Insights

<p>Thomas Sullivan founded <a href="http://www.rockpointe.com/">Rockpointe Corporation</a>, a medical education company in 1995. Since then, the company has had success creating continuing medical education materials with funding from big drug company clients and nonprofit groups such as the American Heart Association. On his <a href="http://www.policymed.com">blog</a&gt;, Sullivan and Dr.

<p>When medical board investigators questioned Dr. Robbi Borjeson about what she had done to treat a patient suffering from a severe case of diabetes, she responded: "I prayed over him."</p> <p>Borjeson had visited the patient's home in January 2000, where she found him complaining of "fatigue, weight loss, increased thirst, increased urination and sores on his tongue," according to the <a href="http://azmd.gov/GLSuiteWeb/Repository/0/0/5/2/6b70e0e9-37cf-4288-a763-b… Medical Board</a>. She told him take some vitamins.</p>

<p>The <a href="/fellowships/seminars/national-health-journalism">National Health Journalism</a> seminar begins on Sunday, when 15 National Health Journalism fellowship recipients (and five <a href="/fellowships/seminars/dennis-hunt-fund-health-journalism">Dennis A.

<p>This week, I'm going to focus on the best bloggers, tweeters and online aggregators to help you stay abreast of developments in this year's biggest health stories: H1N1/swine flu and health reform. </p><p>Today's post highlights H1N1/swine flu, with more on health reform Thursday. This is by no means meant to be a comprehensive list and I welcome your comments on any resources particularly useful to journalists that I may have missed. You can also check out ReportingonHealth's general resources for covering H1N1/swine flu <a href="/resources/lessons/swine-flu-useful-resources">here</a>.</p>

<p>I write about health issues for the St. Louis Beacon. My challenge is to convince diverse groups to engage in constructive dialogue about tackling health care access, disparities and costs.I'm sure we all are wrestling with variations of this challenge. The biggest problem, as I see it, is that t

<p>In 2002, when I was covering medicine for The Orange County Register, we produced a series of stories called <a href="http://www.ocregister.com/features/doctor/doctor00407cci1.shtml">"Docto… Without Discipline"</a> that uncovered serious flaws in the way the Medical Board of California handled complaints from the public about physicians.</p>

<p>My National Health Journalism Fellowship project involves exploring whether an approach taken by Grand Junction, western Colorado's largest city, could work elsewhere and possibly be a model for low-cost, high-quality near-universal health care, at least until something significant is done at the federal level.</p>

<p>I'm looking forward to going to Los Angeles Oct. 4!</p>
<p>Working with my colleague, Mariana Alvarado, I'll be reporting on a project about the link between obesity and poverty in children. The Tucson area has a higher-than-average rate of poverty, which disproportionately affects ethnic minorities. Obesity is widespread in those populations and is particularly rampant among Hispanics and American Indians, who are developing type 2 diabetes at increasingly young ages.</p>

<p>Through three separate stories I will delve into some of Wisconsin's most poignant health disparities, including infant mortality rates that are worse than those in some third-world countries, one Madison African-American community's grassroots campaign to combat smoking through photodocumentation and support groups, and the lack of health care faced by many Latino dairy workers, who now help prop up the state's farming industry.

<p>The yearning for a male child in some Asian cultures -- Indian, Korean and Chinese in particular – runs deep. A male child is perceived as someone who will be a breadwinner when he grows up and take care of his parents in their old age, someone who will also continue the family line. In India, a girl child is viewed as a net loss to the family, mostly because when she is given away in marriage, she is expected to bring with her a dowry, a practice that still persists, despite the fact that it was banned in that country many years ago.</p>