Insights

<p>About halfway through my October trip to Grand Junction, Colorado to see if the community's unusual health-care model could or should be replicated, I got so enthused about the possibilities that I had to keep close tabs on my objectivity.</p><p>I settled for a package that presents the Grand Junction model as an intriguing possibility, while including skeptics and naysayers.</p>

<p>As Congress slugs it out over health-care reform this week, hopeful eyes are on Grand Junction, CO., where low-cost, high-quality near-universal health care is the norm.</p> <p>You can find my new five-part series on Grand Junction’s health care system <a href="http://www.kbdi.org/news/">here</a&gt;. &nbsp;</p> <p>The doctors in Grand Junction, a western Colorado city of 53,000, say their system can become a national model, and there are doctors in dozens of communities ready to replicate the system that uses a non-profit insurance provider but allows doctors to work for profit.</p>

<p>Even the predawn day began a little differently. The shrill distant stadium cheers of hundreds of Haitian roosters sounded oddly synchronized, as though perhaps they were doing the wave. There were more dogs keeping the beat with incessant, rhythmic barking.<br />

<p>It was bad enough for Dr. Conrad Murray to be giving Michael Jackson propofol when <a href="../../../../../../../../blogs/michael-jackson%E2%80%99s-doctor%E2%80%99s-mistakes-part-2-lack-training-gives-prosecutors-ammo-criminal-case">he had no training</a> administering anesthetics. His second mistake was using a dangerous drug in an improper setting: a bedroom.</p> <p>Here was Murray’s surgical suite, according to <a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0208101jackson3.html">t… Los Angeles County Coroner’s report</a>:</p>

<p><em>Originally posted on <a href="http://www.docgurley.com/2010/02/18/haiti-day-two/">Doc Gurley: Posts from an Insane Healthcare System</a>.</em></p>

<p><em>Originally posted on <a href="http://www.docgurley.com/2010/02/17/haiti-journey-clinic-time-begins/">… Gurley: Posts from an Insane Healthcare System</a>.</em></p>

<p>Dr. Conrad Murray made his first mistake when he signed on to be Michael Jackson’s personal physician.</p> <p>Perhaps the task was doomed for any doctor, but Murray was particularly ill equipped to deal with the King of Pop’s concoction of quirks and cravings. Murray was operating well outside of

<p>We’re Number 6! Hurray!</p> <p>There has been quite a flurry of quick-hit news stories about the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s <a href="http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/">health rankings of the nation’s counties</a>. Apparently, at one point on the day they were released, “county health rankings” was the top search term in Google News.</p> <p>Too bad a number of these stories were boosterish (or defensive) pieces, devoid of context, about where individual counties ranked in comparison to the one next door.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.reportingonhealth.org/users/docgurley">Dr. R. Jan Gurley</a>, better known as Doc Gurley, wears many hats. She is a physician at the San Francisco Department of Public Health homeless clinic, but also a blogger and columnist.</p>

<p>Mental Health America’s Media Awards recognize excellence in reporting and portrayals of mental health issues from the previous year in news and feature stories and the entertainment media, on the national, state, local and student levels, and in print, online, wire, radio, television and film.</p>