../../blogs/shadow-practice-part-4-doc-who-couldn%E2%80%99t-stitch-straight-begs-patients-loans">patient complaints</a> about botched plastic surgeries, <a href="http://licenselookup.mbc.ca.gov/licenselookup/lookup.php?LicenseType=G&…. Harrell Robinson</a> must have felt he had a guardian angel when Magdalena Annan approached him.</p> <p>Annan ran the beatific sounding Madre Maria Ines Teresa Health Center at 1523 Broadway Street in Santa Ana, which targeted Southern California immigrants.</p>

<p><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XlcK5GI3K0A/S6zjiNDPJSI/AAAAAAAAAXo/FojDKCPba…; style="margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px; float: left;" />I was honored to have a wide ranging conversation with Dr. David Blumenthal today.

<p><a href="http://theheidihypothesis.blogspot.com/">Nathanael Johnson</a>, a Bay Area radio reporter and freelance writer, has made a nice career examining the many ways Americans go overboard – from the food that we eat to the health treatments that we seek. He has written about the Orwellian world of <a href="http://harpers.org/archive/2006/05/0081030">pork farming</a> and the <a href="http://harpers.org/archive/2008/04/0081992">radical raw milk movement</a> for Harper's magazine.

<p>Psychiatrist Frank Joseph Ilardi knows something about <a href="http://www.healthyplace.com/sex/articles/psychology-of-compartmentalizi…;

<p>The passage of the health care reform bill has not mitigated the meaningless, hyperbolic assertions coming from those who oppose it. John Boehner practically called for an overthrow of the government. Reporting on the bill has been long on polling numbers and budgetary concerns, and short on any of the substance that makes this bill important. Asking vaccuous questions such as, "Have you even read the bill?" or "Why aren't you listening to America?" are worse than useless. Questions that need asking (and should have been asked before last night) include:</p>

<p>Some physicians cater to the immigrant community out of public service or cultural affinity. Others, like Dr. Harrell Robinson, end up there because they ruined their own reputations with English-speaking patients.</p> <p>The Southern California cosmetic surgeon shared an Anaheim office with <a href="../../../../../../../../blogs/doctor-appointed-medical-board-supervisor-had-been-disciplined-new-york-california">Dr. Andrew Rutland</a>, the doctor who is now accused in the death of Chinese immigrant Ying Chen.</p>

<p>I recently produced a web-only interactive story about a <a href="http://shukakalantari.com/journalist/2010/03/kidney-gives-artist-second…; target="_blank">San Francisco-based artist's quest for a kidney donor </a>for KQED Public Radio's <a href="http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201003182000&quot; target="_blank">Health Dialogues</a>.

<p>Well, here we go! In a historic 219-212 vote late Sunday night, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $914 billion health reform package extending health coverage to as many as 32 million Americans</p><p>The Washington Post's Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/21/AR20100… up</a> the legislation's enormous significance in the ultimate <a href="http://mediacareers.about.com/od/glossary/g/NutGraf.htm">nut graf</a>:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.reportingonhealth.org/users/mindofandre">Andre Blackman</a>'s conception of public health casts a huge net. He thinks about environments and neighborhoods, data and medicine. He laments the fast food restaurants that fill the spaces of low-income communities, and the parks and fresh produce that do not. "It's a cycle," he says, and one that makes it hard to achieve good health.</p>